Most fun you've ever had playing a video game?

[ITL]

^ Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that Frontier had an absolutely huge amount of locations - you could zoom in or out of the map and it would just keep on going, star system after star system. Amazing.

I also seem to remember reading an interview where the awesome programming of the game that allowed such hugeness of map was discussed. Also amazing,

 

[Jim Steele]

^ Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that Frontier had an absolutely huge amount of locations - you could zoom in or out of the map and it would just keep on going, star system after star system. Amazing.

Certainly did. Much of the content was procedurally generated, if I remember rightly.

Many star systems had bugger all in them, sometimes not even as much as ONE settlement, but the majority of them had a lot of stuff to visit, and the core systems had dozens of space stations, planetary cities, mines, colonies... you name it.

Such an awesome world to explore.

 

[Jadzia]

I remember trying this game once, but I found it a bit depressing. It was too complex to keep me interested, I felt there were too many numbers to take in, running out of fuel with every trip, and nothing much happening that I wasn't the cause of. And then I'm expected to buy and sell slaves and narcotics... too nasty.

Would the game have been more fun if it was based in the trek universe, with familiar races/worlds, and which made navigating the space environment more user friendly?

 

[Jim Steele]

I remember trying this game once, but I found it a bit depressing. It was too complex to keep me interested, I felt there were too many numbers to take in, running out of fuel with every trip,

I think I've spotted your problem. You'd be in danger of running out of fuel if you're uninterested in the numbers (particularly that of the fuel gauge)

I see where you're coming from though. It was a massive and complex game for its day. I remember it took me about a year before I was even able to fly into a star system and successfully dock at a station. (I was like 10 when it came out, gimme a break!)

And then I'm expected to buy and sell slaves and narcotics... too nasty.

You weren't *expected* to do anything in Elite or Frontier, that's sorta the point.

Yes, you could do highly illegal, morally repugnant (and entirely fictional ) things in the game if you wanted to, but it was difficult and the police in local star systems would hunt you down if you were caught.

You could also work for the police, help find missing persons and make an honest living trading in water, or mining. Too nice?

Would the game have been more fun if it was based in the trek universe

No.

Regarding familiar races/worlds - the only race in the game is Human, the most populated system is Sol. Isn't that familiar enough?!?

I don't understand the notion that the game could have been improved by slapping a Star Trek logo on the box - there's room for more than one Sci Fi universe. And dumbing down the controls would defeat the point of it being a simulation of life as a spacebound member of an interstellar society.

 

[Me-Ike]

Monkey Island I and II.

It was this father and his son and daughter (which would be me) thing we had. The joy when we managed to solve a particularly hard puzzle was immense! It could take days sometimes; walkthroughs didn't really exist back then or maybe we just weren't aware of them. Whoever thought of the solution was king or queen of the night.
Good times.

 

[Jadzia]

Would the game have been more fun if it was based in the trek universe

No.

Regarding familiar races/worlds - the only race in the game is Human, the most populated system is Sol. Isn't that familiar enough?!?

I meant familiar races in the context of the trek universe, ie the ones with the great empires, and those which recurred throughout the seasons.

I don't understand the notion that the game could have been improved by slapping a Star Trek logo on the box - there's room for more than one Sci Fi universe. And dumbing down the controls would defeat the point of it being a simulation of life as a spacebound member of an interstellar society.

It's not about branding, and yes there is room for more than one universe. I just feel that for a complex steep learning curve game like this, it only reduces the accessibility further to put the player into an unknown universe. I'm not saying the game's current universe has no value, but I think a trek incarnation of the game idea might be a more accessible (and fun) game because we're already familiarity with how the how the races work and interact.

 

[Holdfast]

Wow. Big question.

I only ask the biggies.



Cool answers everyone. It's striking how many people's most fun moment was multiplayer. Predictable in a way, I guess, but it's very noticeable.

Big shout-out to all the Elite Frontier fans too.

