That's amazing. I love it! I thought the story was like 15 hours at least!

Only if you listen to every audio diary.

I've read The Hobbit many times, but I've never been able to get excited enough to finish LotR. It might just be me there, though.

Now, I don't have terribly many games that I really missed out on, short basically the last couple generations of Nintendo home-console content. Metroid Prime 3 was a game I was told was spectacular but just never played. Though on a tangent there are a lot of "classics" I didn't enjoy enough to finish (or don't think are as good as they're claimed to be by some after finishing them) but that's a whole separate mess. It's where someone gets mad at me for thinking Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time are middling points for late 90's gaming.

• Any non-SNES Final Fantasy (including FF7)
  
• Mass Effect
  
• Dark Souls or Bloodbourne

Super duper not into

• rooting around in Fallout or Elder Scrolls games
  
• Half-Life 2
  
• MOBAs

Half Life 2 is a lot of fun, has a great story, and I think the gameplay holds up pretty well. I'd highly recommend playing it if you're cool with the game ending with a cliffhanger that will likely never be resolved.

The juxtaposition between exciting and quiet moments in that game is so good, especially at the end with you know who and the you know what and just ACK!

I should mention that I also didn't have a memory card.

So every time I rented it, I started over. Everytime I died, I started over. I would stay up late, I would pause the game and fall asleep and go back to it when I awoke. I remember getting to Aeris's church and thinking it was both beautiful AND an accomplishment. The last time I rented it I was able to get out of Midgar and the world map blew my mind! I had no idea it existed - that the game was that big! A couple of months later I finally got the game and a memory card for my birthday and the game truly began... finally!

The Struggle was Real. I remember when I got a PS2, my PS1 memory card had stopped working (what a coincidence). The first game I got was Kingdom Hearts (another amazing game) and I had to do the same thing. My parents promised me we would get one that weekend, so during the week I left it on all the time. Then one day my stepmom unknowingly turned it off.....

Kids today will never know the struggle of memory cards and/or the lack of cloud storage.

the way you could mild and shape your companions over the course of the game added huge replay value. It's a game that almost gets better the more you replay it.

I replayed it several times for the same reason. Some of the requirements for getting the companions to go one way or the other are pretty steep - like you have to have them with you at certain points and influence them certain ways in conversation, so it's difficult and/or impossible to get ALL of them the way you'd want to see them in the same playthrough.

Yeah, I plan on reading it. Definitely on my bucket list. Another thing on my bucket list is to finish the Wheel of Time series. I stopped reading it back in the late 90s because I was sick of waiting years for the next book & decided to just wait & re-read the whole thing once it was finished. I always joked that Robert Jordan would die before finishing the series because in one of the "about the authors" he said he would be writing until they put the last nail in his coffin.

I somehow missed the Wheel of Time books when they came out; I got into Brandon Sanderson last year, and started the WoT series at the beginning, a few months ago, because I wanted to eventually read the Sanderson entries.

I'm about 4 books in now; it's quite good, but slow going. (I read a bunch of other stuff in the middle - sort of a side effect of getting these as library books. The next one isn't always available when you're ready for it. ;) )

Speak of the devil! Heading into book 3 of WoT. My brother and best friend have talked about it since middle school and I finally gave in this summer. Compared to what I was reading before it (Dostoevsky), Wheel of Time feels like a fast-paced, cheesy action movie, hah. But I'm having a lot of fun with it!

I wish my significant other would get into gaming.

She didn't used to play and she still doesn't play a big variety, but the Lego games have helped reel her in more.

FF7 was my first PS1 game, and I spent the majority of my childhood playing it, then getting other friends to play it. I remember my dad showing it to me before school (elementary school) and telling me I had 15 mins to play before we had to go to the bus stop. Needless to say, I missed the bus stop, because even my dad (completely technologically illiterate and hated magical stuff) got into the game and was telling me how to do some of the more complicated things he read that I skipped.

:D That's awesome.

I remember dying at the First scorpion boss because I didn't pay attention to the text about the tail attack.

