I played Deus Ex on PC back in the day.

I decided to download it from Gog.com today. I also installed the latest version of GMDX mod mentioned in that DF Retro video. It looks and feels like I remember it.

36. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and 5: Skyrim

Well I just spent a good amount of posts discussing why I love these games in a different thread, amazing timing, lol. Obviously I'm a console gamer, I was not into RPGs at all until FFVII and then it was just JRPGs. So this whole PC WRPG was alien to me but looked super cool. Enter Morrowind for Xbox, my first Bethesda game and first look into this incredible game that allows so much freedom in what to do. Now I had Morrowind basic, which came with no way to track quests, it was a disorganized mess. I had a piece of paper that I shoved into the game box with all the quests I was currently doing, who gave me the quest and where to go after I completed it because the stupid game would not tell you (well it did in a giant journal thats useless). So for as blown away at the freedom I was, I was also frustrated at the lack of simple quality of life features that any normal game should have. Then there was the almost game breaking shit you could do. So I found a spell that lets you levitate, you can literally fly anywhere in the game. I found this floating city, beautiful location so I levitated to some parts of the city where I guess I was not supposed to be at, so guards would come at me, and I killed one in self defense. Now I am wanted by EVERYONE, guards way higher level than me want me dead the second I step foot in this THE MAIN CITY of the game. All the major quests are there and I cant step foot in without being brutally murdered. I also screwed up my save file so I couldnt go to one before I became wanted. The game was practically broken for me, I dont remember why I couldnt just go to jail or whatever but I tried and failed. So I quit the game.

But thats kind of the fun, just how so damn free it was that I broke my game through playing. Enter Oblivion, a major launch window game for the 360. The hype for this game was huge, it was the game to get for the 360 early on and reviews hailed it as an RPG masterpiece, more so cause it finally fixed all those issues Morrowind had. It wasn't an obtuse CRPG, it had console sensibilites meaning it was playble. Sure some RPG elements were toned down, I don't care, I'm not here to Min/Max my character, or pick one class or any of that crap. I just want to explore, do everything, be everything and have fun, thats what Oblivion was. Now I had an issue cause I didn't have a 360 until many years later, so guess what I did... waited for the PS3 version. And do you guys remember how PS3 ports were early on that gen, they were disasters. And yet I played through a game where one glitch made it so I could not touch water. Literally if I stepped into a puddle my character would explode. So I took that as a new challenge, I won't touch water, lets do this.

What an adventure though, that first moment when you step out of the jail and see this gorgeous green lush tree filled world to explore. Every direction available, no choice a wrong one, just go and interesting things will happen... well sometimes you just kill rats in a cellar... but many other times interesting things happen. Ghosts haunting a person, joining one of the many guilds and getting involved in conspiracies, becoming an assassin. The main story was ok, it involved Oblivion gates and entering that hell scape, they got very repetitive as they were all mostly the same. I almost ruined my playthrough because of the horrible level scaling system which locked me into a higher tier of difficulty way way sooner than I should at a crucial story moment, under powered when an army of spider demons attack a city and I had to survive it. I could have lowered the difficulty and I may have a bit but I still played it like a challenge mode and came up with some genius ways to slowly kill them one by one. That kind of improvisation made the combat fun. Oblivion was the first Bethesda game I played from start to finish and I was in love with this kind of game.

A few years later, in that same generation (remember when developers didnt need 6 years to make a game?!), came Skyrim. An even bigger critical darling, even more people calling it the greatest RPG world ever created. It was also even more streamlined to play better at the expense of hardcore RPGing, again i don't care. It played better, had better combat, it ran far better than Oblivion on PS3, and it packed a better main stories with dragons. Dragons are awesome. Most of the same praise applies here, Skyrim is not winning any innovation awards, it just took what was done before and refined it. It's still hundreds of hours worth of quality exploration and storytelling. I actually want to return to this game because I missed an entire city, the game is massive. But I am afraid to get hooked in again, these games suck your life for 100 hours. I cannot wait for TES6 and the world they will be able to make in next gen.

Star Tropics?