Be Excellent To Each Other

The Crash. The probability of surviving an aeroplane crash into the sea must be, like, a billion to one. But you survived. You've fled your country as the world is destroyed by zombies, reverse vampires and the saucer people. Civilisation is no more and so the severs for multiplayer games have been switched off for good. You were worried about flying alone and felt ashamed as you managed to push your way onto the last flight headed to god knows where before the doors were sealed and the jet engines forced the screaming crowd back so the plane could take off.

Regret took over as you sat in a row of three chairs flanked either side by two fat men. They talked over you during the flight and it was obvious that they were lovers. Then it happened. The rapid descent. The screaming. The loose luggage flying as missiles through the tiny space. The smell of smoke.

As you lay on the sandy beach clasping your hand luggage, checking yourself over you for signs of injury, you decided this wasn't a dream and you were miraculously alive. Thinking back, those fat men leant over to hug each other during the final moment. They'd enshrined you in a protective bubble of sweaty flesh. It was that one in a billion chance.

Walking onto the beach that will become your final resting place, you'd happened across a self contained island. There are no inhabitants yet there is a perpetual generator, a TV, and a super computer containing an emulator that can play any game on anything ever made. Ever. You fumble through your hand luggage. Yes, you remembered your waterproof hard disk drive containing just five games that you'd copied! You would never escape this remote island and the rest of civilisation was doomed or dead but at least you had some games to play. Fortunately you'd copied five games that could last an eternity. Not the best games ever made perhaps but those that'd last as long as your life does. But what did you bring along?

1) GTA IV: Complete Edition

You'd remember those towns and cities. You'd drive a car again. You'd shoot people in the face and cackle as youe descent into lonely madness took shape. There's loads to do, lots to listen to, and when you're bored of the stories you'll piss around for an hour or two. This could probably entertain for a lifetime.

2) Hitman 2

I reckon you need hard games to work at but ones you can boot up and mess around in. Hitman 2 is reet good fun even if you're not just hammer bullets into baddies faces and whilst the detection system is frustrating, you'd have bags of time to work out a perfect run. And then do it again, but different, cause its aces.

3) Monkey Island HD set

You'd need something to cheer you up, and without a walk through you'd spend plenty of time just chatting with the locals and discovering old jokes you could tell that sexy looking coconut you found by a rock.

4) Dark Souls

Over 100 hours and I'm still pissed I haven't seen it all. So many different ways to play, so much to learn and discover, it's the gamers game.

5) Demons Souls

I reckon this is even harder than Dark Souls and I probably know less about this than Dark Souls too. Something to throw myself into and devour when I wasn't devouring my own leg for some meat.

Sensible Soccer '96 - Amiga

Do I need to explain this to you lot? Really?

Turrican 2 - Amiga

Even if I was capable of completing it, there's so much to explore and so many ways to play it, it could keep you amused for years.

Head Over Heels - CPC

I can only regard those that have completed this as super human.

Gradius - PC Engine

Perfection perfected.

Treasure Island Dizzy - CPC

IRONY ALERT!

Phew! For a second there I thought it was one of those not-self-contained-islands... you know, a peninsula. Then the bad things would get me.

1. My ridiculously modded copy of OpenTTD!

I could play this forever. With the improved pathfinding, massively expanded sets of all types of vehicles, improved buildings and construction options, I can happily build vast, complex networks forever.

2. Flight Simulator X

Good thing I installed all my add-ons before I left! Even without them, though, I still have the entire world and every airport in it to fly around. I'll miss being able to download accurate real weather conditions for my area as provided by Jeppesen, but, hey, that's how it goes.

3. Unreal Tournament

From time to time I'd miss insulting other noobs in a shooter, and this remains an excellent game with excellent bots.

4. GTA San Andreas

A time capsule of the modern world... there's very little you can't do in this game.

5. Dwarf Fortress

It was about time I got around to playing this, you know, before the world ended.

Um... Can I have an internet connection for multiplayer somehow?

It says in the first post that there is no internet any more, so you're gonna have to pick some very involving and time-consuming single player games.

I'm still mulling over my selection.

Oohh... tough one, but in no particular order here goes:


Sim City 4

With all my mods I'd be able to while away the years creating the ultimate beautiful cities, from logging mountain villages to glitzy casino coastal resorts. Only the tears on the screen at the reminder of what I've left behind would spoil the fun.

Crusader Kings II

Having a game that's completely different in a thousand different ways each time you play would be quite handy, and Crusader Kings II certainly fits that billing. The challenge of bringing the teeniest house from a pitiful earldom to a mighty Emperor would be something that could keep me entertained for years and there's all of Europe to play in.

Geometry Wars

Because it is wise to have at least one infinite high score shooter.

GTA: San Andreas

A fond memory of a world you'll no longer see, with tons of stuff to do and some great characters and music.

