All Time Top Ten
I stopped at the dispensary on the way home tonight. The budtender tells me they have a great new strain, first harvest for them and it's called "Outdoor Elephant"... He gets a real serious look on his face after telling me this and dead serious says "It's just a name, we grow it indoors"... heh, I just about wet myself laughing 
So I get home and my car pool buddy and I proceed to our now ritual 'get home smoke' before we go to our respective homes and the topic of the night ends up being all time favorite games... After I had some dinner and some more smoke I got in the mood to write my list and why each game is there... Please feel free to add your list, I do want to see it... This kid (kid... heh, he is 20 years younger then me and I'm 50 so he is a kid... Fuck it, anyone 20 years younger then you has got to be a kid) and I had very different lists and I came away from it with some new games to try annnnnnd, I hope to get more
So first my list, starting at number 10 and working our way to my pick for best game of all time... Any system, any time period...
heh... Ask me on another night and I'll almost certainly have a different list depending on what I remember or am thinking of but here it is tonight...
10 - We are going to not only start off but go with three in a row from one of the most maligned systems ever crapped out for a profit. I was still at my first job as a programmer with now dead Ames Dept. Stores in Rocky Hill Ct. I went total fanboy and whole heartedly jumped on board the Jaguar band wagon. Yeah... Perhaps the biggest flop in home gaming ever but... It did, IMO produce three absolute gems and the first is Tempest 2000... Fuck yeah, Game Fan magazine said it absolutely perfect when they said the game would cause permanent butt marks in your couch... It did indeed. I had just discovered what a decent/good Tequila was like and this game was perfect to kick back on the couch, sip some Patron (which for some reason seemed far more fucking expensive then) and be amazed by the incredible visuals and audio... I had some good shit back then too... A 26" NEC monitor and a decent stereo system for my audio... No, I'm serious, that was a pretty damn good set up back then 
9 - Alien vs. Predator - Atari Jaguar - This game was fucking awesome. You could play as an Alien, a Predator or a Marine. They all took place on the same space station but each had their own story, play style and ending. The Marine type was very typical FPS fare... The Predator was played with an 'Honor' system, your kills were rated based on how you killed. The higher your 'Honor' rating, the more weapons you had access to... Up to and including the shoulder canon... Sweet The Alien was played full on attack... Impregnate the victim and move on... Each time you died, you went back to the earliest egg and hatched (you could have up to three eggs). The moment that put this game on the list was when my marine character first entered the Predator area and was hunted by a cloaked Predator... It would come up behind me, poke me and then run away with whispers and clicks lifted from the movie... Freakin awsome
8 - Doom - Atari Jaguar - I've played Doom on many platforms and hands down, the Jaguar version was the best. My buddy John would haul his system and TV to my place every Friday night and we would get wasted... He was often able to get some dirt weed and we would smoke and do some shots and cook up a storm and game. The Jaguar version of Doom allowed us to connect our Jaguars and play co-op, with full screen on each of our TV's... Yeah... The internet was kind of new fangled back then... heh
7 - Telengard - Atari 800xl... With the freaking cassette drive - This was the game that did it... Hooked me on gaming and it's never let go. oh... About 1980... I'm in my first apartment, working as a Teamster stacking cement blocks (I was called a "Cuber"
and this was state of the art shit in home geekery... I shit you not, this game not only confirmed me as a gamer, it directly led me to becoming a programmer. The game came on a cassette tape, just like a music cassette tape and you played it to load the Basic code into the computers memory... Then you had to type "run 'program name'"... No, really, we did that, heh. My buddy Bill and I would play it for hours on end.
6 - Top Gear - SNES - I had played a few racing games in the arcade but not often as they always felt like a rip-off. As the move went more towards home gaming, this was the first racing game I fell in love with. A bunch of cool tracks, three types of cars to choose from, split screen multi-player and even difficulty levels... This was racing bliss. This is another game my buddy John and I played to death.
5 - Diablo - My buddy Bill introduced me to this particular addiction. We played over modem for ages until we discovered Battlenet and... It killed the game. We began playing in public games and found tons of people who gave away amazing items... We spent a few gaming sessions together using these godly items before we really asked out loud... WTF? We have been playing for ages and have never found a single item even close to the shit people are dropping like litter on Battlenet, what is this shit?... And we found out it was all crap that had been created in an item generator and duplicated a gazillion times... Sigh... I hate that shit.
4 - StarCraft - I still play this on occasion and still love this game. I suck at it... For as many hours as I've put into the game, I still pretty much suck at it but my buddy Bill and I have spent a hell of a lot of years playing it now
3 - Neo Nectaris - TG16 - This was a great little tactical game. You had a map with units and bases, kill all the other guys units or capture his bases to win the map and go onto the next map. Each map got progressively harder and before long you were horribly outnumbered and out gunned... Always fun figuring out each map. heh, It is one of the few items I've purchased from the playstation store for my PS3.
