Games you revisit again and again, and why.

[Contrabardus]

There are awesome games, and there are games that suck.

However, there are those rare games that you keep playing. Not necessarily continuously, but those games that you keep going back to over and over. Sometimes over a lull in the gaming season, sometimes just because it's just that awesome.

A lot of really great games just don't compel you to revisit them. A completely amazing and awesome experience is often only good once or twice. Others might be played for a few years off and on, but are then cast aside. For example: I really enjoyed the Uncharted series, but haven't really revisited them much. I played Dead Rising quite a bit for a couple of years, but haven't messed with it in ages and don't really see myself revisiting it again.

I'm talking about those games that keep on giving, games you play beyond achievements, after multiple endings, a long time after %100 completion has been achieved, and they still somehow keep you coming back to them again and again. The games that stand the test of time.

Where I'll start is games like Morrowind, Fallout 3+NV, and yes Skyrim too. I'm certain I'll be playing it from now on to infinity on occasion. Not just because they are fun to begin with, but also because of the awesome modding community associated with these games. [Oblivion is intentionally not here BTW.] None of these games has ever been exactly the same for me with each individual playthrough.

Others I simply revisit because they're just so much damn fun. Doom I + II, and to a lesser extent 3 + D3RE [mods again for D3 and the sequel].
I've always got a copy of Painkiller on my HDD as well, its like a haunted house ride with a shotgun and I dig that. I also keep Serious Sam 1-3 loaded for similar reasons. The mindless zen of me vs the hoards keeps me coming back.

Ninja Gaiden 1+2 [both old school and xbox], Devil May Cry 3, old school Mega Man [I have 1-9], Bayonetta, Ikaruga, Gradius III, R-type I + II, and Contra 1 [Arcade ver.] as well as Contra 3 for when I'm in the mood to make my blood boil and my thumbs cry.

Burnout 2-Revenge. Two words. Crash Mode. I will add Burnout Paradise to this as I consistently pull that out when I just want to drive around fast, but I sorely miss the old crash mode in the series when playing it. Paradise is my go-to game for 'mindlessly go fast' once I finish with whatever the newest racer I've gotten. I think this is mostly because I can just drive around with the pedal to the metal and cause quite a bit of chaos while ignoring the events if I wish. I could do something similar with just about any sandbox game, but the controls are much tighter in Burnout and it doesn't look bad either.

Speaking of sandbox games, Just Cause 2, Saint's Row 2 + 3, GTA Vice City and San Andreas, and Orange Box have a permanent space on my HDD in case the mood ever strikes me to put a little time into them. They are just awesome virtual toys to play with and I most often ignore the game and just mess with the world.

I've also played Ghostbusters a surprising number of times. I really like the movies and it fits in as an installment better than the second movie did.

I've played Arkham Asylum several times since it's release. Thief 1 + 2 get a playthrough on occasion as well [Didn't care much for Deadly Shadows]. The Hitman series as well, excluding Absolution. I was a bit disappointed with it and doubt I'll be playing it again much, if at all. Arkham City gets an honorable mention as well as I'm pretty sure I'll be revisiting that one pretty regularly in the future. For old school stealth I sometimes rock Tenchu 1+2 or Splinter Cell 1-3. The SC sequels were good, but the first three are the only ones I ever go back to.

Sam and Max I've played through several times over the years as well, and I keep the entire series on my HDD as well. That includes S+M Hit the Road btw. I also pull out my Xbox on occasion and play through Armed and Dangerous. Just because that shit is damn funny.

Also, Rock Band, pretty much any one of them and Guitar Hero to a lesser extent for a few exclusive songs here and there. These games are pretty much the entire reason I have no intention of ever getting rid of my 360. In a few years it will end up as the Rock Band machine and will likely have no other function in my home at all.

I keep my original Xbox around for a similar reason. Steel Battalion. Which is still pretty much the most awesome game exclusive controller ever.

