Star Control Discussion Board

Original post moved to page two somewhere...

Taking the list of games mentioned as favourites I've compiled a sort of Top 100 games that SCDB likes below. Enjoy! (How I determined this is on page two.)

1.

Star Control 2

2.

Civilization: Call to Power

3.

StarWars: Tie Fighter

4.

X-COM: UFO Defense

5.

Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle

6.

Doom

7.

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty

8.

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia

9.

Little Big Adventure

10.

Sim City 4

11.

StarCraft

12.

The Incredible Machine 2

13.

Warlords II

14.

World of Warcraft

15.

Alien Assault

16.

Anno 1404

17.

Banjo-Kazooie

18.

Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand

19.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

20.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

21.

Chrono Trigger

22.

Sid Meier's Civilization II

23.

Sid Meier's Civilization III

24.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

25.

Command and Conquer: Generals

26.

Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter!

27.

Creatures 2: Torture Trouble

28.

Deathtrack

29.

Deus Ex

30.

Diddy Kong Racing

31.

DOOM II

32.

Dune

33.

E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy

34.

Elite

35.

EVE Online

36.

Fallout

37.

Fallout 3

38.

Gobliiins

39.

Goblins Quest 3

40.

Halo: Combat Evolved

41.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

42.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

43.

Jet Set Willy

44.

Jones in the Fast Lane

45.

Katamari Damacy

46.

La•Mulana

47.

The Legend of Zelda

48.

Lemmings

49.

Mass Effect

50.

Mass Effect 2

51.

Mass Effect 3

52.

Master of Orion

53.

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

54.

Mega Man X

55.

Mega Man Zero

56.

Mega Man ZX

57.

Metroid Prime

58.

Metroid: Zero Mission

59.

Minecraft

60.

NiGHTS into Dreams...

61.

No More Heroes

62.

Ōkami

63.

Panzer General

64.

Perfect Dark

65.

Plants vs. Zombies

66.

Pokémon Blue Version

67.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team

68.

Portal 2

69.

Quake III: Arena

70.

R-Type

71.

REBEL

72.

Silent Storm

73.

Sonic Colours

74.

Space Gun

75.

Space Quest V: The Next Mutation

76.

Star Fox

77.

Star Wars: X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter

78.

Super Metroid

79.

Syndicate

80.

System Shock

81.

System Shock 2

82.

Team Fortress 2

83.

Test Drive III: The Passion

84.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

85.

Final DOOM

86.

The Incredible Machine

87.

The Lost Vikings

88.

Norse by Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings

89.

The Secret of Monkey Island

90.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

91.

Rome: Total War

92.

Transport Tycoon Deluxe

93.

X-COM: Terror from the Deep

94.

UFO: Aftermath

95.

Vagrant Story

96.

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

97.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

98.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

99.

The Chosen: Well of Souls

100.

Zeliard

Besides Star Control 1/2, I've always liked the old Starflight games - as great as SC2 was, it still didn't surpass its spiritual predecessors in some areas, especially planetary exploration. I also have a real soft spot for strategy games (Battle For Wesnoth being my current favorite). I really don't like the original Elite that much (though naturally I respect the incredible technical achievement involved in doing all that on mid-'80s home computers), but with a good selection of expansion packs, Oolite is easily the best space sim you'll ever not pay a cent for. I also really like Freespace and its sequel - they told a very compelling story around a very fun space combat sim. I think the old DOS top-down shooter Tyrian deserves mention too. Unlike virtually everything else in its genre, Tyrian managed to actually tell a good story well, and would be above-average even without a plot.

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1) The mass effect series.

2) World of Warcraft.

3) Star control 2.


And after that there are a lot of games that would be in my top 10 .

In no particular order -
LBA 1 (didn't like 2)
UFO 1 (terror from the deep was just bad...)
Vagrant Story
Gobliiins, Gobliins and Goblins3
HOMM3
PvZ
Civilization
The Lost Vikings (1+2)

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My list is clearly going to be a bit (lot?) different because I haven't done much PC gaming since the mid '90s or so, but I've kept more or less current with consoles and handhelds since their inception with the 2600.

