Hey Tim!! This is the Ur-Quan Masters team. We were so happy to hear your words. We love your games too! We'd love to connect and talk more, just let us know how to reach you.
@@Felice_Enellen You go beat Dark Souls II and tell me that's not painful. I concede your point on the other games in the franchise but holy fuck that was one the worst by far, literally changed mechanics for the worst. First you find out you can only fall less than half the distance than in the original or you die, then you find out it cuts down your total health with each death unlike the first game where that would only happen if you got cursed, then you find out if you want to fall the same distance as before without dying- you need a ring for that now. That was just what pissed me off in the first 30 minutes. At least I played on a 360 then so I avoided the launch bug where running 60FPS on PC degraded your equipment twice as fast. Different struggles but both difficult on ultra-masochistic levels iin their own ways I'd say. I'm curious though if you'd remember- Did losing 2 levels in Everquest lower the required EXP to level up back to what it was or did you still need as much EXP as before you lost 2 levels?
@@ModernOddity728 Heh, I was being hyperbolic. Yes, I actually played DS2 and no I did not enjoy it, to the point that I didn't finish it. Anyway, losing levels, be it 1 or 2, was permanent loss and there was no bonus XP to help get it back in the period afterward, unlike that QoL improvement made in many MMOs since. It sucked. Later in the game clerics got access to various progressively-better revive-style spells that could bring you back with some, most, or I think even almost all of your XP, for a massive mana cost. They often wanted some form of payment though, which was honestly fine vs. the slog of regaining the XP.
@@Felice_Enellen Thanks for the clarification, that is shitty. Glad you could counter-balance it with new cleric spells later on but I definitely see how that must make for a grueling and unfair experience before that point..
I remember we all laughed at one of our friends who got the game when it first came because all he was fish. 6 months later we were all hooked. I have one friend who met his wife on EQ and he has 10 accounts (he took them over as others quit) to this day. 😂
Star Control 2 is a genuine masterpiece, one of my favourite games of all time. The original devs are currently working on a true sequel to the game which is cool to see.
Thinking back, most influential games for me were Command & Conquer, the music is still in my head, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - countless hours spent playing random maps, Jagged Alliance 2 - character interactions are special in it. These are timeless for me and even the art style has aged very well.
I love your videos and tend to watch them as soon as i'm notified. Your stories make me want to be an "Uncle Tim"! At 46 i'm finally being serious about game development and your videos elevate, educate, and prime me for my future success! Stay well and keep doing the good work. Thanks Tim.
This made me reflect on my own list which turned out to be a fun trip down memory lane. I’m about ten years younger than Tim but I don’t think I have anything newer than 22 years ago. In no particular order: Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 & 2 Civilization 1 The Bard’s Tale Battlefield 1942 Tie Fighter With honorable mentions to Baldur’s Gate 2 and The Oregon Trail.
Tie Fighter (collector's edition) was one of my favorites. Same engine as X-Wing, but 640x480 so it looked insanely good back then. It was also fun to play "the bad guys" after playing the rebels first (in X-Wing), since there's a lot of missions and storylines where you are just a random police role pilot, actually upholding peace and order in the galaxy, never mind what the franchise heroes are doing somewhere far away. There's even a storyline where you end a war between two factions through force, no sign of "the rebels", which helps explain why something as massive as the empire can't just send everything to finish off the rebels. Makes you think that the whole good VS evil theme has a lot of gray area. Whoever wrote that game's story knew what they were doing.
Star Raiders! Wow. That immediately brought back memories of that game. I haven't played or thought about that game in decades and now I want to find a version of it to play again. I remember it being quite challenging, but I was a small kid the last time I played it. I really loved just warping through space, probably because I had no idea what the actual objective of the game was.
6:04 Great to see the love for Star Control II! It blew my mind in 1992 to have an open world space game with amazing MOD music, funny alien dialogue, mixed with Eldritch horror. Still one of my top games of all-time! Thanks for shedding a light on this classic close to its 31st anniversary!
I remember Star Raiders on the Atari. I went into the store near my school every day to just gape in awe at how unbelievable it was. It was totally jaw dropping.
Cool memories. I did not get along with my stepdad growing up. So when I was told we have to go to the camp he bought during the summer, my mom thankfully brought the Atari. I played Atari 2600 version of Star Raiders for hours listening to music. It's around the exact time I first heard Black Sabbaths Iron Man. Made the situation much better!
I can confirm that you aren't the only person who bought a joystick just to play X-Wing! I remember first seeing the game running on a computer in a Costco and being utterly blown away. It looked fantastic at the time, and the sound effects were spectacular.
I really like how Ultima did something different with level scaling too. Has any game ever triggered events based on your level (or otherwise calculated power-level) that make environments tougher in ways narratively justified? That can feel contrived in it's own way, hurting the worldbuilding more than it helps, of course, but when it feels natural, I really love it when things that happen more or less for the sake of gameplay make sense in the world. A classic example is how games like Dark Souls and Axiom Verge respawn you, Dark Souls in general feels like it was developed both top-down and bottom-up when it comes to this, seems like a lot of those bottoms and tops respectively emerged, going with the bits that felt right together.
Big ups for the X-wing pick! And Tie Fighter really took it to the nex level both graphics wise and story wise. The reason why the Prequels paled in comparison is because of all the amazing EU material that was made in the late 80s and 90s.
I was born in 2003, and was fortunate enough to play Star Control 2 when I was little. I still revisit it regularly and it is probably my favourite ever game, right next to XCOM UFO Defense.
Ultima 4 was my revelation. The philosophy, the open-ended sandbox, travelling over the world with earned purpose. I will never forget reciting the 8 virtues and ascending to avatarhood. A truly special game that was.
I remember playing star raiders in some ps1 bootleg atari collection and got really surprised how much people could do with so little resources, scarcity generates creativity
@@Maxxxim1 how have you not heard of Ultima? Ultima underworld is literally the game that inspired elder scrolls, system shock, and by extension the entire immersive sim genre
Man, it's astonishing how much this mimics my own experience, except that I was born in '86 and missed the boat on that kind of job market. Do envy that.
Merry Christmas Tim, thanks for the continued work on the channel. Your content is regularly part of my week and as an old fan of your work I'm always glad to see it.
Since I commented earlier, and have been considering this topic since, here is a quick thought about "my 5". Based on time played I suppose: EverQuest - PC (7 years invested. We called it NeverQuest because you hardly ever did for the first few years of its release.) Minecraft - PC (The first time I bore witness to the birth of a new genre.) Payday2 - PC (My first in depth experience with something like an economy grinder in the form of a "crime sandbox", also has an rpg level/skill system.) Last two based less on time and more on influence: Final Fantasy "1" - NES (My first real rpg and it let me build a custom 4 man team, oh the replay-ability!) DOOM - PC (MY first experience with actual 3D and first person, blew me completely away.) I learned how to build a computer in order to play and multiplayer good old DOOM. Totally worth it! Shout out to my 4800 baud warriors who had to upgrade to at least 9600 baud to multiplayer DOOM! Those grinding modem tones never sounded sweeter than when I could 1v1 my old pals.. All in all, DOOM changed the course of my life now that I consider it..
