Can include squad level tactics games like Fallout Tactics, XCOM or Jagged Alliance type games. Can also include some of the new FPS WWII games like the various Battle Field series, Medal of Honor, etc…games that actually use some first person tactics to play and aren’t just who has the best reflexes. Can also include RTS games like Command and Conquer and Age of Empires type games…or even RT fantasy role playing games like Diablo or Dungeon Siege types. Finally, can include strategy games like the Total War series, EU/EUII and CK’s.
Please give some description of the game and why you think it was the best of its kind in whatever category you pick…or best overall.
Final Fantasy VII, for a very, very engaging storyline, expansive interaction (there’s SOOOO much to do in the game! About fifty hours of gameplay, your first time through, if you do everything, and not a single boring minute).
When they’ve made a dozen of them and there’s a consensus that this one pwns them all, you know it’s got to be pretty damned good.
Fallout 1 and 2 - for atmosphere, best dark humor I’ve seen in a game, and again, expansiveness -an incredible number of easter eggs and things you can do (such as join the Mafia! Get married! Steal from the church donation box! Heal an injured brahmin (that’s a two-headed cow) and then take her to a butcher to get jerky made out of her! All that in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world - something like Mad Max meets the Jetsons) and an great story. It’s also non-linear, so you have one main objective from the beginning but you can run around doing anything you want, kind of like in Morrowind, minus the two hours’ of travelling time in between each destination. I see you’ve mentioned FOT, so you probably know a little about the FO universe already, and if you’ve played FOT before, let me assure you that the prequels are much, much better games.
There’s also the Baldur’s Gate series in this line, but that’s a pure RPG.
On the FPS side of things:
Deus Ex: Again, set in the future, in the time of a great plague. You play a UNATCO (UN Anti-Terrorist Coalition) agent - but not just any one. You’re a new breed. A nanotech-augmented bionic man. You pick up implants and such as you go along to upgrade your systems, and earn experience along the way (few shooters do this). You use the experience points to train up your skills as well - the more points you have invested in, say, pistols, the faster and more accurately you’ll be able to shoot; points can go into things such as computer hacking as well, so you can go through the game once as a crazy bastard killing everyone in your way, and then play stealth the next time around, hacking security systems to turn turrets around on the folks who set them up. You can also go through the game only having to kill a couple of people. There are non-lethal means of takedown - tranquilizer darts, a baton to the head, etc.
Excellent game. Oh, and it’s got several endings, depending on the choices you make.
Best of all, you can get these games for about ten bucks each - less, if you get Fallouts 1 & 2 bundled.
As space and time permits, I intend to salvage and network some cast-off pentiums as a dedicated Starcraft LAN. Why not? Should be able to spooje four together for under $200, easy.
Starcraft (Broodwar) is endlessly entertaining for so many reasons. I like the way the three races all have strengths that can be countered intelligently. There’s so much room for strategy, it never becomes “See who can build up the fastest.”
Whenever someone finds some strategy that makes them a monster for a while, there’s always a countering strategy to take 'em down, if you anticipate what they’re gong to do.
It’s so much fun trying to find just the right weakness – and when you’re in a free-for-all situation, trying to defend against every eventuality is a bitch.
A favourite strategy of mine is to go heavy air with 'toss – Carriers out the wazoo. Take 'em around to clean out any weak spots, while building a few arbiters and cranking out reavers. By the time you’ve got your reavers ready, your enemy is likely hurting from attrition. You get a few Arbiters in with your fleet of Carriers and then attack their main town – most of the time they’ll focus on the Carriers because they’ve been the main problem. Use the arbiters to teleport clusters of reavers within range of their workers and it’s all over. I love the screams of frustration.
I liked Total Annihilation a lot. It had pretty good AI, command queues for all units (go here, then go here, then attack) and buildings (build this, then send it here), settings for when units can fire and pursue enemies, a good mix of direct and indirect fire weapons, long range artillery, base defenses, heavy hitting air and sea units, even nukes and nuke defense. Before Cavedog went out of business they ran a persistent galaxy server, where the tide of battle affected which planets belong to which side, and certain bonuses or penalties were given based on the current situation. I made the rank of Lieutenant 2nd Class on the Core side (generally slower and more powerful than the Arm side).
That was kinda the last RTS I’ve played much though. A lot of them are too twitchy, fast paced, and micromanagement intensive for me to be very good at.
You play on a set of provided maps, full of resources and encounters. You control a number of Hero types who each lead troops into battle.
The main sources of money and troops are towns, which are scattered across the map.
You generally win by conquering all the towns, but there can be special victroy conditions.
There is a multiplayer option.
I like this because it is strategical (you need to allocate your resources sensaibly over time, and decide when to launch invasions) and tactical (winning battles with as few casualties as possible, or avoiding combat when outgunned).
N.B. Heroes 4 was simply not as good.
Civilisation 3
The latest in the series of the most successful strategy game ever.
You must bring your tribe out of obscurity by:
researching scientific advances
building an army (at least for defence, but also you can attack!)
expanding your borders through increased culture and settlement
negotiate with rival civilisations
keeping your expanding population content (through luxuries and culture)
defending yourself from barbarian raiders
All this requires a long-term strategy which must cope with occasional sudden problems.
A game can easily take 20 hours (it’s addictive!).
Multiplayer option on later versions of Civ3.
There are several ways to win (military, scientific, cultural etc).
The best squad-tactics game I’ve ever seen or played is Myth II: Soulblighter. The graphics are a bit dated, now, but the underlying gameplay is rock-solid. It’s got a great physics engine, and the environment is almost entirely deformable (given enough application of high explosive). Projectiles are treated as real objects: An arrow, once shot, will hit something, be it your target, the ground, or the guy in the second rank who was exposed when your intended target moved out of the way. And if you keep your troops alive, they accumulate experience from mission to mission, and become more effective, but in plausible ways: Hitpoints only go up a little, if at all (I’ve never confirmed this), but your archers will aim better, and your dwarves (who throw grenades) will have less duds, and become more effective at throwing at the edge of a battle to hit the enemy but not your guys. Also, in play against the computer, you can pause the game and issue orders while paused, which I personally think is the perfect compromise between real-time and turn-based.