Silent Hunter 4

A superb U-Boat sim with many, many add-ons. I have over four gig of old 1920's-40's jazz, pop songs, Django Reinhardt etc that plays through the gramaphone in this game. I've also got the mods that have the Das Boot voices, supoib AI and the full free-roaming campaign. I can stare out to sea and imagine I'm on my boat, chugging through the waters of the North Sea, 1939. There's so many challenges in game too, like sinking the Ark Royal or having the happy hunting time off the American coast that it'd last me ages.

Have to use the no-DRM crack though, yoks.

But I want to take Counter Strike!

/huff

Then create your own end of the world scenario, man.

Anyway, who would you play it with? Everyone else is dead, turned into zombies, according to Ian.

In fact, they'd probably be really good at the CS zombie mod, if they could use computers and stuff, and they could could stop thinking about braaaaains for a few minutes, and there was an internet.

GTA Vice City
Dark Souls
Medieval Total War
A Madden Game
Civ 2

Final Fantasy 7. Batman, Arky Asylum.

I'll be back with the other three.

Reasons people, reasons.

A list does not make an interesting thread. Unless it's a thread about shopping lists.

Dorf Fortress modded up the wazoo. - Cos I could play it forever.

Frontier. - Cos I could play it forever.

Minecraft, with access to Pazzypoopoopland. - Cos I could play it forever.

Xcom Apocalypse. - Cos I could play it forever.

OpenTTD. - Cos I could play it forever.

Minecraft - with my own world that I can turn baddies off and have infinite resources to build something amazing. I never have the time to complete grand projects, and I think it would be very relaxing.

Just Cause 2 - The most fun open world shooty game I can recall. Fun just to use your grapple and 'chute to fly around shooting people at random. Also, might finally have the right amount of years to be able to find all the cases/skulls/etc

Mirror's Edge - Another game where it's fun to just run around and enjoy the game engine. I hope I'm allowed all the DLC and stuff.

Civilisation Compendium - Massive cheat here, but can I have all the Civ games? If not, then #4, I think. Massive time-sink, would be able to spend all the time on improving all the cities to optimal production instead of just trying to rampage through everywhere.

Football Manager - I can take Aston Villa to Champions League glory! Something I don't have the time to do in reality.

Those were off the top of my head. Might swap some in or out...

Tetris (gameboy) - The game I have spent the most of time playing, no real end to the game, so always new challenges

Frontier (Amiga) - Another game I spent a lot of time playing, never made Elite, now would be my chance to finally get there!

GTA 3 (PC/XBOX) - Not sure what version, probably San Andreas as I've not played it properly due to having the wrong GFX card at the time.

Sim City 2000 (PC) - Another open ended game, can try different things in different scenarios

Some Racing game - Not sure which one yet, something with lots of different cars and tracks, races, and time trials. Maybe one of the early need for speeds.

Bubbling Under - Trials HD, Magnetic Billiards, A Tower Defence game.


Malc

I'm having a think, but definitely won't go for five epic adventure games. I think that'd be a false economy. Sure, they take ages to do, but would you want to? If all you have to play is a worthy 100 hour massive game, or another one (or four), I'd imagine you'd get sick of it in a hurry.

Five Games - No specific Order.

• Dark Souls - Prepare to Die edition. (PS3 version) - Glorious upon Glorious. Played more than any other game, and will matter to me for life.
• Dwarf Fortress - Actually understanding how to play it would kill a lot of time, and the pure generated storytelling of the game would keep you sane.
• pending - possibly OutRun 2
• pending - possibly the new Xcom
• pending - possibly Crusader Kings / Mirror's Edge / Some iPad boardgame app...

[/list]

Here we go...

Settlers 2 (PC) - This took up months of my time way back when, simply playing random games against the CPU players. I don't think I even got past the third or fourth mission in the actual game itself.

Borderlands 2 (360) - Still not remotely fed up with it yet, and I must have put close to a full week of playtime into the damn thing. I don't think I've ever encountered a game with such a level of replayability.

Chaos (Spectrum) - Even just playing 8 player games against the computer would be an enormous time sink.

Kaboom! (Atari VCS) - To keep my reactions up, and as a high score challenge. [EDIT] As long as I'm allowed to pack my Stelladaptor and a sturdy set of paddles.

Raiden Fighters Aces (360) - Three shmups in one, and fantastic shmups at that. Not only a high score challenge, but a 1CC challenge as well.

Argh Settlers! I need to shoehorn that in my selection somewhere.... hnngh.. Settlers 2 had some nice additions, but the lack of a proper randomly generated sandbox mode killed it for me.

Malc, stop rubbing Raiden Fighters Aces in our European faces!

Heh. You can retaliate by mentioning DoDonPachi Resurrection if you'd like!

Yo, bitch. I lost my zip of that you sent me. What grfs do you use now?

Let me poke around my backup HDD and I'll see if I can find it. It was rather a lot.

I installed the FIRS Industrial Renewal grf. It promises much, but delivers little. The new industries rarely allow their products onto the platforms I built to shift them. The trains just sit there never loading. The IRS station enhancement set is nice. The Marshalling Yard in particular. Can't figure out how to get my trucks to use it, though.

