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Have your favorite games changed over time, or mostly stayed the same?

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dhaabi:
For many years, I've struggled with the thought of assigning a favorites label or building a top ranking for pretty much any media I consume which, of course, also includes video games. All sorts of aspects captivate me for different reasons, as what works set out to achieve are all different. At the same time, how I feel at any given moment plays a factor as to what I prefer over something else. If anything, I recognize just how effective games are or aren't within their respective genres. Novel systems with exceptional implementations, the perfect gameplay loop, a message or theme that's deeply resonating. Or, the opposite. Even this more refined genre classification doesn't make the task any easier for me, though.

Like many others from whom I've seen in other similar discussions, I think that, for a lot of games I hold particularly high regards for and would even say have helped define on some level who I am as who plays games or perhaps even as a person, the idea is more rooted in thinking fondly of a certain moment of my life and the memories I remember from that time. In my adult life, this has become much easier since keeping track of the things I've experienced and when that was, as I'm better able to associate a specific part of my life with what sort of media I was consuming at that time.

I think an interesting exercise I may try to do after giving this topic some thought is to think of what my favorite games from the ones I've played may be in this very moment and to see how that list may differ in a year's passing.

marvelvscapcom2:
Wildly.  My genre tastes have shifted so immensely that games I used to overlook or even overall dislike such as Resident Evil 2 are now flat out scraping at the heels of my top 10 list.  Uncharted 4 immensely blew me away. I was late to the party with many PS3 era games.  Then their are big retro hitters like DK Country that entered my life during a bad time and it's really important to me. Gran Turismo 7.  Tough competition in last year alone.


Then theirs games I used to love that for some reason I can't seem to be blown away by a 2nd or 3rd time. Those include TLOU 1 and Super Smash Bros franchise as a whole.

Some new entires such as hogwarts legacy are certainly sitting at the table as well. But my official top 10? Has my top of all tops changed? No. Doubtful to ever bend.  Their are 1 big reason why.

1. Nostalgia is a discontinued dressing so the modern burgers albiet better can never taste as good :)  I just have deep rooted bias towards some games.





Teenage me was hungry from repetitive action. Think need for speed and call of duty. Guts. Zombies. Blood.

20s me loves wrapping up in plot like a warm blanket. Id prefer engaging character development over almost all including fluidity of action.  Still love need for speed though.


However my top 10 I dont think has budged since well before 2020.  If maybe since I was a kid. And most have a reason why its hard to be knocked out.

1. Grand Theft Auto Vice City  (unable to be topped because it is flawless in design. Soundtrack is impeccable. Newer GTAs surpass it in scope but nostalgia has built an unstoppable foundation for me. It feels more fluid and concise in story pacing than any other sandbox)

2. Crash Team Racing (imo the greatest cart racer ever made. Slide boost was perfected here)

3. SMW - No modern mario platformer has topped it including wonder. So I dont see the day it ever happens. Its the design.

4. Tetris - 10,000,000 puzzle games come. Only one stands. Its tetris. Anyone can play it. Anyone can master it. It's just poetry in motion.

5. NFL Street 2 (the outlier. I grew up playing this game. It's got a nostalgic 2000s bling era soundtrack. Its easily the most fun arcade sports game ever)

6. Zelda BOTW - I think BOTW topped WW and its a struggle for the top 10. I think BOTW had more scope and beauty on a new and unrivaled tech at the time.

7. Need for Speed Most Wanted (2005) - Impossible to top. Blacklist was perfect. Its just childhood imagined ajd theirs been excellent entires since


So here is where I run out of picks.  Or have a bunch battling in my head.  So 8, 9 and 10 are well open to conversation and could change. So yeah. I feel its always ever expanding. Which is the beauty of art and media in general. It shapes with your life.

randomstranger:
It changed in the sense that it's an ever expanding list. I don't think I actually stopped liking or started to like less certain games I used to like. Maybe I found stuff I like more, but my liking is not a finite resource.

telekill:
Many of my favorite series have changed over the years, and generally, for the worse.

Uncharted - It's a dead series, which sucks.
Resident Evil - First person horror now. I prefered the third person survival horror action of 0-6.
Assassin's Creed - Bloat fest, making the games a chore to complete.
Tomb Raider - This is the one that has greatly improved. The 2013 reboot was fantastic for the series.
Mass Effect - Time will tell with the new one in the works, but after Dragon Age, I'm not expecting it to be good.

Everything else that I've really enjoyed over the years are dead series.

The best that gaming has to offer is behind us.

bikingjahuty:

--- Quote from: telekill on March 16, 2025, 12:14:07 pm ---
The best that gaming has to offer is behind us.

--- End quote ---


You're probably right, but luckily there are more games our currently to play than I'll ever have enough time to play. There is something very sad about not looking forward to the future of video games or knowing that it'll never be as good as it once was, but at leas there are so many games I haven't played that I can try out and hopefully really get into. Also, despite the game industry being way worse than it used to, the occasional gem does still come out. I always hold out hope that at least one game like this will come out once or twice a year.

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