Tempy wrote:

Rez HD is actually brilliant, just a shame it's not on PC for mental screen resolution.

Just played the trial. It's a bit ho-hum compared to the originals. Having it wide screen is better I suppose - I even played it at HD and standard def but maybe it's my TV (it says 1360 x 768) because it didn't look that much better - but then the design of the game doesn't necessarily demand a higher def - the originals look sharp enough (esp with the VGA on Dreamcast).

Nice it's available though. Having said all that I may well triple dip for this.

Burnout 3 is a fine game that still holds up to this day

Quick list, I'm far too busy and important to think more deeply on it:

1. Battlefield 1942 (PC)
2. Metroid Prime (GC)
3. Okami (Ps2)
4. Persona 3 (ps2)
5. Skies of Arcadia (GC/DC)
6. Digital Devil Saga (Ps2)
7. Star Wars: Rogue Leader (GC)
8. God Hand (Ps2)
9. F-Zero (GC)
10. Transformers (Ps2) or Metal Arms: glitch in the system (GC,Ps2/Xbox)

Morrowind??

ChopperByrne wrote:

I seem to have just bought a GameCube. Any recommendations?

Sell it and buy a Wii.

This. A Wii is just a far superior gamecube. Get a Wii that can play GC games and mod it.

Only real advantage a GC has over a Wii is the GBA player - which is quite splendid.

hylian_elf wrote:

Morrowind??

On Xbox.

Thanks for assistance chaps, apart from you Dante

NBA 2k

Stop judging people you horrible man.

hylian_elf wrote:

But game of the gen material? I liked Kri. But it was nowhere near as good as the best of the gen.

Not in the ten, but I have long best of the rest list.

BG & E reminds me of Psychonauts. Remember psychonauts?!

Rave_Winchester wrote:

Psychonauts

you motherfucker.

So here's my ten. I thought the dreamcast would figure higher but I think that it was a console I loved because it was filled with games that could be played for twenty minutes. Still, here I go

1. Halo (xbox) - I dont think I can stress how much Halo impressed me. I bought an xbox as a bundle pack from game to cheer myself up during a bad time in my life. I had heard about how good Halo was but I knew next to nothing. About 6 hours later I felt much better. Epic in so many ways and just great bombastic fun. Halo, like Street Fighter 2, laid a template that I still enjoy. While I havent played from Halo 4 onwards, I would still happy play any of the Bungie Halo games. The definitive single player shooter for me.

2. Burnout 2 (xbox) - As fleetwood mac sang, you will never break the chain. Approach Burnout 2 with that mindset and it becomes the ultimate score attack game. I loved maxing out each tracks high scores and boosting the complete way round every lap on a single track was an addiction worth pursuing. Eye-bleeding brilliance.

3. PES 4 (ps2) - Had to think about this a bit. I would probably rate 6 as the best of the PES series on ps2 but 4 came at a time when it seemed everyone I knew played it. This meant that any house party would inevitable see 5-8 lads gather round the tv and become pundits as winner stays on took hold. A great time to be a gamer and many a friend was made at said parties over a ps2 joypad. 

4. Prince of Persia - SoT (xbox) - Love the mechanics, love the presentation, love the atmosphere, just plain love this game. The only negative was the lousy last boss but up until that point its a wonderful mix of platform, puzzle, combat and 1940's whimsy. Event the death screens were clever - "No, thats not what happened..."

5. Soul Calibur (dc) - It may be desperation to have a dreamcast representative in my top ten, but while SC2 has the better graphics and arguably better move sets, Soul Calibur on Segas machine had more impact and has the better mission mode. The graphics floored me at the time and seemed like such an advance over the psone/n64 era. Still the definitive 3d fighter for me and thinking about how good 1&2 are makes me all the more angry at how terrible 5 is.

6. Outrun 2006 (ps2) - A game I have since bought on many machines many times. A beautiful journey that you can alter. Timeless Arcade Sega graphics and a bright and breezy soundtrack linked to gameplay that only really stresses the player occasionally. 

7. GTA III (ps2) - None of the GTAs since 3 have managed to capture the pure fun and chaos that the first 3d GTA presented. I doubt its aged well, the controls weren't great to begin with but it had so many amazing moments that could be shared with other players who experienced similar, but not quite the same. I also think that its one of the funniest games around with some very clever bits of comedy going on. GTA VC is probably slightly better but its building on the solid foundations laid here so I'm giving GTA III the nod. By the time we hit the sprawl of GTA SA, I fell out with the GTA series. Still yet to jump back in really, even though 5 is an awesome piece of videogame design.

8. Tony Hawk 3 (ps2) - Score attack at its best, TH3 is a game I only picked up as it was at a bargain price but once it got its hooks in, it consumed me for quite a bit. Not a great looker, presentation doesn't matter once all you are focusing on is your board and the next link in the combo.

9. Devil May Cry (ps2) - I never played 3 and 2 was terrible, terrible shite but the first DMC is a damn stylish game with some wonderful boss battles. Becoming a master of Dante and evolving from being the hunted to effectively the hunter is a real feeling of achievement. Imaginative and inventive enemies keep you on your toes and The Black Knight remains one of my favourite video game adversaries.

10. Silent Hill 2 (ps2) - Not so much in love with the game as the wonderful atmosphere contained within the final quarter of this. The whole section with the hotel was fantastic, like the slow reveal in the best mystery movies. I'm not sure if I can class Silent Hill as even close to a great game but it is a really good experience, something that was quite unique at the time for me.