2 - Romance of the Three Kingdoms - SNES - I forget now if it was 3 or 4... or both I played... heh, there have been so many of these I've played through the years but that was when it started and I've been hooked on it for years. When I describe it to people who have never played them, they never think it sounds like a very good game but I swear they are awesome... It is part city building, part strategy, all turn based and with a story line about China around the second/third century that is presented with 80's wrestling style acting... I don't mean the actual wrestling, I mean how the wrestlers cut their promos... If you don't know what I mean, Sorry... If you do, well there it is, you know there is simply nothing in existence to compare it to
1 - Alpha Centuari/Alien Crossfire - I still consider this game to be perfect. I'm still perfectly fine with the general graphics of the game... The movies could probably stand to be redone to play full screen in HD... or 3D HD... But the game is still fine for what you need to play it and enjoy. The never ending stream of so freakin many quotes, both real and fictional, works so well. The game customization allowed is amazing... What? You want easy and stomp all over anything... Do it. You want so insanely hard that one single mistake, any time, any where... One bad random encounter... Death... And probably you will die anyway just because it is that freakin hard... Go ahead... Or you can make it anywhere in a huge range in between. I think it's eight different difficulty levels, 8 factions play per game and you can specify which ones or make them random from a total of 16 factions. Custom factions can be made with the handy editor. Size of the map to be played, victory conditions, native life forms... And on and on, heh, and that is just the set up options I was very intimidated by this game when I got home and opened the package... The fucking manual was 80 pages! I almost shit as I stared at it while installing the game (this was a forty minute process back then)... I poured myself a nice shot of tequila, open the manual... And was relieved to see that the first thing it said was 'Put down the manual and go start a game on easy'... Best fucking manual ever written. Not only did they make the best help system in a game ever done for easy (a tip pops up every time something happens and explains everything plainly, no 'in speak', noops welcome, heh... Two options to dismiss a tip, either 'this once' or 'never show again'. A few hours of this and you are doing pretty good but are starting to get some questions the tips are not going into... So off to the godly manual and start putting some time into it... Fucking-A, the manual is expecting you and it gives you all kinds of great info and you go back to the game and kick some ass and go to a greater challenge... And the higher the challenge you want to go to, the more information you need and... Sure as shit, the manual is crammed with charts and graphs and facts and figures and every fucking thing you need to get the most efficient path to victory... I have no idea who wrote this manual... Who fought to include an 80 fucking page manual of gold in a time when such things were already dead... But YOU my friend... Get my vote for best game manual ever written!
OK, gotta wrap this up, I want to grab a smoke, a bite to eat and play some Borderlands 2
= new reply since forum marked as read
My all time top ten list of console/pc gaming is a list I haven't really thought about until your OP. I started on my path of gaming at the arcades, playing Gauntlet, Galaga, Pacman, Missile Command and when the commodore 64 came out gaming really hit me in the face. Finally, I can play a game for as long as I want and I don't have to put quarters in the machine all the damn time. After the Commodore 64 I followed the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, PS1, PS2, PS3/Wii/Xbox 360 trail.
With all that in mind, here is a patched together list.
10. Zaxxon, for the Commodore 64. My dad and put countless hours in this game, always trying to out do our high scores. A lot of good memories, for such a repetitive level game.
9. Beach Head II for the Commodore 64. This game by far was the game of GAMES between my father and I. We spent more time playing this game than any other activity.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. I was a huge TMNT freak, and I enjoyed the team aspect of this game, and is the only game I really had to put some blood, sweat and tears into, but I loved every minute of it.
7. Street Fighter II Turbo for the SNES. So many hours poured into this game, learning moves, and fighting countless battles with friends, and strangers a like.
6. Mortal Kombat III for the SNES. I almost got kicked out of college because of this game, I missed so many classes because of this addictive game...so many hours, I knew every combo, fatality, babality, friendship...fuck, I knew everything about this game.
5. Legend of Zelda for the NES....fuck me sideways, when I first played this game I think I didn't move out of my chair for a whole day. The layout of the game, the aspect of finding heart containers, dungeon sweeping...finding hidden ruppees and other weapons...damn, this game was epic on so many levels.
4. God of War for the ps2. When I first got this game, it wouldn't work on my ps2...I found out I had a first gen ps2 and for some odd reason GOW wouldn't work on it, so I went out and bought the slim line and I lost track of time for about 3 days...this is the first time in a long time where the story, and motives of the character really hit me.
3. Castlevania Symphony of the Night, loved the story, the bad guys were awesome, and the dungeon scrolling/story was top notch. I spent many weeks playing this, some of those nights I was on acid...some good nights. 
2. Tekken 3 for the ps1. After my love affair with Mortal Kombat the fighting genre moved to Tekken, so I followed suit and dominated this game like no other....spent hours, days, weeks, even fucking dreamed about combo's, and linking throws with King in my damn sleep! I haven't been beaten in a Tekken for so damn long, I cannot even remember the last time I lost at this game. So many good memories around the game, getting shit faced, and throwing down with a lot of friends...
