Your all-time favorite game? Let's discuss the best options!
I feel like my “all-time favorite” changes depending on my mood, but if I had to pick just one, I’d probably go with The Witcher 3. That game just hit all the right notes—amazing story, incredible world-building, and so much stuff to do without feeling like pointless filler. Plus, the expansions were just as good, if not better than the base game.
What about you? Are you more into RPGs, shooters, or something else entirely?
Best single game is probably Portal. The pacing, storytelling, innovation, sound, all are top notch even 20+ years later. Graphics aren't phenomenal, but don't need to be. The challenges and easter eggs made it a blast to 100%.
Super Mario World - just a fun game. Lots of little secrets and fun to speed run.
Titanfall - I played an absurd amount of this one and really wished there was a 3rd one. 1-2 remind me of the pattern seen in trilogys where 1 sets the stage, 2 deviaties pretty far and polarizes fans and then 3 uses the best of both while trying to feel more like 1. (Mario 1-3, Halo 1-3). My favorites in this pattern tend to be 3 so I'm disappointed I never got Titanfall 3.
Pubg - when it was new. Lost me years ago now but that first 6 months to a year was awesome. So many crazy games and absurd fun.
It's easily The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
It has everything I could ask for in a game: Sword fighting. Magic. Secrets. Dungeon crawling. An alternate dimension. Side quests. Different tools and items. There's enough content that it feels fulfilling to complete it. Peak art. Peak music. NPCs don't talk too much, and there are just enough of them to make the world feel alive. Bosses.
It's a difficult question to answer. I personally barely consider Disco Elysium to be a game, more like an interactive story that uses certain game mechanics as grammar elements and punctuation in its storytelling. It's a novel masquerading as a game. It's three novels in a trenchcoat. But if we do count it then it is my pick, by a landslide.
Otherwise it's probably Baldur's Gate 2. It's the story game I've replayed the most over the years and it was absolutely fundamental in my journey as a gamer, the definition of a formative experience. Even though parts of it are dated now (some clunk is to be expected from a 25-year-old game) I still prefer it to BG3. It's got a great story, great companions and an all-time great villain. David Warner put in an incredible performance and even all these years later there aren't many video game villains who have surpassed Irenicus in sheer aura.
The Witcher 3, followed by the Mass Effect trilogy (I consider it as a whole)
And honestly, Cyberpunk 2077 could complete the top 3
But if I have to consider multiplayer games, with 3000+ hours on Warframe (considering I haven't touched it for years), I guess it could also be considered my favorite (I think I also spent 1000h on ME3 multi)
Fallout 2 is probably one of my favourite games of all time. Absolutely amazing game, if a bit sprawly. I've played through it many times and expect I will do again.
Red Alert 2 - the pinnacle of the isometric RTS genre. Bordering on too silly but without tipping into absolute farce. Mechanically very strong, the art is lovely, and even has nostalgia for me.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Massive game but a run can be completed relatively quickly. I always disable the music because I don't like games that try to scare and intimidate me. I'm pretty good at the game so it tends to be pretty relaxing for me, if a bit fugue-state-y.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2: the apex of the Battlefield multiplayer games for me. The others have plenty going for them, but BFBC2 was the best compromise between destructibility, player counts, etc. for my tastes. Sniping took significant skill and one couldn't go prone - it meant that open areas didn't feel like a death sentence (looking at you, later BF games!).
Assassin's Creed: Origins/Odyssey two open world games with beautiful maps and locations to explore. I think I preferred the setting of Origins but the story of Odyssey. A bit of escapist fantasy, I suppose. I loved the Ezio trilogy too, mind you.
same deal, favorites change according to mood, but there are overall few mainstays:
Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis.
It's a childhood favorite I return to every now and then. It's a point&click adventure, and to me it's essentially the 4th (and last) Indiana Jones movie. :D
Apart from one or two bad bits the game pulls, it's otherwise pretty logical from start to finish. 3 different paths from mid to late game, and mostly good voice acting (for the time). I know the game by heart at this point, but still it feels fun to play, every time. Nostalgia-goggles probably play a big part.
kinda spoilery descriptions of said bad bits
there's a "puzzle" where you need to go back and forth trading items between 2 characters, until eventually some hint from the recipient drops. Not hard, just.. tedious.
the hot air balloon controls are bad. Not impossible to use, but just imprecise for no real gameplay reason.
if you didn't LOOK at one specific Atlantean cupboard's door, you have no clue how to solve a later puzzle. Though, you can return to the cupboard, but nothing hints there being instructions for the later puzzle on it.