Of course Star Control 2 is in my top games of all time. Would I be here if it wasn't? That said, I never really got into the first one, unlike a lot of folks here; maybe because I played SC2 first, maybe because my friend's edited ships left a bad taste in my mouth (infinte battery + Mycon = boring, unwinnable game).

Super Metroid is an amazing game even to this day, and a very real contender for my #1 spot. Anyone who owns a 360 will find an excellent spiritual successor in XBLA's Shadow Complex. Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Prime are also both very, very good. Related in style are Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, which are both excellent as well.

My top 2 FPSes (both in terms of time spent and how much enjoyment I've received) are Doom 2 (which, while the first one was great, all the extra polish and experience for the second one puts it head and shoulders above), and the still amazing (but almost criminally overlooked) Perfect Dark. That second one has an HD version available on XBLA, which fixes everything that needed to be fixed (framerate, game crashing bugs, local multiplayer only, low res) and nothing that didn't (the original voices and soundtrack are intact, and the characters still wave around their fists instead of making more complex gestures).

X-Com: UFO Defense is an incredible game, as several others have already pointed out. The sequels have been nothing but disappointments (to greater or lesser degrees) since, sadly.

Speaking of old DOS games, I still find myself occasionally firing up DOSbox to play some Syndicate or The Incredible Machine 2. I would also do this with Tie Fighter or The Secret of Monkey Island, but my disks for those were already ruined when I was trying to transfer all my old DOS games to more permanent storage years ago.

In terms of strategy games, my favorites (other than X-Com above) are Warlords 2 for turn based, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 for RTS, though honorable mention goes to the granddaddy of the genre, Dune 2, for being a tremendous time sink for my all those years ago.

Chrono Trigger is still the greatest RPG ever, as far as I'm concerned.

Katamari Damacy is one of those weird, quirky games that will always have a special place in my heart.

Speaking of weird and quirky (not to mention obscure), the Culdcept games (or at least the two that made it to the US) are some of my favorite underappreciated gems. The localizations are a bit iffy, and the story is nothing to write home about, but none of that matters when the gameplay is essentially a cross between Magic the Gathering and Monopoly. If you like board games or CCGs, these may be some of the best games you've never played.

That said, my games collection is very large and spans decades, and the number of games I regret purchasing is extremely small. There are a lot of contenders for my top spots.

90% of the games I play fall into one of two categories: "PC Games from the 90s", and "Nintendo".


PC Games:

The Obvious Game That Everyone Else Has Already Mentioned

X-COM: UFO Defense: Just started replaying this last week! And I also think TFTD is pretty darn awesome, but it has a few things weighing it down, unfortunately...

Warlords II: I haven't played this in a while, but I have good memories of it. I should go dig it out again...

Civilization: Classic...!

Commander Keen 4, 5, and 6: "CK6" was probably my favorite game when I was 10 or so. I could hum the music all day!

Betrayal at Krondor: I haven't played this in about five years now... I keep trying to find somewhere where I can download it, but no matter what I do I can't get it to work at all... It's VERY frustrating.

Masters of Magic: A very very very amazing world-conquest game!


Nintendo:

Legend of Zelda: All of the games are fantastic, but my favorites are (in no particular order): "Ocarina of Time", "Minish Cap", "Majora's Mask", and "Skyward Sword". "OoT" is by far the most nostalgic game on my list.

Star Fox: "Star Fox 64" and "Star Fox: Command" were both incredible games. "Star Fox: Assault" was pretty darn disappointing.

Banjo-Kazooie: Definitely falls under the "Quirky" category. A practically perfect game!

Okami: This game took my breath away. If you've played it, you know exactly what I mean.

Diddy-Kong Racing: Definitely the funnest racing game I've ever played!

Pokemon: I was born in the early 90s. Pokemon was born in the late 90s. Perfect fit.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: I'm a little bit embarrassed by this one... The game is really aimed toward a much younger audience, and thus the story is amazingly cheesy, but once you get past that, it's really one of the funnest handheld games I've ever played.


