The Obsidian Community all-time top 106 games - FULL RESULTS!

[algroth]

I also haven't played Thief II and ought to do so at some point. With regards to game covers I agree with Bart, and I will also add another small category which is the following: a cover that may have been good were it not littered by blurbs, dev/platform/magazine/award icons and other such extraneous things, that instead make it notably busier and tackier than it would otherwise be. A case in point would be Master of Orion II's, which though not great on its own would really be no better or worse than some of the other hand-painted images here where it not that every corner of it seems to feature some gaudy stamp or other.

 

But The Longest Journey's is definitely its own kind of awful, and it isn't even the worst I've come across for it. I was speaking about it to a friend the other day... I posited a theory to him that the late 90s probably saw a shift to the worse in videogame cover art because it was a point where the publishers became confident enough in their game's graphics to let them take protagonism in the cover, not realizing or caring how utterly primitive and crude they'd look a few years down the line. Earlier games seem to have better artwork design if only because the game graphics could hardly be used that same way.

Edited January 1, 2018 by algroth

[Mamoulian War]

Hahaha, first of my games got on the list on place 64 :D

[Bartimaeus]

Hahaha, first of my games got on the list on place 64 :D

I know it's a little confusing because it has 64 in the title, but Quest 64 is actually in first place!

 

@Algroth: Yeah, I hate all that crap littering cover art (video games, music, films, whatever). Then you throw in the low availability of decent quality scans on top of it... And yep, actual artistic pieces instead of just plain in-game shots tend to age the best. Decent game artwork became a bit of a last...er...art for a while there, but I think it's been coming back for a while now.

 

Also, what the heck is that Tetris cover? I mean, really. Here's the Tetris soundtrack cover:

 

 

Why didn't they use something like this?

[algroth]

 

Hahaha, first of my games got on the list on place 64 :D

I know it's a little confusing because it has 64 in the title, but Quest 64 is actually in first place!

 

@Algroth: Yeah, I hate all that crap littering cover art (video games, music, films, whatever). Then you throw in the low availability of decent quality scans on top of it... And yep, actual artistic pieces instead of just plain in-game shots tend to age the best. Decent game artwork became a bit of a last...er...art for a while there, but I think it's been coming back for a while now.

 

Also, what the heck is that Tetris cover? I mean, really. Here's the Tetris soundtrack cover:

 

 

Why didn't they use something like this?

 

 

I could have. There's other covers around too, the one I posted is the one I liked the most amidst the options I saw. But I could use that too (didn't run across it in my search).

 

Also I do think there's been a bunch of good cover artwork done recently for videogames, though almost exclusively for indie games. Amidst the ones I enjoy are the Supergiant Games covers, Oxenfree, Tyranny, Journey, Hyper Light Drifter and so on. AAA games have seemed to only become duller as of late: just "generic hero striking a pose with weapon", usually, as is the case of Bloodborne for example.

Edited January 1, 2018 by algroth

[Bartimaeus]

That's definitely true for action games...

[algroth]

Here's some I enjoy, from some of the latest years...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

Those are all pretty striking. You gotta wonder how publishers think that the generic action pose is somehow preferable time and time again compared to something that's actually interesting to look at. Is it all marketing? Probably. At the very least, action game covers are functional for telling people what genre game they are, if nothing else.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Tigranes]

Making something interesting means taking a risk. You have to have everyone on the inside very convinced that this interesting cover is the right kind of interesting, and that it's not going to end up like the cover of Torment. It's very hard to get everybody to agree that this kind of interesting is the right kind. Hence, you end up with the bog standard, because the calculus is that you'd rather have the proven "hello, i shoot people, there are some boobs too" than to fail outright.

 

Even in academic books written by single authors, where there is less risk (nobody buys them anyway), less stakeholders (a single author perhaps + publisher side), and more license to be weird, 90% of the time the author's suggestions are rejected and you end up with "this is a boring ass book, please do not buy."

[melkathi]

I think Shadowrun Returns is the first game on the list where I have no understanding why people would have voted for it.

[algroth]

I've yet to play any of them, but am intrigued.

[injurai]

So I've played both Quest and Quest 64.

 

Which is interesting because I've never owned a 64.

[Bartimaeus]

There's a little bit of Quest 64 in all of us.

[Mamoulian War]

I think Shadowrun Returns is the first game on the list where I have no understanding why people would have voted for it.

Because I enjoyed it much more than most of the games, which were released last 5 years *shrugs*

[algroth]

There's a little bit of Quest 64 in all of us.

 

Quest 64 runs through our bloodstream like midichlorians.

[melkathi]

 

I think Shadowrun Returns is the first game on the list where I have no understanding why people would have voted for it.

Because I enjoyed it much more than most of the games, which were released last 5 years *shrugs*

 

 

And I have no understanding how. I found the gameplay extremely lackluster, dull and underwhelming. The writing was decent. I would have enjoyed the plot as a shadowrun novel. But the game packaged around it I found lacking compared to any other turn based rpg.

[ShadySands]

I always thought Shadowrun Returns was more adventure game than RPG

[Epaminondas]

What the hell is with all this Quest 64 stuff? I don't think I even ever played it. However, for solidarity's sake, I'll grumble like an old grognard and vote for it. I guess... 100 points? after all, I did own an NES.

 

I thought Shadowrun Returns was great. That was the one with the dragon, right? I don't want to spoil for anyone who hasn't played it, but I thought the twist, while not surprising by the time you get there, was still nice.

[melkathi]

Dragonfall was the one with the dragon I think? Never completed it. Got bored.

[ShadySands]

Yeah, Dragonfall, the second game, was about the dragon. I've heard most people say that one had their favorite story

[Hurlshort]

Dragonfall was my favorite. But really it was interesting to watch how they progressed as a development studio over the 3 games. I appreciated the simplicity of the RPG system because it made it easy to play with modding.

[evilcat]

Dragonfall was my favorite. But really it was interesting to watch how they progressed as a development studio over the 3 games. I appreciated the simplicity of the RPG system because it made it easy to play with modding.

Dragonfall DC was best. Great mix of epicness, tempo and mood. Also Glory is bea.

On side note they have interesting developing sheme with pumping new game in 2Y cycle. Which is cool, since it is enought to polish, but short enought to not get hungry. Who needs MTX when you have full games.

[algroth]

And speaking of Dragonfall, here's a new update, with more of everyone's favorite franchise! In all honesty... It's a pretty solid selection, I feel. I really like the games I've played here, and have high hopes for the ones I haven't.

[ShadySands]

Small suggestion so please feel free to ignore. Can you spoiler tag all but the newest update?

[algroth]

I can do that, sure.

 

Edit: Done!

Edited January 2, 2018 by algroth

[Epaminondas]

Small suggestion so please feel free to ignore. Can you spoiler tag all but the newest update?

Brilliant idea