Are they the ‘epics’ of their time, or some things that are less well known?
Quest for Glory series! Betrayal at Krondor
Yeeeeah! I haven’t played these in forever but Hero’s Quest was my first Sierra adventure and holy shit was it magic. And Krondor - Raymond freakin Feist writing games!!
Both absolutely epic! Although in my case we’d be playing fast and loose with the term “youth” this was stuff I played after college but still.
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Worms Armageddon
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
They’re all well-known: Pac-Man (first game I ever played), Super Mario games, Metroid games. Anything past SNES I feel like I was too old to consider it my “youth.”
I still love all of the 90s FPS games like Doom and Quake.
Same. The rise of the boomer shooter was fun but you can’t beat OG.
I still play through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at least a couple times a year though it’s usually with the randomizer these days. It is objectively the best video game ever made, which helps.
The Pokemon games on all of Nintendo’s handheld consoles emulate really cleanly on a smartphone.
I’m a sucker for the Gen 1 nostalgia every now and then.
I didn’t have video games in my youth, so I’m just catching up now.
Half-Life 1 (and expansions)
SimCity 3000, SimCity 4
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Deus Ex
Zoo Tycoon
Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail
Morrowind
Industry Giant 2
Fallout 1/2
Arcanum
SimTower
Great list. I think I will replay about half your list at some point over the coming years. And might first time play Love For Sail as well.
Half-Life 1
One mod specifically (Sven-Coop). Been playing almost daily since 1999.
I still fire up Duke 3d and Quake mods from time to time as well. There are lifetimes of user-made content in some of these older games.
If I could I’d still be playing wow but it’s just not the same without the plentiful free time for it.
Private servers with boosted rates can scratch that itch while severely reducing the grind. Every couple years I’ll poke my head into one, level to endgame in like a week, do some raids, do some PVP, then completely forget it exists. Couple years later, rinse and repeat.
I tried retail again last year in a similar way, they’ve actually built so much mechanics now to catch up. But it still felt like a massive task to catch up to actual active players. Private server is a good shout, I’ll take a look next time I get the itch.
Solitaire.
DOOM.
The old game got way better when they open sourced it and Quake 3d code was backported to make zDOOM. Its one of the largest modding communities that has ever existed. If you want to see what it can do, try Brutal Doom. That same engine is behind a new release called Selaco.Serious Sam.
The first one. The demo is fine. Start off with a pistol. Its pretty easy to die at first, even if you know the game. I think that’s why I keep opening it, I know it really well, and it still catches me.Tales of Maj’Eyal; all the old scumm games, daggerfall, toejam & earl.
Best way to play this these days? I have a disk from the early 2000s, but iirc the last time I tried to use it, it just prompted an update that led to a blizzard launcher… idr if it wanted me to buy a new digital copy or what, but I ultimately decided it was more work than it’s worth and gave up.
…these days I don’t think I even have a CD drive lol.
Super Nintendo:
- Megaman X. I was never a fan of classic Megaman, but the faster, more action-oriented sequel/spinoff X series rates amongst my favorites. It has tight controls, good music, varied stages, and memorable bosses and combat encounters. I must have beaten the first game dozens of times over the years.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It and Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy were so close to perfect that decades later they’re still the basis of comparison for any new 2D Zelda-like.
PC:
- Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. it was the game that introduced Bioware’s trademark party banter and focus on interesting and likeable characters. The systems are a little rough but it still mostly holds up. Though it’s been a while since my last playthrough, and I usually stop once I hit the Underdark and the open world structure constricts for a few hours.
The music in the SNES Megaman X series is magic.
There are a lot of great mods for BG2 as well to keep the game feeling fresh. Even moreso if you don’t mind adding some fanfiction material, though I typically don’t.
