Games you must play before you die.

[castletonsnob]

This topic was inspired by the book "1001 Video Games You Musty Play Before You Die". I've heard it's a good book, but it came out in 2010, so it's kind of dated.

Are there any games you feel like someone MUST play before they die?

[diehard]

Great topic,

I would have to say the Sega R360 would be at the top of my list to recommend.
$5AUD for 1 credit at the old casino in Melbourne (late 1990's).

If you see one out in the wild do what ever you can to jump in it.
It was a great (dizzying) experience. lol

Random clip for reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDr2jNo1dmI

[bikingjahuty]

Pretty much if it's a game you've heard most people heavily praise and it was conventionally considered to be an excellent game, I'd say it's a must play. After gaming nearly my entire life and being a collector for nearly half of it, these well known and well loved games are often the ones that stand out above the rest. Very rarely do I play a game that sold poorly or that is fairly obscure that even comes close to competing. In fact, most "hidden gem" games I've played are fairly mediocre at best, or just plain bad. I think a lot of collectors want to pretend these hidden gem games are just as good as their better known, more successful counterparts in order to justify their often exorbitant prices, but the truth truth is they'll never compete. Link's Awakening will always be vastly better than Alundra. Every mainline Pokemon game blows every Digimon RPG out of the water. The Mariokart games will always be better then nearly all other kart racing games ever released.


I actually own that book you mentioned, and I think 95% of the games that made it in deserve to be in there. Likewise, most games that received over 1 90 on Metacritic would also be contenders as must play games.

[wartoy]

That is a really cool book it's one of my favorites! Lots of good recommendations to look out for. It's been a while since I have given it a read through though. I'm not sure Allen Wake was mentioned (probably was) but I recommend it anyways same goes for Soul Reaver/legacy of Kain series.

[ferraroso]

I will try to stick to mostly unkown/underappreciated games I actually played for at least a few hours:

Saturn:
- Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari
- Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen
- Steamgear Mash

PC Engine:
- Batman
- Valkyrie no Densetsu
- Die Hard
- Bloody Wolf
- Eternal City
- Hihou Densetsu Kris no Bouken

Master System:
- Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck
- Jurassic Park

MSX:
- Ski Command

Famicom:
- Cocoron

PlayStation:
- Calcolo!
- Wild 9

Xbox:
- Sentou Yousei Yukikaze

Super Famicom:
- Gundam Wing: Endless Duel
- Septentrion

SwanCrystal:
- From TV Animation One Piece: Chopper no Daiboken

[dhaabi]

After finding the list of the games featured in 1,001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, it doesn't seem that interesting of a read.

It's a little difficult to discern whether the author simply didn't know about some of the more interesting game experiences created by smaller developers or if they instead did but chose to discard them in favor of modern AAA titles (evident by the approximate 550 games listed which were released during the 2000s alone.) Some of the former types of games are mentioned, like Façade, which is nice to see, but it's a small number. Meanwhile, there are plenty of franchises mentioned which are hugely over-represented, like The Legend of Zelda. Sure, these games are fantastic and well-regarded by most, but does the book need to mention twelve titles from the series? Are the differences between these games really that vast and innovate with each subsequent entry to the degree they're all worth covering? (For some yes, but overwhelmingly no.) To me, it comes across as the author only being knowledgeable about games on a general level. 1,001 is a large number, after all. Few, if any, games which were never released and localized outside of Japan are listed, which I'm sure there are plenty of games worth mentioning (as I can think of a few right now, without much thought.)

Below is only a small number of games released prior to the book's 2013 publication which easily (and to some, rightfully) could have been featured that I was able to think of:
Bad Milk
The Binding of Isaac
Catherine
D
Device 6
Digital: A Love Story
Lose/Lose
Muscle March
Passage
QWOP
Second Life
Space Funeral
Super Meat Boy
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Yume Nikki
ZZT

In the ten full years since the book's release, here are more modern games (some I've played and greatly enjoyed, some I've played which didn't resonate as much as others, and some I haven't played at all) which are notable considerations worth highlighting:
7 Days to End with You
Agar.io
Baba Is You
Dear Esther
Disco Elysium
Doki Doki Literature Club
Dreams
Dujanah
Everything
Furi
Getting over It with Bennett Foddy
Gone Home
Gris
Her Story
Hexceed
Kentucky Route Zero
Mosa Lina
Overcooked!
Papers, Please
Rain World
Ring Fit Adventure
Something Something Soup Something
The Stanley Parable
Superhot
That Dragon, Cancer
Thumper
Undertale
What Remains of Edith Finch
Who's Lisa?

[randomstranger]

You mean updating/expanding the list with games came out since 2010?

