We've all played a lot of games, but everybody has played some games that left them absolutely baffled.
not by graphics or sound, but by the story. Or the mixture of the story together with the visuals and sounds.

What games have you played that left you absolutely breathless or adrenaline-pumped as the credits rolled by?

For me the first game that jumps to mind if Broken Sword 1
The last few scenes of the games, from the train all the way up to the ending was a breathtaking thrilling ride.

All the Ultima games were incredible, i just loved the story in those. And the way you created the Avatar, made me feel like I'm in the game. Too bad there's none coming out anymore, Lord British was good.

Myst III was also very good.
Compared to the previous ones I really didn't have much difficulty getting into the story.
While there was quite a bit of overacting on Dourif's end (all his roles require overacting) the ending was amazing. The different endings really.
I was really dissapointed when the credits rolled by because I wanted an even bigger ending (while the ending of Myst III was quite long already)

/signed ;)

especially Ultima 6!

Ultima 4, Dreamweb and Starcon 2.

All of these leave me with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, and completing them give me an odd sense of having acomplished something great! :D

Consider Ultima fourthed.

These games have just stuck with me. I love it so much that sometimes I find myself humming Stones, one of the recurring songs in the series.

I don't know about games, but books and movies have a greater effect on me. But if I had to pick one I'd say 5 Days a Stranger or 7 Days a Skeptic.

fallout touches me :Brain:

and most probably DOOM 3 EVEN THOUGH ITS NOT OLD MUAHAHAHAH!

while its not an oldie (but a good example)
Halo had a terrific ending, I was pumped with adrenaline hours after completing it.

Best graphics/story mix NWN
An old game that left warm felling... hhmmm QfG 1, dragonshpere, etc... ... many many olides

For me absolute:

Heroes of might and magic 3

Outcast

Emotions, "Being In the game":
Planescape Torment.
An awesome (and long) travel.

Fear:
Alone in the Dark 1.

Environment, story:
Blade Runner.

ah, how could I forget outcast?
Thanks for reminding me.
Yes outcast takes the prize!

NWN, on the other hand, really didn't draw me into the game at all.
Not once did I feel involved.

ah, how could I forget outcast?
Thanks for reminding me.
Yes outcast takes the prize!
[/quote]
Yes....still frustrating that they didnt release outcast 2 :ranting:

The company went down and now there is almost no news about it anymore....and the story wasnt even finished :cry:

Yes, I was so thrilled when I saw the announcement for Outcast 2 in a magazine

That's a great question, and not one I've seen anywhere, before.

My favorite in this regard is probably Planescape: Torment. It was so very well written, so imaginative in its plotting, and so remorseless in its conclusions that I was blown away at the end. It's one game where you really don't know what to expect, and the ultimate game quest of self-knowledge doesn't result in the usual comicbook stupidity.

By comparison, another excellent RPG like Ultima VII: the Black Gate left me pleased because of its environment but completely unmoved by the end. All the "surprises" were so obvious and the plot twists so telegraphed in advance that the final showdown was easy to guess within two hours of gameplay. I remember speaking with the longtime PR Director for Origin Systems while in the process of reviewing Ultima VII and started asking him, "So this evil deity is trying to mislead you..." He jumped in at once with a suspcious, "What leads you to think he's evil?" Let's see: a giant bass voice comes out of nowhere trying to direct your steps, and occasionally laughs at you, while his followers use his teachings to steal, ostracize, and kill. I wonder where I got that idea? :D

Actually,
from the ashes of Appeal (Outcast game company)
rose Elsewhere entertainent,
so not everything is lost/

Most touching game?
King Of Dragon Pass /-

flashback
half-life
quake 2
zelda links awakening

[quote]Originally posted by Wael@Jan 6 2005, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Most touching game? King Of Dragon Pass /-

It certainly does have a fine ending that leaves you with a glow: all the images of growth and friendliness, the quality and distinction of the artwork, the fine soundtrack, the gradual backing away from the planet...but then, we both know that this was one of the finest titles ever made. :D

And Still Is... one of the finest titles ever made...

