With my brother moved into his new place, I took the opportunity this weekend to salvage what I could of my PC game collection. After Kristin and I sorted out cases, discs, and instruction booklets I stuffed everything I enjoyed into my car and took it home with me. I am still irked about a few things – some games missing, a few discs broken, my Max Payne 2 manual used as a coaster?!… but all in all I think I got most of it back in good condition.
For all you gamers out there, the following games in my collection brought back some sweet memories I wanted to share with you folks. Here are my favorites:
Age of Empires (II and III) – probably one of the best RTS games out there. I am a closet history fan, and being able to ascend into power as Joan of Arc (AoE: II), or fight Indians in General Custer’s last stand (AoE: III Warchiefs) is a wet dream. If you enjoy RTS games, check this out.
Call of Duty – a breath of fresh air into a stale genre of WWII FPS games. I remember hearing Wendy play this and thinking “how many damn bullets have to be fired before she wins…”. The answer is a LOT. By the way, Call of Duty is Infinity Ward’s craft, so I don’t acknowledge CoD: III, or the new release: CoD: World at War.
May Payne – a “game noir” (and now a major motion picture). A compelling story, and excellent gameplay makes Max Payne (I and II) stand out among other FPS’. I still have the mousepad from preordering the first game when it came out back in 2001.
Command and Conquer – the jewel case reads “Windows 95” as in compatible – since Windows 3.1 was still king when it came out. I have them all, and love them all (except Tiberium Sun, and Renegade).
No One Lives Forever – Think “Get Smart” in video game form. This game follows the stories of two organizations – Harm and Unity. You play as Agent Cate Archer and experience some of the most ridiculous moments in any video game. The highlight has to be the trailing a ninja to a trailer park and fighting in a double-wide inside of a tornado.
Prince of Persia – I think “The Sands of Time” is one of the best platform games ever made. I never really gave PoP a chance (it has been around since SNES) until this game. Getting to play it on PC meant a resolution 2-3 times that of consoles, and the precision of a mouse.
Homeworld- A beautifully laid out game in which you play as the last remaining people of a planet that was destroyed because you violated an ancient Hyperspace treaty. You amass forces and strike back in a beautifully set space RTS. My brother picked this up from a CompUSA (yeah – that old) and I was instantly hooked.
Dawn of War – My introduction into the Warhammer universe. I had always heard of the tabletop version, but THQ did such an amazing job of bringing this into a story driven RTS that I was digitally hooked. Space Marines are just f*$%&@! awesome!
Zone of Mr. Frosti 
I can remember playing nearly every one of these games. Going back and playing them now, however, serves no purpose other than nostalgia. Games very rarely age well, and these classics are really no exception.
I think you may have inspired me to do a post similar to this. I’ll have to go from memory, however, as all of my games were recently burgled. 😛
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Where is Vietcong good times… Quote Johnathon- “Brian get of your computer so I can play vietcong with ben.”
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Just have to let you know that AoE (I): RoR, AoE: II, AoE: TC are some of my all-time favorite games, ever. RoR lacked single-player in a massive way, however I spent two full years dedicated to gaining reputation on MSN’s gaming-zone. I was at one point one of the top-10 ranked 2v2 RM/DM players. I spent countless nights up until 4am playing some very intense games. When my partner and I played some very tough opponents games were usually very quick (sub 10 min) or very long (longest I ever played was 6:43min). Usually in those very long games resources were gone except for some trees and if those were gone you usually had a plethora of wood. Generally you might have a catapult or two hanging around and you would guard them with 100 bowmen (because they only cost food and wood, both of which you had a shit ton of). So it made for some very interesting battles.
AoE II and AoC on the other hand are phenomenal to play in single player and were always sub-par to RoR to me as far as multiplayer is concerned. My favorites were the Atilla and El Cid camps in AoC.
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@Kelner – We should play AoE sometime – I miss that game…
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