Aha! Figured it out. Needed to re-fit the trains for the cargo type. We really should have an OpenTTD thread. Although I fear it'd be me and ye only in there.

Dark Souls - Best game ever and still finding new stuff after over 150hrs play.

Planet Harriers - Because I've still not played it so it would be nice to have something new.

Bubble Bobble - So I can have a simple game to play with my monkey.

The Last Guardian - So I can see if it lives up to Ico and SotC

Sam Fox Strip Poker - Wanks

GTA Vice City - Awesome soundtrack, cracking fun, beautiful style
Dark Souls - Dark Souls
Medieval Total War - Play it time and time again. Lovely.
A Madden Game - it's a Madden game, less frustrating for me than FIFA
Civ 2 - Timeless classic.

WWF No Mercy – N64
Without doubt, the best wrestling game ever made. I still play it today and think it’s great. The graphics might be a bit rough around the edges but that doesn’t matter. It’s great.

SWOS – Amiga
I don’t like football but I love SWOS. How did that happen? This used to keep me glued to my Amiga for ages when it first came out, I can’t see that being any different now.

Steel Batallion – Xbox
As long as I can have the massive controller, I’ll take this. I’ve only ever scratched the surface of playing it due to the controller taking up so much space when it’s set up but it instantly struck me as being really indepth and it is really challenging… Plus the lights on the controller look pretty.

Batman: Arkham City – Xbox
Mainly for the challenge rooms. I can play the iceberg lounge (infinite enemies until you die) for ages, just trying to beat my own high score and get as high a combo as possible.

Clowns and Balloons – Atari 800xl
Simple yet addictive. The music is great and is bound to cheer me up and not send me insane!

I was going to add Street Fighter 4 but with no online play? Forget it! Also, I did think about one of the Pokemon games as I’ve always wanted to get into them to see what the fuss was about but they can’t beat the games above I’m afraid.

Frontier: First Encounters (PC) - A game I have never, ever grown bored of, and for it's shitty reputation, FFE adds enough over Frontier to keep it interesting. You can always play it the same as Frontier if the story missions don't appeal.

UFO: Enemy Unknown (PC) - The classic original, and another game I keep coming back to years after it was released. The remake is very good, but I still think I prefer the original.

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360) - This may actually be my favourite game ever. I'm currently playing through it for a second time, even though I know there's plenty else I could be getting my teeth stuck in to. I *love* it! I love being so immersed in it's Wild West world.

Civilization V (PC) - Or IV, to be fair, I've just picked V because I'd want a Civilization game and I haven't really played enough of V, so at least it would be a bit fresh. The Civilizations are ludicrously addictive in much the same way as Sim City and other such build-o-strategy games, but for me I love getting wrapped up in my own imagined Machiovellian plots and political intrigue as I back-stab and conquer my Imperial arse around the world.

Shenmue (Dreamcast) - This is a bit of a trick one, to be honest. I'm not that big on Shenmue itself, but it does contain near flawless renditions of Space Harrier and Out Run, thus giving me two vital games for the price of one. And I can play the actual Shenmue story if I so desire too.


A near miss for me would be GTA: San Andreas, because it's easily the best of all the existing GTAs and offers so much to do, you'd likely never tire of it. But I do prefer RDR. It would be a bit of a toss-up between it and Shenmue, to be fair. Another near miss would be Gran Turismo V or Forza IV, as it would be nice to have a realistic driving game, but again, I think the above 5 are the ones I'd ultimately go for.

I almost went for Shenmue but I've recently completed it and it's still fresh in my mind, otherwise I would have done.

Dammit, I think I need an infinite RTS to get into and waste the years away.

Perhaps Settlers. But I need more confrontation, so, um, what about Age of Empires. One of them. The good one. With trebuchets in.

I'll ditch Dark Souls so I can hammer away at Demon's Souls.

Choice 3 would be Homeworld 2, for constant RTS space-ship goodness. It just beats Dawn Of War due to the proper 3D movement.

I thought we had an OpenTTD thread? I remember talking, IN PERSON, about OpenTTD to metalangel at one of the meets in Manchester. We used to play a big multiplayer game here at work, though we lost interest many months in after we realised the game is made so that money = distance traveled, which is really, really shit. I can't wait for all those cargodist mods to a) actually work and b) not require me to compile my own version of OpenTTD. That kind of thing should be in the core game.

Now that I'm done college for the week, I have time to make one. Patience!

i might join, would like to restart some time.. @meaty, your modded version in dropbox?

for the games

- sensible world of soccer.. before i finish a career with all teams i'm dead.

- a traintrack building game, like railroad tycoon..

- can i play against monkeys?

- Super Mario Kart (wii?)

- Endless highscore thing..geowars RE2? pacman CE DX?

- an exploring ganer.. hunter (amiga)? or maybe a gta game i haven't played yet..

It's come a long way since then! A lot of things that were optional extras are now standard features. As I say, patience! I have an errand or two to run and then I'll make an thread.