There's a lot of stuff that I might pull out on occasion, but those are the ones that I consistently go to again and again. Not necessarily playing through the entire game. I'll often dump them off when something new is released or my urge becomes satisfied. I see no reason to think I won't be still playing these games far into the future when the gaming market is slow, my game budget is spent, or just because I'm want to take a break from the latest 100 hour epic I happen to have for an afternoon or something without getting into something new.

I realize my list is very large, but I've had quite a few years to build upon it and I still play each of these games at least once or twice a year [if not more] for a bit. Not necessarily a complete playthrough, but I get into them for shits and grins for a little bit on a regular basis.

So, tell us what games you keep playing over and over and why?

 

[GenocideHeart]

Dragon Force and Guardian Heroes on Saturn. Goddamn it Sony, get them on PSN already.

 

[CatOnFire]

First I have to acknowledge the sheer number of times I've played Dark Cloud 2 on the PS2, though I often go a year or two between playing so it still feels fresh.

When it comes to the PS3 Katamari Forever, Dark Souls and Disagea 4 & 5 comes to mind.

On the PC front I would find myself playing Dungeons of Dredmore, Fallout New Vegas, Sword of the Stars, Minecraft, Cube World, and hotseat multiplayer Civ5.

But I am primarily happiest in a at home multiplayer group. I have 4 brothers, 2 god brothers, a god sister, a nephew, 2 neice and over 25 cousins who all live around 1 hour from where I live now. So Nintendo is King with Mario Party 3, 7 & 8, Smash Bros. Melee & Brawl, Mario Kart 64 & Double Dash, and finally Time Splitters: Future Perfect. On the single player front one Nintendo games stands out above the rest, Zelda Majora's Mask.

 

[Nanya]

Wild Arms games. I will still go back and plop one into my PS2 and play it at times.

 

[Glimmervoid]

Medieval Total War 2 I go back to again and again. I've gone back to Warcraft 3 quite a few times too, and I check in on Starcraft 2 as well. Mostly I do it because they have good solid game place and they're something I can do while listing to an audio book.

 

[byakuryuu]

Pokemon Blue (Acquired in 2000, still have a Gameboy Advance) for sure; that challenge of getting to the Elite Four with a well-balanced party never gets old. Thus far, the only Pokemon that have been my staples, regardless of match have been Snorlax and Gyarados. Another game I keep going back to is Final Fantasy XII just for 100 percent completion, but I haven't touched it since Christmas '12.

Also, the Football Manager series. God damn, the Football Manager series.

 

[blabla1994]

Paper Mario. It was quite possibly the first game I ever played, and I learned to read originally just because I wanted to know what was going on. It possesses a truly massive nostalgia value for me, and I've beaten it several times.

(Although I gave up on completing the Old Koopa side quest each and every time a very long time ago.)

 

[Sdebeli]

Heroes of Might and Magic III every few months. Alpha Centauri never goes off the hdd. Omicron the Nomad Soul and Beyond Good and Evil once a year. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape every year or two.
Hmm. There's more than a few I suppose. Decent games mostly though.

 

[shinzero01]

Saint's Row 2-3. 4 Just made the list too. I actually finish them and don't get bored. Last GTA I've managed to finish without months in between playtimes was Vice City.
Dead Rising games in general. Just because.
Mass Effect 2. Its a game I really enjoyed.
Gun. Because "I'm Hoodoo Brown!"
Fallout 3: Being the savior of the wasteland was fun and I just didn't feel New Vegas that well.
Arkham City. It is The Batman Experience.
Wet. Campy grindhouse fun. Good way to waste time.
Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors/Dynasty Warriors Gundam/Warriors Orochi, sometimes I just wanna kill thousands of guys in a repetitive fashion.
Dark Sector, because I get that magic Krull feeling when I play it.
Dead or Alive 4. Because it is not DoA5.
Guilty Gear X2 Accent Core. Its Guilty Gear.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Pretty much the best Marvel game. 2 was nice but I prefer 1.
Resident Evil 4, 5. I liked em. They're not 6. I've played 4 at least twice on every system.
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Demi-fiend is the man.
Lost Planet 2. The Multiplayer is fun.
Dragon Age 2. I liked it. A lot.
Metal Warriors (SNES). Great 2 player battles.
Armored Core: Masters of Arena - the best Armored Core to me.
P.N.03 because Vanessa Schneider will be forgotten if I don't.

