September 22, 2012

30-Day Tomb Raider Challenge Day 22: Second Favorite Game or Series

It's probably safe to assume that if you're reading this Tomb Raider tops your list of favorite games. But what's your second favorite video game or series?

How dare I ask a non-Tomb Raider related question in the challenge?! Well, people are always writing to me asking if there are other games as good as TR, what they should play until the next TR, what I play other than TR. There's no easy answer to this one, but I'd love to hear your recommendations.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
I haven't played any of the Uncharted games (don't own a PlayStation) but I hear they're fun.

24 comments:

  1. I'll admit I have a soft spot for LEGO Indiana Jones. I always *wanted* to like the regular Indy PC game series but somehow the controls and character animations felt awkward, like an almost-but-not-quite Tomb Raider knock-off. Kind of like Angel of Darkness, actually. ;) The LEGO Indy games are lighthearted, fun, and have tons of treasure, collectibles and unlockables, which I love.

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  2. Resident Evil has always entertained me.

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  3. The Mass Effect games have always been up the top of my favourite game series. Those and Tomb Raider vie for number one really. Not sure I would recommend them to someone who wants to play something like Tomb Raider as they are very different games!

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  4. My favourite game besides Tomb Raider is 'WET'. It's very similar in the fact that it's a woman protagonist with an awesome pair of guns (not a euphemism... possibly). It's a really fun game apart from the fact it can be a bit repetitive. It's also got a cool grindhouse/Tarantino style. Apart from WET, I like the Silent Hill and Resident Evil, Spyro, Pokemon, Kingdom Hearts and Little Big Planet series. Heavy Rain is fun too. :D

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  5. Ever since I got an XBOX360 (last year), I've been obsessed with a game called Alan Wake by Remedy Entertainment, who also made Death Rally and the first two Max Payne games. It actually inspired me so much that I now run an Alan Wake fansite as well as my Tomb Raider one.

    It has an interesting and deep storyline with great character development. The music is absolutely gorgeous, from Petri Alanko's score to licensed music to custom composed tracks by Poets of the Fall. And the combat, "Fight with Light" focus, is an intriguing and fun concept.

    Outside of the games, it's a really great community. It's a lot smaller than the Tomb Raider community. And while, in many ways a bigger community is sometimes better, with a smaller community it's more personal. There are a lot of developers who talk to fans on the forums not just about their titles but also about games they've played recently, which is always great :)

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  6. I really love the Assassin's Creed series. The environments are really cool, and every now and then you have Tomb Raider-like timed sequences and puzzles, although they're a fair bit easier in most cases.

    But if I feel like puzzle solving and having a laugh,I go for Portal.

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  7. SILENT HILL AND THE LEGO GAMES (LEGO BATMAN, STARWARS, INDIANA JONES AND THE REST) YOU GET MY POINT

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  8. If think other Tomb Raiders might like Assassin's Creed. There is lots and lots of Tombs to pillage. The difference is that you are in the actual historical context.. I love that! The environments is just incredible and there has always been made great effort to make them as accurate as possible, like comparing them to actual old maps of Rome, Florence, Venice, Jerusalem, Damaskus, etc (and coming in AC3 this autumn, Boston and New York I think).. The gaming mechanics is actually a lot better than Tomb Raider, especially compared to the classics. Controlling Ezio or Altair is simple intuitive and easy. Learn it once, and you never forget it. Yes, it is quite violent. But never overshadowing the story or the many subplots. And you get be friends with Leonardo da Vinci. :)

    I also play Deus Ex: Human Revolution right now, and I love it. Generally I don't play FPS:es at all. But this is the exception.

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  9. And did I mention, they are playable on the PC. :)

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  10. Let me tackle the elephant in the room: the Uncharted series. (Love the image, Stella) Uncharted 2 and 3 are on my top ten list of favorite video games of all time. Those games have the highest production values of any game I've ever played. And I've played a LOT of games.

    Unfortunately, it's a PS3 exclusive. But those of you who have PS3's will find a lot to love about these games. First and foremost, the graphics are gorgeous. Be it character animations, voice acting, the environments, or the large, set-piece moments, there is always something beautiful happening on the screen. The stories are filled with twists and turns and the characters are so well-crafted that you actually care about what's going on. The games are primarily third-person shooters with a little bit of platforming, but when you stumble across a puzzle (most prominent in the third game), they are fun and challenging.

    I would recommend these games to anyone - especially Tomb Raider fans! But I also agree with the Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed series, Portal 2 for those who like the puzzling side of Tomb Raider, and the Legend of Zelda series for the expert use of gear-gating and numerous amount of collectibles to find!

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  11. Star Fox: Adventures for gamecube is one of my favourites, it has puzzles like Tomb Raider and has places that are somewhat like tombs.

    There's another game, Tenchu, I like that it has large levels and even similar things to Tomb Raider, it's a bit more violent though :(.

    I really like the Zelda games too. I agree with Rebecca on Assassin's Creed.

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  12. Sonic series, Classic Resident Evil series, and Street fighter series. recently i started to get addicted to XBlades for xbox.

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  13. I love Bayonetta. She can strap rocket launchers to her feet an walk on the ceiling. Who could ask for more?

