Weekend Question: What's the quickest you realized a game would be an all-time favorite?

[PCG Ted]

Time for another weekend question gamers. For anyone new: I ask the same question of our staff and forums for a regular feature on the site. If you'd like your answer to be potentially included, feel free to comment on this thread! Now that I'm back from out of town, the canceled games post from last week will be going up later today.

This week's question is: What's the quickest you realized a game would be an all-time favorite?

Sometimes your relationship with a game can be a slow burn. I remember gently easing into the original Witcher in 2011, making my way through it that summer and just generally thinking fondly of it forever after. The Witcher 2 didn't light my world on fire, but I was willing to give #3 a shot when I picked it up during my college's winter break in 2015.

I was pretty hooked immediately, but around 10-15 hours in I was posted up in my parents' basement, neck-deep in Novigrad intrigues, and came up for air only to realize that it was somehow already 3 AM. That was the point when I knew Geralt's third adventure would be an all-timer for me.

 

[XoRn]

I knew before I even played the game. A friend of mine was playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare the day it came out and I got to watch the first 3 minutes of the All Ghillied Up mission. Then I bought the game myself, beat the campaign in one sitting and put another 700ish hours into the multiplayer.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Time for another weekend question gamers. For anyone new: I ask the same question of our staff and forums for a regular feature on the site. If you'd like your answer to be potentially included, feel free to comment on this thread! Now that I'm back from out of town, the canceled games post from last week will be going up later today.

This week's question is: What's the quickest you realized a game would be an all-time favorite?

Sometimes your relationship with a game can be a slow burn. I remember gently easing into the original Witcher in 2011, making my way through it that summer and just generally thinking fondly of it forever after. The Witcher 2 didn't light my world on fire, but I was willing to give #3 a shot when I picked it up during my college's winter break in 2015.

I was pretty hooked immediately, but around 10-15 hours in I was posted up in my parents' basement, neck-deep in Novigrad intrigues, and came up for air only to realize that it was somehow already 3 AM. That was the point when I knew Geralt's third adventure would be an all-timer for me.

Usually it takes me some time to get into the swing of a game, but I pretty much knew before I even fired up Elden Ring that it would be an all time favourite. There's always such a variety of environments, enemies and surprises that I never find them boring moment to moment.

 

[Frindis]

I have played Early Access Baldur's Gate 3 for 14,3 hours and I am hooked! It helps a little that I have played BG 1/2, but the most important factor is that it looks, sounds, and plays fantastic. I could have played tons more, but I do not want much spoilers. Those hours though, made me 100% sure the game will be one of my favorites, to the point of me now reading up on the lore about Mindflayers and Drows so I can get enjoy to enjoy my first playthrough as a Drow even more.

 

[Alm]

Not a PC game, but Breath of the Wild was very slick with a great climbing ability and physics systems. I think I knew it would be great after around 3 hours.

 

[Frindis]

@Alm I was almost posting about that game, but decided on BG3 instead. It's so weird though, I have not yet finished the tutorial as I am still at the last challenge with the "clockwiser" puzzle and I just don't want to go any further right now. It is the ONLY game I have played that I am actually savoring the moment so much that I'm getting hesitant about moving forward. I know that when I first get through that puzzle, then I'll start the true journey and I'm just not ready yet. Oh, yeah, it does not help that I have just watched the Princess Mononoke movie and noticed a couple of things from that movie in the game to spice up the awe factor. I'm just going to take one small step in that game, not rushing it one bit. I can't wait to fly and get the horse though, man that is going to be so great!

 

[Alm]

It is great. Like a good book the content is good for many hours.

 

[McStabStab]

Playing PUBG for the first time my heart was racing so fast my body probably thought I actually HAD jumped out of an airplane. The adrenaline rush was unmatched, I knew I was going to be spending hundreds of hours in Erangel.

 

[Brian Boru]

As mentioned in another post just now, it took me a while to get my head around the first Command and Conquer—it was my first RTS, so serious learning curve.

But when Red Alert was released the following year, I was ready—it lived up to my hopes and expectations from the first click, and consumed a complete weekend of bliss!

