Battlefront3.net

[Kelevra]

Alright, there are a lot of amazing games that come out nowadays. With current technology, pretty much everything is good. But very few games I've played nowadays have the sort of effect on me that they did when I was younger, save for a few select moments (such as "Aftermath" in Modern Warfare 1).

But either way, I thought I'd share a few titles/moments that really attached me to videogames in general.

The Legend of Dragoon (PlayStation)

This game was, and remains my favorite title on the PlayStation. It was the very first RPG I'd ever played. Today it probably doesn't look like much, and by now the story is something you've seen a million times before in other Japanese games/shows. Evil army destroys a village while looking for a girl with some special power, and guy has to save her, etc, etc. At the time I didn't know about that whole cliche, and I really liked it.

Part of what I loved about the game was the sheer scope of it all. Just about every game I had previously played (Crash Bandicoot, Twisted Metal, etc) were all comprised of simple levels, while Legend of Dragoon had a massive environment to explore. Looking back, it was pretty linear. There were no sidequests, the worlds weren't really very open, and you could pretty much gain everything you needed to win the game without much grinding, but I still explored every inch of the towns and talked to every person I could find.

There were other games like Final Fantasy out around the same time, but I could never get into them for some reason, and I still can't, even if I try. I've got a large distaste for RPGs in general, and it seems the only ones that have ever really held my attention were this and Knights of the Old Republic.

The visuals looked very nice as well. The pre-rendered backgrounds has a certain quality to the that I'd never seen before in a game. A sort of mix of hand-drawn art and 3d effects. While the character models did still look blocky and stiff, they all had a unique style that made each of them easily recognizable, but not so much that they looked out of place against the various backdrops.

The game had been given to me by a friend. Disk 2 was badly scratched, and disk 3 was missing entirely, so for years I was never able to progress any further. It wasn't until the PlayStation 2 was out that I managed to find it sitting in a Wal-Mart case that held the last PS1 games before they got cycled out and replaced with the newer generation. So I immediately bought it, and finally managed to play through the whole thing on a PS2 over the course of an entire summer.

Since then, I think I've lost it. I think I'll occasionally catch a glimpse of its case, but I'm always too busy doing other things to really notice. Part of me doesn't really even want to play it again, because now I more or less know all of the tricks of RPGs, and I'd probably be able to breeze through it within a few days. I'm afraid it wont feel the same as it did years ago.

The music was pretty nice too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4jq-J1B ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75uHFDXM ... re=related

Amplitude (PlayStation 2)
Nowadays we have Guitar Hero and all of its clones floating around the markets, throwing every possible song they can dig up into your ears. Amplitude was basically Harmonix's spiritual predecessor to the Guitar Hero series. Like The Legend of Dragoon, it was the first time I had ever played a game of it's genre. (rhythm-based)

You control a small spaceship flying over a track, and you simply hit the notes in the correct order to make the song play. Unlike guitar hero, where you only control one thing, Amplitude had you constantly jumping between five to six tracks, each representing a different element of the song. Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocals, Sound Effects, and Synthesizers. There were no expensive peripherals required, and it was very easy to get the hang of.

This game was also actually much harder than Guitar hero. In Guitar Hero if you miss a note you can simply hit the next one and get back on track. If you missed a note in Amplitude, you failed the entire bar, and had to catch up to it before you could try again. This, coupled with the fact that you had six tracks to manage at once made the game really challenging (and extremely fun).

The songs were also really nice, and they all fit perfectly into the game, unlike modern rhythm games which can give you a good chunk of questionable, flow-breaking tracks. Many of the selected songs were either remixed to fit the game, or created from scratch specifically for it. The game also had an editor which let you mix and match various parts of the song to create your own track.

Again, the music was friggen awesome... along with the rest of the game. Have a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB9ZhLBSoBQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezXUhqlp ... re=related

So, anyone else have great memories of any particular games?

[Kelevra]

double post, sorry.

[Scott]

Mario 64 was basically how I remember my childhood.I'll never forget Bomb-Bomb Battlefield. I also have fond memories of the Crash games and of course Mario Kart. Goldeneye was another great game or the World is Not Enough. Also the Donkey Kong games were memorable. RollCageStage was a not so popular racing game for the PSOne that I really enjoyed and remember it as well. Those were the most memorable for me.

[Lordstig]

sim city 1, the first game i ever bought, massive differences from the new sim city games, in 2d hardly any special features. but at the time, for me, it was the best game in the world!

[Legion 2.5]

Mass Effect 2 is one of them. I like the story, characters, dialogue, music, mission, and the choices that get imported over. This is one my favorites.

[Darth Vader]

Basically it was the first Harry Potter game that hooked me to video games.

[sukispartan]

Midtown Madness 3, Assassin Creed 2