What's a videogame from your childhood that you still play nowadays?

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

I don't game much nowadays, if at all, but when I was little I played lots of Oblivion.

My mother played it too and usually would do the dungeons that I found too scary (I was terrified of the zombies) and she too has fond memories of that game.

My wife (who unlike me is very much a gamer) recently got Oblivion on her computer and it's funny how both me and my mother hover around when she plays, telling her the stuff we remember and people to talk to.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

X-COM: UFO Defense. I revisit that one every few years. To me it's a masterclass in turn-based strategy design and absolutely superior to the new ones in my opinion. There's so, so much more to think about each turn given the sheer number of squad members and the fact that they can perform multiple actions per turn given the time unit system.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pX0Cm3N_n6k

Also Fallout 1. Best CRPG ever made in my opinion.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also Shining Force on Genesis/Megadrive.

I always adored it for its simplicity as an SRPG and focus on really interesting and totally unique characters in terms of their combat strengths and weaknesses (very unlike Final Fantasy: Tactics where every character is quite generic and customizable there), thought-provoking battles, and just simple village-combat-village-combat type of loop.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

https://youtu.be/4zyB0lbt7Aw

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

My wife was playing Fallout 1 & 2 recently.
She's got a knack for retrogaming.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Those are awesome! There's no real CRPG in my opinion that quite matches the level of reactivity to past player choices in those, especially the first one. Fallout 3+ doesn't come even close to me with the exception of New Vegas.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

This tends to be a very subjective topic but in my opinion, role-playing is defined by its reaction to player choices. That's what makes it distinct as a genre to me.

It's not skill trees, experience levels, equipment, upgrades, etc (mechanical progression) since that existed in tabletop wargames and the like before Dungeons & Dragons (first thing called an RPG).

What D&D introduced that was so different was the human dungeon master: to acknowledge past player decisions in the narrative, and make the players maximally feel as though they're involved in shaping it. That's something we can't do when the story is preconceived. It's something we can only do when stories are improvised on the fly.

Video games have typically been weak in this since they have to preconceive the story, including all the possible ways it can deviate based on player choices, in advance. Yet Fallout 1&2 are the best examples of doing this as well as any video game has ever done in my opinion.

[NamerOfStars]

If you're willing to put up with some silliness, I'd suggest checking out the X-piratez total conversion the next time you play. It adds a TON, and changes quite a bit. For reasons I cannot fathom, the creator decided that the best way to express love for X-Com was with the hottest nudity the sprites of 1994 can provide, but if you can look past that, the depth added to both the combat layer (as different categories of weapons actually have you fight differently, rather than "newer equals better") and the strategic layer (captured enemies not only give you more infamy points than dead ones, but each has a range of technologies that you'll get one of after interrogating them) make for a fascinatingly different experience.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@NamerOfStars That looks awesome! I'll definitely have to check it out. Adding naked ladies to anything always makes it better in my book.

[DryGermanGuy]

You must be my brother from another country. :-) I loved UFO, played it for weeks and weeks. Such an awesome mixture of genres (Research, building, fights...). Did you play it all the way through till the Mars mission?

[NamerOfStars]

Good! I hope you enjoy it. It's janky, but a lot of fun.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@DryGermanGuy Yep, multiple times and decked out in Flying Suits! Also Terror From the Deep although I didn't like it quite as much as the first but enjoyed the variety.

3 is where they lost me. I've never found a game that tried to offer the option to do combat in either real-time or turn-based that didn't seem like it degraded the quality substantially to both. I really think the designers ought to have just picked one. I'm not against real-time done well (even though I prefer TBS); I'd still prefer real-time done well to both options provided at a cost to the quality of both. It's the same gripe I had with Arcanum which most fans of Fallout 1&2 loved; the combat just put me off (I tried both real-time and TBS modes) and seemed so unengaging compared to Fallout 1&2.

I really think the most interesting TBS offers the maximum to think about each turn. So if we can control all the units on our team on our turn in any arbitrary order we like before the enemy gets their turn to do the same, that offers so much more to think about and try to anticipate than a TBS where we only get to move one unit/turn. Then if we introduce time units/action points on top, that multiplies the thought-provoking nature of it in that now we can do multiple things per unit per turn on top of being able to control all units per turn.

Blood Bowl is another I love this way for an extremely thought-provoking TBS. The concept of turnovers and losing our entire team's turn if we blunder makes for so much careful risk assessment required per turn. It never becomes remotely close to mindless.

It's always been a mystery to me with amazing examples like UFO (or UFO Defense as they called it in the US where I played) and Blood Bowl why so many turn-based games favor the least thought-provoking combat where we can only do one action with one unit per turn.

[OlderAndWiser]

Dude. . . there were NO video games when I was a child.

[Kori1236]

I wasn’t really allowed video games as a kid. When I was a teenager and had my first job though I bought a Nintendo DS and some pokemon games I still game and play pokemon as an adult

[TrueConfection]

I suppose I'd want to play PacMan or Qbert, given the opportunity.

[NathanDavis]

Age of Empires...

[DryGermanGuy]

That's AoE 2, isn't it? While it was an awesome and more technologically advanced game, I liked AoE 1 a bit better for the pace (more buildup, less fighting).

[NathanDavis]

@DryGermanGuy I'll have to agree on that, yes...

AoE 1 for the experience... AoE for the madness and the rush of fighting

[DryGermanGuy]

That would be hardly possible, who - outside of complete nerds - has a Commodore 64 up and running? 😮

[Agape93]

I never played games when I was a kid

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

Don't get me wrong but I've always had the impression that when you were a kid your kind of games were hunting, fishing and outdoor life in general

[Agape93]

Nope. That was an adulthood aquired enjoyment. As a kid any time I was left alone, I was happier. That's about it.

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

I understand

[OddBeMe]

Very few, as none have been repurposed. StarCraft! And Warcraft. Didn’t get into the world of w.

[Nikki1989]

I was never that bored as a kid.

[petitedollbabee]

The god of war games, before the 2018 Nordic one.

[jahaims]

Runescape