The best games I've ever played

I suppose I could use an outlet for my Diablo 3 - induced nerdrage. Seriously, Blizzard, way to drop the ball. But to prove, perhaps to myself, that there is in fact an objective standard for fun or whatever it is gets people hard for video games, here are some of the ones I've enjoyed the most.

1. Portal
The perfect one. Not even Portal 2 could top its simple formula of mechanics that are fun and a plot that I'm capable of giving a shit about. It turns out that the combination of a serious, thoughtfully written script and a little bit of deadpan neurotic humour was enough to convince me that the developers had made an experience worth having.

2. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
Oh, SMAC. not s'mac, the food chain that fetishizes mac and cheese, but the bastard cousin of the Civ series. It dropped between Civ II and III but I think tops all of them any time, because it has a plot. In a free form strategy game. That happens as you progress without ridiculous scripted events and cutscenes. I won't be the first to say it, but game design has taken several leaps backward since the 90s.

3. Halo
This one's all about presentation. The ringworld-esque story might have smelled a tad regurgitated, but Bungie scored a bona fide hit by making environments I wanted to explore, enemies I wanted to shoot at, vehicles I wanted to drive, and missions I wanted to finish. The driving mission at the end is one of the finest moments in video game history.

4. System Shock 2
I didn't finish it. I'm not sure I even got halfway but goddamn. this is the scariest game I have ever played, and back then they had no recourse to fancy shaders, moody lighting, or realistic blood. Even so I had nightmares for weeks about zombies that pop out of nowhere and apologize to you while caving your skull in and eating your guts. Holy fucking jesus.

5. Starcraft
I hate to cry foul at corporate profiteering like some insufferable hipster. Indie games, like indie music, have just about as high a nonsense quotient as 'mainstream' games do. But Blizzard's post-WoW offerings have smelled too much of money-grabbing and committee design, jumping like bitches in heat on the gaming flavour-of-the-month design buzzword.

Here are some choice quotes from the first Starcraft, that I might remember the good old days of video game dialogue.

'Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind; the eternal will of the Swarm, and that you have been created to serve me.'

'You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare.'

'Jimmy, drop the knight-in-shining-armor routine. It suits you sometimes. Just not ... not now. I don't need to be rescued. I know what I'm doing. The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. I know that because ... well I just know it. I am a Ghost, remember?'

I liked that they wrote characters who were interesting even when they weren't deep (The Overmind), and likable when they were (Raynor and Kerrigan). I liked that the plot managed to involve me. I was outraged when Kerrigan betrayed Fenix.

And then Blizzard took a giant shit on Jim Raynor in SC2. I can't even describe what they did coherently. It does sound to a lay person like myself that their post-WoW windfall managed to destroy what made them great designers in the first place: solid mechanics and workmanlike story telling, with characters who were normal enough to be real.

6. Diablo 2

Yes, it goes deeper. On the other side of the Blizzard spectrum we have D2, which lacked the solid writing and affable characterisation of Starcraft (Stay awhile, and listen!), but won the fucking lottery as far as mechanics go. I have probably spent more time playing diablo 2 than I have any other single activity in the world. It's very simple. You get rewarded for killing things by becoming incrementally better at killing things.  You derive satisfaction from killing things in large numbers, and also from becoming better at killing things in large numbers. Sometimes they explode when you kill them. The item system was well-designed, the random loot gave me a good reason to keep playing, the uniques were well-designed and thematically interesting, the bosses were tough, the enemies were varied and cool to look at (I'm thinking of Oblivion Knights here. Great balls of elemental death). The skills system was rigorous enough to demand attention, but loose enough to allow all kinds of ridiculous builds. Part of the fun was designing a build which worked in its own awkward, teetering way and finishing the bloody game with it. I remember staggering into act 2 hell with a kicksin, wearing a 6 socketed phase blade and a tiamat's revenge, kicking one thing to death and then getting mauled by everything else on screen. It was frustrating, but it was also good times.

The plot, while unspectacular, served well enough to guide you along from quest to quest and stayed out of the way while you were committing genocide on the Fallen. If nothing else, it had a pleasing symmetry to it. First 2 acts - the lesser evils. 3, 4 and 5 - the Prime Evils, each with their own unique flavour of horrible. It was an efficiently designed story.

So believe me when I say I know quite a bit about what I'm talking about when I say that Blizzard really boffed it with D3. There's no reward to the endless grind that is central to Diablo because none of the items are interesting beyond 'main stat plus damage' which is the only viable item build in the game, because all of your abilities scale off weapon damage. I loved D2 because I could design a workable character around hilarious items like Tiamat's Revenge (the triple elemental damage shield with no block and not enough defence) or the good ol 6-shael phase blade of ridiculous attack speed. Every item drop would unlock new possibilities for character building. While the skill system in D3 pays lip service to diversity, its monolithic weapon damage mechanic makes the item system irrelevant. Also, being able to change my skills at any point gives me no satisfaction for leveling up or building a character. 




EDIT: Honorable mentions. Some of these are just as good as the ones above, but didn't seem as relevant in a discussion of what makes games good.


Half-Life 2
Halo 2
Baldur's Gate 2
Angband
Diablo
Star Wars : KotOR
LoL
Fallout 3
Warcraft 3
Pokemon Gold and Silver
Portal 2