18. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Its early 2000s and I have a DC, PS2 and GC but refused to get an Xbox. Its just too many consoles I said. My friend got the Xbox and we would play Halo with LAN parties, thats all I needed from the Xbox. Then Sega went third party and started to put a bunch of their games on Xbox, hmm ok, maybe I want one. And then Lucasarts annouced an epic RPG coming to xbox, an epic Star Wars RPG where you play a Jedi, holy shit. So I needed an xbox and I got one shortly after KOTOR came out, with KOTOR of course. Mind you I had never played a WRPG before. Never played a Bethesda game, never played a Bioware game, the only RPGs I knew were the japanese kind. So KOTOR was a totally amazing experience not just cause of the expert use of the license I love so dearly but because it was a kind of game I never played before.

One of my first memories of the game came from reading the manual and me thinking "what the fuck is a dice roll?!" There were all these stats and some number would randomly be rolled every few seconds and it needs to pass some defense check before htting the opponent, I knew this would be different than what I knew. And yeah it was a bit of an adjustment but man did I love real time combat. What a breath of fresh air compared to random battles that would stop the game and enter a seperate battle mode, this was seemless, the action frantic with many choices having to be made on the fly. It starts simple enough with blasters and maybe a vibroblade but once you get to the academy and become a Jedi then the fun begins.

They nailed the feeling of being a Jedi not just in combat but in the fantastic story scenarios that would pop up. I can't think of a better property than Star Wars for an RPG about choices and playing good or bad, light and dark is built into the lore. I loved role playing as a nobel Jedi, making tough decisions that didn't make my game easier but it was the right thing to do. Bioware were masters of creating great storylines for not just your character vut your whole squad. What a great cast of characters from the Han Solo like Carth, to Ballista and the scene stealing HK-47 who was hilarious from start to finish. I loved the squad, I got to know them, have relationships based on my decisions, never had I played an RPG where my actions changed the story. I played the game back to back being an evil fucker the second time and it did feel cathartic to murder some scum I desperately wanted to before but took the high road, my dark side version was not as merciful. Also everyone likes dark side powers more than light side.

I was in awe at the size and scale of the game. Visiting famous star wars planets, many that we never seen in movies and this was before any of the TV stuff. Every planet was a treasure trove of new missions and great side quests. My favorite was a murder mystery where you serve as a sort of investigator and bring forth evidence to a judge, I scenario that Bioware would use over and over in many games but it was fresh this time. Above all KOTOR captured the essence of Star Wars perfectly in a time where the prequels seemed to miss what made the OT so great. Lets not forget the incredible story which I would put up against the movies, perfectly told with a twist ending worthy of "I am your father". It easily became my favorite RPG ever, I thought wtf was I wasting time with JRPGs if all WRPGs were like this! Well they arent all, this was Bioware at the top of their game. I would go on to buy every single Bioware game since, some hits, some misses; I thank them for opening me up to this new kind of game.

Foolz said:

A bit bloated, but a solid Star Wars experience.

You're bloated, meatbag.

17. Doom

When I think of the most important formative games, games that shaped the medium, few are as important as Doom. Yes Catacomb and Wolfenstein were  technically the first FPSs but Doom is the one that defined the genre. Back in the day first person shooter wasn't even a used term, these games were basically called "Doom games" and after doom hit there was an explosion of them, they mutated into different forms and are now the most popular genre, it all started with Doom. Doom also ibtroduced the first death match and online play which is obviously the biggest aspect of gaming now. Yet we can forget all that and still find so much to love about this all time classic because to this day i challenge any of you to find a more well crafted and paced game of its kind. It's one of those few games that you can say is perfect in its design.

The year is 1993, little David is now 10 years old and is now craving more edgy media. Remember the early 90s was filled with properties going for gross factor, stuff like Garbage Pail Kids, it was cool to be crude. In the video game space Mortal Kombat has just hit and now an explosion of gory "mature" titles were coming out. In this climate we get Doom, which is not only the most violent game but a revolution in 3D graphics and a kind of game that was so fresh and mindblowing. Doom was the perfect storm, a confluence of 90s trends with the aging gamer than grew up with Atari and NES, as well as the booming PC gaming market. While consoles were in a period of classic 16 bit gaming the PC side was basically our glimpse into the future, new genres, 3D graphics, online play, and it was all lead by Doom.

Word of mouth started with the release of a demo, shareware they called it. I don't even know how I got the disc but I did have the first chapter of Doom on those old floppy discs. From the first moment you here that rock rift and you shoot a zombie dude dead you understand everything doom is about. You run around as gunfire and fireballs fly around you. You find a shotgun and eviscerate an imp at close range and watch it blow into chunks. It was so visceral, so fast paced, Doom is video game cocaine, all adrenaline. The genius of Doom is it's incredible level design, it's one thing to just have rooms of enemies, it's another to craft intricate maze like levels that force you to remember paths and explore while everything is trying to kill you. Secrets litter the levels with extremely valuable power ups that come in handy just as you are at the edge of death. Is there a sound better than that door opening sound as you relentlessly pound the spacebar at every wall "ugh ugh ugh" at every point looking for a secret door, we have all done it.

The art design is so recognizable, iconic designs and sound effects that will forever be engraved into the minds of those who play. You can be in the dark and know what hell spawn is coming at you just by the scream it makes. Few moments are as panic inducing as when you hit a switch and doors open to unleash hordes of demons at you unexpectedly. Every gun has its uses, the power ups all needed, it's a perfectly balanced game. I remember the thrill of the first time you pick up the BFG9000, to say it's name was edgy at the time, few weapons live up to the name. That sound it makes and the mini nuke line effect is so satisfying.

Like many PC games of the 90s I played Doom at my friends house. He got all versions, the original, final doom, got Doom 2 and he bought nearly every doom clone game there was. I played heretic, hexen, rise of the triad, quake, and the so 90s it was basically a parody Duke Nukem 3D. They were all good in their own way but none were Doom, in fact nothing has ever surpassed Doom. I write this now after playing Doom on my switch with some of the added levels including Sigil that Romero just made last year. The game is still a masterpiece. It's still perfectly playable today. It is an all time masterpiece.