Perennial Favorites and Addictive Games.

[tron3]

Mods: Sorry for the double post, please delete the other one.

For those of you too lazy to google the meaning of perennial.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/perennial

Start with Xbox 360 before you list PS3, arcade, PC and others. State briefly why you love it if you can. It makes for a better read. Too many dull threads around here only list titles.

Xbox 360:
Hydro Thunder Hurricane: (Don't I already have a thread on this?) It's just a rewarding gaming experience with plenty of great graphics and realistic water. It kills me I placed 4th this weekend to a computer boat which beat me by 0.02 hundreths of a second. No bronze trophy, and no points. Grrrr! So I keep telling myself, "One more game before bed." I still have tokens to find and levels to unlock after six weeks of play. There goes my summer.

After Burner Climax: This do-over of Sega's arcade classic devoured hours of my time on both my Sega Master System and Genesis. The 360 version makes for a triple dip on this title. When I first joined the Air Force I was still attending school training on base for my career field. The BX had a medium sized arcade with a full sized After Burner machine outide. It was great standing around trying to watch my airman comrades best each other through a constantly shifting hull. "Fire, fire, fi-fire!" The graphics are OK by todays standards but it obviously had lots of appeal to young airmen in uniform. Some killer tunes complete the experience. Very happy to once again own this perrenial.

PC:
Duke Nukem 3D: Oh my goodness. Jaded DOOMers rejoice. The King of FPS had arrived. Dukes sharp wit ("Can he say that!?"), attitude and tons of frantic, interactive play had me hooked from the get go. Who else would use a disgusting urinal in a video game? Who else could make it memorable? Duke Nukem, that's who! As a Duke diehard I endured the Xbox 360 Forever edition. It devoured hours of my time. The classic Duke line rang true for weeks, "Hmm, don't have time to play with myself."

DOOM: In the days before the Internet (and before Duke), you actually could find some decent PC games on Bullitin Board Systems. Back then, if a PC game was 1 megabyte in size it was pretty much considered HUGE and generally of good quality. Then I saw the 2.5 MB file for DOOM and read the .diz file. (Description In Zip) 2.5 MB's zipped? 386 only? Holy crap, this must be awesome! Took about 6 minutes per MB to dowload at 9600 BAUD with z-modem protocal. It was getting late and I had work the next day. "I'll just play a few minutes to try it out and really play it tomorrow if I like it." At 2:00 am I forced myself to bed. "Awesome! Totally Awesome!", I told myself as I quickly drifted off into DOOM induced slumber. The techno-demon style and frightning play (for then) was an instant hit. For days I tried peering around virtual corners with my head. Immersion as I have not experienced since.

Arcade:
TRON: Need I say more? Big fan of the movie and the theme is completely original. Oh, how I hated trying to beat three lightycycles at once! Difficult to not spend my hard earned money on this one. To make matters worse, it was located in the Archery where I worked.

Zaxxon: Yes, even in the golden era of arcade machines I demanded great graphics. Games with 3D effects were a plus - but a 3D game? In space? You shoot and blow things up? And you shoot a giant robot at the end? Where do I line up?! Oh, yeah - at the Archery, where I worked.

Texas Instruments 99/4A Home Computer:
Parsec: "Press fire to begin". A side scrolling shooter made famous with plenty of frantic shooting, explosive over-heated lasers and nail biting refueling. It was the first talking game for home computers, Who needs a HUD when a female voice warns you, "Ships attacking." Not synthesized voice, but actual recorded sound bites made many games on the TI cutting edge. I am so glad I didn't settle for that VIC 20. I gave up the Atari 2600 for my TI.

Slymoids: A sort of 3D shooter with well done graphics and tons of shooting action. You just wanted to kill every slimy crawler on the planet before they crept up on you. Burning ants with a magnifying glass is childs play compared to Slymoids. Endless fun.