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Games that made you believe it was the best game you ever played right after?

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Streets of Rage 2. Still the best side scrolling beat em up I played.

COD4. Some other sequels are better, but at that time it was leagues ahead of any other military shooter. At least on 360 it was. Smooth 60 fps, while every other shooter could barely even do 30. Also, COD's controller/button layout seems to be standardized across lots of competing shooters. Easy to use from day one. It's not like Activision has changed their layouts. Play a COD from 15 years ago and now and it's basically the same thing.

But other companies changed their's to copy COD. There were a lot of shitty control schemes during that shooter era.
 
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T-Cake

Member
Half Life 2 definitely. But I think that's been superseded by Horizon Zero Dawn, which in turn was superseded by Alien Isolation.
 

JokerMM

Gay porn is where it's at.
Bloodborne in the second half when it suddently turned into a lovecraft horror game with cosmic beings and shit

God that game was such a masterpiece
 

Kev Kev

Member
Had that with Breath of The Wild nearly from the start, but was solidly my GOAT by about halfway through the game. So it’s not an after the game reflection thing for me, I usually know before I even finish the game that it gonna be an all-timer.

Other games it happened with…

MGS3
BioShock
Mass Effect 2
And more…
 
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the_master

Member
Unknown vertical shooter, arcade
Mario Bros, NES
Golden Axe, arcade
Road Avenger, Mega CD
Virtua Fighter, arcade
Panzer Dragoon, Saturn
Final Fantasy VII, Playstation
Mario 64, N64
Shenmue, Dreamcast
Wreckless, Xbox
Halo CE, Xbox
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Xbox 360
 

Bankai

Member
The first game that did that? Deus Ex on PC, without a doubt. The choices and consequences were almost too much to take in. What an experience it was, even after my 3rd playthrough everything could change in ways I didn't expect.

Oblivion after that, on Xbox360.

And later I experienced it with Bioshock (Xbox360) and The Last of Us (PS3).

Honerable mentions are Stanley Parable, Fallout 3, Inside and Bloodborne.
 

Mars2003

Neo Member
Wow, that's happened quite a few times over the years.

Jet Pac (Spectrum 16k)
Star Glider (Spectrum 48k)
Desert Strike (Amiga)
Populous 2 (Megadrive)
Dune 2 (Megadrive)
Tomb Raider (Saturn)
Sega Rally (Saturn)
Duke Nukem 3d (Saturn)
Exhumed (Saturn)
Quake (Saturn)
Magic Carpet (PC)
Doom (PC)
Half Life (PC)
Half Life 2 (PC)
Max Payne (PC)
Halo CE (XBox)
Mass Effect trilogy (360)
COD Modern Warfare (360)
Gears of War (360)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One X)
Gears of War Hivebusters (XBox One X)
Halo Infinite (Xbox Series X)
 

Handel

Member
The strongest feeling of this I've ever experienced is after finishing Ico...just laid there for over an hour processing everything, and feeling like all other games I played in the future would come off shallow in comparison. Which was true, until I played Ueda's magnum opus The Last Guardian years later when it finally released. Team Ico/Ueda games just have a perfect build-up to their endings, and don't overstay their welcome only being 5-10 hours each, all the while presenting stories through gameplay in ways never done before and rarely done right after by any imitators.
 

buenoblue

Member
For me it's definitely a technology thing. Every once in a while a game comes out and it's either on a new technology or I've just upgraded my setup. There's been a few this is gonna be a long post.

Moved into my own flat at 18 in 1995 as I came into a little money. Bought myself a ps1, a 24 inch Sony Trinitron tv and I was in gaming heaven. By 1996 I upgraded to a Dolby pro logic sound system and the first game I played with it was Metal Gear Solid. WOW!. Playing that game was so cinimatic unlike anything I'd seen and playing it with Dolby pro logic it turned up was breathtaking. It was like playing a movie.

Ocarina of time was a stand out too on that setup. When I first entered Hyrule field it was like I could go anywhere. Here was a massive world I could explore.

I did have a PS2 but I had a hectic social life at that time and was not really gaming alot.

2005 I I got a Xbox 360 and a Samsung 32 inch lcd 1080p tv. Oh boy. Playing Oblivion on that baby was next level. I'd never had a gaming PC so high res graphics were new to me so the 360s added processing power at 720p and the scale of Oblivion with surround sound was unreal. A truly defining moment in my gaming life.

By 2015 I was gaming in a dedicated gaming room with a 780ti sli PC gaming rig, 1080p 120inch 3d projector and Dolby hd 7.2 surround sound. Hehe. Playing Witcher 3 on that setup at 1080p 60fps at 120 inches was something else. A masterpiece a still my favorite game if all time.