I had a similar experience with Ultima VI when I was growing up and for me that will be my all-time favourite, because nothing can quite equal the first time you get lost in a game like that.
YES! Star Wars: X-Wing!!! I remember watching my older cousins play it back in Maine. Honestly, Lucas Arts defined the 90's when it came to PC gaming. Miss them dearly.
I've played Star Control 2 on Mega Drive / Genesis and really enjoyed the RPS approach to ships. Also the battle map being looped (your ship "exits" the left side of the screen and appears on the right side) and the planet gravity had effect on combat maneuvers. All elements made a cohesively working combat experience, which was also fresh and unique. Tim, have you heard of a game Exanima? It's an RPG on steam in years of early access, but has a unique physics based combat/movement/interactions etc. I think it deserves a minute of your attention.
Did the version of Star Control 2 you played have voice acting? I only recently learned that not every version had voices, which is crazy to me considering how good they were!
I played so many hours of X-Wing. My friend Dan had it, and he went so far as to get a flight yoke joystick and literally bolted it to the front of his desk. I'd go over to his place, and we'd play it as a duo, one of us being the pilot (flying and shooting) and the other being the R2 unit, balancing the shields and generally calling out telemetry info. Some of my favourite early PC gaming memories.
It's impressive how much was fit into an 8k cartridge for Star Raiders. Must have been written quite efficiently to make such a game (and with 3D movement!). I am constantly surprised by the amount of ingenuity old games fostered - no - demanded, from developers back then!
Star raiders is such a great game, I used to play it on my Grandad's Atari800XE as a little kid. I thought the hyperspace effect was amazing, and would happily zoom about shooting things until I ran out of fuel. It wasn't until I watched my cousin complete it that I learned you could travel to the starbases for refueling, and from then on I was able to make Star Commander rank on my own. 😁 Tim have you tried Aric Wilmunder's unreleased Star Raiders 2?
Wizardry was my first RPG. I loved it. But Ultima III was awesome as well. I was collaborating with two friends who also had the game, and we were sharing clues we found. I'll always love it.
i played TIE Fighter In the late 90s... it got me into space sims and rabbit holed me into other space sims like Descent Freespace, Tachyon, X-Wing Alliance, and lastly the Descent Freespace 2 open sourced mods 😁
Wow 3 games involving flying space ships. No iso/cavalier RPGs. 3 without emphasis on dialogue/story. No games I would have picked. Great list Tim and interesting video.
I got my first computer in the late 80s in the USSR and loved games from that moment. But nothing has ever hit me like Everquest when it came out. That was absolute magic.
For all the fellow EQ junkies--Look up a game called Monsters & Memories for your radar. One of the EQ designers has a small indie team building an MMO with those old, niche sensibilities. Probably going to be a minute, but I imagine it'll be a nice new adventure for those who were there to appreciate the good ol' days.
Thank you for making the games that are in the top of my all time favorites! You and your teams and Ron Gilbert and teams are responsible for the highlights of my teens.
Star Control 2 Hyperspace theme music from the 3DO version is an amazing track. still wake up and I have that song in my head first thing even after so many years of not playing the game
Yo! I never see EQ as people's top lists. EQ was really groundbreaking, and still has some stuff that (at least conceptually) are unmatched even in contemporary MMO's for roleplaying. I agree with your feelings on it, gonna check out your vid on it!
The only Top List RUclipsr I would willingly watch. Top 5 Video Game History Books Top 5 video game design books Top 5 games to learn design from Top 5 Game Designers Top 5 RPGs Top 5 Influences on Fallout Top 5 Games you Designed Top 5 Tips to becoming Game Designer
I want to have that level of insight and forward thinking that your mom did, to tell you to take that summer off and relax. She was on point. Ultima 3 was my first "oh crap" RPG and it was the NES version (I wanna say around 89 or so). I had Ultima 3 and 4 for the NES and a friend I met had ALL the Ultima games on his Apple 2. I made my best friend ever through those games, and he showed me the world of CRPGs via Ultima, but rapidly moving onto WIzardry and Phantasie too ... though, Ultima was always THE jam for us. It makes SO much sense why Fallout 1 was such a blockbuster for us... Also, X-wing was formative. Tie Fighter was formative too, but dammit, while playing Wing Commander who didn't fantasize about flying an X-wing in a similar game. X-wing and Tie Fighter delivered that wish and more.
My top five video games: Fallout, Fallout 2, Pokemon Blue, vanilla World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Those are the games that impacted me the most which I keep coming back to when I can. Fallout introduced my to RPGs and it became my favorite genre. Thank you so much for creating Fallout
I never played Xwing but man, I never knew the power balance was that old. Diverting power from weapons to shields and engines is my favorite space ship mechanic
Man, Ultima 3 is so nostalgic for me. I'd play it myself and then spend hours watching my dad play. He actually wrote all the moongate locations and phases on the cloth map. I still remember when he beat it- I think he had to put cards into slots. Lol. As for Star Raiders, I didn't play, but did play Starmaster on the 2600. One of my favorite games on that system.
Love your work Tim I shat myself when fallout 1 came out, still being a fallout and rpg fan in general I still praise the series in your honor. Thanks for unforgettable experiences my man love seeing content from you!
If I were to speculate on their rankings, I would place them in the following order: EverQuest, Star Raiders, X-Wing, Ultima 3, with Star Control 2 ultimately emerging as the winner.
My Top Five Video Games ; 1) Fallout 1, 2 ( Can't seperate both of them it has equal values for me :) Greatest RPG Game ) 2) Diablo 2 Lord Of Destruction ( Sucessor of First Real Action RPG Game and still greatest Action Role Playing Game ) 3) Street Fighter 2 ( Since i was like only catch this game on end years of Street Fighter still groundbreaking fighting game back in their time ) 4) The Curse Of Monkey İsland ( Best Adventure Game All Time ) 5) Need For Speed Most Wanted : 2005 version ( Best Arcade Racing Game All Time ) From the games Mr Tim Cain mentioned about , i 've had no chance to play those games but for the 3d's calculating 2-d game seems , they found out really fascinating methodology to implement their game back in those hardwares technology .
Hi Tim I'd love to hear your talk about how you chose the music for Fallout and Vampire. Some of my favourite ambient soundtracks, love the weird sound effects.
My mom was awesome too!!! She let me play Adventure on Atari when I was 5 or 6. She loved Ultima Exodus! It was a bit beyond me at such a young age, but I remember distinctly: loving the party creation. I'm not sure I have ever felt that in another game since.
I was born in 1990, but I completely fell in love Star Control II back in 2012. Now I’m making a game inspired by both it and DBZ! Encouraging to know a great designer was inspired by the same game… I’m not alone!
