Topic: Your personal top ten games of all time.

[K-man]

Let's have em.  I'm sure this thread has been made before, but this console generation has finally produced some gems that are worthy of cracking my top ten, and I'm curious to see everyone's.

I'll post mine when it's together.

[idolminds]

My rough draft list that I'm coming up with off the top of my head:

Tribes
Monkey Island
Grim Fandango
Quake
Doom
Metal Slug
Metroid Prime
Guild Wars
Tomb Raider
Dreamfall

Its really hard to narrow it down to 10. I mean, most of those can be listed as a series. I like all the Quake games, all the Tribes games, all the Doom games, all the Lucasarts adventure games, etc. But...yeah, theres my rough draft.

[Xessive]

Tough call to make, so I'll list my top 10 in no particular order:

Psychonauts
Oblivion
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Metal Gear Solid 4
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Super Street Fighter IV
Tomb Raider: Legend/Anniversary/Underworld
Dragon Age: Origins
Assassin's Creed 2
Rainbow Six Vegas 2


Honorable mentions:

The Witcher
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Fallout 3
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Modern Warfare 2
F.E.A.R.
Neverwinter Nights
Lumines II
Dawn of War 2
Unreal Tournament 3
Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Left 4 Dead
Splinter Cell Conviction
Mirror's Edge

Man, this list is just gonna go on too long. There are too many great games on my mind, these were just all the ones that stuck out the most in the span of the last 5 minutes.

EDIT:
Damn it, how the heck did I forget Deus Ex and Mass Effect?!

[K-man]

I'll allow series, since Metal Gear Solid as a whole will probably be in mine.

[iPPi]

I can't number them, but here's ten that absolutely stand out for me:

Deus Ex
Grim Fandango
The Longest Journey
Super Mario Galaxy
World of Warcraft (Classic and Burning Crusade; Wrath of the Lich King sucks)
Ikaruga
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Mass Effect 1 & 2
Starcraft II
Hitman series

I also absolutely love the Assassin's Creed series but it doesn't fit into the best 10 of all time for me.  Deus Ex, Grim Fandango, and The Longest Journey are still my three favorite games of all time.  I am still waiting for the Dreamfall chapters to come out, but they're on hold indefinitely until Funcom finishes their new MMO

Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best games I've played in recent memory.  I had an absolute blast with it; the exception are some of the purple coin challenges but I did end up finishing the game.  I have intentions to get the second one but I don't have time to play games right now.

WoW -- I have invested over four years into that game.  It's a love/hate relationship.  I hate the game now, but I cannot deny that I had a lot of fun with the game before Wrath came out.  After that, the game just went downhill and now I have zero interest in it.  That said, the good old days were great.

Ikaruga is one of the best games I've played.  It's simple, but there's a hidden depth to it if you can get past the steep difficulty curve.

KOTOR has an awesome storyline, even if the gameplay was a bit flawed, especially near the end.  It is one of the best story in a video game ever told.

Mass Effect 1 & 2 are absolutely awesome.  The personal element and the rich storyline and characters make up for any deficiencies in the gameplay.

Starcraft II - it's the only thing I am playing right now.  The online play is so much fun.  The Starcraft series is also really the only RTS games I play.

Hitman - flawed games in general, but I love the concept of the game and am always looking forward to the next one.

[sirean_syan]

I've spent a few minutes thinking about what next generation games I would even consider adding to the list and only two really made the cut. The first is Metal Gear 4 because it's full of all sorts of crazy, but it probably not make the cut. The second is Demon's Souls because it's just top to bottom something that I fell in love with. Odds are it'll make the list. The Mass Effects, Dead Space, Pixel Junk Shooter, and Starcraft 2 are all pretty special, but they just don't have personal staying power when compared to everything else I already love.

This is something of my first order rough cut and even with some semblance of order. While it's hard to narrow things down to this point, I'm really going for stuff that either sorts of sticks out because I feel like it left a true lasting impression on me. In order to do that, usually it had to change the way I think about something (games or otherwise) or is something that I just find myself thinking about often. As a result a few gamy games that I totally love didn't make it in. For example, I cut something like Metroid Prime 2 despite enjoying it more as a game than Prime 1 as I feel Prime 1 created a better world and it has stuck in my head more as a real experience because of it. I don't want to lump up series because each game in any series I would consider tended to affect me differently. I would also argue that any game I'd be completely willing to put here would have to be near perfect in it's own way. That means nothing that I feel didn't work to a game's advantage in some way.

Freespace 2
Metroid Prime
Homeworld
Tie Fighter
Super Metroid
Sacrifice
Rez
Tie Fighter
Day of the Tentacle
Demon's Souls
Ico

[idolminds]

God damn, I left Ico and SotC off my list. uh...I guess I will condense Doom/Quake into "id Software shooters" and then add "Team ICO games". That works, right?

[K-man]

I can do a top five in order for certain, the next fivewill have to round it out.

1 - Chrono Trigger:  Every time I play this game, it's like coming home.  Perfect from beginning to end, indisputable number one game for me.

2 - Super Metroid:  Told a story without words.  The music and environments didn't need them to tell a story.  I've probably played through this game more times than any other in my gaming history, and it's just as fun every time.

3 - Final Fantasy VI:  On any given day could take the #2 spot in my list.  Great story, great characters, and a stellar soundtrack.

4 - Castlevania:  Symphony of the Night:  Like Super Metroid, sheer joy every time I play through it.  I even bought the Saturn version so I could see the extra two levels added to it.

5 - Metal Gear Solid series:  I could go on for days about how much I love this series.  From my days of playing it on NES through completing 4 and ending the story, no game created the anticipation that these titles did.  I purchased game systems just to play them.

6-10 in no particular order

Uncharted 2:  Wonderful game through and through.  Naughty Dog hit a home run with this series.  For those of you who haven't played either game.  DO IT.  Probably one of the finest examples of a "next gen" experience

Fallout 3:  I admit, never played the first two games (and still haven't).  But Bethesda did an excellent job here.  Fixed everything that was bad about Oblivion and released a stellar title.  Amazing how you can look back so fondly on a landscape that was in utter ruin.  I cannot wait to visit New Vegas.

Civilization (series):  I remember explaining in detail my exploits in my first Civ II game the night before to my 3 best high school friends.  I've never been a strategy game guy, but this series does it for me.  I haven't purchased V yet, but that's purely a money situation.  I love these games and they just keep getting better.

Doom:  No explanation necessary.  In fact I'll go ahead and throw Quake 2 in as well.  I've played through that game more times than I can remember.

Tecmo Super Bowl:  The first football game with real stat tracking.  Coupled with a customizable playbook and player substitutions, this was my go-to football game for years.

[MysterD]

There's probably a bunch I could debate over and all, so...
Here's my list, for now...

Top 10 (in no particular order):
Planescape: Torment
The Witcher
Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn
Dragon Age: Origins
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Fallout 3
Deus Ex
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Bioshock
The Longest Journey

HONORABLE MENTION:
Mass Effect 1 and 2
F.E.A.R.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Quake 2
Shadow of Destiny
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Hitman: Blood Money
Silent Hill 1 and 2
Divine Divinity
Fallout 1 and 2
GTA: Vice City
Gothic 1
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Thief series
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Assassin's Creed 2