Fallout: New Vegas
Red Dead Redemption
Dark Souls
Portal 2
Mass Effect 2&3
Alice: Madness Returns
Dishonored
The Witcher 2&3
Grand Theft Auto 5 (single player)
Metro: Last Light
Wolfenstein: The New Order & The Old Blood
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Ori and the Blind Forest
Doom 2016
Dirt Rally
NieR:Automata
Cuphead
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Wasteland 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Resident Evil Village
Elden Ring

[courtlyhades296]

Donkey Kong (Arcade)
Tetris: The Grand Master 2 (Arcade)
Adventure (2600)
Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Mega Man 2 (NES)
Contra (NES)
Final Fantasy (NES)
Rockman 4 Minus Infinity (NES ROM Hack)
Phantasy Star (SMS)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Super Mario World (SNES)
Super Metroid (SNES)
Final Fantasy VI (SNES)
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES)
Final Fantasy VI: Brave New World (SNES ROM Hack)
Terranigma (SNES)
Super Mario RPG (SNES)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Tales of Phantasia (SNES with DeJap translation)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES)
Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis)
Beyond Oasis (Genesis)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)
Spyro: Year of the Dragon (PS1)
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii or Switch 3D All-Stars)
Tetris (GB)
Pokemon Crystal (GBC)
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC)
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
Dragon Warrior III (GBC)
Pokemon FireRed (GBA)
Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)
Final Fantasy V (GBA)
Romancing SaGa 3 (Xbox One or Switch)
Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
VVVVVV (PC)
Doom (PC)

[castletonsnob]

Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season 1.

[stealthrush]

Initial game I thought of was Radiant Silvergun for Sega Saturn. Although taking a look at 1001 Video Games You Musty Play Before You Die it was already mentioned- in that case...

Bonanza Bros. (Arcade)
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Dreamcast)
Detana!! TwinBee (Arcade)
Die Hard Arcade (Arcade)
Gain Ground (Arcade)
Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Neo-Geo)
Gate of Thunder (TurboGrafx-CD)
Grandia (Sega Saturn)
Kirby Super Star (Super Nintendo)
Lords of Thunder (TurboGrafx-CD)
Omega Boost (PlayStation)
Parodius (Arcade)
Pocky & Rocky (Super Nintendo)
Puyo Puyo Tsuu (Arcade)
Shock Wave 2: Beyond the Gate (3DO)
Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels (3DO)
The King of Fighters '98 (Neo-Geo)
Thunder Force IV (Sega Genesis)
Twinkle Star Sprites (Neo-Geo)
Umihara Kawase (Super Nintendo)

[marvelvscapcom2]

Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season 1.

A man of taste. A man of distinguished refined taste. Noiiuce. I love TTTWDS1DE


Other games I add to this mix are Far Cry 5 and Parappa takes too long on the crapper. A indie passion project I been working on where you play as a disgruntled Spyro that becomes impatient when Parappa and other sony mascots take 20 minute dumps at the local costco. Requiring you to hold in your reptilian rage.

[Warmsignal]

Pretty much if it's a game you've heard most people heavily praise and it was conventionally considered to be an excellent game, I'd say it's a must play. After gaming nearly my entire life and being a collector for nearly half of it, these well known and well loved games are often the ones that stand out above the rest. Very rarely do I play a game that sold poorly or that is fairly obscure that even comes close to competing. In fact, most "hidden gem" games I've played are fairly mediocre at best, or just plain bad. I think a lot of collectors want to pretend these hidden gem games are just as good as their better known, more successful counterparts in order to justify their often exorbitant prices, but the truth truth is they'll never compete. Link's Awakening will always be vastly better than Alundra. Every mainline Pokemon game blows every Digimon RPG out of the water. The Mariokart games will always be better then nearly all other kart racing games ever released.

I simply can't agree with this. It's basically like saying that only what the critics praise and what gets well advertised is actually worthwhile, and obscure equals mediocre to bad? I don't think the notoriety of game is any measure of the amount of fun I can have playing it. I'm certainly not trying to pump up the r@re gem$ and all the crap that people are willing to over-pay for. At a certain point, I think no video game is worth that much, it's all collector BS. But I do think there's a lot of good, even great games that most people never played or hear much about. Sometimes these games will even receive critical praise, but the marketing and the hype wasn't there so it just goes unloved by the masses.

One small example being a game like Immortals of Aveum. EA release this game while putting absolutely nothing into it's promotion, there was no hype, etc. It received some critical praise, but when it dropped the typical jaded gamer attitude was "meh, what even is this? oh it's EA, who cares" and so it sort came and went. But I care, I like first person shooting with a sci-fi adventure type of theme in a well made single player game, which we don't see too often anymore. Will this game ever make into the gaming history books? Hell no, it didn't sell at all. People won't ever know this game. Still a good game, and I stand by that. This kind of thing happens a lot, and has always happened in the games industry. I don't necessarily think that Call of Duty 57 is a better, more worthwhile game, just because it sold better and a lot of people will undoubted look back fondly on playing Call of Duty 57 in the future, whereas almost nobody will remember Immortals.

Will they ever compete? By what metric? Sales, popularity, influence? No. Still don't think that makes them inferior games to play, at least not as a rule. I'll grant you that there's not been very many quality titles in the industry of Mario Kart cloning, but the Alundra shade is a bit harsh. A lot of people love that game, and I don't think it's just because the physical copy has become expensive to obtain.

[sworddude]

Link's Awakening will always be vastly better than Alundra.

