20 replies to this topic

[Pastinator]

Which games gave you these?
Stuff that was not just a cut above the rest, but either amazingly above the rest, or just plain new.
My examples are here:
COD 4 : Its involving story, great pacing, quick dieing, and the ability to shoot through walls we're just awesome, I wouldn't say its the best FPS, but the best I've played, and the one that has forwarded the genre most
Portal: Involving story, characters, gameplay mechanics and of course, humour, need no introduction
Assasins Creed: Major flaws, but a unique experience.
Spiderman 2(PS2): Truly awesome experience in terms of freedom
Oblivion: Scope, depth and potentiality made this game great

What are your thoughts?

[some_weirdGuy]

dont really think ive ever had a 'truly unique gaming experience'

but there are some great games out there, most of the time classics are great

super smash bros (N64)... now that was a great game

[OmegaBolt]

COD4 I agree, despite there being very annoying things about it. Like it's uber homing grenades. Assassins Creed gave me a "Wow" moment, when I first stepped onto a view point. Massive areas for play and beautiful graphics. Pretty fun climbing buildings to knife people as well.

I always remember first completing Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive, I think that was a pretty "ZOMG" game as well as Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but I didn't have that myself 'till later.

Resident Evil 3 was the first RE game I played and scared me shitless most of the way through, and of course the reoccuring Nemesis is a great touch. Kinda annoyed though as, since I completed that, I never found games/movies scary again. Resi 2 was another amazing game though, and has since been my favourite RE. It's just so awesome and has great suspense moments, and so many cool bosses and story twists.

Tomb Raider 1 was a great game too... the best TR by far, and so cool. Best level = St Francis' Folly. Was awesome when you stand at the top and look down to see all the floors.

Gears of War too, for obvious reasons.

[Romanul]

Hmm an great moment was GTA3:SA.Truly great(at least for me )

[Paladin58]

For me...

-Fallout series: Shows that violent content can also be put hand-in-hand with intellectually mature content, and play great.

-Call of Duty 4: The current definitive FPS of this generation, not without its flaws, but nonetheless, a very good game.

-Frontlines: Fuel of War: Not as much about the game (yes, 50-man online support on Xbox 360!), but about the developers; it shows that if determined enough, a group of modders (Fact: Kaos Studios made the Battlefield 1942 modification Desert Combat) can get off their asses and make a pretty solid game on the first go.

[Pastinator]

Yeah, COD 4 is not without its flaws at all. Guns not clipping etc. but it is the best the industry have come up with so far IMO.
Fallout 3 is coming out, from bethesda in the near future, which I am greatly looking forward to. It will be froma first person, with guns, like bioshock, but I have high hopes it will be better.

[jnengland77]

Great games that I've played and found unique are Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. (in)Sanity system... the character can become scared which causes him to shake, blurred vision, heavy breathing, etc. Realistic physics, you jump off something too high and you have just broken your leg. This makes you stumble, and makes nasty noises when you walk (crunching type sound); if you break your arm or it gets shot your arms sways back and forth if you try to fire a firearm. You bleed quick and loss of blood is very possible. Story is a great especially if you like H.P. Lovecraft and very true to stories it mimics (The Shadow over Immounth, Shadow out of Time). You start off with no firearms, but even shortly after you get them midway through the game, they don't help much till later in the game. It's a good game, a bit buggy, but overall very good fun, and scary if you go through it slow the first time while go through the second time you catch more details of the game. The game was released in 2006, but was supposed to be released in 2002 so the graphics are great by todays standards, but I think with anti-aliasing the looks pretty good.

Another recent game I've been enjoying is Portal. It's pretty popular and known so no need to explain it. And yes the cake is a lie.

Another game which I find not so much unique, but has pretty much endless game play is the turn-based strategy game called Dominions 3. Limited graphics, but oh well. 50+ nations over the 3 ages, over 1500+ units to wage war with, 600 spells, and 300 magic items. Also comes with a 300 page manual/basic strategy guide, and list of spells and items. Awesome game, but hard to get into, but good overall.

~jnengland77

[Devon]

KotOR has the best story I've ever seen in a game.

[Daz]

Bioshock
Nothing is going to touch in that terms of story and awe-inspiring setting until, well Bioshock 2 . It probably helped I saw absolutely zero promo for it before playing the demo on a nice TV, my jaw literally dropped when the projector screen rolled up and Rapture was unveiled.

Portal
Hooray for companies being in the position to do crazy stuff, going ahead with the risk instead of churning out the same crap they know will make money and being successful with the end result. Also, it's a puzzle game that's oozing with story - which I don't think happens very often.