KodP

"King of Dragon Pass is a game where turn-based military strategy, Dark Ages role-playing and Celtic saga blend to lure the player into a wondrous and enjoyably royal adventure. This truly unique blend of war and literature is as rich and deep as it is fun and addictive. Designer David Dunham is a true warrior-poet as well as an accomplished gamer, and in this product his company, A Sharp, has given the computer gaming world one of its few true works of art.

This game is set in the pseudo-mythical Dark Ages, similar to the setting for the popular RuneQuest role-playing games. Here, however, the player is not some member of a questing party, but a chieftain with dreams of grandeur. As a chieftain, the player is constantly called upon to make decisions, many of them life and death ones either for a single character or for his whole clan, tribe or kingdom. "

The world was full of life, happenings, never ending desicions by you, festivals, cattle raids, wars, trades, godly rituals, heros, creatures & unique inviduals, And so much amazingly beautiful handcrafted art in every happening & screen, that I still find something I have never seen, whenever I wish to dissever my soul from the world...

Almost a perfect game...

Screenshots /-

Fine,
It was a personal advertisement by me,
But a worthy one...

The game may still be bought here /-

mostly it is adventure games and rpg's which had longlasting effects upon my mood
after having completed them...

to mention a few, the eye of the beholder series as well as the ultima series were
extremely intense. furthermore many lucasfilm adventures managed to held me
spellbound long after i had completed them, for all the characters and the stories
were so lovely that i missed them alot, just like "friends" you have to say goodbye to.

generally for me it's always a question of how much i could identify with games'
protagonists - the way they look like, move, act, communicate is what brings them
close to my mind.

this is especially true for old games. in new games it is more the graphics and effects
which made these games memorable, not their charismatic expression.

i think this is due to the fact, that old games concentrated mainly on atmosphere that is
created mainly by the story, because the story had to balance out the "lack" of audio-
visual technique. nowadays the most effective aspects of games are in their visual
appearance, which - in my opinion - often aims for balancing out weaknesses of their
plots.

so there has been a certain switch of intensity - appearance is more valuable than
story, back in the old days it was the other way round.

but of course there are as well many new productions which contain great atmosphere
by story. for example there is "the longest journey" or "syberia" which are top-notch
adventures with great contents, or "undying" being a truely frightful and intense horrorshooter.

Monkey Island 1 was really great, made me feel a real pirate! ..... :whistle:


Sacrifice made me happy to. Awesome strategy game, with a nice story. Winning the very nasty last mission made me a happy man :D

Undying was awesome to. It gave me a scared / cold feeling, except with the ending. The endboss is a bit....booooring.

Baldur's gate 2, extremely good storyline (possibly the best in any rpg ever) and a real sense of choice.

I liked also very much the Thief games, they really maked me feel like being in the game (I like dark and being stealthy :sneaky: ). I used to wake up at night, finish another mission than go back to sleep. It was like real life. And those long loading times forced me into thinking every action I made, like I got only one shot. The level design was great, and the story AWESOME in my opinion. Thief is my favourite game.

PS: My favourite Ultima games (the Underworlds) were made by Looking Glass, the same guys that made Thief 1 and 2 (part of them were involved in 3 too).

Excerpted from my own old review of King of Dragon Pass, once published in a now vanished magazine:

"But the single most interesting feature in KoDP is the way it effectively becomes a different game every time its you play it. Yes, I know you’ve heard it before, but it’s never been attempted on this scale; for KoDP tracks hundreds of clan variables and more than four hundred potential plots, at least one of which is randomly generated nearly every season of your clan’s existence.