Hell YEAH Star Control II! Truly a man of culture we have here. 😊 It's still my favourite game of all-time and nothing has yet dethroned it. It absolutely blew my mind back in the day for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm in the process of trying to build a collection of all the different versions. I have a complete PC copy, but still looking for Amiga and 3DO versions that won't require me to remortgage my house. I did enjoy Star Control: Origins from Stardock a fair bit, but I can't wait for the new game Paul and Fred have in development now.
"Truly a man of culture we have here." - to call a universally recognized game is not what makes "a man of a culture", ignoramus. Star Control II is obviously one of the greatest games ever made, I think even monkeys know it. More interesting pick would be StarFlight, by which StarControl creators were inspired.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius Star Control II was not a big seller in it's day. It made money yes, but it wasn't a smash hit. And to anyone with a sense of humour, my man of culture remark was clearly a joke, made more obvious by the emoji. Sorry that I clearly triggered you.
I loved Star Raiders! I enjoyed that game so much. I love being an 80s kid. OMG, my favorite Ultima was III. Wow! Another edit. Loved X-Wing! My favorite game of the 90's. No, this can't be possible, EVERQUEST!! Oh my goodness. Remember the Griffen that would kill you right outside of Freeport.
I haven't thought about Star Control 2 in such a long time but me and my friends were hooked on that as kids. We'd get to school and swap map coordinates we found the night before. I just remembered the rainbow worlds were a thing too, if you found all of them they formed the shape of an arrow if my memory isn't faulty. Did they ever explain what that arrow meant?
That's a great list. :) When I got my first computer, an ATARI XE , i used to play hours and hours of The Last Starfighter (a Star Raiders 2 clone to tie in with the movie) later on Wizardry 7 Crusaders of the Dark Savant as my first PC CRPG ( i still havent solved it :D). X-Wing was the first game my parents ordered via mail for me and I never stopped playing since then. And last but not least Guild Wars 1 has left a huge impression on me, mainly because it had such elegant mechanics and the ammount of griefing was low and I loved being part of a guild. Thank you for sharing your fave game picks with us. 🥰
@@CainOnGames If i played more Math Blaster, i would have noticed, that my list is only 4 games 😬😂 Just found your channel and binging your Star Traders videos. Love it, especially the familiar sounds. Thank you so much Mr. Cain. 🙏
Great video! I wish you would have tried final fantasi xi online when it first released. They took inspiration from ultima and everquest. It was a final fantasy mmo, that didn’t hold your hand, you had to pay attention to know where you needed to go. you NEEDED other people to level up, help do job (class) quests, etc. It was the first time i played an online game, playing with people all around the world, it was an incredible experience. Nowadays it’s been watered down and holds your hand more with things, so i don’t play it anymore. I still subscribe now and again though, just to run around the world i love and listen to the music, it just takes me back to the good old days!
Ultima III was my first of that series too. I have great memories of it - figuring out the moon gates, finding the marks, getting sucked into the whirlpool and finding Ambrosia, and getting attacked by the floors on the way to the final action in the game. I had never imagined that so much could be contained in a game, and I was hooked on RPGs from that day forward. Ultima III hasn't exactly aged well - combat is extremely tedious, and the overall experience is rather clunky by today's standards - but I will always have a soft spot for it. Ultima IV was just about as important. While it couldn't duplicate the sorts of memories that could only be formed through my first exposure to the RPG genre, it showed that RPGs didn't have to be murderhobo simulators and could include morality systems and complex interactions with NPCs. Later, Ultima VII came along and perfected the rich open world full of little secrets to find while wandering off the beaten path. When I played Bethesda games from Morrowind through Fallout 4 later on, I got Ultima VII-like vibes in how detailed, interactive, and lived-in the worlds felt. (Sadly, according to the reviews I've seen, Starfield might have lost some of this. I always wait on Bethesda games, so I haven't experienced it for myself yet.) Ultima III might not have been my first RPG experience, however, depending on how one defines Adventure on the Atari 2600. That game was also a huge influence on me, and I still play it to this day. The main character is a large square pixel that is the same color as the walls, the dragons look like ducks, and the sword is a simple yellow arrow, but in its time, this game really did feel like an epic adventure. It has some of the characteristics of RPGs - places to explore, loot to find, and enemies to kill - but there aren't any of the usual RPG stats. I don't see it as a full blown RPG (maybe it qualifies as a simple action RPG), but it was certainly an influence on the genre. Another group of games that was a huge influence on adventure games in general but is often overlooked nowadays is the text adventure. The Zork trilogy from Infocom was one of my favorites. These games have no graphics at all. They have rather brief text descriptions, and they respond to simple English commands. They feature puzzles so maddeningly obfuscated and obscure that they were nearly impossible to beat without resorting to hint books. The vault puzzle in Zork II is maddening, and the Royal Museum puzzle room in Zork III is the product of a truly warped mind. In some ways, these games can be seen as examples of bad game design, and text adventures, while no longer a mainstream genre, have come a long way since then, but the crazy world in which these games are set is so iconic and memorable that tangling with their unreasonable difficulties is a joy. From these humble beginnings, text-and-graphics adventures and point-and-click adventures arose, and ultimately the walking simulators of the 2010s can be traced to these roots. Even narrative-heavy RPGs owe a lot to these old adventure games.
What an interesting list. If I made a list of my top 5 games, it would be the ones that completely blew my mind when I saw them. That opened my mind to what a video game can do and be. Off the top of my head it would probably be Super Mario Bros, Fallout, Diablo, Warcraft 2 and Dark Age of Camelot (or Ultima Online). I'm not just putting your game in there because it's you. Fallout was so different from everything I had played up till then.
Lovely video, Tim. Your stories about each game and why they are important to you were great to hear. My top 5 list would also include the first professional MMO that I ever played, Star Wars Galaxies. That game was something else. Hugely ambitious, but with a lot of faults, so many great memories were made playing that title. Sometimes your first MMO can really be a magical experience.
SWG was an almost-excellent game that slowly ruined itself trying to eke out that last bit of missing excellence. Sad story. I had good times early on though.
One that had a big impact on me was dungeons of daggorath back in 83. An 8kb, first person, real time, action dungeon crawl. Was lucky enough to have a trs 80 in the house as a kid making it the first game I ever played. Was about 4 or 5 years old learning to type thanks to it.
I remember entire summer as a kid playing Sid Meier's pirates on the C-64. I don't know why saving the game was broken, but one power outage and I would have lost weeks of progress.
True, the first great ones of a genre make the biggest impression :) For me it was dungeon master, realms of arcania, tie fighter, alpha centauri (superceeding civilization), and xcom2.
Glad to see you make a video that talks about Star Control 2. I've been kind of demoralized by how little attention the planned sequel from the original creators has been getting. Truth is, anyone who has played Star Control 2 (or even Ur-Quan Masters by now) is probably pretty old, and most younger gamers don't even know Star Control 2 exists, so I'm not seeing a lot of hype for it.
very cool video tim. i would actually love to also be able to see your favorite "modern games" (maybe games newer than 24 years) if it's possible. congrats on your amazing channel by the way you are very wholesome.