I've had to downscale(slightly lol)
To a 75inch 4k tv and soundbar these days, but playing ratchet on ps5 was a great moment.

So yeah new technology definitely gives me that feeling of having a truly new experience. Though the 5 tvs I've had in ten years my wife might not disagree lol.
 
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Fredrik

Member
I've always wanted to explore an open world Halo with rewards for doing so other than skulls and with Infinite we finally got that.
At what point is this happening? I’ve only played about 16 hours and I think it’s no point at all to explore, it’s my major criticism, it plays great but the map is so empty and everything looks and plays the same.


Anyway, my best games directly after a playthrough are these:

RDR2 (I wish I could erase my memory and play it again. Almost made me depressive afterwards because nothing could compete.)

Metroid Dread (It blew be away. Nearly beat Super Metroid but it stumbles on the finish line because of too much hand holding when exploring)

Oblivion (The sensation when you first exit the dungeon and realized how much there was to see still hasn’t been surpassed. I never finished the game but what I played was so far ahead of everything else at the time.)

BOTW (Was my #1 for a long time, Super Metroid eventually crawled back on top)
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Metal%20Gear%20Rising:%20Revengeance.jpg
 

Hunnybun

Member
Ocarina of Time and Halo are the big 2 I think.

It didn't hurt that I absolutely loved the endings of both games, particularly Halo. It was just thrilling.

I was also really impressed by Half Life, but for some reason I found it quite hard back then and didn't get that far in it. But I remember thinking that it just had a touch of genius about it.

Funny, all 3 of them released within a couple of years of each other, too.
 

Kupfer

Member
Tomb Raider 1996
Halo CE
GTA Vice City
Far Cry
HL2
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
GTA IV
DayZ Mod
BF3

That's it. I don't think I'm as euphoric for video games as I used to be, although I still love games. There have been too many disappointments in recent years.
 
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Hugare

Member
Super Mario World
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Chrono Trigger
The Curse of the Monkey Island
Metal Gear Solid
Chrono Cross
Final Fantasy IX
Bioshock (+ Infinite. The end stuck with me, sorry)
Uncharted 2
The Last of Us
Red Dead Redemption (dat Jack final shot)
Mass Effect Trilogy
Max Payne 3
The Witcher 3
God of War
The Last of Us Part 2


I miss that feeling ...

Maybe Ragnarok will make me feel that again this year
 
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Hollowpoint5557

A Fucking Idiot
Just had that experience yesterday with Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Bloody fantastic. As the credits rolled I just sat there stunned. What a masterpiece of design, graphics, sound and control.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Shining Force 3
CastleVania SOTN
MGS 1
Zelda OOT
RE2
Bloodborne/Dark Souls
Uncharted 2
TLOU 1
Earthbound
Shen Mue
 

Mars2003

Neo Member
Oh, I forgot to add Unreal to my list, the first time you leave the Vortex Rikers ship was amazing at the time as was using a Voodoo 2 with the game for the first time.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Dark Souls
RE4
Death Stranding
TLOU2
The Darkness
Gears of War
Uncharted 4
and of course - almighty half-life 2
 
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DelireMan7

Member
The Legend of Zelda : Link's Awakening

Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3

Final Fantasy X

Dark Souls and it's still is my best game ever so far.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Zelda OOT
Half life 2
GTA 3, SA, 5
RDR 2
TLOU2
UC4
Shenmue


They are the ones off the top of my head.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
In the order I played them:
Super Metroid
Ocarina of Time
Metal Gear Solid 1
Vagrant Story
Sin and Punishment
Metal Gear Solid 3
Radiant Silvergun
F-Zero GX
Battlefield 2 [PC]
Halo 3

Ive played a ton of games since, but nothing reaches the level of those.
 
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JT14

Banned
Forza Horizon 5
The Witcher 3
Halo MCC
Gears Of War 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Mass Effect 2
God Of War PS4
Spider-Man PS4
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Phantasy Star Online

I am not joking the lore was Dark Souls level's but years before that was a thing, this was expanded on with Episode 2, Episode 3 and Blue Bursts Episode 4.

it really saddens me to see how it turned into some generic anime crap with PSO2 but given the original games style I can see how that happened. But man was the story dark once you uncovered it piece by piece. It actually made me feel bad about killing some of the bosses, I still get a little pang when I think about Olga Flow, but it had to be done.

literally a fantastic 3D diablo with unique rare drops that completely change how you play the game from weapon to weapon, sadly the sequels Universe and 2 took a much lighter tone, as did the spin off PSO Zero on DS.
 
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