Most worthwhile game/gaming experience

D

DArtagnan

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What game do you consider to be the most worthwhile? What gave you the most pleasure, and what made the biggest impact?

Personally:

Pool of Radiance from SSI
 
Only one game? You are not making things easy

Currently: Dwarf fortress
The sense of accomplishment when you actually manage to build a fully functional, aesthetically pleasing fort, without dead/dying/burning/mad dwarves or kittens everywhere, in a tricky region is very hard to beat. The game also changed the way I look at sim games (like Sim city, Theme park, Transport tycoon and so on).

There are a few other games that also deserves to be mentioned:
Super Metroid, Riven, Civilization 2, Ultima 5, Aurora, Victoria: An empire under the sun.
 
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Yeah, I know it's a hard one - but that's part of the fun :)

For some reason, my answer came out differently than it would have with "What's your favorite game" as a question. Which is kinda why I asked this question instead.
 
Same for me, I would probably not put Dwarf fortress at the very top of my list of favourites (although it would be close), but the game is so "complete" (even though it is still in Alpha, and probably will remain that way for a long time to come), it offers so much, has a high level of challenge, and allows for a lot of creativity, which is why I find it to be one of, if not the most rewarding game that I have played.
 
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Give it a spin, it is free (link in my first reply). There is a wiki which helps you get started (it is almost mandatory), and then there are several tilesets to help you recognize things (ascii graphics might be charming, but why not use something better, if the option exists?). I'm a big fan of ironhand's tileset but there are several other sets out there, so pick whichever one you like.
 
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I think I'll have a very hard time getting into it, having become such an immersion freak - but I'll try eventually.

Thanks for the info :)
 
Deus Ex. This game simply blew me away. You are given an objective and then left to work out how best to complete it. Still a game that has had no equal IMHO.

(+1 bonus also see Baldurs Gate 2)
 
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Well this will sound 'cliche' but for me it's U7.

I had to overcome a lot of hurdles just to play that game. To get the money to buy it took some savings discipline. Then when I bought it, my Epson 386/16 didn't have enough horsepower to play it (walking from the east side of Trinsic to the west side took about 8 minutes real time it was just aweful). I finally convinced my boss (who thankfully was a gamer) to let me take 'borrow' the office's 386/33 computer. This meant that at the end of each day, I had to dismantle that PC, put it in my car, drive it home, carry it up 2 floors to my apartment, set it up, and finally play. Next morning I had to get up early to dismantle it and take it back to work and set it up again... rinse/repeat.

At the time, the game itself just felt immense. I was compelled to take notes about everything - every town, NPC, quest, clue, things about magic and reagents... I could have published a comprehensive clue book with my notes. I believe it was the act of writing my own detailed notes and maps that really connected me to that game.

At the time, I remember U7 getting a good level of criticism about the object-oriented puzzles - but I liked them and found them to be new and fresh, if not a bit shallow. Before U7 there was very limited object interaction and even to this day, it's object interaction and world interaction that peeks my interest most in RPGs.
 
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Uh, a difficult question.

I had some of my personally deepest experiences with adventure games - with Indy Jones & the fate of Atlantis being one of the deepest.

Not to forget The Longest Journey (TLJ).

The better the story, the deeper the experience in my case.

As "the most worthwhile", I had trememdous fun with the NLT (The Nortland Trilogy - TDE) and with TOEE - simply because it was a great thing combined with lots of thinking required and lots of good fights where I had to plan.

My personal most recent example of "most worthwhile" is Drakensang 2, because I could simply get lost in the beauty of some landscapes, sitting here, forever listening to the music ... ;)

I have never met a game with a similar strong "fairytale aspect" (which I just love ;) ) that that - except from Zanzarah, maybe. ;)

Of the games I played longest, there was definitively the original X-Wing game - and TIE-Fighter, of course, which had a great story, imho very much better than even the XWA story !

I'd LOVE to play X-Wing with the XWA engine ! :)


So ... all in all it's not easy for me to say "wehich one was my most worthwhile game", because I enjoy different aspects in different games. ;)
 
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TheMadGamer said:
Well this will sound 'cliche' but for me it's U7.

I had to overcome a lot of hurdles just to play that game. To get the money to buy it took some savings discipline. Then when I bought it, my Epson 386/16 didn't have enough horsepower to play it (walking from the east side of Trinsic to the west side took about 8 minutes real time it was just aweful). I finally convinced my boss (who thankfully was a gamer) to let me take 'borrow' the office's 386/33 computer. This meant that at the end of each day, I had to dismantle that PC, put it in my car, drive it home, carry it up 2 floors to my apartment, set it up, and finally play. Next morning I had to get up early to dismantle it and take it back to work and set it up again… rinse/repeat.

At the time, the game itself just felt immense. I was compelled to take notes about everything - every town, NPC, quest, clue, things about magic and reagents… I could have published a comprehensive clue book with my notes. I believe it was the act of writing my own detailed notes and maps that really connected me to that game.

At the time, I remember U7 getting a good level of criticism about the object-oriented puzzles - but I liked them and found them to be new and fresh, if not a bit shallow. Before U7 there was very limited object interaction and even to this day, it's object interaction and world interaction that peeks my interest most in RPGs.
Click to expand...

I'd agree. I had a similar experience. We had a 386 that could run the game, but there was something in it that locked up the machine when you tried to use the telescope. It was a game ender. I got new discs from Origin that were patched, but even that didn't fix it. About a year later, I was heading off to school and a scraped what money I had to buy a 486sx from Dell's factory outlet. I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy the game anymore as I had to start over. Nope. Loved it. It was the first game (at least RPG) that I ever played through more than once.
 
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System Shock 2. I never played SS1, but the atmosphere and pacing of the SS2 severely creeped me out. I played the game well into the night on several occasions, with little to no ambient lighting in the room, and had to stop well before I wanted to, simply because I was too freaked to play any more.

Aside from that; Freespace 2. The Pyrrhic victory that concludes the game is still one of the most poignant moments I've ever experienced.
 
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Depends on the experience.

I mean, the Call of Duty series are absolutely amazing in delivering intense experiences, simply because it plays with your emotions and deliver true flashbulb experiences that you often didn't see coming, many of which are quite painful.

At the same time, crying like a baby to the end of Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX after spending almost two weeks building up my love for the characters, that is something very different.

But realizing the full impact of the Gothic world, that's one I still remember as clear as the day I first played it. Because Gothic do not only presents a handcrafted physical world to explore, but also a handcrafted social world to explore, the excitement of going around the next corner was always there. Gothic is one of few games I called in sick to play.

Then again, there are tons of moments that touched me for some reason.
 
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Tough question.

Gothic definitely comes to mind. That game was literally all I could think about once I started playing it. Everything I had to do in my daily life I rushed through as quickly as possible in order to get back to more Gothic.
 
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The Bard’s Tale II: The Destiny Knight (Amiga version) - I played many games from different genres before, but after this game I was a true crpg-player.

It was very hard to map the game (teleports, spinners).
Combat was extreme challenging.
The feature to capture enemies permanently for your own party was great.
 
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