Phew, that was a long list... Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few Chryssalids to take care of...

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1. La-Mulana: I played this for 10 months and wrote a small novel worth of notes. The most fun I've ever had with any game without question.
2. Morrowind: Although lacking in some areas such as combat, this is still the best in the TES series. The storyline is dark, the world is huge and things like fast travel are implemented as a cool ingame system.
3. Star Control 2: Do I have to explain?

Many of you have raised a lot of modern games on the table. I've found myself disliking almost everything that is released by big game companies nowdays: They don't offer challenge, the ideas in them area already old and they are not fun to play. When I play a game, I'm in it for interesting gameplay mechanics with a good story. Realism is not important. From a graphics programmer's side of view I really appreciate some of the games for their graphics, but I believe graphics are always an entirely useless measurement of quality. Multiplayer games I haven't played for ages since they don't really offer the excellent community which smaller games like Star Control 2 have. I for one appreciate more intelligent discussion than your momma jokes or cursing over a lost match / won match. In regards to the RTSs listed above, I've also found that I have recently began to dislike them as well: Their multiplayer is won by him who builds and spams units faster. Turn based strategies are closer to my heart as they measure skill in strategy and tactics, as well as knowledge in the deep game mechanics instead of speed.

Many Star Control fans appear to like Mass Effect, but I thought it was a pretty linear shooter. The story was quite alright though, except for the horrible character developments.

I also tried this small Metroidvania indie recently called Unepic. It's pretty cool.

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Some mighty awesome stuff you got in here guys! And I'm glad many a favorite of mine found their place in the ranking. Blimey, if it wasn't for y'all I would have never remembered Warlords II, Commander Keen or the Lost Vikings! But enough blabbering, here's my (tentative) list, in no particular order:

Real-time Strat:
-- Star Control 1/2 of course
-- Dune 2
-- Warcraft 2/3

Real-time Sim:
-- SimCity 4
-- Anno 1402
-- Transport Tycoon Deluxe
-- Star Wars: XWing/Tie Fighter
-- Deathtrack
-- Test Drive 3

Turn-based Strat:
-- UFO 1/2/Aftermath
-- Civilization 1/2/3 (Civ 3 is probably all-time favorite)
-- Master of Orion 1/2/3
-- HOMM 3
-- Total War Rome/Medieval
-- Panzer General/Panzer Corps

Online:
-- Minecraft, vanilla WoW, Eve, Warhammer

Other:
-- Incredible Machines
-- Indiana Jones (Atlantis)
-- Space Quest 5
-- Jones in the Fast Lane

Boktai: The Sun is In Your Hand! Strangely enough, I didn't get burned by it. (HAR HAR HAR)
The Mega Man series (especially X, Zero, ZX) rarely disappoints, on the increasingly rare occasions that it sees a release.
Sonic Colours is one I've found a lot of time for recently. First good Sonic game in so very long.
No More Heroes is one I continue to defend against my friends' opinions, and I stubbornly insist that Travis Touchdown is cool.
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams is a beautiful, beautiful game.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (PC) isn't exactly difficult or especially advanced, but I quite like it anyway. The free-roaming exploration of Hogwarts between the challenge levels puts it head and shoulders above its predecessor.
Team Fortress 2 is a vice, but it's a pretty fun vice. There's a lot of satisfaction to be derived from being a good Medic.
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy is a relentlessly indie cyberpunk FPS/RPG in the vein of Deus Ex that I enjoy in spite of its many flaws in comprehension. And who can argue with a game in which you play a cyborg zombie samurai?
Well of Souls (which I know has turned up around the SCDB before, thanks to our old friend Sedodes) deserves a mention for the immense flexibility of the engine, even if it is showing its age in some of its limitations.

Most of my favourites were mentioned, but beyond Little Big Adventure, Star Control 2, Fallout, Civilisation and Tie Fighter I'd like to add System Shock 1 and 2 to the list. Terror and horror in space combined with FPS and RPG, what more could you want?