Perfect Dark (N64)
I've never had anything come close to that in terms of sheer fun in multiplayer. Great customisation and entertaining weapons (playing Slayers only can get really tense, all Remote Mines except for an automatic is hilarious aswell if someone accidentally shoots a mine after everyone has spent the last few minutes filling the map with them). It was also only the second game I felt compelled to, and did, finish the singleplayer campaign (the first being Red Alert).

[Paladin58]

Man, I should have added PD to my list, too. If only Free Radical and Rare merged back into one entity, then we'd have PD with a map editor on the scale of Timesplitters. That would be awesome.
[/off-topic_I_guess]

[Romanul]

Another one:Superpower 2...
That one was really cool.

[Shine On]

Hmm lets think.

Definatly have to agree with COD4, Portal and Assassins creed but i have a few more to add.

- I found that the original Command And Conquer was a great gaming experience, mind you i was about 9 or 10 when i got it and it was my very first game i got for the PC
- Half-Life (the first one) was very ground breaking for me, it took the whole idea of FPS to the next level.
- The originaly GTA game was fabulous. Nothing like the GTA games today but it was a great game at the time and very controversial

Had hours of fun on all of them

[Keero]

I played HL1 back in 2003. I was amazed at how advance it was considering the year it was made. HL2 was an even better experience, albeit a bit less epic, but still. The technology that came with it (Steam, Source, etc.) was pretty remarkable for 2004. COD4 was enjoyable, if short. The multiplayer had me hooked for awhile and it was a blast to play. CNC1 was such a great game. I was... 8 when I played it. Couldn't stop. That was so revolutionary to me to have a game play like it did when the other games at that time were either Point and Click, RPGs, or Simulations. Red Alert was even better, played that straight for months. Emperor: Battle For Dune, one of the best balanced games I have played (other than Starcraft). A lot of thought went into that game and got me hooked on Dune itself. Portal had me grinning the whole time. It was loads of fun. Team Fortress 2 is the first Team-Based shooter that I actually enjoyed. The Battlefield and Enemy Territory games sucked, IMO. X-Com, now that's a unique game. The atmosphere, gameplay, and tactics in that game were outstanding. One of my favorites.

[mike_]

Halo: Combat Evolved. It has one of the best storylines and control schemes I've ever seen in a first-person-shooter.

[Shine On]

One thing i really enjoyed about Halo: Combat Evolved was being able to play a 16 player LAN game with my old friends... a tournament which I won!!

[OmegaBolt]

Heh, yeah. Halo 1 is by far better than any of the others IMO, and really good graphics on the PC. Very smooth controls and had the uber pistol.

[mike_]

Agreed. The M6D has gotten me out of a lot of jams.

[ambershee]

Halo a "unique gaming experience"? Only if it's so generic that it becomes unique for it :|

[Ash]

Hm, I'd agree it's not unique. Nor was it particularly genre-defining. It didn't do anything new, but what it did, it did quite well.

I must say, this is quite a difficult debate to have because just about every game is, in some way, derivative of an old one.

GTA was probably one of the best examples of unique, because no game had ever done that before. Same for Portal and Assassin's Creed, although the later is probably the least unique. Although, again, very good at what it does, and the storyline was like none I've ever encountered.

The Sims was a unique gaming experience though. Nobody's given it a second thought.

What people are forgetting a bit here is that we're not talking about 'best' game experience, more of uniqueness.

So, unique games would be, the first of every genre. Perhaps eked out with a few who added a twist to make them feel unique.

In spite of this realisation, I must say that Unreal Tournament must feature in my list of unique experiences. Because no other game has ever given me a multiplayer experience as fun, exhilarating, as varied or as brilliant as the first Unreal Tournament game. And with so many mods, it can always remain fresh. Realism? I'll take Strike Force, TacOps or Infiltration. Single Player? Xidia Gold, Return to Na Pali. Survival Horror? Spatial Fear. Gameplay? Chaos, Fragball, et cetera. Team Fortress? Unreal Fortress Gold. It's all there, to the point no FPSer should ever be found wanting. And, nearly a decade after it was first released, it's a game whose appeal still reaches a ridiculous number of people. Despite the fact there were a number of FPS before it and infinite number after it, a game of UT still feels fresh and pure. Its gameplay is not in and of itself unique by any measure, however I've never met an FPS I wanted to play more, nor have I met one more praiseworthy. If only UT3 were even a tenth as good. I still get a sense of disappointment whenever I fire it up.

Edited by Ash, 28 May 2008 - 02:59 PM.

[Shine On]

I do have to agree with Ash were the original UT is conserned. Hence why i bough myself a copy when it came out, it truely is a great game and did set a precident for FPS multiplayer games that followed. But i still think that Half-Life was the big influencer for FPS games as a whole to follow...

In my opinon:
Half-life 1st
Unreal Tournament Close 2nd