Cyberpunk 2077
I know it's a divisive game, don't care, works for me. The bleak vibes of the game just speak to me. Have played it through several times since launch, occasionally still find new things here and there. Not the deepest rpg around, but a good action-rpg with neonlights.
Unnamed Space Idle
I've been on this idle/timewaster for way over a year, slow progress raising the numbers all the time. Sure it's a bit low on gameplay, but absolutely neat little game to occasionally click few times when watching some longform content or so.
I feel like my “all-time favorite” changes depending on my mood, but if I had to pick just one, I’d probably go with The Witcher 3. That game just hit all the right notes—amazing story, incredible world-building, and so much stuff to do without feeling like pointless filler. Plus, the expansions were just as good, if not better than the base game.
I replayed the entire game after completing Cyberpunk 2077 and finished it this weekend. Sadly for me the game doesn't hold up that well in various aspects and it was one of my favourites. The story is great, the ending is really well done, but the combat is too simple, the leveling of the game is all over the place, the RPG aspect of the game is really underwhelming and the game is just too damn long. I actually ended up enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 more at the end, but TW3 is a better game in general.
As for my "all-time favorite", that depends.
Nier: Automata changed me, the game had a real impact on me.
Zelda BOTW is the game that made me feel happier while playing it.
Sekiro is the game that just clicked perfectly.
DAO was my all time favourite RPG but Divinity 2/BG3 both took that spot.
Chrono Trigger is the game that I'll always remember, the singleplayer game that I've replayed the most.
Terraria is my favourite indie game.
I have a real soft spot for Bloodstained, I loved Casltevania Symphony of the Night and I waited so long for Bloodstained and the guys delivered what I expected. The first game that I wanted to do 100%.
Gothic 2, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, GTA: San Andreas and Arcanum are for og ny favourite games that are a bit too flawed to be all time favourite.
Final Fantasy 6 and 7 were so good, but I can't play them alone, we used to pass along the controller.
I love point and clicks like Grim Fandango and Monkey island.
I played Planescape: Torment in 2006 and it left such an impression on me.
Of never games there's Disco Elysium and The Obra Dim.
Not to mention Zelda's, Illusion of Time, the Mana series, Mario's, the old Blizzard games, Brotherbound games and other amiga games. Quake........
Properly distinct beast races, freedom to fuck up the world, really rewarding exploration, awesome scenery and concepts, great soundtrack, you can free slaves, and Argonians have never looked better overall.
Second place, probably Red Dead Redemption 2. Every single aspect of that game is outstanding. The pacing, the story, the characters, the combat, the exploration, the horse genitals, the music, the graphics, the massive scale of the world.. Just truly a masterpiece of a game, and I think Rockstar will never surpass it.
Honorable mentions for Caves of Qud, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7 (original AND remake/rebirth) and Starflight (mostly played on C64 but Genesis/Megadrive version is far better)
Oh, fuck, and Silent Hill 2, that's somewhere in the top three. Both original and remake. Fucking exceptional works of art.
For me, Elden Ring. I enjoy open world exploration and collecting-heavy games, and I also enjoy soulslikes for the strategic combat and variety of options. So ER was like two of my favorite ice cream flavors combined into one delicious meal.
I know people like to look down on it here but it's trully an amazing theme park metaverse experience.
I don't have much time for it these days but just playing couple of hours every week is such a joyful experience. There's just so much to do in the game, great writing, legendary characters, great people playing it. True metaverse experience everyone has been chasing lately.
My nostalgia faves are still The Longest Journey and Grim Fandango. My love of stories told with games started here. I do need to think about what my all time favorites are, though. That's a big question.