 

[Zloth]

Doom wins that race easily. Not only was the *fast* 3D absolutely incredible, but you could also see out windows in the very first room where there was a skybox!! Totally gnarly!! Id was already way ahead on graphics with Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom blew away Wolf3D in less than a minute of play.

 

[Pifanjr]

After already having played Morrowind and Oblivion for probably hundreds of hours, just seeing the trailer for Skyrim was enough to know I would play that for several hundred hours as well.

 

[Frindis]

@McStabStab Is Erangel your favorite map? I got a lot of nostalgic love for that map, but right now I find Miramar to be the best mainly because it got a lot of mountains/buildings to land on which is great for when you are gliding. I like to play casual games on Erangel whenever there are BP grind events because it is easier to get the kills you need= faster loot of crates. Btw: That G-coin event going on now is insane! 2000 G-coins and if you wait until almost the last day you can redeem them all at once, get the 2000 G-coins with 30 days ticking for all and then decide if the new Battle Pass is worth getting. The one now is complete dogshit, so I don't have high hopes. If it is not good, I'll just use it for either a discounted skin in the shop or just buy 8 archivist chests (240 G-coin each) and hope for something really good. I also got Twitch Prime loot for PUBG coming up in 9 days so I'll add that in the mix also.

 

[Sarafan]

Two titles come to my mind. The actual quickest love was probably Planescape: Torment. I bought the game three years after the release date and it was an experiment. I was aware that the game received very high ratings, but I wasn't a lover of isometric RPGs set in a fantasy world back in those days. Everything has changed when the game started and my character woke up in a mortuary. You know how it looks - a flying skull approaches you and starts talking. First impression was out of this world and this didn't change throughout my first playthrough. I loved the game so much that I started another one directly after finishing the previous.

The second title is Fallout. It's quite the opposite. Before I became a fan of fantasy RPGs, I was a fan of post apocalyptic RPGs. And before I became a fan of post apocalyptic RPGs, I wasn't a fan of RPG genre at all. Fallout made me love RPG games, but it took a lot of time and many tries. I got my first copy of Fallout 1 in 1999. The full version of the game was an addition to a PC gaming magazine issued in my country (the magazine is still published!). At first I disliked Fallout. The whole concept of an RPG game was unconvincing to me. I needed three or four approaches spread out across 2-3 years to like, enjoy and finally love the game and the genre as a whole. So the love appeared slowly, but once it struck, it defined me as a gamer for many years afterwards.

 

[neogunhero]

The first time I watched my friend play Oblivion, I desperately wanted to play it. When I finally got my hands on it, I was fully transported to that world. I knew this would be an all time favorite of mine the moment I stepped out of the sewers and saw the beautiful green hills and Ayleid ruins across the river. I stepped onto the small dock and almost teared up at how beautiful the game was.

I got the exact same feeling watching my friend play Fallout 3 on Xbox 360. I had to get my hands on it for PC, so I saved up to buy it. The moment you step out of the vault will be etched into my brain forever.

 

[Frindis]

@Sarafan This might be of interest: https://www.youtube.com/@CainOnGames/videos. He was one of the lead developers for Fallout and recently started posting a lot of interesting stuff concerning that franchise like this one:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egh2p8ajb3w&t=1s

 

[Maniklanik]

I never thought that computer games could entice me so much. Skyrim has completely coped with this task. It just pulls in and doesn't let go. I've heard about this game for a long time, and now I decided to try it. I really liked the interface, the story, and the graphics are great. There are few bugs here, at least I have never seen them. The game is exciting and despite the lack of an open world (not MMORPG), it is good.

 

[mainer]

I have a lot of "all-time favorite" games that I've played over the years, but sometimes a game won't really hit that feeling for a few hours. Maybe it's a long tutorial, or a prologue chapter, or a detailed character creation section. None of those things are bad, but sometimes it can delay that total immersion feeling you can get from a great game.

I can think of two games that hit me immediately and knew that they would forever be near the top of my favorite games.

