I replay good games - I finished Deus Ex about six times now, I think. Once without killing anybody, once as fast as possible, and so on. Some other games, like System Shock, XCom, old Lucas Arts Adventures, etc. will be replayed from time to time. I think part of it is about nostalgia - most games I replayed really often are games I played as a kid/teenager. It was easier to impress me at that time, I guess. Besides that, I think game designers at that time relied more on gameplay that on 3D graphics, like they do now.
Games like Civi-/Colonization are different, because no two games are really the same. You can use different strategies, there are different Continents, etc., so I would not count that as a replay. After all, nobody will say he replayed chess after he beat it.
I rarely buy new games, so I end up replaying the games I have over and over. Play one for a few months, get sick of it, start replaying a “new” one, repeat. I’m replaying “The Warriors” right now to get psyched up for a trip to New York City in a couple of months.
I’ve played System Shock 2 at least 4 times, probably 5 or 6. I played using each path (Marine, Navy, Psi), once with a buddy, and probably once or twice more. I played at least halfway when I got the new skins for the enemies. The most fun was with my buddy. I spend the first half of the game hiding behind his marine, then the second half showing him how awesome a high level psionic was.
I wish there were more coop-multiplayer games. Shock II Multiplay is really good, and its just too funny stuffing useless junk in your partners Inventory.
Maybe Left 4 Dead will be good, but it looks too arcade for me.
There was a guy a few years ago who decided to go with the premise that, in Diablo II, all the monsters in the game other than the area & level bosses (the ones you had to kill in order to progress through the game) were simply the innocent thralls of the Prime Evils, and therefore did not deserve to die. So, having completed Normal and Nightmare difficulty in the regular manner, using a Necromancer, he proceeded to beat Hell difficulty without killing anything except the essential bosses.
It involved a lot of using summons, curses, and bone walls to lure and then trap minor monsters in out-of-the-way places to clear a path to the big bosses. He documented the entire process, with screenshots and text descriptions, as he went about his quest, and he actually succeeded.
That’s hysterical. This is exactly the kind of numbskull limitation I’d enjoy, only I don’t think I’m badass enough (or have enough patience) to do that kind of a limitation.
Most of the games I play are Simulation or Strategy games, so they really are pretty open-ended and never really finish.
I’ve actually played Capitalism II on 3 different computers, and I still haven’t finished all the scenarios. One of the problems with it is that to play the game scenarios (there are also customizable games where you make your own win conditions for ultimate replayability), you have to start at the beginning, so I’ve had to play some of them 3 times now, and well, there are a couple of scenarios I used to be able to complete, and now can’t, so I’ve put it away for a while now.
Others I play are Sim City 4 and The Sims 2, and those games in effect are SO open ended they really never end. Also Airport Tycoon, Restaurant Empire, Train Sims, etc. etc.
I don’t play anything all the time now, but those are the things I’ll sit down with for maybe a month or 3 at a time.
I spend most of my time reading The Dope, composing messages, and then deleting them. That takes me a LOT of time
Sadly, this was 4+ years ago, and I’ve no idea if the “story” is still up on the Web. It was originally posted on www.diabloii.net, but that site has since been converted to a Wiki format and I wouldn’t know where to start looking for it. I may contact the webmaster and ask if it’s still up somewhere.
Diablo II, of course
Warcraft II & III Escape Velocity in its various incarnations. It’s an open-ended space trading game where you can pretty much do whatever you want - be a peaceful trader, become a space pirate, align yourself with one of the many factions/governments and perform missions for them …
Duke Nukem 3D - Once I’d beat it, it was fun to pull out once in a while, punch in the code for “God Mode”, and just run around blowing shit up
Here is a list of variants which you may enjoy. It’s very likely the one being described is known as the Priest; though I cannot find any link on it now. (Here’s a short mention too -the Lurker Lounge used to have the details, but now they are not purely D2-centric anymore)
I played a singing barbarian and a mageazon before too. It was fun!
Wow. I guess I just never realized the practice was so widespread. I could see replaying games that have plot forks that go to different endings or, like I said earlier, different races to play through with. But either of those effectively make for different games based around a common theme.
I’ll rewatch movies from time to time, but there are just too many unread books and unplayed games. I have to explore what’s over the next mountain rather than seeing what I can do to make the mountains I’ve already completed more challenging.
Keeping the GTA theme going, I’m about to finish San Andreas for the first time (only one main story mission left), and I’m already looking forward to playing it again.
I should be picking up GTA IV (and an Xbox 360 to play it on) tomorrow, but Carl Johnson has buried himself deep within my gaming soul and is taking up, I believe, permanent residence.
