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

[algroth]

Yeah, as someone who rarely cared for the dungeon editor or fan content and who only really played through its campaign, I do have to say that it does nothing for me - but I can get that to those who did use the tools and invest time in creating or playing custom campaigns, it is probably a much more worthwhile game for it. And whilst I feel similarly about Neverwinter Nights 2, I do also have to give it more props because I did find the original campaign a lot of fun all the same, cliché and silly as it may be. I think that campaign actually speaks to the power of familiarity, and knowing how to execute the classic beats just right. I don't find it brilliant by any extent of the word (I reserve that for Mask of the Betrayer), but the end result is quite enjoyable in spite of any criticisms I may have for the specifics.

Edited January 4, 2018 by algroth

[Mamoulian War]

I have absolutely the same feelings about these two games. I had very bad internet at the time of NWN, so I never tried any persistent worlds nor extra mods, so I have judged them only by their OCs and XPacks. And in that regard almost every CRPG, I've played during that time have beaten NWN1.

[algroth]

New update is up! Featuring three more from everyone's favorite developers, BioWare.

[Epaminondas]

Well, I had a big one on this list and there were others could displace something else on a different day. IWD 1 and Portal for sure! I could not vote for MotB, but I'm damned glad folks did. It's one of the best games of all-time and really captures the feeling of P:ST better than any other game since, including ToN. It is a gem.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Haha, MotB is on the list. It says there, right on the box, that it requires NWN2 to be played. And, as an avid modder of NWN2 I know how much sweet stuff MotB brought to the table (then we got Storm of Zehir, which added create-all-of-your-companions-yourself-functionality), I'll personally treat this list now like this: NWN2+MotB == 64 points (We'll see how far that will take NWN2, and perhaps Storm of Zehir got some stray point or two).

 

Also, seeing Dishonored this high up just makes me happy. Comparably, it is a very new IP, and I recall that I saw that first trailer and thought: "Heck, yeah. I wanna play this game with all this cool powers." And for once, the trailer that got me carried away, well it was duller than the gameplay itself. A fantastic game! 

 

However, the same can't be said for DA:O, IMHO. The lacklustre story, the extremely repetitive combat, where I killed the same kind of enemies over and over and over, those unnatural big hands on all PCs and NPCs, showering your companions with weird pressies... It all sucked much of the fun out of the game. I actually reckon DA:I is slightly better, and that says a lot. I liked Shale, though, it was a cool companion. I'm surprised that it scores this big, and the same goes for Icewind Dale. I'm playing Heart of Winter right now, and it feels like a decent BG1 mod, nothing more. If it wasn't for the great soundtracks and that it's D&D with decent combat, it has nothing going for it. IIRC, Josh said that they made the entire game in 9 months. An incredible feat, but it also shows.

Edited January 5, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[Mamoulian War]

To bad MotB is there as stand-alone, I voted for NWN2 also because of MotB. Counting both together, it would have 9 votes and would be really high on the list

[melkathi]

This poll is rigged!

Any poll where a game with such a well written story such as Alpha Centauri ranks worse than Mass Effect must be rigged.

 

I shall leave the forum forevermore in protest!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Oh noes, Melkathi! I'll miss you terribly!!

[melkathi]

I'm waiting for the "Can I have your stuff" post

[evilcat]

That is a lot of Bioware (and Gaben), it is tragic story of good devs slowly devaured by corporate vampire. Classic.

On the bright side CDPR, Larian and Obsidian fill the niche. Nature is amazing.

[Fenixp]

However, the same can't be said for DA:O, IMHO. The lacklustre story, the extremely repetitive combat, where I killed the same kind of enemies over and over and over, those unnatural big hands on all PCs and NPCs, showering your companions with weird pressies...

I'm not particularly surprised about IWD, it just complemented the IE releases nicely - an adventure-based RPG, a story-based RPG and a dungeon crawling RPG. There was a game for every DnD fan out there in the trio, and in spite of IWD feeling weaker than BG or Planescape Torment (which I'm sure will be at the top of the list), it's still a very good game.