1. Diablo for the ps1...this game is easily the game...in which I dumped the most hours, and blood into. I spent so much time finding all the weapons, amulets, rings, the best armor, and co-op play was great! Finally for a D and D head like myself, I could actually dungeon crawl with a friend. I still have my ps1 memory card with my character files on it...I would play it more, but the memory card won't allow me to save a game, only character....
There's my top ten, there was a lot of other honorable mentions though, like Shadow Gate, Wizards of Wor, Skyrim, Assasins Creed...hell, a lot of honorable mentions....
" Finally, I can play a game for as long as I want and I don't have to put quarters in the machine all the damn time."
I remember this exact thought 
You have a lot of great stuff there and now remind me of my old C64 and C128 machines... Elevator Action... Mr. Do...heh, I loved Mr. Do
Good stuff 
#10
Kingdom Hearts II - Featuring all of your favorite Disney worlds, Kingdom Hearts' sequel is better than the original and is deserving of #10 spot in this list.
#9
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. - Oh boy we have a tie for #9 but a well deserved one at that, take yourself on a journey through the old republic as your decisions influence the outcome of how it all plays out, whether it is rediscovering your identity as the dark lord, saving the galaxy, or in The Sith Lords influencing the path your companions take.
#8
Super Mario World - My favorite Mario game and one of the best Super Mario games of all time. This game did so much right from the secret exits, shortcuts, secret worlds, and the introduction of the Yoshis, this is a game I recommend everyone check out.
#7
Dragon Age: Origins - From the creators of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comes the dark fantasy epic and what I argue to be the greatest WRPG of all time. The game is very similar to Knights of the Old Republic in gameplay but taking on a much darker tone, and your companions are some of the deepest they've ever been in a Bioware RPG (especially a certain "Witch of the Wilds" and as always your decisions will influence the outcome but this time the scale of that is greater than Knights of the Old Republic.
#6
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - This is the game which solidified the Legend of Zelda formula for nearly a decade to come. This game features some of the toughest dungeons in the series' history, a very good overall difficulty, a lot to do, and the best 2D Zelda overworld. Simply put A Link to the Past is the best 2D Zelda of all time.
#5
Chrono Trigger - This game is the arguably the greatest story of time traveling ever told in a RPG featuring multiple endings at 13+ endings which was a huge deal back in the 90s, and featuring a very unique and interesting battle system. This is a must own for all RPG fans.
#4
Xenoblade Chronicles - Monolith Soft's most recent RPG is simply put amazing. It features 60 - 120+ hours of gameplay (depending on if you are 100%ing the game or just going for the bare minimum), loads of sidequests, a amazing soundtrack, a pretty open world, likable characters, and a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat with all of it's twists.
#3
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - The successor to Ocarina of Time. You must stop the world from ending in 3 days but here's the twist you have a lot to do in those 3 days. Aided by the Ocarina of Time, the hero Link journeys to Termina to stop the doomsday and along the way Link does a lot of sidequests for people to make Clock Town a very happy place, featuring a system where the NPCs actually live day to day lives instead of just standing around, Majora's Mask was way ahead of it's time and I recommend anyone check it out.
#2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - The Legend of Zelda's first foray into 3D and it changed gaming forever. Featuring a targeting system which many games would go on to adapt later you can explore the land of Hyrule in 3D. This game also featured several new races to the series, and proved that The Legend of Zelda could not only be a success in 3D but indeed "Legendary".
AND THE MOMENT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.
#1
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - 13 years after The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time revolutionized gaming along came the next revolution in the Zelda franchise right in time for it's 25th anniversary. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is what I would simply call the greatest video game of all time. The motion controls simply feel right for this game and the combat is better than ever, it actually requires that you pay attention to the movements of your enemies. The characters are likable (even the main villain), the world below is full of intricate puzzles while the world above nets you a ton of sidequests, and Skyward Sword is arguably the toughest of the 3D Zelda entries. If that wasn't enough once you beat the game you unlock a even tougher version of the game called Hero Mode where you take double the damage. Simply put Skyward Sword is a masterpiece and what I would argue is that it's near perfect (there is no such thing as a truly perfect game) and is in my opinion the greatest video game ever made.
Thank you for taking the time to read my list, I hope you enjoyed it.
My buddy John brought over his snes with F-Zero and LttP and I went and bought all three that day. The sunny day to the thunderstorm right at the start was stunning at the time, I'd not seen anything like it.... Good stuff, thanks
It's fun. Wait until you hit the dragons, and you'd better have your armor socketed appropriately. Which character is your favorite? I played the Knight/Vampire as strictly a knight, which is a challenging way to play, but fun.
I also love the Dark Elf. He's amazing with his weapons. There are so many surprises and quests in that game, that if you haven't played it, you'd be shocked. Stay with it - later in the game you get a TON of surprises .
Oh - and if you play the Demoness, she's the reason for having crossbows in the game. She kicks ass with them.
Pure fun. There are little surprises for each of the characters that are only open to them . Nerdy humor also abounds, it's a great game.
Taking trading as a skill is a must at a higher level. There are so many builds to the game, it isn't funny, but trading allows you to buy higher level weapons and armor. Forgot to ask - what level are you with your Gladiator?