Your top 5 games are phenomenal, now your Fallout (And of course the other games you've worked on for many others) is in top five of many people's including me.
A lesson I learned from Star Raiders: I was in an Atari computer club and someone brought in his new Atari ST and showed off the ST version of Star Raiders. I was blown away by the graphics (in comparison to the original) and got my own ST and copy of the game. Once I sat down with it, I learned that better graphics do not necessarily make a game more fun. It never captured my enthusiasm like the original 8-bit game.
I have a theory on this and the related fervor people have for the old 8-bit and 16-bit look in retro-styled games. We as humans are so good at imagining and filling in details when we're given what is essentially an impression of something that we prefer how we imagine and remember it in our mind's eye over a crisp, deliberate rendering of that thing in higher definition, where details are explicit and immutable. I think we especially prefer to model fictional characters in our mind, as when reading a book, vs. seeing them on-screen, as in a movie or recent hyper-realistic games. When there's a highly-detailed 2D sprite, 3D model, or actual actor, you have no imaginative freedom and you're left purely as an observer, forced to accept this visual as canon. This is why it can be so hard for a movie adaptation to be loved as much as the books. I think only LotR and Potter have really succeeded in coming close to what people imagine, and it's because the creators were so careful to follow the textual descriptions and use visuals that would match what _most_ people would imagine from them. In turn, that's what brought the two franchises so much success. This is also why cartoon → live action is so repellant to so many people. With cartoons, so much detail is left to the imagination, but live action is every detail presented as a _fait accompli_ and you have no say in it, again just an observer.
8:10 Damn it Tim, you're gonna make me drag my old 486 out of the closet before this video is over, aren't you? The nostalgia is strong with this one. And yes, folks. Go ahead and ridicule me. I still possess every computer (and monitor) I've ever bought. That 486 was the first though. The original hard drive still works as well, 31 years later. At least I think so. Last time I fired it up was 5 or more years ago to play Frontier: Elite 2.
Hey Tim. You and I are roughly contemporary and we both learned 6502 on our own and got a job in games because of it. It's kinda cool how much overlap this list has with mine. I would probably replace Star Raiders with Battlezone because Battlezone was the first time I realized a game could simulate 3D. I also never played Star Control but I can see it was my kinda game at the time. Otherwise I agree with every pick, especially Ultima 3, which was my first Ultima too, though I'd give an honorable mention to OG Apple II Akalabeth, the true progenitor and the first real computer RPG I played, long before Ultima. And let's not even talk about the EQ addiction, sigh. Three years of my spare time spent on Veeshan. I think I want about half of them back, but I don't regret the other half since they were kinda formative for me. Great talk. I didn't realize you had a channel; I think I'll sub. :) PS: I'm tempted to add Robotron 2084. As a super-addictive high-action stand-up game, it's one of the few times gaming has given me a cardio workout. :)
Tim this is Tim, my first true RPG was Ultima 3 as well. I played most of the other as welll Ultima 3 to 4 is funny exp when you can go wild looting merchants, and getting tough enough to kill the town guards. Not knowing that going into 4 was pretty hilarious.
Awesome list and awesome video. I could watch you talk about different games for days. I was a Commodore 64 then nes boy. The one that really stands out for me to this day is Metroid nes. I don’t know why I didn’t get into ultima back then. Wish I would have.
Hey tim livevthe list! My top 5 as 30 year old man who loves RPG's is 1-Steambot Chronicles (this game is a sandbox rpg with choose your own adventure, survival, and mecha themes. This game had the strongest semblance of an economy you had to pay for gas and traveled using a mecha you customize. But they had a real living economy travel was difficult they had busses trains you can invent airplanes, and staying fed, getting around, and investing is the initial goal. You can destroy the railroad buy stock in it then fix it and sell the stock much higher, there is even a whole city you can develop by connecting a railroad to it. You are a stowaway who is washed ashore in a new land and your goal is to kind of make a life for yourself, you can cook food, collect fossils and art doing archeology, invest into business, start businesses, buy and sell goods, do arena fights, invest in and customize property, play instruments invent things, travel as a band, join gangs, participate in either side of WW2, develope relationships, it was a masterpiece and I love that when you pick dialogue you have no idea what the main is going to say because the choice is describing like the vibe of the response like "be mean" or "console them". Great soundtrack great exploring they also had dungeons. I especially love the optional failure where you could mess up and it continues with you as a loser, and peril you had to use risk assessment things would go from thriving to struggle from obe vad choice) Then in no particular order, Civilization 6, Persona 4 , Fallout New Vegas, Assassins Creed Black Flag.
Hey Tim!! This is the Ur-Quan Masters team. We were so happy to hear your words. We love your games too! We'd love to connect and talk more, just let us know how to reach you.
Happy days and jubilations! Can’t wait for the true sequel being created by the original devs!
Keep rocking it, guys. UQM is fantastic and really keeps the old game alive.
"We love our games too!" lol
@@jackman5840read again...
@@jackman5840 ? Did you misread ?
The first 6 months of everquest was wild. No information online, everyone kept things secret so much to learn and everything was a mystery.
So brutal, too. IIRC the original death penalty was _two_ levels. These people with their Dark Souls, they don't know true pain.
@@Felice_Enellen You go beat Dark Souls II and tell me that's not painful. I concede your point on the other games in the franchise but holy fuck that was one the worst by far, literally changed mechanics for the worst. First you find out you can only fall less than half the distance than in the original or you die, then you find out it cuts down your total health with each death unlike the first game where that would only happen if you got cursed, then you find out if you want to fall the same distance as before without dying- you need a ring for that now. That was just what pissed me off in the first 30 minutes. At least I played on a 360 then so I avoided the launch bug where running 60FPS on PC degraded your equipment twice as fast. Different struggles but both difficult on ultra-masochistic levels iin their own ways I'd say.
I'm curious though if you'd remember-
Did losing 2 levels in Everquest lower the required EXP to level up back to what it was or did you still need as much EXP as before you lost 2 levels?
@@ModernOddity728 Heh, I was being hyperbolic. Yes, I actually played DS2 and no I did not enjoy it, to the point that I didn't finish it. Anyway, losing levels, be it 1 or 2, was permanent loss and there was no bonus XP to help get it back in the period afterward, unlike that QoL improvement made in many MMOs since. It sucked. Later in the game clerics got access to various progressively-better revive-style spells that could bring you back with some, most, or I think even almost all of your XP, for a massive mana cost. They often wanted some form of payment though, which was honestly fine vs. the slog of regaining the XP.
@@Felice_Enellen Thanks for the clarification, that is shitty. Glad you could counter-balance it with new cleric spells later on but I definitely see how that must make for a grueling and unfair experience before that point..
I remember we all laughed at one of our friends who got the game when it first came because all he was fish. 6 months later we were all hooked. I have one friend who met his wife on EQ and he has 10 accounts (he took them over as others quit) to this day. 😂
Star Control 2 is a genuine masterpiece, one of my favourite games of all time. The original devs are currently working on a true sequel to the game which is cool to see.