Some plots are one-shot situations with immediate, shortterm effects, like a proposed marriage between members of your clan and another’s. Others create story threads that hibernate for long periods, only to burst into view many years later—like one noble I had on a ring, whose occasional, whimsically silly, non sequitur advice about the evil of Elves suddenly turned deadly serious after more than twenty years of excellent service, when he deliberately maimed three Elves in the clan woodlands, victims of his desire to force a war....

I’ll gladly raise a drinking horn to toast the creators of such an original and rich game as KoDP. With variety, depth, and a Celtic folk soundtrack to die for, this game’s a solid keeper."

The third police quest (The kindred) had a great story.

Also, I haven't gotten to 5 days a stranger yet, or the sequel.

don't really have one that really touched me..

It's a console only game, but the RPG Suikoden 2 has an absolutely brilliant storyline. Probably the most touching of any RPG I've played for either console or PC -- and there's something they did with an optional ending that ties it to the very beginning of the game which is just great.

I'd have to say two games came to that point, but the reasons are rather silly.
First would be Ghostbusters - a game that Activision made way back in 1984. As most of you know I'm a Ghostbusters fan, so I liked the game itself, but when I first played it (when my brother got his first C64 in 1985) niether one of us knew enough english to understand the manual. Besides this was the only original game he ever purchashed (those were the wild pirate days...) and I played pirate verions more often then the real thing (don't even have the original game). But it was around 1990 that I found the original manual and read it! You need ghost bait to prevent the Marshmellow man from destroying the buildings!!! Ahh! And all of a sudden, after 5 years of plaing the game I knew just what I was doing and I came to the screen I never saw before - the entrence to the Zuul. I got in and closed the portal.
Congratulations Jurisic, you've saved the world! I've waited 5 years to get to that screen and that's why I was so happy.
Something similar happened with the other game Zak McCracken. I got the pirate version for the C64 and it was my first point and click adventure. I loved it, but couldn't finish it. I missed the little screw in the Mars hostel, so I couldn't get in that room to get the broom. So I couldn't get the tram going and I thought I have to get Zak to Mars first. I knew I needed the yellow crystal to do that, but couldn't get it, because I didn't know the African dance opened the head on Mars. I thought those drawings were a part of the copy protection and that I could only get by it if I get the licensed version. Well I couldn't - at least not for a couple of year. Then in 1994 I got the Adventure Archive from LucasArts - for the PC, and it included a full manual with hints. I couldn't find any copyright protection conserning the drawings?!?!?! So I replayed the game with this new found knowladge and saw, what that dance was all about. From then on I had no problems. But why didn't I do this before with the C64 version? Well I damaged the side 1 of the disk (it was on three sides of 5'4'' floppys). So I couldn't play it. but after many years I finaly savet the Earth from stupidity (the dream of any teacher).

I will say Black Mirror was a game that touched me! The game is not very difficult (at least not for me), but the story is one of the best stories I have ever seen!
Also Fallout 2 - the story how China attacked USA (if anybody read that)!

half life 2 and 1
sid meiers pirates! - the new version, absolutely stunning.
silver
fallout 2

Er...these are the games you find most "touching"? As in games that go straight to the heart? :blink:

Is it found in it´s full form anywhere?
The review?

Is it found in it´s full form anywhere?
The review? [/b][/quote]
Only on my hard drive, these days. And in the vaults of the company that purchased the rights to the company that once owned the magazine. I can't post it as such, because they have the copyright. You never know when somebody's going to decide to post a bunch of old reviews. Just recently, one of the publications I wrote for suddenly decided to open a website and pull a slug of reviews from the past. Several of mine were included.

Wow I'm surprised no one has mentioned one of the all time gems that made me just lust for a sequel and sit there thinking for ages afterwards.
System Shock 2 was absolutly amazing, the ending was just fantastic.

However for a game that actually touched me it would have to be (despite not being that old) Unreal 2: The Awakening, the ending in that actually made me cry :cry:

ALso I would have to agree the Ultima series are the most stunning set of Role playing games in existance. I still play them to this day and I@m actually hosting my own Ultima Online server :D

That's a great question, and not one I've seen anywhere, before.