 

[gh4chiefs]

It's striking how many people's most fun moment was multiplayer. Predictable in a way, I guess, but it's very noticeable.

I'm gonna follow that trend. It was either the summer of 05 or 06, I was between my current girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend, and not very socially active otherwise, and when I'd come home from work, I didn't have a lot to do other than game a little.

I got to playing GRAW with the same group of guys, pretty much every night. And it was just an absolute blast while it lasted. I'm not sure what happened, some of them moved onto Gears of War (which I didn't like as a multiplayer) and finally we stopped playing together. Great time while it last though.

 

[Servo]

Call of Duty: World at War is the most fun I'm having at the moment. I'm in a clan with four of my real life friends, and we have a blast playing online together. We do tend to dominate most games, as we've been playing it since it came out, and we're all FPS veterans too. Search and Destroy is awesome cause we work really well as a team.

 

[Mistral]

I think I'd have to add a current "best time" as well. I play COD5 with a group of about 20 players. At the heart is what I like to call our "wrecking crew". We've been at it since 2003-2004, starting with the original Ghost Recon, then Crimson Skies, Halo 2, Halo 3, COD4 and now CoD5. When the six of us get together it is like magic. We know what each other likes to do in terms of role, where we each like to go(in general) and we talk up a storm between us. I'm only mediocre but with them I look amazing. When we are on and clicking its like nothing else I've experienced in gaming. My win/loss is 1662-1054. It was even more out of whack a couple weeks ago but 2 buddies got the RROD and I've been playing alone or with weak players and running up more losses as of late. But Friday we're on again. Can't wait.

 

[Kirk's_Tights]

My brother and I were kids when we first played Resident Evil. At the time, we didn't own a PS1 so my dad would rent the system and some games for us from Blockbuster Video.

Anyways, we didn't have any memory cards, either, so we would have to beat the game in one shot. My younger brother was too scared to play it so I always got stuck trying to beat it while pissing myself silly (our TV for games was in the scary basement) so one night in particular, we got as far as Yawn (the snake in the attic). It was 4 in the morning, we had been playing for hours, it was the furthest we got at the time, AND YAWN ATE ME. I died, no memory card, had to do it all over again the next day.


Good times.

 

[ALF]

Easily, by far, Grand Theft Auto III for PS2.

My friend and I were house-sitting at a buddy's house (which, incredibly enough was also an independent web-porn studio during the wee hours) and they had a gigantic projection TV.

We were mesmerized. We drove around causing idiotic havoc for 6 hours before we had to leave, and I was unable to think of anything else until I upgraded my PC so I could play it at home.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I remember trying this game once, but I found it a bit depressing. It was too complex to keep me interested, I felt there were too many numbers to take in, running out of fuel with every trip,

I think I've spotted your problem. You'd be in danger of running out of fuel if you're uninterested in the numbers (particularly that of the fuel gauge)

I see where you're coming from though. It was a massive and complex game for its day. I remember it took me about a year before I was even able to fly into a star system and successfully dock at a station. (I was like 10 when it came out, gimme a break!)

For me, it was 90% reading the tutorial that was in the first few pages of the manual (LOL, Sue Cripple & Sneer ) and 9.9% trial and lots of error (travelling to Alpha Centauri was NOT fun) and 0.1% hoping my hyperdrive wouldn't misjump AND break down leaving me stranded a few light years from any star system at all. All in all, after about a few days of solid gaming I was literally flying. In my local Star Trek club, where they had computers running X-Wing and Frontier: Elite II, I remember seeing one person struggling to even select their target destination.

Bottom line: read the manual. Not only will you pick up the basics, you'll probably find some other tips and tricks you won't see when you do it yourself.

[Of course, what also helped was that I discovered the Stardreamer Brake bug by accident (whereby you get to a destination faster by actively accelerating to your destination under manual control while setting the time acceleration to maximum speed, hoping you don't run out of fuel in the process, and keeping your destination in the crosshairs, then just as gravity is about to cause you to miss your mark, reactivate the autopilot and bingo: you're there!) which certainly helped my missions a lot due to my actual ignorance that I was exploiting a game-breaking bug! ]

And then I'm expected to buy and sell slaves and narcotics... too nasty.

