Questions like these always reveal the core audience of millennials and older Gen Z.

I thought hallmark only made cards ?

A few that seem under represented here:

Oregon Trail

Sim City 2000

Earthworm Jim

Fallout New Vegas set my expectation for quest choice and faction interactivity. I could go on about that, but everyone knows what people think about New Vegas.

Last year, I beat Dark Souls. That’s now set my standard for RPG gameplay. There’s bullshit, same as any game, but I don’t think I’ve ever played another RPG where I’ve felt my skill going up alongside my in-game stats. Then you get to the Bed of Chaos, and that kinda goes out the window…

Here is my Quality Slop list (I only like them because they are good):

• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Metal Gear Solid
• NieR Gestalt
• Test Drive Unlimited 2
• Halo Combat Evolved
• Dark Souls
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
• Silent Hill 2 (the original, not the remake)
• Super Metroid
• Need for Speed Underground 2
• Shenmue 1, 2, and 3 (Shenmue 3 is probably the worst game on this list, but its still pretty good regardless)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2
• Age of Empires II
• Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
• Policenauts
• Panzer Dragoon Orta

Each of these have contributed to my high bar of expected quality for games. Most of these games were made on a very tight budget and schedule, with pretty harsh hardware limitations, usually with a small team of less than 100 people, and are the greatest games of all time. Modern game studios have no excuses for the awful quality they launch games in today with more time, money, more people on the dev team, and lack of hardware limitations.

• Knights of the Old Republic, and KOTOR 2
• Tales of Symphonia
• Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
• MegaMan Battle Network series
• Persona (whole series)

Elite - a huge 3D vector universe to explore.

Tetris - adictiveness distilled.

Driller - oh wow, filled 3D graphics on a 3.5MHz 8 bit micro?

Wolfenstein 3D - shooting nazis is fun.

Doom - incredible, improved graphics and more fun.

Quake - full 3D now, but not as fun as Doom.

Half-Life - oh yeah, now we’re talking. Great storytelling and gripping fun.

Portal - fun, engaging and funny.

Bioshock Infinite - I guess I enjoy riding the skylines.

Torchlight - There’s something cozy about those dungeons, I dunno.

Skyrim - how did I lose 900 hours of my life?

When I was 6 I was so excited to get a SNES. I wanted the bundle with super Mario World but it was sold out. So my parents gave me the option of waiting of getting this other bundle with this Zelda game. That sounded kind of girly to me being 6 and knowing nothing, but I was also 6 and had no patitience so Zelda it was.

I got home and started playing and was immediately hooked. I spent the next few years exploring every inch of Hyrule and the Dark World.

To this day I still don’t have Super Mario World and have only played a few levels but I have played every Zelda since.

I’ve played dozens or hundreds of games since thrn, many that were absolutely amazing but nothing until Breath if the Wild gave me that same magic of wanting to discover every nook and cranny of the world just to see what’s there.

fallout 3 and then skyrim changed my life. it was incredible i could just go anywhere i wanted. i could kill (almost) any npc i wanted to for any reason. i never felt more immersed in a world in my life

• TIE Fighter
• GoldenEye 64
• Diablo II
• NetHack
• Doom/Doom II
• Descent/Descent II
• Galactic Battlegrounds
• Super Mario World
• Dark Age of Camelot
• World of Warcraft
• PlanetSide
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (yes, it’s my favorite game in the series, fight me)
• Wing Commander: Privateer
• Torchlight II
• Hammerfight
• Carmageddon 2
• Freelancer
• DoomRL
• N/N++
• FreeSpace
• Katawa Shoujo
• Unreal Tournament
• Minecraft
• Cave Story
• FTL
• Dark Souls
• Slay
• Terraria
• Ender Lilies
• The Binding of Isaac (and Rebirth)
• Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
• Dead Cells
• Hollow Knight
• Kerbal Space Program
• Transformice
• Soldat

I really thought there’d be more OSRS representation here! Been playing forever and still love it. It’s kind of ruined games for me - nothing else really scratches the same itch.

Silent Hill 2 (PS2)
Metal Gear Solid 2
Xenoblade 2
Monster Hunter Rise
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Link’s Awakening (GB)

Playing Minecraft multiplayer in 2010 blew me off my socks and I will never experience anything as intense as that, video game wise.

Early games are easy to say like Ocarina and such but I think the games I really started to compare to:

Ratchet and clank- sure I played mario64 but I didnt really grasp the breadth of platforming until ps2. The Jak/Ratchet games really secured my expectations in future platformers for what I expect from movement and targeting in games. Especially by Deadlocked, being able to strafe and fire/keeping your gun/ camera on target and snappy switching between them is something I notice even new games not get right. A great example of this is Darktide - for all its fun sometimes the button inputs for weapon swap dont trigger due to input overload. For me this is the “Why doesn’t this third person game just have Ratchet controls”

Exploration was easily shaped by Ocarina of Time. Where checking behind the waterfall isn’t an easter egg, it’s an expectation. The temples certainly stretched the imagination for puzzles, and modern game puzzles genuinely don’t feel like they rise to it. Being older and sharper has helped but perception wise it felt like the first game to challenge me like an older game did was Portal 2 for difficulty, and Genshin Impact for small fun puzzles. (Not that they are particularly hard but it takes some thought and intentional placement) for me some games just hit the “exploration and puzzles should challenge the player”

This one isn’t new or controversial: but gaming in the 360/ps3 era and older, seeing cash shops lock up cosmetics you used to just…unlock. like whole ass costumes and easter egg outfits. Colors and reskinned weapons all sold back to players now. I get the whole f2p “gotta make a sale to stay free” but holy shit $20 for a fortnite skin is disgusting considering how many people buy that specific skin. It pays for itself and THEN some, and they drip these every week or so - and every single one sells a thousand copies to different users. “Game companies got greedy, and cut content to sell back to you after swearing they wouldn’t”

Black ops 2: I didn’t play earlier games and mostly grew up with cartoon violence, so this was my first real foray into an online environment and experience that I compare shooter level design to. I still compare the new(ish) call of duties to it. Moreso like “how the fuck are spawns still this fucking dogshit, have they learned nothing in 20 years” and “How the fuck is nuketown still a map its too small to make any really plays, it’s just spawncamping for 10 minutes” (the answer is kids like it for some reason). And why I haven’t bought a cod since cold war (the homies all wanted to play so we made a game night out of it).Anyway BO2 is what I compare shooters to. If you can’t match a 2012 game in terms of how easy it is to traverse a pvp level, and the player feedback of a kill (like how impactful it feels to secure the kill is almost on par with Doom2016) “Kills should feel punchy, dynamic, like you actually hit that fuckin dude through a wall, not just tickled him and he ragdolled”

Pokemon gold/silver and Emerald. "Games don’t have to have super deep or complex stories, or fantastic budget breaking graphics to be fun

Dungeon master 1 & 2 The Secret of Monkey Island
Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis / Last Crusade
LOOM
The dig Escape from Tarkov The Division Ultima 7 Wing commander series Strike commander Battletech crescent hawks inception/revenge Mech commander Payday 2