Skyrim, as @Pifanjr mentioned, drew me right in with the cart ride down the mountain, nearly getting my head chopped off, and then that dragon attack destroying Helgen was just phenomenal. Character creation, tutorial, and prologue were all woven together seamlessly as part of the gameplay. And when I finally escaped instead of following Ralof to Riverwood, I fall behind because I'm just wandering around slowly looking at the massive wilderness that I will eventually explore. Still a classic after all these years.

The other is Ultima Underworld, back in the days where you had to create a boot disc to free up enough memory to run the game. A huge, immersive, multi-level dungeon where you could explore in first person view with complete freedom of movement. Not the step by step, or square to square movement that was popular back then (like in the Might & Magic and Wizardry games), and you could even look up and down instead of just straight ahead. Still one of my favorite gaming experiences.

 

[Brian Boru]

Welcome to the forum

Skyrim … lack of an open world

Huh? Are you very early in the game?

 

[DXCHASE]

Easily one of my favorites that i fell in love with instantly as a kid was Mortal Kombat, took all but a couple of minutes to realize this would be an all-time favorite, the second i saw scorpion rip his mask off and burn someone into a skeleton after getting their butt kicked, i fell in love. Im not even really a fighting game player but the ability to perform fatalities was such a wild concept to me and i was allowed to play it because my parents were oblivious. The developers only added to this by adding new fighting mechanics like brutalities and x-rays throughout the years and i kept feeling that same excitement i felt when i first saw Mortal Kombat being played at the arcade.

 

[Smellincoffee]

With RDR2, it was instantaneous. Of course, I was primed. I'd watched people playing RDR1 and had waited for years for a PC port, and decided when RDR2 was released that I'd buy my first console (in my mid-thirties) to play it on. Chapter 1 was rough because my mouse & keyboard brain was trying to learn console controls, but by chapter 2 I was totally absorbed. I still play it on a regular basis (a few days a week, at least). SimCity 2000, The Sims, GTA, and Mafia (the original from GoD) were all instantaneous, too.

 

[neogunhero]

With RDR2, it was instantaneous. Of course, I was primed. I'd watched people playing RDR1 and had waited for years for a PC port, and decided when RDR2 was released that I'd buy my first console (in my mid-thirties) to play it on. Chapter 1 was rough because my mouse & keyboard brain was trying to learn console controls, but by chapter 2 I was totally absorbed. I still play it on a regular basis (a few days a week, at least). SimCity 2000, The Sims, GTA, and Mafia (the original from GoD) were all instantaneous, too.

I still remember the first time I ever played RDR2, a few days after launch on my Xbox One. From the beginning minutes I already knew this game would be fantastic, and it ended up being my favorite game of all time.

 

[Brian Boru]

RDR2 … I still play it

On the 0.1% chance you haven't noticed, it's on PC now too

 

[Smellincoffee]

I still remember the first time I ever played RDR2, a few days after launch on my Xbox One. From the beginning minutes I already knew this game would be fantastic, and it ended up being my favorite game of all time.

I was tempted to say the same, but I've been playing The Sims for 20+ years now so I may have to wait and see if RDR2 persists that long. I don't doubt it! I played The Sims 2 from 2004 to 2018, and still play Mafia despite having the definitive edition. The only problem is that I was able to play Sims 2 across different computers (three, in fact) whereas I'm temporarily confined to the PS4 for my cowboy antics.

On the 0.1% chance you haven't noticed, it's on PC now too

So I've seen! My current system isn't up to running it at its full glory, so I've stuck to PS4. When I do my big upgrade (motherboard + ram + cpu) I'll probably pick it up on sale so I can play with mods. I'd love to take Arthur to New Austin and mix it up with the Del Lobos.

 

[Sarafan]

@Sarafan This might be of interest: https://www.youtube.com/@CainOnGames/videos. He was one of the lead developers for Fallout and recently started posting a lot of interesting stuff concerning that franchise like this one:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egh2p8ajb3w&t=1s

I know this channel. Pretty neat stuff is published there lately. Tim Cain is a legendary developer.

 

[Alex Red-Knight]

War thunder i would say.
Constant adding of new military vehicles and yeah i know the grinding sucks a bit lol