Games that stand the test of time

[Liam]

Hmm, never played Secret of Mana.

[Mick]

Real Time RPG, like Legend of Zelda.

[Liam]

Hmm, never played Legend of Zelda.

[Herr Matzat]

Real Time RPG, like Legend of Zelda.

Zelda issent an RPG, its an Action Adventure.

[Damian WayLNKe]

Ken Griffey Baseball for SNES. Head and shoulders above everything else of that generation.

[Sousa]

Barkley Shut Up and Jam.

[apsham]

I play Earthbound pretty much yearly. That game just has.. such an amazing feeling, it never goes away.

[Skummy]

I can't remember if I ever finished Seiken Densetsu 3 - that was the one where you chose your party at the beginning, and who you chose pretty much altered the whole story, right? So you could theoretically play through it a bunch of times and get a totally different story? I've probably done a crappy job of explaining that, and can't remember a whole lot else about it, but I remember that blowing my mind at the time, and it still does now, really.

Oh shit, and also, how different elemental magic worked better on different days! Was that the same game? Such a great idea.

[Pizza]

Yeah that's the one. I was just thinking about that game, its pretty good. You get 6 characters to choose 3 from, and who you choose (and what order) decides what story you get.

[gunnar hendershow]

Oh shit I totally forgot Earthbound and Terranigma, two of my top games to ROM. I'd put both in a top 20 of my favorite games without a doubt. Also Crystalis (or it's far more awesome Japanese title God Slayer: Haruka Tenu no Sonata) is an NES throwback that is almost as good as the original Zelda. The same mold of action RPG/adventure.

And, yeah, Skummy that is SD3. There are three main storylines in the game, each storyline has a male/female lead giving you a total of 6 characters to choose. Basically your main character choice is the storyline you follow. As a game it balances the line really nicely between traditional RPG and what Legend of Mana wound up being in a lot of ways.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

NBA Jam. BOOMSHAKALAKA!

[Bobfoc]

Going back a bit further, I don't think any game has stood the test of time better than Tetris. You can learn the rules in less than a minute and play for any length of time without running into some kind of new mechanic that turns everything on its head, yet it never feels too repetitive to enjoy.

Nobody in their right mind would claim that the game's graphics have aged poorly because it's little more than a matter of colours and shapes, meaning that it's been extremely easy to port over to pretty much every system released over the last three decades. The Game Boy version remains one of the best-selling games of all-time because it's such a great little timewaster for short periods of necessary down-time, whilst you'll no doubt find plenty of people playing a browser-based edition during a lunch break at work or as a means of killing a few hours at home. Not only that, but it's a game that can be played whilst listening to music or watching a video, or as a primary, undivided form of entertainment. Like so many great things, it can be as big or as small as you want it to be.

You could sit anyone with at least a couple of functioning digits down with a version of Tetris, and they'd be away and running in a matter of a few moments. With such a low barrier of entry, it's just as engaging for players used to today's much flashier graphics and sound design as it was for those who've been playing it regularly for the last thirty years.

[Mick]

Going back a bit further, I don't think any game has stood the test of time better than Tetris.

Chess says hi.

[Rich]

I still play through Streets of Rage 2 regularly...

[Bobfoc]

Going back a bit further, I don't think any game has stood the test of time better than Tetris.

Chess says hi.

I meant video games, Mr. Pedant. Anyway, Tetris is better than chess.

[Hornswoggle4PM]

Recently been playing a few N64 games already mentioned, like No Mercy and Banjo-Kazooie. Also the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, quite basic in many ways but still can be a lot of fun.

[tristy]

Duke Nukem 3D, goddamnit

[SeanDMan]

I actually played GoGo at No Mercy not too long ago, graphically it really hasn't aged well, you can really spot the seams, tears, and blurs where the system didn't render the texture quite right over the rigid framework.

If you get a modern mod of it though on PC, the game can look really good.

[MDK]

NBA Jam. BOOMSHAKALAKA!

AT THE BUZZER!

[Benjamin]

Ooh, that old Power Rangers game on the old SNES (I think it was SNES). That was awesomesauce.