, but the Alundra shade is a bit harsh. A lot of people love that game, and I don't think it's just because the physical copy has become expensive to obtain.

Truth the game is goated and I am one of those people that favors it over link to the past.

Besides it's a newer game so it's easier to make 2d games than it was in the snes era. so it's not even lesser quality in terms of 2d content.

It's a more mature take on this kinda game and the pixel art is superior over link to the past with them 32bit grapics.

Also if where being fair in both the US and europe A cib copy of link to the past has always been more pricy than a copy of alundra with a map. so it's not even that pricy to obtain. and it's not that rare of game either. it's a bit uncommon tops this ain't part of the pricy more rare ps1 rpg's. for the longest time even cart only surpassed a cib + map alundra copy in europe

Pretty much if it's a game you've heard most people heavily praise and it was conventionally considered to be an excellent game,

Overall It's usually correct for most.

But if it's outside the usual genre's or 2D all bets are off

With more obsecure genre's them bigger devs ain't making those kinda games and with 2d you don't need a huge budget to make stuff look good even at the time. if the gameplay is hittin and it looks nice it might aswell be a must play for some. Also if you are into more arcade esk games you are bound to run into smaller companies that can sometimes pump out gold. Nintendo in 2d is less arcade esk I'd say it's why I'm usually more of a fan of sega, capcom SNK Konami stuff for 2D.

Every mainline Pokemon game blows every Digimon RPG out of the water. The Mariokart games will always be better then nearly all other kart racing games ever released.

Mario kart is mario kart it do be facts in this case. Pretty much uncontested even if some folks swear by CTR on ps1 and sega all star racing made a small ripple in it's peak.

In terms of pokemon, it has fallen from grace in the last decade. In peak era's sure but Cyber sleuth is beating the last couple pokemon gens I'd say which ain't an accomplishment. but it's something.

[sly345]

You mean updating/expanding the list with games came out since 2010?

Fallout: New Vegas
Red Dead Redemption
Dark Souls
Portal 2
Mass Effect 2&3
Alice: Madness Returns
Dishonored
The Witcher 2&3
Grand Theft Auto 5 (single player)
Metro: Last Light
Wolfenstein: The New Order & The Old Blood
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Ori and the Blind Forest
Doom 2016
Dirt Rally
NieR:Automata
Cuphead
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Wasteland 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Resident Evil Village
Elden Ring

Nice list but personally, i'd swap ME3 (bad writing, not just the ending and some meh level designs) with ME1, just way better writing all around, driving the car was annoying but nothing is perfect.

To add to the list of post 2010 games:
Red Dead Redemption 2 (even if it has some annoying forced woke parts, it also has some great moments, like the Unshaken ride and the entire second chapter)
Defense Grid (The greatest Tower Defense game ever made)
L.A. Noire (misjudged and underappreciated because it wasn't "GTA in 1946", but every few years i replay it and love the story all over again)
Jagged Alliance 3 (after what felt like 5 billion failed attempts at a sequel, including a bad kickstarter, we finally got a great follow up to the amazing JA2!)
XCOM 2 (Modding makes this beyond amazing, storm trooping Aliens with the A-Team, Star Trek characters, Hulk Hogan, Tommy Wiseau or Homer Simpson gets never old!)
Inspector Schmidt: A Bavarian Tale (Formerly "Totgeschwiegen - A Bavarian Tale" - maybe because i'm bavarian and thus i just resonate a lot with the setting, the voice acting but it's a wonderful RPG/Adventure)
Lollipop Chainsaw (It's Suda51, you either love the quirky insanity or you hate it. I love it and all the references to old-school horror and old-school video games is awesome. The Harvester level with Dead Or Alive's You Spin Me Round is basically stuck in my memory)
Enderal: Forgotten Stories (Yeah, it technically is just a total conversion of Skyrim, but goddamn, it's one of the greatest TC's in history, so well written, voice acted, gameplay improvements, everything that it feels like a proper "AAA"-title and puts those from bigger studios to shame actually)
Door Kickers Franchise (Door Kickers 1 & 2 are strategy games, while Action Squad is a awesome sidescroller with Co-Op)
112 Operator (You operate police/medics/firefighters in a city with calls, like Paper's Please and other games there's a ton of story depth to it and decisions to be made that can give you a insanely bad feeling or make you insanely happy if you manage to safe lives)
Yakuza 0 (in my oppinion easily the best of the entire franchise)

Lastly, the in my oppinion trifecta of greatest PVE Shooters ever:
Payday 2 (The total failure of Payday 3 shows how great it truly is)
Deep Rock Galactic (Drunk Dwarves in Space kicking alien ass, what's not to love?)
Helldivers 2 (It's so over the top, even Starship Troopers looks tame in comparison, it's beyond amazing)

[randomstranger]

Nice list but personally, i'd swap ME3 (bad writing, not just the ending and some meh level designs) with ME1, just way better writing all around, driving the car was annoying but nothing is perfect.

ME1 is a pre-2010 game so that's why I left off my list. For example The Witcher 1 is absent for the same reason. If I'd make a full list about games of all time, I would have included both, but it was just meant as an update for a list about pre-2010 games.