 

[Master of Squirrel-Fu]

Nippon Ichi Games. There's just something so cathartic about being able to grind so hard that you can effortlessly blow through eerything and yet still have some kind of challenge later (EXBosses).

GrimGrimoire: God I love playing that, even if I tend to lose. Art is just lovely, love the voice acting, and it has lesbians.

Odin's Sphere: Art is breath taking, the story is epic, not epic in the way that the internet uses it but epic in the classical meaning and it's pretty fun to play even if it has it's mechanic problems (I'm looking at you lag time and loading screens).

Okami: Also visually stunning (I like pretty things) and everything about playing it is just awesome, from the actual mechanics to the system to the story.

Super Mario 64: Old School but still cool.

 

[violinmana]

Persona 4. Final Fantasy VI, X, and XII. Portal. Half-Life 2 + Episodes 1 and 2. Super Mario World. Plants vs. Zombies. Turtles in Time. Symphony of the Night. Dragon Quest VIII. Kingdom Hearts II. Any Disgaea Game. Mario Kart DS. Super Smash Bros. Melee. Okami. Planescape: Torment. Starcraft II. Pokemon (All of them). Resonance of Fate.

 

[grant]

Devil Survivor Overclocked. DS 2 was this before I got Overclocked simply because DS 2 had better gameplay than DS 1 but less story. Anyway no dungeon crawling, status effects are mostly limited and combat's fun.

Mass Effect 2 because this is where the game figured out where it was going and where playing it felt fun. And because the writing is a bit less bad than ME 3 (I'm sorry but it's true).

Age of Mythology because the game, despite incredible limitations and on Hard mode the enemy just spams you with enemies until you die, is still something nice and simple from the past.

SMT Nocturne is where modern SMT and Persona come from and despite the simple plot has addictive combat.

Sleeping Dogs for the opportunity to go as wild as I want and then run away from the police (often by stealing their cars).

 

[Thardoc]

For me it would be:

Xenogears, Persona (3 and 4), Skyrim, Jak 2 and 3, Mass effect 2 (yes I agree with you all there about the writing, ME 3 has better gameplay with the rolling though), Disgaea, KH 2, Starcrat 2, DA 2 for different character classes.

I m planning on replaying arkham city when I finish it. I need to finish freaking valkyria chronicles, but since my ps3 broke last year I haven't gotten to restarting from scratch.

EDIT: I forgot to mention I replayed Mario rpg at least 5 times when I still had it.

 

[ragnarok1337]

Paper Mario. I wish there was post-game content, but it's still fun to keep replaying the game.

 

[core_88]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri it's friggin deep and have that one more turn syndrome most civ games have.

 

[Deathwings]

Skies of Arcadia. Somehow, I replay and finish that game at least once a years. I just see it sitting there and before I know it, I'm kicking Ramirez teeth in.

 

[roting_CORPSE]

fuck yeah skies of arcadia. if only my goddamn dream cast still works.

both dragon age games and the mass effect games, though I get a bit disinterested because of work cut down on game time.

Fallout New Vegas because testing out new mods is fun.

 

[Contrabardus]

fuck yeah skies of arcadia. if only my goddamn dream cast still works.

both dragon age games and the mass effect games, though I get a bit disinterested because of work cut down on game time.

Fallout New Vegas because testing out new mods is fun.

If you've got a Gamecube [or a Wii ] it's been ported under the title 'Skies of Arcadia Legends' with extra content and improved graphics.