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  14. Really like the uncharted and modern warfare
    series and prefer them over the tombraider
    games. Oops, did I just say that out loud!?

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  15. Broken Sword games! I absoloutely adore adventure gaming, and the characters in BS games are so lovable and often hilarious it's hard to dislike. They've actually just finished a kickstarter project for a 5th game, they got double what they asked for (so they ended up with $800,000!) which kind of shows how awesome they are :)

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  16. The Metal Gear Solid series. In my opinion unbeatable when it comes to story. MGS on Playstation 1 is tied favourite with Tomb Raider 1 when it comes to my favourite game ever. If you haven't ever played MGS I'd recommend trying it. If you don't have a PS3 you can't play MGS4 though but get the HD Collection and play MGS3 Snake Eater. It's a prequel so there's no need to worry about missing MGS1 and 2 It's just amazing.

    When it comes to games like Tomb Raider I recently started playing Uncharted and I am enjoying it. For me personally though I would rather play TR on PS1. I can understand liking Uncharted over the newer Tomb Raiders as it's less glitchy, but I can not for the life of me though understand liking Modern Warfare over Tomb Raider but each to their own I guess.

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  17. My BY FAR 3 favorite game series of all time are:

    Sonic the Hedgehog
    Tomb Raider
    Oddworld

    I actually have made quite some effort to create a ranked list of my favorite games that is as accurate as possible, and then made a wallpaper by using screenshots from those games. Here you can see the wallpaper with the list of my favorite games:

    http://stardustspeedman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1wxcmt

    At the moment, I'm playing the Darksiders games. They're fun and I like the atmosphere, but they have a little bit too much repetitive combat, and I prefer Darksiders I over Darksiders II, because the first game has better puzzles and overally, the dungeons are more complex and interesting. Also, Darksiders II is unnecessarily long. I prefer shorter, more focused experiences, which are more polished and are created with greater love and care.

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  18. I have always loved the LEGO games. Love that series! I also really like a game called Portal. I'm not really into first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield. I prefer action and adventure and puzzle solving. :)

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  19. Uff, this is a hard question! I've been gaming since the early 90's and there are just too many great games I've enjoyed over the years... but I'd probably have to choose the Thief series including the Dark Mod. I just love the gameplay and atmosphere of Thief 1 and 2 and regularly check on recently released fan missions.

    I also greatly enjoy the Total War strategy games. The great thing about all of these - Tomb Raider, Thief, Total War - is that they all have a very active modding scene providing ever more levels/scenarios to play.

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  20. My, my, this one sparked off some interest.

    I think my second favourite, must be Mirror's Edge, a first person game once described as having the most memorable environment in gaming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm3ebiMXJmM

    I've tried a lot (3-months with a broken leg. plus 3-months convalescence). PS3 and PC.

    Not too keen on Call of Duty series, or Dead Space,but like several other Tomb Raiders, I like Assassin's Creed has to get in there too.

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  21. Growing up on the Atari 2600, and the fact that my pop once owned an arcade establishment in the early '80s, I generally tend to gravitate towards retro games. You cannot beat the classics when it comes to sheer disposable fun. Far too many of the current gen games take themselves way too seriously. The ones that don't, come off as adolescent trash like the GTA series. There is hardly any humour or absurdity found in games today that can both be fun and inoffensive, and still manage to tell a rolicking tale . I believe only the Metal Gear games and the Dragon Quest series have been able to perfect that balance. Great games those two.

    Outside of that, I absolutely love niche titles. They're a refreshing alternative in lieu of all these supposed 'triple A blockbusters' that everyone waxes on about. No Halo, COD game or their equivalent has ever provided me with as much joy as Steambot Chronicles or the Harvest Moon series. Any games developed or published by Level-5, Atlus or Wayforward are always on my must buy list, too.

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  22. The only other series I've made an effort to play ALMOST all the way through was the Harry Potter game series (I haven't played the Deathly Hallows game yet). It's always been my favorite book series and the games capture something the movies don't.

    But overall, I've always been a classic PS1 fan. Played a lot of Spyro, Rayman, Gex, Crash Bandicoot, and tons of other random games way back when.

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  23. A little late to make an addendum... Anyway, I'm playing "Alice Madness Returns" atm, and I'm very impressed by it. Normally, I become suspicious about any game that appears to be geared primarily at girls, so my expectations weren't really that high. Don't be fooled, it has all the usual classic Tomb Raider ingredients, like some puzzle-solving, exploring, some platform gaming and some third person shooting and combat. And can be quite challenging if played at the "nightmare" difficulty setting. It's not "open world" though, but linear, like Legend or Underworld. Gorgeous, Gorgeous environments and fantasy worlds, particularly if steampunk/goth aesthetic is something that appeals to you. I'm also impressed with the graphical rendering of Alice. She has "naturally" flowing hair. The technology for doing this has been around for a couple years now, still game developers seems to not want to use it. Except for this 2011 game I have only seen it in demos made by graphics cards manufacturers... For Tomb Raider this is something we still have to hope to see in future games (the upcoming game appears to not make use of it).

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  24. Assassins Creed is my second favorite game series, for the reasons that Rebecca said above.
    -GrtGreekBear

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