I agree about the difficulty but I think part of its charm is the wackiness, it needs deliberate and non deliberate flaws to coincide to some weird genre of its own. IcePicks speciality. Pity I got stuck because of difficulty because I loved the atmosphere.

I agree but for some reason I enjoyed it more by raising the difficulty to get the stakes going, especially the loss of items feature. Due to the backtracking and other issues you mentioned I can't really play it in longer sessions but overall, their idea isn't too bad. The best part of the game was the monochrome graphics and point of interests are highlighted in red. Everytime I realize that I sort of forget about the other issues. :)

What I miss most is a useful pin feature in the world map, that you could pin down any points of interest then easily go back when you need it, would save time accompanied by the use of fast travelling since this game isn't about the logistics.

Hydrophobia: Prophecy should be here.

The game was definitely unfinished, as anyone who has played it will tell you. I enjoyed it, but it was frustrating seeing the very rough edges, poor level design and a story that was poorly thought out. It was about 2/3 of a game, which was a pity because I'd love to see a rebuild or a better sequel. Unlikely to happen in its current state though.

Grim Fandango.

Everything about this game is golden, except the absolutely atrocious control scheme, which for me renders is unplayable today.

If the designers had deigned to use traditional mouse-driven UI / controls it would have been perfect.

Fear 3. Being able to play as Paxton Fettel (main antagonist from first game) rocked me. Yet, the system with the coop, and the obligatory finishing the game before playing as him, was the worst possible execution i could ever imagine...

Ok, that makes more sense to me. Not that I necessarily make sense to anyone else. :-) I guess I tend to see concept and execution as different things, so that's where I was coming from. No rudeness meant.

What exactly happened at Croteam in 1996 and how is Serious Sam the best fps ever. pls.

Not sure, but thanks for suggestion!

Same here friend! For one I kinda like the idea of Din's Curse.


I am aware what is the best FPS is a personal choice, that is not my point anyhow.

-Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
I hate how rushed this game was. F U forever Activision. Thankfully there is still people dedicating their time to this game.
-Far Cry 2
F U too Ubisoft. The best FC for me, but FFS what are they thinking?
-Skyrim (actually the whole TES series, this one being the highlight)
This game/series, does lots of things that I like: huge open world, quests, a world that feels "alive", "open gameplay", huge lore, but everything else is dull: the characters are uninteresting, the game plot is uninteresting, the protagonist is uninteresting, and that leads to me finding everything else so boring, and dull, and 'meh'.

Baldur's Gate - All the fun of a Dungeons & Dragon game without the hassle of dice rolling, rule lookups and having to provide drinks and snacks for the other players. It seems to me that if a CRPG is born out of a PnP RPG, where combat is about making a decision, rolling the dice and learning the results; well that just screams Turn Based Combat. I always found it odd that Baldur's Gate, the penultimate D&D on PC experience, went with the Real Time with Pause system. They give you a cast of interesting characters with unique weapons, armor and spell combinations but then force you into an almost RTS twitch based playstyle. It's very hard to really learn each characters strengths and weaknesses in combat when I have to watch all characters simultaneously. The only way combat is even remotely bearable (and this also comes from the many BG fans I talk to) is to set the auto pause feature to pause on every available event. At which point the game feels like a half hearted turn based system that lacks any tactical planning or decision making, and I still can't effectively focus on the individual characters. Now obviously I'm in an extreme minority on this, considering the immense popularity of the whole Infinity Engine series.

Diablo - A 2.5D isometric roguelike inspired game with real graphics! Awesome! My favorite genre is getting a face lift and joining the modern (well modern at that time) world. Nope. Just another mindless hack n' slash style button masher with some random elements thrown in. And thanks to the mouse driven "click on something to kill it" control scheme I didn't even have the option to plug in a gamepad and pretend it was Golden Axe or Gauntlet. I've been told that there are several different quests which are randomly assigned each play through, but I'll never know. I forced myself to finish the game then uninstalled it and gave the disc away. And again I realize that I'm in the minority on this one.

OK, how about a game that everyone can agree on.

Omerta - Man, this game had it all. Prohibition era gangster setting, business management (legal and otherwise), turn based combat against rival gangs, RPG style advancement and perk system, all coming together to let you rise from a fresh off the boat immigrant to Capo dei Capi, the Boss of Bosses. What could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot as it turns out. While the game offered everything it promised, it was limited to small bite size pieces rather than a fulfilling experience. The game is played on a city map which is only about 20-30 square blocks and you are given a specific mission, something along the lines of opening a distillery and a number of speakeasies. You start with nothing, so after some plotting, planning, pilfering and pugnacity you have enough funds to buy some buildings and turn them into the needed establishments. You can upgrade your buildings to increase your profit margins so that you can expand your empire. It's hard at first but soon things start coming together and just when your businesses start to take off you get the mission completed message. Now it's time to move on to the next too small city map with a new arbitrary goal, say raising $5000 of clean/laundered money. For some unexplained reason your now booming criminal empire from the last level no longer provides you a steady income. So it's back to conspiring, conniving, commandeering and combat to build up a new criminal empire. And just when things get rolling and the game starts being fun your objective is complete. Once again you will be dropped into a small game map with no resource from past endeavors and a goal that you'll meet just before you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. I'm sure the developers made a great game, they just don't ever let you actually play it.

No problem at all! It is nice to a conversation about with a fellow about games! :)

Wasn't Bloodlines rushed because of Valve, not Activision, due to being one of the very first games (alongside Half Life 2) using the then debuting Source Engine?

I seem to recall that Bloodlines had been "finished" or nearly finished multiple times but Half Life 2 was still in active development as was the Source Engine. So Valve would update the Source Engine and Troika Games contractually had to use the newest version of the Source Engine, each update of course introducing tons of new bugs, changing features, etc, so they were in constant catch up mode. Eventually Valve decided Half Life 2 was finished and they set a release date and Troika Games had to match it (due to contracts) which meant releasing Bloodlines in the shape it was in.

I'm not sure if this counts but... Psi-Ops the Mindgate Conspiracy. Ok it was an awesome game but when it came out for PS2 and the original Xbox I couldn't help feel let down since the physics engine just couldn't deliver what the premise promised/seemed capable of.

I agree. It's desirable to have a low armor class, that's kinda hard to swallow. The rule system is not bad, but in some points more difficultthan necessary.

I've heard that too, but most of the talks I've saw over the years was about Activision rushing the release, even knowing that the source engine wasn't ready and the game was buggy.