There's probably a lot of nostalgia in the choice, but my all time favorite game is Quest for Glory: So You Want to be a Hero. The game was just the right mix of fantasy, adventure and humor for a young me, and I still go back an play it about once a year. A close second is Valheim. It's kinda my "cozy game". I find building and exploring relaxing, and there's enough fighting to keep the game from getting boring.
My "nostalgia favorites" will always be Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Sonic 2 (Genesis version). Sonic 2 is just so fun to go back and play any time I want a quick retro sides rolling platformer fix, and I've played through it more times than I can count. OoT was the first game I played that showed me what games could be through a combination of story/cutscenes and gameplay, as someone who was never able to get my hands on an SNES to play the epic JRPGs of the console growing up (I loved my Genesis, but let's be real, those kinds of games on Sega consoles didn't really come until later).
Nowadays Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have eclipsed OoT for me, and for other more modern games another standout fave is Fire Emblem Three Houses, due in large part to its story and setting having everything I look for in a game, and its characters actually being more fleshed out and developed than the one-note units handed to you in many other games in the franchise. Engage has more... Engaging gameplay (sorry not sorry for the pun) but the story and characters hold it back quite a bit for me. Gameplay-wise, my favorite strategy RPG actually has to be Triangle Strategy, in that it has quite creative maps and every unit is designed with the potential to be useful depending on how you approach your own strategy, but I like the story/characters of Three Houses at least a bit more, and I tend to value story more in general in games. I'm also a big fan of the Ace Attorney franchise for the overarching story, characters and writing that it's built up through its history. Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, Apollo and friends are all among some of my favorite characters in gaming, and I'm glad I decided long ago to give that quirky-seeming series a try. AA7 when, Capcom?
Transport Tycoon was fantastic and thanks to OpenTTD I still play it from time to time.
Gothic 2 is by far the best Action RPG of all time. Witcher 3 comes close, but still fails to surpass it in so many places.
Banished always gets me with it's atmosphere. It feels cozy but at the same time you are close to complete annihilation. Oxygen not included hits the same mark, but also has a distinctive art style and humor to it which I love.
Stanley Parable (and it's Deluxe edition) never fails to make me laugh. But it can get tedious sometimes...
I play almost every genre (minimal interest in sports games, admittedly), and my favorite changes all the time. But in general, here are some of my all-time top games:
Final Fantasy Tactics
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (people who think BL2 is better than TPS are wrong)
Baldur's Gate 2. There's no game I've played through more often. BG3 is a very fun successor, but Larian's writing can't hold a candle to classic Bioware.
My all-time favorites have been in place for many years now.
It's a tie between Sonic 2 (Genesis) & Final Fantasy 6 (SNES).
They are two very different games that represent two different concepts in gaming. For Sonic it's all about smooth, fun gameplay. With FF6 it's all about the story and the experience of controlling an ensemble cast of characters. I can beat the first in under an hour, as while the latter usually takes 60+ hours. They're like the yin and yang of videogames for me.
I can‘t really pinpoint one game, it‘s easier for me to list a top 5ish in no particular order (but even then I‘ll probably answer differently in a month from now when I remember games I‘m forgetting about right now). It goes something like this:
Crusader Kings III
Monster Hunter World/Wilds (the latter if it didn‘t run like shit)
Nioh 2
Rocket League (haven‘t played it in years though)
HITMAN
maybe League of Legends if it still was season 7 lol (haven‘t played that in a while either)
Counterstrike 1.6
Dark Souls II (my first soulslike that I played on release with an active online population, so I have the fondest memories of this one, DS1 and its awful PC port was nothing to make fond memories with for me)
Seems like I‘m a competitive/challenging game enjoyer, but not the „1v1 no-hit bosses“-kind, I enjoy all of these games most in coop if they support it. Overcoming challenges together is my thing.
Oh man, same problem. I can't decide what I like more there are just too many good ones. The Witcher 3 is definitely up there for me too, but then I think about Red Dead Redemption 2 and how insanely detailed that world is, and I start second-guessing everything. Then there’s Elden Ring, which just blew my mind with how massive and rewarding it felt to explore. But if I want something more casual, I always go back to Stardew Valley or Hollow Knight both just have that perfect mix of chill and challenge. And of course, Mass Effect 2 still holds a special place in my heart. Also, I like to play online pokies from time to time. This page has some pretty cool no deposit bonus options if you’re into that kind of thing.