I've still got SoA myself, it's not one I've played a lot of, but I've finished it a couple of times and may do so again one day. My Dreamcast stopped working years ago and I've still got SoA for it, but the Nintendo version is the better of the two so that's the version I play when I get into it now anyway.

A PC version was in the works called 'Skies of Arcadia Worlds', but it was sadly canceled.

I'd probably play it more, but I'd have to hook up my Wii to play it, and it's kind of boxed up right now. 'Tales of Symphonia' is another RPG title I'd probably play more often if I didn't have to hook up hardware to do it.

 

[shinzero01]

Turtles in Time on the SNES - Because the XBLA version was a disappointment as I had never played the Arcade one.

Zone of the Enders 2: Partly because its not ZOE 1.
Naruto:Gekitou Ninja Taisen/Clash of Ninja games. They're fun multiplayer.
Prototype 1: Until Saint's Row 4, I didn't really feel like a Superhero in any other current gen game. Even though Alex Mercer wasn't really... hero material.
Bayonetta: Its Bayonetta.
Anarchy Reigns: It has Bayonetta and Jack from Madworld and fun multiplayer.
Super Smash Bros Melee, Brawl. Melee for the pure smash experience. Brawl for the mods. The glorious, glorious mods.
Resident Evil 2-3. I like em even more on Vita.
Parasite Eve 1-2. We don't talk about the 3rd Birthday in my neighborhood.
Bulletstorm: Trishka Novac and Grayson Creed's interaction alone...
Transformers War for Cybertron: The Transformers Game I always wanted.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Multiplayer is... very satisfying and they added classic Starscream, Megatron, and Optimus as characters. Classic Starcream can use Classic Megatron's gun form as a weapon in multiplayer.
The Outfit. Its the closest thing to Freedom Fighters.
The Darkness: I loved the comics until v2 changed up the art style.
Soul Calibur 4, its not Soul Calibur 5.
Metroid Prime. Its Metroid Prime
Metroid Zero Mission, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion. I love them.
Devil May Cry 1, 3, 4.
Onimusha 2-3.
Mark of Kri
Primal

 

[Contrabardus]

Turtles in Time on the SNES - Because the XBLA version was a disappointment as I had never played the Arcade one.

Zone of the Enders 2: Partly because its not ZOE 1.
Naruto:Gekitou Ninja Taisen/Clash of Ninja games. They're fun multiplayer.
Prototype 1: Until Saint's Row 4, I didn't really feel like a Superhero in any other current gen game. Even though Alex Mercer wasn't really... hero material.
Bayonetta: Its Bayonetta.
Anarchy Reigns: It has Bayonetta and Jack from Madworld and fun multiplayer.
Super Smash Bros Melee, Brawl. Melee for the pure smash experience. Brawl for the mods. The glorious, glorious mods.
Resident Evil 2-3. I like em even more on Vita.
Parasite Eve 1-2. We don't talk about the 3rd Birthday in my neighborhood.
Bulletstorm: Trishka Novac and Grayson Creed's interaction alone...
Transformers War for Cybertron: The Transformers Game I always wanted.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Multiplayer is... very satisfying and they added classic Starscream, Megatron, and Optimus as characters. Classic Starcream can use Classic Megatron's gun form as a weapon in multiplayer.
The Outfit. Its the closest thing to Freedom Fighters.
The Darkness: I loved the comics until v2 changed up the art style.
Soul Calibur 4, its not Soul Calibur 5.
Metroid Prime. Its Metroid Prime
Metroid Zero Mission, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion. I love them.
Devil May Cry 1, 3, 4.
Onimusha 2-3.
Mark of Kri
Primal

Man, I have a shitload of games. This thread has made me realize just how many disks and cartridges I've got either sitting on shelves or packed away in storage.

