As a gamer for a long time I’ve learned a bit about what makes a great game. I will briefly describe my top 5 fav games.
5. Empyrion Galactic Survival.
As a huge Star Trek nerd, this game drew my attention in rather quickly. I’ve played countless linear Star Trek games and campaigns since I was a child, and Empyrion isn’t even Star Trek themed at all but it was the very first game I’ve found that offered an open world dynamic in space. There were a large handful of star systems and galaxies, inside those galaxies were star systems and in the star systems there were various planets, asteroids, nebulas, and various other things to explore. You start out on a random planet in an escape pod where you must gather resources, survive and build a star ship to fly into space. The possibilities are endless and the building mechanics allow you to be as creative as you want to be as you build and explore the universe in space.
4. Vietcong
One of my very first introductions to competitive multiplayer gameplay in FPS fashion. This is quite an old game I played as a child and teenager, it was Vietnam era shooter game with a great singleplayer story and multiplayer mode. However, when I first started playing the game, it was only a multiplayer demo with 64 players, 32 on each time on a massive jungle/river map in Vietnam. I spent hours upon hours playing that demo mode on the same map until the full game was finally released. Once the entire game was released I spent even more time playing it, it had great game physics, weapon physics, and the graphics were really ahead of it’s time. They had punji traps in the ground that you had to watch for while traversing the jungle. It wasn’t long before I was grinding Vietcong everyday to become a better competitor in multiplayer mode.
3. Escape from Tarkov.
Escape from Tarkov is an incredible modern multiplayer game set somewhere in Russia, created by Russian developers. The ingame weapon customization and item count is by far the most advanced in any game in this current time. You are essentially placed on a map with other players and NPCs, you must eliminate the NPCs and players to be able to loot their bodies for valuable loot and gear, once you have enough gear that you would be comfortable keeping, you reach the extraction point without dying to save it all. However, if you do, you lose all the gear on that run and would need to do it again. This exciting gameplay keeps you on the edge of your seat and the ability to lose it all makes it all the more real and exciting.
2. PUBG — PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds
When this game first came out I was skeptical, but as a gamer who mostly enjoys competitive online shooters I jumped at the chance to experiment with this new battle royale gamemode. You and 99 other players start out in a plane flying over a large map, you must parachute and land on the map and quickly find guns and equipment as the outer playzone shrinks in size as the game progresses. Eventually the circle shrinks down to nothing and the last player alive is the one who wins the game. An incredible intense and competitive game that still boasts one of the largest concurrent player counts on steam to this day.
1. Face of Mankind
My number one game of all time. I don’t even want to know how many hours of my teenage year I spent playing this game. Literally sun up to sun down. This was a massive MMO that is sadly currently not in existence anymore. It was a futuristic cyberpunk MMO where you could join 1 of 7 factions, the factions were essentially made up of a police faction, a military faction, a few corporation factions and a few criminal factions. The goal of the game was to struggle for power, money, and territory, you could capture territories and reap the tax rewards from them. The ingame combat system was HIGHLY competitive and skill based and everyone was in a race to be the richest, best fighter or most powerful faction with the most territories. Due to the realistic nature, cyberpunk environment, and MULTIPLE competitive fronts, I was hooked like a crack addict to this game. Still haven’t found another game that can replace this one yet after 10 years, I’m still searching.