What kind of games do you find yourself replaying the most? Do you go back to the same favorites, or do you always try to play something new?
Into the Breach for sure. Extremely satisfying strategy gameplay with a ton a variety with the different teams/units, heaps of replayability especially after the content update from a couple years back, and it being a run based game is great for folks who only get an hour or two to play on any given day.
I'm a teacher, and as soon as students figure out I play games, they inevitably ask me this question, but I largely think it's an unfair question to ask someone who games as a genuine hobby rather than just a kill time.
I like to tell them that's a really impossible question to answer and instead offer them my favorite franchise of games: Monster Hunter. I feel like I can more reliably say that I am a massive fan of the franchise, with it reliably being my favorite videogame franchise, without that seeming weirdly inaccurate considering the wide variety of genres and sub-genres that make up video game interests.
To say that Monster Hunter Rise is my favorite game would be a massive disservice to the captivating, genre-breaking storytelling power of Hades, my deeply rooted love of the flight mechanics in Elite Dangerous, my history as a brief world record holder for a Mario title, the thousands of hours of Team Fortress 2 I've shared with friends, or my experiences grinding World of Warcraft arenas to the top 0.5% of players. And I've somehow listed 5 formative titles from the top of my head without even representing my deep passion for rhythm games, with Hi-Fi Rush being a genuine contender for that "favorite game" slot that I am arguing doesn't exist. So I don't answer with any of these games, because not only would my answer be fundamentally untrue, but it's not really the question my student means to ask, either. They want to know what I am into, and giving them a standout franchise that automatically gets my money when a title is released gives them a much better answer than any one title could ever do.
StarCraft 2 was the perfect competitive RTS, with the best pro scene. I lived and breathed that game for years. Sucks that Blizzard decided to stop supporting it.
It's a rich world & narrative that throws you in the midst of an incredibly stressful seemingly impossible scenario and asks you to try your best. I love how the intense survival mechanics caused me to compromise my morals, starting the game trying not to kill anyone and then playing day 8 seeking out people to kill & steal stuff from. The mind map is also one of the most genius "quest logs" I've ever seen, giving you a feel for your characters emotions and providing hints on what to do next. The fact that anyone can die of disease & end quest lines makes it that much more important that you do your best to save them.
Total War: Warhammer 3. I play it more or less exclusively with a buddy in multiplayer. Been playing since part 1 came out. I love how the addition of magic and flying creatures changed the Total War formula up, the immense size of the map, the mixture of races.
Rimworld with a couple of hundert mods is still at the top, although I tend to let it rest for some months before I pick it up again.
Baldurs Gate 3 and Divinity Original Sin 2 are my favourite RPG games.
Used to play Skyrim with a bassilion mods a LOT and love it for the hours of enjoyment, but after so many years I have possibility played enoth of it... But who knows, might feel the itch and spend 48 hours trying to get every mod to run just to stop playing after one hour again at some point.
Loved the Mass Effect Triology. Only did one playtrough, that was intens and great.
Binding of Isaac is still my go to for a quick 30 minutes gaming session when I feel like it. I realy suck at it too, so after 12 years there's still a lot left to do.
I play and enjoy most genres at this point, but my favorite has to be Skullgirls. There are 18 characters and so many ways to combine them that you can still come up with new strategies in this game over a decade after its release.
It's a mechanically strong Metroidvania with branching paths, hidden areas, and exploration, but what I love about it is the atmosphere and the juxtapositions is uses.
It is a crumbling decaying kingdom full of monstrosities, and the main character is an innocent little girl in a pure white dress. Lily does not attack, some of the monsters she is able to purify to restore their mind at which point they help her. So when you attack a monster appears to do the attack animation, while lily cowers a bit behind it.
One thing I love is when you are in a boss fight and shit is going down hard, the sound track is extremely chill piano music. The soft and beautiful contrasts against the harshness of the situation is a very compelling way.
The sequel Ender Magnolias is good as well. Mechanically there are some improvements, but I don't feel like the atmosphere or world building is as good. That may be because I played Lilies and was used to it. If your haven't played either I'd suggest starting with Lilies, and if you like Magnolias is worth your time.