I remember doing that too! I got the PS1 for Christmas in fourth grade (it was my first game console - everything else had been my brothers') and one of the main reasons I had wanted one was for FFVII. I had seen ads in comics and videos at demo stations. It was liked I was being drawn into another dimension! But I didn't get or couldn't afford the game so I would just rent it every weekend for months.

I should mention that I also didn't have a memory card.

So every time I rented it, I started over. Everytime I died, I started over. I would stay up late, I would pause the game and fall asleep and go back to it when I awoke. I remember getting to Aeris's church and thinking it was both beautiful AND an accomplishment. The last time I rented it I was able to get out of Midgar and the world map blew my mind! I had no idea it existed - that the game was that big! A couple of months later I finally got the game and a memory card for my birthday and the game truly began... finally!

FF7 was my first PS1 game, and I spent the majority of my childhood playing it, then getting other friends to play it. I remember my dad showing it to me before school (elementary school) and telling me I had 15 mins to play before we had to go to the bus stop. Needless to say, I missed the bus stop, because even my dad (completely technologically illiterate and hated magical stuff) got into the game and was telling me how to do some of the more complicated things he read that I skipped.

I remember dying at the First scorpion boss because I didn't pay attention to the text about the tail attack.

As I got older I played through that game probably about 5 times, learning more and more each time. Even thought they are breaking up the remake, I cannot wait.

Overall I like it better than KotOR 1, though only slightly. The rushed development hurt it a lot more than New Vegas. If Obsidian would have had the extended time to finish KotOR it would have been looked at a lot more fondly. If anything I think it's a bit more replayable than 1, since a lot of the first game's appeal is built on top of the twist.

I love the gameplay of KotOR 1, but it just takes so long to get fun on another playthrough. You spend so long on Taris, which just isn't that great. I love the process of becoming a Jedi in that game; it's definitely my favorite section.

I can't remember why I never played KotOR II. I think I remember hearing about some of it's issues and that it had some bad glitches, so I decided to wait, then never got back around to it.

I love both games, but only played KotoR a couple times, while I played KotoR 2 from start to finish about 15 times. It's a bit more rough around the edges than the first one, but I found the combat more interesting and the way you could mild and shape your companions over the course of the game added huge replay value. It's a game that almost gets better the more you replay it.

I think you'd particularly enjoy Republic Commando, given how much you like Halo 5. Halo 5 has a lot of roots in RC, thanks to Tim Longo.

I had thought about that too. RC was one of the games I really regretted missing out on about five years ago, but I just never got around to playing it at the time. I'll definitely have to check it out.

There's a big list of games in here, I'll have to see if I can track some of them down and make them work on Windows 10.

I specifically mentioned some of the Star Wars games because I know they're available and super cheap on Steam.

There's a Star Wars bundle where you can get like a dozen great games for under $30. Most of them can be bought individually for $3-$5.

I haven't played Republic Commando in 4 or 5 years, but last time I did I was impressed by how well it had aged. Great game :)

I loved Doom 3, Older Silent Hills, the first Dead Orbit was good, but the ending was kind meh, the sequals got the mechanics down, but lost the horror aspect of being alone in this spacestation. Amnesia is also a good scary PC game.

Kind of went on a rant there, but more to the point, I did not expect so many people to be THAT afraid of games that they quit playing, for me I can't stop.

So, I was listening to the most recent The Patch and the Ready Up Live podcast earlier today. The Patch talked about Half-Life, and Cruel was talking about Battlefront II on RUL. This, along with the discussion Korny and I had about not giving games enough time to sink in, led me to thinking about games I have missed out on over the years.

I have never played Half-Life 2. I have never played Battlefront II (other than a handful of matches at a friend's house when it was new). Which led to me to thinking about how I've never played Republic Commando, which everyone apparently loved. I never played Knights of the Old Republic II, despite absolutely loving the first one.

I also have never played HL2. BF2 was whatever imo. I think I played RC? Not tops on my list. Rogue Squadron is my all time favorite star wars game, followed closely by KotR 2 (hey look, you listed that one) and Dark Forces.

