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[galmud]

So bit-tech.net posted another one of these countless PC-game lists with the usual hall of famers Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, Lemmings, CivIV etc etc..

No surprises until page 8: Slaves to Armok: God of Blood: Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress     
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2009/04/20/30-pc-games-to-play-before-you-die/8

Granted they blaspheme.. "We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality..." and fail to mention its still only in alpha, but its nice to at least see DF mentioned

[Tormy]

"We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality..."

Huh...actually I don't agree with this sentence. DF's gameplay quality is already on epic level [diversity, complexity, little details etc...], even if it's just an alpha. This talks for itself I guess.

[vanarbulax]

"We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality..."

Huh...actually I don't agree with this sentence. DF's gameplay quality is already on epic level [diversity, complexity, little details etc...], even if it's just an alpha. This talks for itself I guess.

Depth maybe, quality not so much. While it does have a massive amount of diversity and complexity it also has its lack of polish and frustrating glitches/inconsistencies. For example Portal was a quality product, not the deepest or longest game, but it oozed quality. Now I'm not saying I'd have it any other way (I've probably spent to long reading the "What turns you off about DF thread) but Dwarf Fortress intentionally scarifices quality/polish for complexity/depth due to its limited development resources.

[Duke 2.0]

"We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality..."

Huh...actually I don't agree with this sentence. DF's gameplay quality is already on epic level [diversity, complexity, little details etc...], even if it's just an alpha. This talks for itself I guess.

Depth maybe, quality not so much. While it does have a massive amount of diversity and complexity it also has its lack of polish and frustrating glitches/inconsistencies. For example Portal was a quality product, not the deepest or longest game, but it oozed quality. Now I'm not saying I'd have it any other way (I've probably spent to long reading the "What turns you off about DF thread) but Dwarf Fortress intentionally scarifices quality/polish for complexity/depth due to its limited development resources.

Which, if you ask any developer, is the wisest decision. Gotta get the foundation of the game done before you break out the polish. Toady working too much now on such polish is like painting a house before all the walls get up.

[vanarbulax]

I totally agree. I'm just pointing out it's perfectly valid for someone to claim that DF is surpassed by a lot of games in terms of quality.

[Duke 2.0]

 Indeed. I'm just peeved by people stating Toady is wasting his time working on some things and not presentation things.

[Puck]

"We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality..."

That truly is a mighty stupid sentence, unless you assume UI and graphics are much more important for "game quality" than content.

And people that assume as such are definetly NOT people that should have any say in what is a good game and what is not 

edit: also serious sam wtf?
just because it is oh so funny because of huge guns? cmon, it might be nice, but its deffo a "generic shooter nr.0815", definetly not a game you "have to play before you die".

getting a threesome without paying for it? alright. Playing system shock 2? alright.
Those are things you need to experience before going the way of all living beings, but serious sam, sheesh, i just cannot imagine ill exhale my last breath going
"OH NOES I WASTED MY LIFE BECAUSE I DIDNT PLAY SERIOUS SAM! *cough* *puke* *die*"

[Sowelu]

Huh.  That's right, I DO need to play Serious Sam and Freespace.

I prefer King's Quest 4 over 6.  >:x

Wow, I've played...almost all of these.

[LASD]

I stopped taking the article seriously when reading "Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines", especially the final paragraph. Even though it's clearly meant as a joke, I bet the writer thinks there's a lot more than a grain of truth behind it.

I've played 8 of the games and liked 6 of them. I have absolutely no interest of playing CS:S (and Serious Sam or Operation Flashpoint) so I guess I will die an unfulfilled life.

But yeah, still cool that DF is included.

[Sean Mirrsen]

OFP is a damn great game however you cut it. No horror-thriller in the world beats running through a town knowing that any half-competent rookie with a handgun can pop up and cripple you with a pair of shots.

Serious Sam introduced the "ludicrous fun" concept to FPS games, whereas it was usually only seen in side-scrolling beat-em-up's. If you haven't played it, you may not have lost much, but neither the sequel nor the clones (like Will Rock) are quite the same. It had to be played when it came out, now it's quite sub-par. Personally, I consider Recoil to be a decent replacement for Serious Sam - it's basically the same thing, but with a high-tech transforming tank with 20 different weapons including tether-guided nukes. Too bad it's too old to be played right on modern systems.

[Footkerchief]

"We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality, but what’s important here is the sheer scope of the experience on offer and how it’s been built by just one man as a labour of love. It's the type of thing that really shows off the diversity of PC gaming, as well as the insanity of it all."

I don't disagree with that assessment of DF at all.  It has no polish whatsoever, and that's entirely appropriate for its stage of development.

[Sowelu]

Vampire: the Masquerade: Redemption was an infinitely superior V:tM game.  I'm not a huge fan of the tabletop one, I'm more a Werewolf person, but I do appreciate it's fun when done well...and V:tM:R played a LOT like a VERY good tabletop session.  Some of the plots were a little contrived, some of the dialogue was hammed waaay up, but they really nailed the appropriate dramatic stuff.  And really, how can you go wrong when your main character was a crusader who fell in forbidden love with a nun before getting turned?

Replayability was very low, but the plot and the settings were unique enough that it's worth your time if you find it cheap...and "worth your time" is a big thing from me.  Not like Bloodlines.

Also, Rise of the Triad is a very good game in the same general style as Serious Sam--at least, in terms of "jesus that's a lot of violence".  Also it had some of the best MIDI composers of its era.  It's easy to find a shareware version.  Grab a bazooka and turn people into fine red mist!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, I remember Redemption. I remember keeping a falchion from medieval times all the way through the modern part of the game - not even shotguns beat running up to the enemy and hacking him to bits with three slices. I still had to switch to the rokkit launcher for the final boss fight though. Good thing I packed a lot of blood, my compatriots were tanking (a better term would be "walling") and getting torpor'd ten times a minute, while I was unloading all my rockets into the freak.

I really liked the multiplayer setup, even if I never really played it with anyone - spawning a pack of minigunners to fight against a horde of skeletons was crazy fun. Crazy laggy, but crazy fun.

[Sordid]

"We don’t claim that Dwarf Fortress is a particularly excellent game and there are countless other games that surpass it in quality, but what’s important here is the sheer scope of the experience on offer and how it’s been built by just one man as a labour of love. It's the type of thing that really shows off the diversity of PC gaming, as well as the insanity of it all."

I don't disagree with that assessment of DF at all.  It has no polish whatsoever, and that's entirely appropriate for its stage of development.

An error of omission is still an error. I do think the fact that DF is still in alpha-stage should've been mentioned alongside those valid points, since only then could they be put into proper context.

Anyway, yeah, I've played almost all of those too. OFP was awesome, and I was extremely pleased to see GPL in there. That is the racing game for me, 1967 F1 season, extremely realistic and extremely moddable (That nice high-poly Lotus car in the screenshot? Fan-made. The original game looked a good deal less pretty.). Full 6DOF TrackIR support is just the icing on the cake.

[Puck]

I still think that statement about the quality was BS.

DF is a lot more playable and, even more importantly, a lot more enjoyable than a lot of the major "finished" (fuck you, EA) commercial titles.