This is really hard. Dungeon Master on the Amiga500 is up there, as is Unlimited Adventures. Today, these don't look so interesting, but man they were great at the time. Amiga also had a neat RPG maker as well whose name I can't recall.
Baldurs Gate 3 anyone? I’m kind of shocked to not see it in here. I’ve never enjoyed a game more. Only sad thing is that there won’t be official dlcs or expansions… But then again there’s mod support!
Other than that I really enjoy EU IV after 2k hours, but all-time-favorite? I don’t think so.
BTW is just a labour of love of IMO a genius game designer FlowerChild (RIP) who out of spite for adding wolves to MC made the best game possible, it's extremely rewarding, all the small details are thought through. And now the community has taken over the torch and are updating it faithfully further.
Portal is just a gem of the game, already mentioned in the thread so not gonna start another one.
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. It’s one of the most complex city builders made, and while the interface isn’t great and there are lots of obscure, weird, and downright unintuitive mechanics, it’s so rewarding to play because you can actually construct your infrastructure with materials and time, and so unlike Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever, the game doesn’t become trivially easy when you get a late game map. Those games you can eventually afford massive bridges and tunnels, but that’s not the case in Workers and Resources, because no matter how much money you have, bridges take time to build, and you’ll have to reroute traffic during construction, so you’ll only use them when you really need them.
Also I love the scaling, things like gas stations only require a single truck very occasionally, shall industries require a few trucks, and only the big industries like steel require trains (and only a reasonable amount too). As opposed to Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever where every industry ends up with a massive number or trucks or a silly number of trains.
I have to say for me, I know this won't be everybody, my favorites are going to be the ones that change the way I felt about gaming, not necessarily ones that I would want to play again.
In fact, I have found that going back to some of the seminal games, or the ones that were most impactful to me, hurt my feelings because they were from a time... Where let's be real, technical limitations made a lot of very basic quality of life things nearly unavailable.
I think the 1st that changed the way I felt about gaming was Ultima 4 - they had flushed out the systems of the earlier three, which were pretty primitive, and made morality, all kinds of wonderful internal game systems, relationships, secrets, optional paths, total exploration. 5 and 6 were games that I explored and played molecularly because they were just a joy for me as well.
Another one I talk about a lot is a game called Squares Deluxe which the developer thankfully changed as freeware a few years ago. So anybody with DOSBox can download it and play it legally, and in my view, it's the best shape packing game ever made - there are so many amazing mechanics, and if you play Extreme mode and get a great run going, it can be the most thrilling experience!
How can I forget the very first game I played in arcades which was Atari Warlords at Fiesta Foods! I was bedazzled by the cabinet and I had to have a teenager explain to me what it was! I went flying home and explained what I saw to my mother and she was incredulous, and she took me back to play!
Runestone Keeper. I know that really if you distill it down, you're kind of playing a probability-based card / slot machine game. But play your choice is broad, and I love the fact that the entire playfield changes with every move potentially. Yes you can get screwed over, yes you can have amazing runs, but it's that unpredictability that keeps me salivating. I can't actually recommend anybody play this outside of steam version because the app one keeps changing - I've bought it a few times and I keep losing my license/progress when they change publisher agreements, to hell with that noise!
do you like sportsball, but think it needs level ups, perks, and gear? no? Me neither. I absolutely loved Pyre though. When a game dev takes a risk on a weird mashup like 3v3 basketball + Fantasy RPGs + visual novels, it's an easy way to score points with me. What really cemented this as my favorite was the characters and the emergent interactions that develop as part of your decisions during the Rites. No spoilers, but the game asks you to make hard decisions at every turn of the wheel, and that particular kind of tension and release is very unique in my experience. It's one of the few games I've 100%'d to see every permutation of events.
When it comes to nostalgia, my favourite game is a 90’s German demo of the DOS version of the original Command & Conquer.
„Jawohl, Sir!”; „Bestätigt!”.
The soldiers were still robots there, too, because of German law forbidding a realistic depiction of war.