Everquest was so special!
I have a lot of nostalgic memories of that masterpiece lol
Great list!
Mantis!
Ofc....
Thinking back, most influential games for me were Command & Conquer, the music is still in my head, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - countless hours spent playing random maps, Jagged Alliance 2 - character interactions are special in it. These are timeless for me and even the art style has aged very well.
I love your videos and tend to watch them as soon as i'm notified. Your stories make me want to be an "Uncle Tim"! At 46 i'm finally being serious about game development and your videos elevate, educate, and prime me for my future success! Stay well and keep doing the good work. Thanks Tim.
This made me reflect on my own list which turned out to be a fun trip down memory lane. I’m about ten years younger than Tim but I don’t think I have anything newer than 22 years ago. In no particular order:
Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 & 2
Civilization 1
The Bard’s Tale
Battlefield 1942
Tie Fighter
With honorable mentions to Baldur’s Gate 2 and The Oregon Trail.
Tie Fighter (collector's edition) was one of my favorites. Same engine as X-Wing, but 640x480 so it looked insanely good back then. It was also fun to play "the bad guys" after playing the rebels first (in X-Wing), since there's a lot of missions and storylines where you are just a random police role pilot, actually upholding peace and order in the galaxy, never mind what the franchise heroes are doing somewhere far away. There's even a storyline where you end a war between two factions through force, no sign of "the rebels", which helps explain why something as massive as the empire can't just send everything to finish off the rebels. Makes you think that the whole good VS evil theme has a lot of gray area. Whoever wrote that game's story knew what they were doing.
So much yes
Star Raiders! Wow. That immediately brought back memories of that game. I haven't played or thought about that game in decades and now I want to find a version of it to play again. I remember it being quite challenging, but I was a small kid the last time I played it. I really loved just warping through space, probably because I had no idea what the actual objective of the game was.
6:04 Great to see the love for Star Control II! It blew my mind in 1992 to have an open world space game with amazing MOD music, funny alien dialogue, mixed with Eldritch horror. Still one of my top games of all-time! Thanks for shedding a light on this classic close to its 31st anniversary!
love how the games you were playing back then influenced your own games
Isn't that how it goes
Literally@@UlyssesM
I remember Star Raiders on the Atari. I went into the store near my school every day to just gape in awe at how unbelievable it was. It was totally jaw dropping.
Thank you. I should tell you that Fallout is my Ultima 3. So thank you for inspiring a deep love of CRPG's!
My favorite retro game would be Laser Squad for ZX Spectrum.
Cool memories. I did not get along with my stepdad growing up. So when I was told we have to go to the camp he bought during the summer, my mom thankfully brought the Atari. I played Atari 2600 version of Star Raiders for hours listening to music. It's around the exact time I first heard Black Sabbaths Iron Man. Made the situation much better!
I can confirm that you aren't the only person who bought a joystick just to play X-Wing! I remember first seeing the game running on a computer in a Costco and being utterly blown away. It looked fantastic at the time, and the sound effects were spectacular.
I still have that Logitech joystick I bought for it. Such smooth action. :) Loved that thing.
I really like how Ultima did something different with level scaling too. Has any game ever triggered events based on your level (or otherwise calculated power-level) that make environments tougher in ways narratively justified? That can feel contrived in it's own way, hurting the worldbuilding more than it helps, of course, but when it feels natural, I really love it when things that happen more or less for the sake of gameplay make sense in the world. A classic example is how games like Dark Souls and Axiom Verge respawn you, Dark Souls in general feels like it was developed both top-down and bottom-up when it comes to this, seems like a lot of those bottoms and tops respectively emerged, going with the bits that felt right together.
Big ups for the X-wing pick! And Tie Fighter really took it to the nex level both graphics wise and story wise. The reason why the Prequels paled in comparison is because of all the amazing EU material that was made in the late 80s and 90s.
Star Control 2 was just _so_ good!
I was born in 2003, and was fortunate enough to play Star Control 2 when I was little. I still revisit it regularly and it is probably my favourite ever game, right next to XCOM UFO Defense.
I forgot how many sticks I broke playing X Wing Vs Tie fighter, which was the sucessor of Xwing. GOD I love that game.
Ultima 4 was my revelation. The philosophy, the open-ended sandbox, travelling over the world with earned purpose. I will never forget reciting the 8 virtues and ascending to avatarhood. A truly special game that was.
I remember playing star raiders in some ps1 bootleg atari collection and got really surprised how much people could do with so little resources, scarcity generates creativity
1) Star Raiders 1979 @ 1:08
2) Ultima 3 Exodus 1983 @ 3:17
3) Star Control 2 1992 @ 6:06
4) Star Wars X Wing 1993 @ 8:10
5) Ever Quest 1999 @ 9:48
Legend
OF COURSE it'd be games I've never heard of
@@Maxxxim1 how have you not heard of Ultima? Ultima underworld is literally the game that inspired elder scrolls, system shock, and by extension the entire immersive sim genre
@@Maxxxim1 It's a shame we live in a world where Everquest didn't keep it's popularity like WoW did
Man, it's astonishing how much this mimics my own experience, except that I was born in '86 and missed the boat on that kind of job market. Do envy that.
Merry Christmas Tim, thanks for the continued work on the channel. Your content is regularly part of my week and as an old fan of your work I'm always glad to see it.
Since I commented earlier, and have been considering this topic since, here is a quick thought about "my 5".
Based on time played I suppose:
EverQuest - PC (7 years invested. We called it NeverQuest because you hardly ever did for the first few years of its release.)
Minecraft - PC (The first time I bore witness to the birth of a new genre.)
Payday2 - PC (My first in depth experience with something like an economy grinder in the form of a "crime sandbox", also has an rpg level/skill system.)
Last two based less on time and more on influence:
Final Fantasy "1" - NES (My first real rpg and it let me build a custom 4 man team, oh the replay-ability!)
DOOM - PC (MY first experience with actual 3D and first person, blew me completely away.)
I learned how to build a computer in order to play and multiplayer good old DOOM. Totally worth it! Shout out to my 4800 baud warriors who had to upgrade to at least 9600 baud to multiplayer DOOM! Those grinding modem tones never sounded sweeter than when I could 1v1 my old pals.. All in all, DOOM changed the course of my life now that I consider it..
I had a similar experience with Ultima VI when I was growing up and for me that will be my all-time favourite, because nothing can quite equal the first time you get lost in a game like that.
I heard great things about it, I'm curious to try it out. Do you need to play the previous games in the series?
YES! Star Wars: X-Wing!!! I remember watching my older cousins play it back in Maine. Honestly, Lucas Arts defined the 90's when it came to PC gaming. Miss them dearly.
I've played Star Control 2 on Mega Drive / Genesis and really enjoyed the RPS approach to ships. Also the battle map being looped (your ship "exits" the left side of the screen and appears on the right side) and the planet gravity had effect on combat maneuvers. All elements made a cohesively working combat experience, which was also fresh and unique.