 

And Dragon Age: Origins just appeared at the right time, for the most part. It just happened at the time of drought for tactical cRPGs, and it had very good presentation and decent writing to go along with it, so it's easy to see how it gathered popularity. But yes, the massive dungeons consisting of 3 enemy types each killed the game for me too - don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it well enough and finished it, Awakening and some of the DLC, but it's nowhere near my favorite RPGs of all time. Then again, that also applies to Baldur's Gate games, albeit dungeon design in BG2 was a fair bit better than in DA: O.

[Mamoulian War]

This poll is rigged!

Any poll where a game with such a well written story such as Alpha Centauri ranks worse than Mass Effect must be rigged.

 

I shall leave the forum forevermore in protest!

*Inserts generic 1337 characters long "Can I have your stuff" post, where I elaborate, how nobody cares* Edited January 5, 2018 by Mamoulian War

[majestic]

 I'm surprised that it scores this big, and the same goes for Icewind Dale. I'm playing Heart of Winter right now, and it feels like a decent BG1 mod, nothing more. If it wasn't for the great soundtracks and that it's D&D with decent combat, it has nothing going for it. IIRC, Josh said that they made the entire game in 9 months. An incredible feat, but it also shows.

 

That was Icewind Dale 2, which I liked better than the first one. Which was, back then, a relatively uncommon position. It still is, I guess.

[Mamoulian War]

Well, I disliked IWD2, only because I did not like the implementation of D&D3.0 compared to AD&D2ndE in previous games. It seemed to me, that the game was designed for AD&D and that 3.0 was implemented during the last part of development cycle, and there was lot of Feats which were not working properly of at all (Improved Initiative comes to my mind as an example for all).

[Bartimaeus]

To bad MotB is there as stand-alone, I voted for NWN2 also because of MotB. Counting both together, it would have 9 votes and would be really high on the list

Yeah, I wasn't sure of the wisdom of separating expansions and base games, and I was pretty sure MotB was going to suffer for it, and it did. Standalone expansions I could understand, but an add-on to the base game seems like it should count as part of the base game. Edited January 5, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Mamoulian War]

I completely agree with you. Well, we should recommend to implement that into the rules of top 100 2018

Edited January 5, 2018 by Mamoulian War

[IndiraLightfoot]

Regardless, I must say that I'm extremely grateful for algroth's fantastic list. What a tremendous effort! He's put a lot of work into it. I didn't expect game cover images and all.

Thank you, algroth!

 

And he's already said that this OC vs expansion thingie would be controversial. It seems there will be very few games suffering at that. NWN2 is one, and I suspect BG2 will do too.

[Bartimaeus]

I don't think anyone voted for ToB (if they did, I missed it). Makes sense, considering ToB was, in many ways, the low point of the series.

[marelooke]

Haha, MotB is on the list. It says there, right on the box, that it requires NWN2 to be played. And, as an avid modder of NWN2 I know how much sweet stuff MotB brought to the table (then we got Storm of Zehir, which added create-all-of-your-companions-yourself-functionality), I'll personally treat this list now like this: NWN2+MotB == 64 points (We'll see how far that will take NWN2, and perhaps Storm of Zehir got some stray point or two).

 

Also, seeing Dishonored this high up just makes me happy. Comparably, it is a very new IP, and I recall that I saw that first trailer and thought: "Heck, yeah. I wanna play this game with all this cool powers." And for once, the trailer that got me carried away, well it was duller than the gameplay itself. A fantastic game! 

 

However, the same can't be said for DA:O, IMHO. The lacklustre story, the extremely repetitive combat, where I killed the same kind of enemies over and over and over, those unnatural big hands on all PCs and NPCs, showering your companions with weird pressies... It all sucked much of the fun out of the game. I actually reckon DA:I is slightly better, and that says a lot. I liked Shale, though, it was a cool companion. I'm surprised that it scores this big, and the same goes for Icewind Dale. I'm playing Heart of Winter right now, and it feels like a decent BG1 mod, nothing more. If it wasn't for the great soundtracks and that it's D&D with decent combat, it has nothing going for it. IIRC, Josh said that they made the entire game in 9 months. An incredible feat, but it also shows.