I tend to not trade video games in or get rid of them when I buy them. I actually have all of these games with the sole exception of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. I'm kind of a game hoarder I guess. I've got almost two thousand games for various systems. A lot of them are boxed up and put away, but I've still got them. I've got at least one of most video home video game systems ever released. There are a couple I don't have, such as a 3DO, the 32x, and Virtua boy are a few examples.

I've got three different working Atari systems not counting the Jaguar, a Collico Vision [best version of Donkey Kong ever], an Intellivision, a Master System, an NES, a TG16, a Genesis, a Sega CD, a Snes w GB player, a PS, a N64, a Jaguar w CD, a Saturn, a PS2, an Xbox, a Gamecube with GBA, plus a buttload of handhelds GB/GBA/DS/Lynx/Game Gear/Nomad/Turbo Express, as well as the most recent console launches [Wii, PS3, 360], and four working older computers one of which is an Apple II, the rest are Windows machines of varying eras. I've owned more than that, but I often cannibalize them for parts so they tend to not last long. I'm not so much of a hoarder that I save broken hardware or the shells of things I've taken apart.

Note that I didn't buy a lot of this stuff new and got a bunch of it super cheap from pawn shops. Plus, I can do simple maintenance and repairs on a lot of the older systems to keep them running. If the CPU burns out I'm hosed and will have to discard the system, but if all it needs is a bit of soldering and a diode replacement I can deal with that. I've had to do that all of two or three times though as I keep them clean, use them infrequently, and usually don't run them for more than a couple of hours at a time at most.

A few of the bigger peripherals are still in their own boxes, such as the Snes Super Scope, the Robot for the NES, Steel Battalion, and Guitar Hero to name a few. Plus about three good sized boxes of chords and peripherals.

The only one that has stopped working and has games I can't play is my Dreamcast. I really don't want to buy another Dreamcast just to play Shenmu. Most anything else of note has been ported elsewhere with improved gameplay and/or graphics in most cases.

Whew. Most of those are in storage, but they all still work. I've got a damn virtual museum's worth of hardware and software in my home ranging from the late seventies to the latest hardware of today.

Sometimes when the mood strikes me I'll pull out a one of the old systems for a day or two of nostalgia. Most of the time it's one of the handhelds, but sometimes I'll go to the effort of unboxing one of the consoles, digging out the appropriate cables, and hooking up an old CRT I've got stored with them. I keep the cables bound up and tied, so it's not like I have to rip it out of a tangled ball of cabling. I learned that lesson long ago. I don't keep them out and box them back up after I'm satisfied though.

 

[zeebee1]

Super Robot Taisen Original Generation 1. Or I would if I had any cheat codes. Can someone help me out?

 

[NanuNanu14]

Psychonauts- one of if not the funniest games I've ever played

Carmageddon- turn-your-brain-off, kill'em all road racing never gets old

Mass Effect 2- excellent story

Soul Reaver series- best voice acting ever

 

[Fellgrave]

Etrian Odyssey 2, 3, 4- trying out different party combinations helps keep it interesting.

Final Fantasy VI - Got the Advance version as the first video game my parents let me have. I still have it, still play it, and I've logged in close to 300 hours on several save files over the years. The most recent one is 142 hours, after I found out you can save Shadow by sticking around till the end of the countdown, and I've been trying to grind my way to level 99 with every character.

Super Robot Wars OG Saga Endless Frontier - because, hell, have you seen the dialogue in it?

Luminous Arc 1 and 2 - decent story and interesting combat, especially in 2. Still trying to get 100% completion and all the endings in both.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - After three save files, currently on a hardcore run aiming for the elusive 100% completion. The Brightmoon Tor levels are absolute hell.

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends - One of my top 3 PC strategy games, next to Civ and Warcraft 3. The characters are great, the armies are interesting and well balanced, and the story has several neat plot twists and a real bittersweet ending. Not a bad bittersweet, but one where even though you won, you still lost a bit in the end. Loved it, and the inspiration for a several characters and a nation in my original fiction.