The best game I’ve ever played is without a doubt Red Dead Redemption 2. I’ve never cried over a game, and with RDR2 I cried nearing the finale myself, then I cried again when I watched it being played in a let’s play series on YouTube. RDR2 is a masterpiece, plain and simple.
I’ve also never loved a fake horse as much as I’ve loved my RDR2 fake horse. Hell, I felt more attached to my horse in RDR2 than I’ve felt to 99% of characters in other games.
Based on play and replay, it seems to be either Payday 2 or Borderlands 2.
Payday2, especially if you have tons of builds and DLC, is a fantastic brain-off mob shooter where you can slightly improve/perfect your build and gameplay with each run. For some reason it just works for me.
Borderlands 2: fun guns; solid story; visuals and mechanics that mostly hold up today. It's just a good time and another skill-tree builder game where you get to feel like a god if you've assembled your skill tree right. The NG+ modes are a bit of a slog, but playthrough 1 is just a solid time.
All time faves, it's a toss up between Fallout: New Vegas and RDR2.
Those two are the ones I still enjoy restarting new games in, and still enjoy playing, despite the cumulative hours logged over the years.
Very special mention to Skyrim though, obviously. I think I've logged more hours in Skyrim than the two above, potentially combined, but because I played that so much, I no longer have the desire to play it again whereas when I'm stressed at work, I often find myself daydreaming about riding my good boah through fields of lush grass and fishing in my lil boat.
And I would never have developed the love of gaming I have today if it wasn't for Oblivion, of all games - so for nostalgia, that gets a mention too.
I call it a tie between The Last of Us and Uncharted 2. These are two of the most fun games I've ever played for totally different reasons.
Uncharted 2 was a lot of a great adventure, and loads of fun with great characters, while The Last of Us games were extremely emotional and I was totally invested in the characters and story.
I think Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was amazing. The only gripe I have is that the Switch just can't handle it very well.
It's hard to answer this because if you'd asked me 5 years ago my answer would be different (not just because TotK hadn't released) because my tastes change.
Oooh very difficult. For representing moments in time rather than necessarily being the best overall games, I'd say one of Rome: Total War, Dino Crisis, San Andreas, Oblivion, and Mass Effect
I mean Skyrim is kinda cool. In similar vain I really really enjoyed Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, waiting for KCD2 to get all its DLCs before I jump into it. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was also pretty good considering its age. I found Control to have a very addictive and unique gameplay. Special mention to The Last of Us part 1 and 2, as they had really seamless integration of gameplay, narrative and atmosphere.
La-Mulana would have to be one of my top picks. With the catchy music, the "fuck you" difficulty, and the classic adventure theme really makes it stand out in my mind.
Fez! I love the low stress puzzle game. I think it’s beautiful and smart. I love that it was made by one guy. It’s too bad he got burnt out and quit. He is very talented.
A revenge story set in 1980s Japan. Shenmue was excellent but Shenmue II is just another level in every way. For me it is the perfect combination of story, open world (which I don't normally like nowadays) and fighting game. It's quite a mixture of different genres but it works so well.
My favorite game is actually 3. The mass effect trilogy. I designed my first tattoo around the n7 renegade and paragon symbols. Second is definitely Mario bros 3. Still play it every once in a while.
Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary. They took the best competitive puzzle game ever made and added a ton of goodies to make it the best package deal. 20 variant game modes, 24 character stories, a comprehensive set of tutorials, a devilish set of chain challenges, and a final challenge where you play against max level CPU while it's allowed to cheat.
It's a tragedy this game was never released in the west, and I can rant for hours about Sega has criminally neglected the series with the half-assed slop they put out now because they know that crossovers will sell better than the main series ever will.
All time favorite game is so hard to narrow down. I’d traditionally always say Mario 3 and I stand behind that but there are so many great games that stand beside it. Donkey Kong Country, Half Life, San Andreas, red dead redemption 1 and 2.
I think if I was trapped on a desert island, I’d be fine with any of these as my only game
My all-time favorite game is Factorio. If I were stranded on a deserted island and could bring only one game, it would undoubtedly be Factorio. That said, Crusader Kings II will always hold a special place in my heart—even though I tried diving into Crusader Kings III, it just never captured the same magic.