 

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree as far as DA:O is concerned. While the game certainly had its flaws I think the direction they took with the engine was the best they could have taken to take the RTwP classic systems "to the masses" (so to speak). That the game was a buggy mess (the expansion, Awakening, is the only game I never finished due to an actually game breaking bug) with utterly broken combat balance (some spells were beyond overpowered until pretty late in the patching cycle and certain enemies didn't scale properly) and that the story itself was rather dull (albeit fairly well told) makes it only more disappointing that they gave up on that direction (something I blame entirely on their acquisition by EA) and went full on action with DA2/DA:I

 

The storytelling in DA:I is considerably worse (though the overall story is arguably more interesting), the combat mechanics are just dull (though balance is better, I guess. I have no idea how one could find DA:O's combat worse than DA:I's though, especially when repetitiveness is brought up) and the tactical camera is utterly useless. The maps are good looking but most of it appears to be used to place collectibles. I also feel the characters in DA:I actually look worse than those in DA:O (especially the elves), but "de gustibus et coloribus...". Light armor otoh, yeah, let's just not mention DA:O light armor.

I'd also argue the companions in DA:O were much better fleshed out and more memorable than those in DA:I. I mean, I can still name a bunch for DA:O (Wynne, Sten, Alistair, Leliana,...), from DA:I? I mean, I remember the "types" we had (the guy with the horns, the "Grey Warden", the beyond annoying city elf,...), but most felt more like caricatures than actual characters...

DA:I could really have done with a lot more focus. Personally I'd have just made people play an Elf (given how everything centers about their lore) and fleshed that out, instead of making my Dalish apprentice to a loremaster seem just as ignorant about their lore as a random human... But hey, gotta have that checkbox for race choice, I guess...

Edited January 5, 2018 by marelooke

[IndiraLightfoot]

I can totally see how people really like DA:O. However, the things I listed just killed it for me in the long run. I played it through once, and then when I had all the expansions, I tried to do it again, but Awakening got the better of me, and I just let it go.

But storywise, I did like DA:I's better, and combat, well it's close, like you say, both are repetitive alright, but some enemies and settings were so very well done in DA:I. I loved that spooky swamp area, where skellies rose up from the bogs. Problem for me was that DA:I was so extremely big that I never got to finish it. I have 140h invested, no expansions, and I'm still caught in a red desert somewhere. What I really hated in DA:I was that war room - a very annoying hub that you had to endure over and over again. Absolutely disgusting. The few companions I had aboard in DA:I was very elaborate and well done. I didn't take that guy with the horns, though. I got the freezing queen, the gay wizard and the arrow-slinging elf (that sounds like a queer group, and it was! ). 

[Pidesco]

Mass Effect better than System Shock 2? Get out.

 

Also, DA:O sucked.

[Malcador]

This poll proves you all have terrible taste.

[evilcat]

This poll proves you all have terrible taste.

Yes, and we are proud of it!

As for DAO: epic story, cool companions, origin gimmick, spell interaction, nice character graphic for a time.

At time it was good.

[Amentep]

This poll proves you all have terrible taste.

 

You've only seen 9 out of my 25 picks.  You have no idea how far my taste can plunge into unknown depths of terribleness, how far it can travel into inanity, or how its moldering, tacky corpse can sit in a party and bring the entire room down through sheer effort of will...

 

...

 

...

 

...well, I think that metaphor kind of got away from me...

[Pidesco]

 

This poll proves you all have terrible taste.

Yes, and we are proud of it!

As for DAO: epic story, cool companions, origin gimmick, spell interaction, nice character graphic for a time.

At time it was good.

 

 

Horribly predictable story, ghastly combat, terrible and repetitive encounter design. It was literally a dumbed down BG2.