Okay, this obviously isn't my final list, I need to cut it down by half, and decide the order, but I wanted to say a few things about some of my favourite games of all time.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
I've never played any other Baldur's Gate games, and I don't remember when I first learned about this game, but I remember the day that it arrived at work. It was one of the first, if not the very first, game I ordered from what was then play247.com, and as such possibly my first bit of online shopping. The game was beautiful, I felt like I was playing a videogame version of Hero Quest, my favourite board game as a child. It's one of a few games I have since re-bought on eBay.

Battle Engine Aquila
This arrived at a similar time to a similar game (Yaeger?) but, reading about them in Play magazine, this was always my preferred option. I've always had a thing for dual-mode piloted vehicles (hello Dropship, Eagle One and Future Cop LAPD). It'd be interesting to go back now, but my memory is of vast battlefields with huge numbers on each side. Awesome fun, anyway.

Burnout
I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again and again: the original and the best. Don't get me wrong, I owned and loved every iteration of Burnout until the frustratingly poor Paradise, but I always hoped they would get back to their roots and replicate the original. This game's appearance on the cover of Edge magazine is what got me hooked on the mag, too. I saw it in HMV, started reading the article on Burnout, bought it to finish the article at home, and have bought every issue since.

Dropship: United Peace Force
By the time this game came out, my desktop on my work computer was of this game, and I had downloaded a file so that all my desktop icons were sprites of vehicles and characters from the game. I pretty much wanted it to scratch my Thunderbird 2 itch (as well as sate my previously admitted hard-on for dual-mode vehicles) and it didn't disappoint. It's harder to play these days because it doesn't fit the control schemes which have become almost default, but it's still ace.

Freedom Fighters
I rate third-person games over first-person as a general rule. I'm pretty sure this was my first experience of AI characters you can give commands. I loved the atmosphere, the admittedly limited choice of the order in which to tackle objectives, and the action was thrilling. Molotov cocktails were a hoot.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City
There's not a lot to say about this that hasn't been said before. GTA3 didn't click with me until after I'd played this. Cracking soundtrack, and they nailed the overall environment in a way they hadn't done since the original, and didn't again until V.

Ico
Possibly my favourite game ever. Nuff sed.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
I said somewhere on the forum the other day, I didn't realise until fairly recently how many games I've loved are by Naughty Dog. I'm currently playing this again on Vita. Again, control schemes have developed somewhat since, but I remember this being a game that, when I started playing it, made me think I wouldn't need to buy another game for quite some time. The characterisation is a bit cheesy by today's standards, but at the time it tickled me.

Kessen
My kind of strategy game, a little depth but not too much complexity. It was my first introduction to Japanese history, and I lapped it up. Another game that envelopes me with its atmosphere.

Manhunt
Given what has gone since, both in cinema and videogames, it's amazing how much controversy this caused at the time. Another game that is now hard to control (making stealth a nightmare, but not in a good way). The inclusion of headset support for having Brian Cox's voice directly in your ear, and the chance to attract attention by speaking into the mic, is a masterstroke.

Red Dead Revolver
Another in a list of games which were not improved upon by their successors. Given the significant change in tone, and lack of shared lore, Redemption really shouldn't have borne the Red Dead moniker. Anyway, the environment, tone, control scheme, sound and visuals in this game are so perfectly coherent, it's an absolute joy to play.

Rez
I think I maybe had this on Dreamcast as well as PS2, but I couldn't say for sure. It's the PS2 one that sticks in my head, though. One of a very few shoot-em-ups I've gotten very far with.

Ring of Red
More quirky Japanese strategy, this time in an alternate history where WWII featured massive mechs. Tile-based strategy with tense 'action' sections, with a brilliantly balanced risk/reward mechanic. Its data is laid out on the disc poorly, though, so its almost constantly skittering back and forth accessing different parts of the disc which, when you share your bedroom in your parents' house with your girlfriend, limits late night playing.

Shadow of the Colossus
Controlling the horse is just fine, so all you Johnny-come-latelys can hush your mouths.

Sky Odyssey
I'd love for this to be remastered. The graphics have aged really very badly indeed, but the gameplay was superb. It has annoyed me that flight simulators have become ridiculously expensive and insanely complex, when all you want to do is experience the joy of flight.

Smugglers’ Run
Rockstar pulled a blinder when they released this a week before the PS2 launched. There were question marks over the availability of most of the launch titles so many, myself included, bought this with little knowledge of what it was, just to make sure they would have a game to play on their new console a week later. As it was, it was a dynamite game. I have at times faulted it for its use of strict countdown timers, which force the player to take the shortest route and trigger police ambushes, but taken at face value its great fun. Multiple vehicle styles with tangibly different handling, a large but interesting map and a good variety of game types.

Spider-man
Getting to play as Spider-man is generally enough for me to love a game. Getting to control his web-swing so intuitively, in a spectacularly rendered Manhattan, is unbelievably generous. Starting the whole thing off with some Bruce Campbell voice acting is an especial treat.

SSX
My brother gave me this for Christmas. I spent hours trying to perfect runs while listening to The Marshall Mathers LP. Another brilliantly coherent game: presentation, atmosphere, graphics, gameplay, everything complemented everything else perfectly. I don't know what i was doing playing Eminem over the top of it all.

State of Emergency
I first read about this in an issue of Play covering E3 that year. It was the first time i was really aware of what E3 was and how important it was. It also fell at a time when I was really wrapped up in my hobby. Now, either VIS were making outlandish claims, or the author of the piece didn't describe the game very well (at any point the game was previewed in the coming months) but the final product wasn't remotely what I expected. Nevertheless, what arrived was a funny arcade vandalise-em-up which rocked my world.

TimeSplitters
Another title that I had poured over the previews for. Perfectly pitched humour, which is difficult to achieve. I don't remember if I didn't have the sequel or if it didn't click with me, but if this makes my top ten, I realise it may be the only vote for the original.

I can't read RedDave's number 6 entry. Is it...