Tim, have you heard of a game Exanima? It's an RPG on steam in years of early access, but has a unique physics based combat/movement/interactions etc. I think it deserves a minute of your attention.
Did the version of Star Control 2 you played have voice acting? I only recently learned that not every version had voices, which is crazy to me considering how good they were!
Probably not, given it was the 3DO version that had it. The UQM remake has all the best parts of all the versions.
Hearing someone talk about Star Raiders really takes me back! One of my favorites as well.
I played so many hours of X-Wing.
My friend Dan had it, and he went so far as to get a flight yoke joystick and literally bolted it to the front of his desk. I'd go over to his place, and we'd play it as a duo, one of us being the pilot (flying and shooting) and the other being the R2 unit, balancing the shields and generally calling out telemetry info. Some of my favourite early PC gaming memories.
STAR WARS XWING!!!! loved this game. Hours and hours at my neighbors house playing this game. Story was so good. It FELT like you were in an XWING.
used to go over my friends house to play the game since I still had an old apple IIgs at the time
Tim do your top 5 video games to learn from/study
This, please
I’d also love to watch something about Tim’s top books somewhat related to gamedev
He isn’t your maid, ask him nicely next time.
@@kylenewberry9792 no.
Top 5 worst videogames to learn mistakes from
It's impressive how much was fit into an 8k cartridge for Star Raiders. Must have been written quite efficiently to make such a game (and with 3D movement!). I am constantly surprised by the amount of ingenuity old games fostered - no - demanded, from developers back then!
I discovered Star Control 2 just a few months ago, and it is such a masterpiece. Just so deep and detailed, even by today's standards.
Ignorance is bliss. Continue to live in a barrel. Then you wll discover more masterpiece of all time before death.
I was borne in 79, and Star Raiders is still one of my favorite games and approach to design. It sparked my imagination. I loved docking in a station.
Star raiders is such a great game, I used to play it on my Grandad's Atari800XE as a little kid. I thought the hyperspace effect was amazing, and would happily zoom about shooting things until I ran out of fuel. It wasn't until I watched my cousin complete it that I learned you could travel to the starbases for refueling, and from then on I was able to make Star Commander rank on my own. 😁
Tim have you tried Aric Wilmunder's unreleased Star Raiders 2?
Wizardry was my first RPG. I loved it. But Ultima III was awesome as well. I was collaborating with two friends who also had the game, and we were sharing clues we found. I'll always love it.
i played TIE Fighter In the late 90s... it got me into space sims and rabbit holed me into other space sims like Descent Freespace, Tachyon, X-Wing Alliance, and lastly the Descent Freespace 2 open sourced mods 😁
Alliance, I couldn't remember the name when I just posted. Thank you.
Wow 3 games involving flying space ships. No iso/cavalier RPGs. 3 without emphasis on dialogue/story. No games I would have picked. Great list Tim and interesting video.
I played X-Wing with a replica of a WWII aviator helmet, my parents thought I went crazy when they entered my room :D
I got my first computer in the late 80s in the USSR and loved games from that moment. But nothing has ever hit me like Everquest when it came out. That was absolute magic.
For all the fellow EQ junkies--Look up a game called Monsters & Memories for your radar. One of the EQ designers has a small indie team building an MMO with those old, niche sensibilities. Probably going to be a minute, but I imagine it'll be a nice new adventure for those who were there to appreciate the good ol' days.
Huh. The trailer looks like a re-imagined Freeport area. Interesting.
I was so sure X-COM was coming up! 😅
Thank you for making the games that are in the top of my all time favorites!
You and your teams and Ron Gilbert and teams are responsible for the highlights of my teens.
Star Control 2 Hyperspace theme music from the 3DO version is an amazing track. still wake up and I have that song in my head first thing even after so many years of not playing the game
played Star Control 2 on the 3DO - what a great game! the voice acting and dialog especially hilarious
Yo! I never see EQ as people's top lists. EQ was really groundbreaking, and still has some stuff that (at least conceptually) are unmatched even in contemporary MMO's for roleplaying. I agree with your feelings on it, gonna check out your vid on it!
The only Top List RUclipsr I would willingly watch.
Top 5 Video Game History Books
Top 5 video game design books
Top 5 games to learn design from
Top 5 Game Designers
Top 5 RPGs
Top 5 Influences on Fallout
Top 5 Games you Designed
Top 5 Tips to becoming Game Designer
I want to have that level of insight and forward thinking that your mom did, to tell you to take that summer off and relax. She was on point.
Ultima 3 was my first "oh crap" RPG and it was the NES version (I wanna say around 89 or so). I had Ultima 3 and 4 for the NES and a friend I met had ALL the Ultima games on his Apple 2. I made my best friend ever through those games, and he showed me the world of CRPGs via Ultima, but rapidly moving onto WIzardry and Phantasie too ... though, Ultima was always THE jam for us.
It makes SO much sense why Fallout 1 was such a blockbuster for us...
Also, X-wing was formative. Tie Fighter was formative too, but dammit, while playing Wing Commander who didn't fantasize about flying an X-wing in a similar game. X-wing and Tie Fighter delivered that wish and more.
My top five video games: Fallout, Fallout 2, Pokemon Blue, vanilla World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Those are the games that impacted me the most which I keep coming back to when I can. Fallout introduced my to RPGs and it became my favorite genre. Thank you so much for creating Fallout
Anyone randomly seeing this and interested in Ultima, they're on sale a lot on GOG, including right now. Great retrospectives online as well.
X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter was the first game I ever played. My dad sat me in front it when I was 5yo and I was hooked immediately
I never played Xwing but man, I never knew the power balance was that old. Diverting power from weapons to shields and engines is my favorite space ship mechanic
Man, Ultima 3 is so nostalgic for me. I'd play it myself and then spend hours watching my dad play. He actually wrote all the moongate locations and phases on the cloth map. I still remember when he beat it- I think he had to put cards into slots. Lol.
As for Star Raiders, I didn't play, but did play Starmaster on the 2600. One of my favorite games on that system.
Love your work Tim I shat myself when fallout 1 came out, still being a fallout and rpg fan in general I still praise the series in your honor. Thanks for unforgettable experiences my man love seeing content from you!
If I were to speculate on their rankings, I would place them in the following order: EverQuest, Star Raiders, X-Wing, Ultima 3, with Star Control 2 ultimately emerging as the winner.
My Top Five Video Games ;
1) Fallout 1, 2 ( Can't seperate both of them it has equal values for me :) Greatest RPG Game )
2) Diablo 2 Lord Of Destruction ( Sucessor of First Real Action RPG Game and still greatest Action Role Playing Game )
3) Street Fighter 2 ( Since i was like only catch this game on end years of Street Fighter still groundbreaking fighting game back in their time )
4) The Curse Of Monkey İsland ( Best Adventure Game All Time )
5) Need For Speed Most Wanted : 2005 version ( Best Arcade Racing Game All Time )
From the games Mr Tim Cain mentioned about , i 've had no chance to play those games but for the 3d's calculating 2-d game seems , they found out really fascinating methodology to implement their game back in those hardwares technology .