My favorite in this regard is probably Planescape: Torment. It was so very well written, so imaginative in its plotting, and so remorseless in its conclusions that I was blown away at the end. It's one game where you really don't know what to expect, and the ultimate game quest of self-knowledge doesn't result in the usual comicbook stupidity.

By comparison, another excellent RPG like Ultima VII: the Black Gate left me pleased because of its environment but completely unmoved by the end. All the "surprises" were so obvious and the plot twists so telegraphed in advance that the final showdown was easy to guess within two hours of gameplay. I remember speaking with the longtime PR Director for Origin Systems while in the process of reviewing Ultima VII and started asking him, "So this evil deity is trying to mislead you..." He jumped in at once with a suspcious, "What leads you to think he's evil?" Let's see: a giant bass voice comes out of nowhere trying to direct your steps, and occasionally laughs at you, while his followers use his teachings to steal, ostracize, and kill. I wonder where I got that idea? :D [/b][/quote]
I sense we're going to be good, good friends, Borodin.

The ending was good, the rest of the game... well... llets just say gameplay was severely lacking at times.

That game had atmosphere!
You literraly felt you were solving a mistery in a medieval castle!Those graphics were GREAT!!!

That´s a shame really,
would have been intrested in reading it...

May you reveal the name of the magazine?
Just to amuse me...

And the dialog...
All of it /-

Way ahead (as a roleplaying game) of for example Baldur´s gates, Arcanum, morrowind etc etc...

And Just wondering...
Taking a note of the fact that Kodp succeeded in sales only in finland...

I take offense at the term "comicbook stupidity". Sorry, I just noticed it.

I am an avid fan of comics and as a medium, they are as viable as novels, movies, television, or computer games. They have some of the best, most exciting, most heartfelt stories I have ever read, and many of them are even in the superhero genre.

You know when some professor somewhere says all computer games are stupid and bad for you? That they're juvenile and contain nothing but mindless violence? Well, how you feel is how I feel at such terms.

Thanks for your time.

and may I add
http://www.worldparty.net/news/dropbox/Bang.jpg

Seriously my dutch teacher is always yapping on about how comicbooks serve their purpous in literature, too, and are all but juvenile... but the consensus about that teacher is that he is an old obese man whose kidneys and liver are rapidly racing towards the finish-line.

the monkey island series are my favourite games!! great games, great humour, great atmosphere! monkey island 1 was the first adventure i played and it's in my heart!!!

]i am guybrush threepwood and i want to be pirate!!


gabriel knight 1+2 too. I love em!
some other : beneath a steel sky, full throttle, wolfenstein 3d, kings quest6, ravenloft 2 (first rpg i played) and above all...UNDER A KILLING MOON+PANDORA DIRECTIVE...

Fallout

The inevitable loss of Dogmeat was heartbreaking.

He might be an old crazy man, but he's right. It's a medium like any other and has the right to be considered so. You wouldn't say a novel was silly because it was a novel, or say a movie is stupid because it's on the silver screen, would you?

I will not surrender or relent on this. :Titan:

don't forget obese

How fat? Like if he jumped on you, would you die or just fall unconscious?

I agree.

But after thinking about this a bit more. I would have to say Grandia 2 had the most effect on me. The story was excellent, the battle system was very realistic, but what I enjoyed the most of this was that you could dodge the monsters (well most of them) and get on with the story. You can't do this in many games, which can leave large gaps between the story which, quite frankly sucks.

I know I've already posted about it here, and mentioned it in other places..........but I urge you, if you can find Suikoden 2 (both it and the original Suikoden are rather hard to come by now), play it. It's probably the greatest RPG ever made for a console, and the storyline is incredible. Anyone who's a fan of RPGs, especially console style RPGs, doesn't know what they're missing until they play this game........it's that much better than most everything else to have come out for a console.