So, that's my confession, and now I ask a question.

Are any of these games worth playing at this point, if I've never played them before? Do they hold up? They're all cheap enough on Steam. Hell, you can probably get all of those games together for twenty bucks. Should I? What other old games hold up well and are still worth visiting today (that can be easily obtained)?

HL2 is, by all accounts, amazeballs. KotR 2 *is* amazeballs and 100% worth playing (several times over). It's worth it just for HK's dialogue. Oh man.

And, just as a discussion starter: what are your gaming confessions? What games have you missed over the years?

I'll enumerate this later

P.S. I never played Pyschonauts, other than the demo (which game on the OXM demo disc, maybe?). That's been in the news recently, obviously, and made me feel a little guilty that I didn't play an apparently pretty cool game.

Psychonauts has great art and design, a mediocre story, a few very, very cool tentpole moments/boss fights, and frustratingly unforgiving gameplay in the later levels. it is not worth it, imo, and is overhyped in the way that only an indie darling could be. There's also a clear point in the game where you realize, "oh, this is where they ran out of money, stopped doing interesting things, and forced the rest of the game to wrap up as quickly as possible." The feeling to me is like a more stylish Beyond Good and Evil (if you played that). Loads of promise and diminishing delivery as you progress.

EDIT: Also, I've never played Final Fantasy VII, so I'm actually kinda interested in the remake. I know it's not the "pure" way to play it, but I tried to play the real FFVII a few years ago, and just couldn't get past the age of it and gave up after a very short amount of time.

FF7 is great. So are 8 and 9. 8 is my favorite, and people always berate me for it, but screw you, I love it.

My gaming confessions:
- I've never played a pokemon game (other than the columns clone that was N64, and was actually legitimately good).

You're not missing much. If Pokemon Yellow hadn't hit me at the right time when I was a kid, I would have recognized it as a terrible game. But it did hit at the right time, and I fell in love, and pure nostalgia makes me love the games still. I played through Pokemon X when it came out a few years ago and loved it. But honestly, it's not a good game; none of them are. It's not a good RPG. It's just one long, forty hour grind. But I gotta catch 'em all!

- I've never played Minecraft.

Other than trying it a few times at friend's places, ditto. I understand why people love it, but it bores me to tears.

- I've never played a Far Cry game or a Just Cause game (though damn, the latest Just Cause videos I've seen make me really, really want to start playing it).

Never played Just Cause either, other than a demo of JC2 (I think it was 2). Seemed fun, in a GTA just blow shit up when you're bored kind of way, but it didn't grab me.

Other games you may have missed:
- If you never played the original Toe Jam and Earl with a friend, you missed out on one of the greatest gaming experiences of all time.

I never did. I played the Xbox Toe Jam and Earl and had a lot of fun with it, although I honestly don't remember much about it.

- I think Save the Date was the best game of last year. Claude disagrees with me, but it blew my mind thrice over.

I've never even heard of it; I'll have to check it out.

I think you'd particularly enjoy Republic Commando, given how much you like Halo 5. Halo 5 has a lot of roots in RC, thanks to Tim Longo.

I had thought about that too. RC was one of the games I really regretted missing out on about five years ago, but I just never got around to playing it at the time. I'll definitely have to check it out.

There's a big list of games in here, I'll have to see if I can track some of them down and make them work on Windows 10.

I specifically mentioned some of the Star Wars games because I know they're available and super cheap on Steam.

Overall I like it better than KotOR 1, though only slightly. The rushed development hurt it a lot more than New Vegas. If Obsidian would have had the extended time to finish KotOR it would have been looked at a lot more fondly. If anything I think it's a bit more replayable than 1, since a lot of the first game's appeal is built on top of the twist.

I love the gameplay of KotOR 1, but it just takes so long to get fun on another playthrough. You spend so long on Taris, which just isn't that great. I love the process of becoming a Jedi in that game; it's definitely my favorite section.

I can't remember why I never played KotOR II. I think I remember hearing about some of it's issues and that it had some bad glitches, so I decided to wait, then never got back around to it.