Hi Tim I'd love to hear your talk about how you chose the music for Fallout and Vampire. Some of my favourite ambient soundtracks, love the weird sound effects.
My mom was awesome too!!! She let me play Adventure on Atari when I was 5 or 6. She loved Ultima Exodus! It was a bit beyond me at such a young age, but I remember distinctly: loving the party creation. I'm not sure I have ever felt that in another game since.
I was born in 1990, but I completely fell in love Star Control II back in 2012. Now I’m making a game inspired by both it and DBZ!
Encouraging to know a great designer was inspired by the same game… I’m not alone!
Hell YEAH Star Control II! Truly a man of culture we have here. 😊 It's still my favourite game of all-time and nothing has yet dethroned it. It absolutely blew my mind back in the day for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm in the process of trying to build a collection of all the different versions. I have a complete PC copy, but still looking for Amiga and 3DO versions that won't require me to remortgage my house.
I did enjoy Star Control: Origins from Stardock a fair bit, but I can't wait for the new game Paul and Fred have in development now.
"Truly a man of culture we have here." - to call a universally recognized game is not what makes "a man of a culture", ignoramus.
Star Control II is obviously one of the greatest games ever made, I think even monkeys know it. More interesting pick would be StarFlight, by which StarControl creators were inspired.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius Star Control II was not a big seller in it's day. It made money yes, but it wasn't a smash hit. And to anyone with a sense of humour, my man of culture remark was clearly a joke, made more obvious by the emoji. Sorry that I clearly triggered you.
@@PXAbstraction Ok, private joker.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius 🤡
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius Hilarious levels of seething for no reason lmao
I wonder who pissed in your cereal 5 months ago
All my phone ringtones are from Star Control 2
Your decor in the background is so cozy. You must love to read!
I loved Star Raiders! I enjoyed that game so much. I love being an 80s kid. OMG, my favorite Ultima was III. Wow! Another edit. Loved X-Wing! My favorite game of the 90's. No, this can't be possible, EVERQUEST!! Oh my goodness. Remember the Griffen that would kill you right outside of Freeport.
I was a teenager when I got introduced to Ultima III and PC gaming. It was not my first love, that honor belongs to Ultima IV.
Star control 2 changed me. Epic mention.
Appreciate all the edits and clips of the games being discussed!
Star Control 2 was one of the greats of my childhood. That and Starcraft, Ultima 7, and Final Fantasy 7.
Its actually mindblowing how influential Ultimas were.
I already had a joystick for X-Wing, since I played Falcon 3.0.
I haven't thought about Star Control 2 in such a long time but me and my friends were hooked on that as kids. We'd get to school and swap map coordinates we found the night before. I just remembered the rainbow worlds were a thing too, if you found all of them they formed the shape of an arrow if my memory isn't faulty. Did they ever explain what that arrow meant?
This is my absolute Favorite Channel!
I used to rock Star Raiders for hours at a time on my 2600. Loved that game.
I need to look up Star Control 2, but I lives X-Wing and Everquest!
If you are that stupid that never played it, then don't bother.
I can't believe I missed this video. Glad it popped up in my recommended.
That's a great list. :) When I got my first computer, an ATARI XE , i used to play hours and hours of The Last Starfighter (a Star Raiders 2 clone to tie in with the movie) later on Wizardry 7 Crusaders of the Dark Savant as my first PC CRPG ( i still havent solved it :D). X-Wing was the first game my parents ordered via mail for me and I never stopped playing since then. And last but not least Guild Wars 1 has left a huge impression on me, mainly because it had such elegant mechanics and the ammount of griefing was low and I loved being part of a guild.
Thank you for sharing your fave game picks with us. 🥰
Thank you, Pops Freshenmeyer!
@@CainOnGames If i played more Math Blaster, i would have noticed, that my list is only 4 games 😬😂 Just found your channel and binging your Star Traders videos. Love it, especially the familiar sounds. Thank you so much Mr. Cain. 🙏
Great video! I wish you would have tried final fantasi xi online when it first released. They took inspiration from ultima and everquest. It was a final fantasy mmo, that didn’t hold your hand, you had to pay attention to know where you needed to go. you NEEDED other people to level up, help do job (class) quests, etc. It was the first time i played an online game, playing with people all around the world, it was an incredible experience. Nowadays it’s been watered down and holds your hand more with things, so i don’t play it anymore. I still subscribe now and again though, just to run around the world i love and listen to the music, it just takes me back to the good old days!
Ultima III was my first of that series too. I have great memories of it - figuring out the moon gates, finding the marks, getting sucked into the whirlpool and finding Ambrosia, and getting attacked by the floors on the way to the final action in the game. I had never imagined that so much could be contained in a game, and I was hooked on RPGs from that day forward. Ultima III hasn't exactly aged well - combat is extremely tedious, and the overall experience is rather clunky by today's standards - but I will always have a soft spot for it. Ultima IV was just about as important. While it couldn't duplicate the sorts of memories that could only be formed through my first exposure to the RPG genre, it showed that RPGs didn't have to be murderhobo simulators and could include morality systems and complex interactions with NPCs. Later, Ultima VII came along and perfected the rich open world full of little secrets to find while wandering off the beaten path. When I played Bethesda games from Morrowind through Fallout 4 later on, I got Ultima VII-like vibes in how detailed, interactive, and lived-in the worlds felt. (Sadly, according to the reviews I've seen, Starfield might have lost some of this. I always wait on Bethesda games, so I haven't experienced it for myself yet.)
Ultima III might not have been my first RPG experience, however, depending on how one defines Adventure on the Atari 2600. That game was also a huge influence on me, and I still play it to this day. The main character is a large square pixel that is the same color as the walls, the dragons look like ducks, and the sword is a simple yellow arrow, but in its time, this game really did feel like an epic adventure. It has some of the characteristics of RPGs - places to explore, loot to find, and enemies to kill - but there aren't any of the usual RPG stats. I don't see it as a full blown RPG (maybe it qualifies as a simple action RPG), but it was certainly an influence on the genre.
Another group of games that was a huge influence on adventure games in general but is often overlooked nowadays is the text adventure. The Zork trilogy from Infocom was one of my favorites. These games have no graphics at all. They have rather brief text descriptions, and they respond to simple English commands. They feature puzzles so maddeningly obfuscated and obscure that they were nearly impossible to beat without resorting to hint books. The vault puzzle in Zork II is maddening, and the Royal Museum puzzle room in Zork III is the product of a truly warped mind. In some ways, these games can be seen as examples of bad game design, and text adventures, while no longer a mainstream genre, have come a long way since then, but the crazy world in which these games are set is so iconic and memorable that tangling with their unreasonable difficulties is a joy. From these humble beginnings, text-and-graphics adventures and point-and-click adventures arose, and ultimately the walking simulators of the 2010s can be traced to these roots. Even narrative-heavy RPGs owe a lot to these old adventure games.