You failed to mention which console it is on.

Suikoden has a NES and PSX version.
Suikoden II is for PSX.

and it looks like there's Suikoden 3 and 4 for PS2.

Not the greatest of all, but I liked the ending in Secret of Mana (SNES). Pretty sad one...

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers was one that I will never forget. The story has stayed with me even today. And the ending as well.

Dreamweb was another game that just captured my imagination and ran with it.

And a obscure PS2 game called Shadow of Destiny had one of the best stories I have ever seen. The whole game was just a blast to play, it was as you were in a movie, not playing a game. One could really lose one's self in that game.

Max Payne 2 : The Fall of Max Payne

it's not an old game but the dark story and the narration really got me...
what a game!!! :kosta:

it shouldnt be a old game..

even new games can touch ya :ok:

I love that game. I still play through it every once in a while. It's just SO good. The ending was ridiculously hard though.

As to the topic, I'll have to hide under a rock after I say it, but.... Final Fantasy 7. *hides.* Also, moving closer to current times: Beyond Good and Evil (PS2). I haven't played any other recent game that was that immersive. Everything about the game added to the environment, and yet the gameplay was brilliant too. And the characters, despite falling distinctly in the "quirky" category, were still great, and you really cared about some of them. It was a very satisfying one to finish.

I agree.
I played it on PC, it was a very good game. Pity it didn't sell all that well.

I'll have to throw my vote in for Beyond Good and Evil too (even if I am stuck outside the slaughterhouse :angry:).

and what about the silent hill series???
you really feel you're living that nightmare

The PSX Suikoden II is the game I'm talking about. Suikoden III for PS2 is really good as well, because it has an interesting design where you play through chapters as separate characters and get to see the story unfold from different perspectives as you try to piece together the truth -- it's not as good as II though. And IV was either just released or hasn't come out yet; it was supposed to be released sometime this month.

Oh, and to answer the topic...LOL...I just happened to play Final Fantasy 9 at the right time. Before that it was FF7, but for some reason Final Fantasy 9 is one of my favorite games now. And, perhaps in some wierd way, the most touching...

(Bear in mind that I play a random assortment of games...I've missed a lot)

Games that touch me was with out a doubt the Monkey Island Series.... great atmospher!!! Loved Grim Fandango too.... almost wanted to be the black RIEPER just as much I wanted to be a pirate in the Monkey series :D

Well the most touching games would be first Grim Fandango, and then Morrowind...

Hmmm... come to think of it, MorrowinD shouldn't be a touching game but I've spent so long playing it and things that when I hear the music in the game, the voices of the charactors and the way you run around it just makes me feel like I'm at home (somehow). Other than that a few good adventure games have touched me, mainly Discworld Noir and Grim Fandango.

inevitable... unless you lock him in a room with a forcefield.. heh

Hmm...
Flashback:Quest for Identity gotta be one of them. I mean, the whole plot, the gameplay... the beautiful music...
Then... I think Incubation: Time is running out.
Finally... Bloodrayne.

The Dune adventure game. I hadnt read the book or seen the film when i played it and i remember being totally destraught when duke Leto was killed

For me it would probably be Final Fantasy 6 and Grim Fandango.

ahh yes, final fantasy 6 , where all characters had lost someone and stuff

good game!

kefka was awesome

well i would say Bg 1 , bg1 extensoin, bg2 og that extsanion.
:ot: DOOM 3 isint scary at all :bleh:

.....hmm....well Legend of Kyrandia touched me quite a bit....
mostly because i played it long time ago and have finally found it on this great site :Brain:

but Morrowind would be my favorite, as my nick point to(for those who play Morrowind)

inevitable... unless you lock him in a room with a forcefield.. heh [/b][/quote]
Didn't think of doing that when I first played it. He died a hero, defending me from super mutants. A fitting end.