You weren't *expected* to do anything in Elite or Frontier, that's sorta the point.

Yes, you could do highly illegal, morally repugnant (and entirely fictional ) things in the game if you wanted to, but it was difficult and the police in local star systems would hunt you down if you were caught.

Or, in my case, start breaking the law once you were rich and powerful enough and had improved piloting skills to both buy off your fine AND slaughter the police Vipers.

You could also work for the police, help find missing persons and make an honest living trading in water, or mining. Too nice?

Well, mining using the mobile minng machines was somewhat limited by the fatal game-crashing bug which prevented me from leaving any system with a MB4 whittling away on one of its planets.

As for missing persons, I always helped them get away. The person looking for them was usually some scumbag with an ulterior motive, and I hated seeing them try to march into one of my ship's passenger cabins saying "[xx] is coming with US." Plus, it was often more profitable to just help the passenger get away and then face the consequences of the pursuer posturing in their fighter craft... sorry, make that the smoking remains of their fighter craft.

The other fun thing to do with the missing persons missions of course was to carry the passenger to safety, then if someone was looking for them later, tell them the truth and send them after them, knowing that I've got both parties' money. I'm just plain evil that way.

 

[Kirk's_Tights]

Another fun as hell game is Goldeneye.

My brothers and I would play multiplayer and our weapon of choice was remote mines. Our favourite level was the one with the bathroom stalls where, to get down at the start of the level, you have to drop down on the toilet from the shaft.

Anyways, we would go throw some mines in that stall so whenever someone died and had to start from the shaft, they would jump down into a stall of mines and die right away. Awesome.

 

[captcalhoun]

^^ spawn-fragger!

 

[Elemental]

Playing through Metal Gear Solid 4. Absolutely mind-blowing for someone who's played through and loved the previous titles.

 

[Niorah]

I never laughed so much as the first time I played Theme Hospital. The absurd names for the different kinds of machinery, the ridiculous staff announcements on the speakers, the cartoon-y like nature of the game itself. It was a ton and a half of fun.

For fun as in over-excitement, I'd say the 16 hours in a row of Diablo II play, many many years ago.

 

[Emher]

Can't believe I forgot this one, but I blame the fact that I've been on a little break from it:

Online multiplayer in Battlefield: Bad Company. Always a blast, but my favorite thing to do is defense on Oasis. I play as Demolition a lot and it's great fun to plant mines and watch vehicles run into them, not to mention taking out said vehicles if they don't hit the mines. And also take out helicopters with the rocket launcher

 

[CaptainStoner]

I used to love playing the old MechWarrior games. I had a Joystick with 4 hats and a million buttons, a Throttle control with more hats and a million more buttons, Rudder pedals, VR Goggles with motion sensors, and the PC plugged into the stereo. It was incredibly immersive. And ya, the neighbors complained.

Oh, I forgot MechWarrior. Landing a Phoenix Hawk on the head of a Battlemaster in the first one - then the Crescent Hawk's Inception RPG, its follow-up in 256 colors. The Mechwarrior:Mercenaries games. Its one of THE franchises of PC gaming, you'd think there'd have been a 5th installment by now using dx10.

All that on a single 1.44MB floppy disk too. Bugs aside, it was incredible. It captured my imagination in a way that the X-Wing games somehow didn't quite manage (although X-Wing Alliance did come close). Even its nearest modern equivalent, the X Universe games by Egosoft, while visually and audibly stunning, and still addictive as hell, didn't really recapture that initial immersiveness of Frontier.

I missed Frontier, but Starflight I spent a huge amount of time in. X-Wing Alliance is a classic I'm glad I randomly picked up.

 

[dark angel_707]

It has to be Fallout 3 and all its DLC so far, so much fun and still play it from the day it was released