What an interesting list. If I made a list of my top 5 games, it would be the ones that completely blew my mind when I saw them. That opened my mind to what a video game can do and be. Off the top of my head it would probably be Super Mario Bros, Fallout, Diablo, Warcraft 2 and Dark Age of Camelot (or Ultima Online). I'm not just putting your game in there because it's you. Fallout was so different from everything I had played up till then.
Lovely video, Tim. Your stories about each game and why they are important to you were great to hear. My top 5 list would also include the first professional MMO that I ever played, Star Wars Galaxies. That game was something else. Hugely ambitious, but with a lot of faults, so many great memories were made playing that title. Sometimes your first MMO can really be a magical experience.
SWG was an almost-excellent game that slowly ruined itself trying to eke out that last bit of missing excellence. Sad story. I had good times early on though.
One that had a big impact on me was dungeons of daggorath back in 83. An 8kb, first person, real time, action dungeon crawl. Was lucky enough to have a trs 80 in the house as a kid making it the first game I ever played. Was about 4 or 5 years old learning to type thanks to it.
So excited to see eq on here. I will never give darkpaw another cent of my money, but id go back if they ever sell it.
I'm just glad i'm not the only one who got addicted to Everquest lol.
I remember entire summer as a kid playing Sid Meier's pirates on the C-64. I don't know why saving the game was broken, but one power outage and I would have lost weeks of progress.
True, the first great ones of a genre make the biggest impression :)
For me it was dungeon master, realms of arcania, tie fighter, alpha centauri (superceeding civilization), and xcom2.
I played the 5200 version of Star Raiders, which I think was basically the same as the Atari 800 version. I loved that game.
Oh wow! Star Wars Squadrons(2020) uses that same system for distributing power between lasers, shields and engines, that’s awesome.
Glad to see you make a video that talks about Star Control 2.
I've been kind of demoralized by how little attention the planned sequel from the original creators has been getting. Truth is, anyone who has played Star Control 2 (or even Ur-Quan Masters by now) is probably pretty old, and most younger gamers don't even know Star Control 2 exists, so I'm not seeing a lot of hype for it.
very cool video tim. i would actually love to also be able to see your favorite "modern games" (maybe games newer than 24 years) if it's possible. congrats on your amazing channel by the way you are very wholesome.
Your top 5 games are phenomenal, now your Fallout (And of course the other games you've worked on for many others) is in top five of many people's including me.
A lesson I learned from Star Raiders: I was in an Atari computer club and someone brought in his new Atari ST and showed off the ST version of Star Raiders. I was blown away by the graphics (in comparison to the original) and got my own ST and copy of the game. Once I sat down with it, I learned that better graphics do not necessarily make a game more fun. It never captured my enthusiasm like the original 8-bit game.
I have a theory on this and the related fervor people have for the old 8-bit and 16-bit look in retro-styled games. We as humans are so good at imagining and filling in details when we're given what is essentially an impression of something that we prefer how we imagine and remember it in our mind's eye over a crisp, deliberate rendering of that thing in higher definition, where details are explicit and immutable.
I think we especially prefer to model fictional characters in our mind, as when reading a book, vs. seeing them on-screen, as in a movie or recent hyper-realistic games. When there's a highly-detailed 2D sprite, 3D model, or actual actor, you have no imaginative freedom and you're left purely as an observer, forced to accept this visual as canon. This is why it can be so hard for a movie adaptation to be loved as much as the books.
I think only LotR and Potter have really succeeded in coming close to what people imagine, and it's because the creators were so careful to follow the textual descriptions and use visuals that would match what _most_ people would imagine from them. In turn, that's what brought the two franchises so much success.
This is also why cartoon → live action is so repellant to so many people. With cartoons, so much detail is left to the imagination, but live action is every detail presented as a _fait accompli_ and you have no say in it, again just an observer.
8:10 Damn it Tim, you're gonna make me drag my old 486 out of the closet before this video is over, aren't you?
The nostalgia is strong with this one.
And yes, folks. Go ahead and ridicule me. I still possess every computer (and monitor) I've ever bought. That 486 was the first though. The original hard drive still works as well, 31 years later. At least I think so. Last time I fired it up was 5 or more years ago to play Frontier: Elite 2.
Hey Tim. You and I are roughly contemporary and we both learned 6502 on our own and got a job in games because of it. It's kinda cool how much overlap this list has with mine.
I would probably replace Star Raiders with Battlezone because Battlezone was the first time I realized a game could simulate 3D. I also never played Star Control but I can see it was my kinda game at the time.
Otherwise I agree with every pick, especially Ultima 3, which was my first Ultima too, though I'd give an honorable mention to OG Apple II Akalabeth, the true progenitor and the first real computer RPG I played, long before Ultima.
And let's not even talk about the EQ addiction, sigh. Three years of my spare time spent on Veeshan. I think I want about half of them back, but I don't regret the other half since they were kinda formative for me.
Great talk. I didn't realize you had a channel; I think I'll sub. :)
PS: I'm tempted to add Robotron 2084. As a super-addictive high-action stand-up game, it's one of the few times gaming has given me a cardio workout. :)
Tim this is Tim, my first true RPG was Ultima 3 as well. I played most of the other as welll Ultima 3 to 4 is funny exp when you can go wild looting merchants, and getting tough enough to kill the town guards. Not knowing that going into 4 was pretty hilarious.
Awesome list and awesome video. I could watch you talk about different games for days.
I was a Commodore 64 then nes boy. The one that really stands out for me to this day is Metroid nes. I don’t know why I didn’t get into ultima back then. Wish I would have.
I'm definitely going to check out Star Control 2. Or putting it on my list until after I finish all of Tim's own games.
Only fools didn't play it. So no sense in playing it for fools.
I remember as a kid playing Ultima as a kid and really enjoying it
Hey tim livevthe list! My top 5 as 30 year old man who loves RPG's is 1-Steambot Chronicles (this game is a sandbox rpg with choose your own adventure, survival, and mecha themes. This game had the strongest semblance of an economy you had to pay for gas and traveled using a mecha you customize. But they had a real living economy travel was difficult they had busses trains you can invent airplanes, and staying fed, getting around, and investing is the initial goal. You can destroy the railroad buy stock in it then fix it and sell the stock much higher, there is even a whole city you can develop by connecting a railroad to it. You are a stowaway who is washed ashore in a new land and your goal is to kind of make a life for yourself, you can cook food, collect fossils and art doing archeology, invest into business, start businesses, buy and sell goods, do arena fights, invest in and customize property, play instruments invent things, travel as a band, join gangs, participate in either side of WW2, develope relationships, it was a masterpiece and I love that when you pick dialogue you have no idea what the main is going to say because the choice is describing like the vibe of the response like "be mean" or "console them". Great soundtrack great exploring they also had dungeons. I especially love the optional failure where you could mess up and it continues with you as a loser, and peril you had to use risk assessment things would go from thriving to struggle from obe vad choice) Then in no particular order, Civilization 6, Persona 4 , Fallout New Vegas, Assassins Creed Black Flag.