Lord of the rings: battle for middle earth 2: rise of the witch king

Dunno if it's still popular as it's about 20 years old, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chornobyl. Best experience I ever had in a game. Full of dread and tension.

Star Trek Elite Force. Weird combo for Star Trek to make a game in the Quake engine, but I love it

I remember the Saboteur, it was part of that period where if you bought the game firsthand it came with a 1 time use code unlocking certain content, to deter secondhand purchases. The content for the Saboteur was uncensored titties in the burlesque shows you could visit lmfao.

I'll bring up Alpha Protocol, the janky secret agent rpg, it wasn't particularily good, but I remember playing it.

I loved the Saboteur they should have made a bunch of them.

I liked all 3 Army of Two games for split screen coop.

Battle realms the Asian themed RTS that’s probably problematic but had so many neat things and quirks.

Freelancer. Oh what could have been.

Sid Meier's Pirates! Oh what could have been.

Basically I like ships and the fantasy of being a privateer. But everyone who makes a privateergame fucks it up somehow. These are the only two that have gotten close.

Honourable mention to Armoured Core.

Another game that pops into my mind at time is Rogue Soldier (I think? You were a blue guy with a chip in his neck? It had some neat covershooter mechanics.)

And of course Time Splitters: Future Imperfect.

No one has been able to re-create how this game felt. Every attempt at making a new version of this one loses something in the process. Game studios don't understand that graphics and fluidity aren't the defining features of a game. The defining features are

• no voicechat
• plasma discing someone mid air during a duel
• jetpacking into an enemy base, stealing their flag, and skiing away
• destroying your enemy's generators and hiding out in the basement to kill them when they come to repair them
• vibes

Haven't played this game in nearly 20 years and even then it was considered an old game with only around 3-4 dedicated servers left. Wonder how that's going nowadays.

Another one I can guarantee nobody other than me thinks about. Alpha prime

Really like prey (2017). I want to play a dense basically open world game with multiple endings again.

These 2 beauties ♥

I instantly fell in love with the charming world, the characters, the story, all packaged into those lovely pearls of a game. I almost never play RPGs multiple times but those 2 I’ve played to death and beyond.

Universe at War: Earth Assault. Maybe the first PC game I bought for myself - I had no idea what system requirements were so it was a little while until I had access to a computer that could run it at all, let alone at a decent speed.

Alien vs Predator 2

Chock full of jank. Weird ass Lithtech engine. But the multi-player was so fun.

Still the only "alien" franchise game where you start as a face hugger, lay an egg, and chew your way out of a chest. It's a delight.

Golden Sun 1 & 2 (3 didn't happen)

Another banger game where killing nazis is fun

I never once played a mechwarrior game but I got a copy of this in the box when my parents bought me Tribes and I absolutely loved it. I've never spoken to anybody whose even heard about it let alone played it.

I've played through the Saboteur at least 3 times and really enjoyed it (remember the heavies flamethrower guys being really annoying). I also remember Yahtzee's ZP review praising it quite a lot at the time which was rare in those days.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Pretty much the only Real Time Tactical space flotilla command game ever. Hits a spot between Ground Control and Homeworld that I never knew existed.

Oh, also Ground Control, possibly the first really good 3d RTS

Oh hey, the original Red Faction was exactly what I was thinking of.

Syphon Filter, fun Metal Gear Solid-esque shooter for Playstation

The two games no longer in the zeitgeist that absolutely altered my brain are Chrono Trigger and Lufia 2. I played them one after the other repeatedly for the entire late 90's and burned all the weird story and lore bits into my brain

Act of War:Direct Action. Basically Tom Clancy meets C&C Generals with more conspiracy slop. Had some neat mechanics, like your mercenaries have to fight over banks with the general urban combat rules, and PoWs somehow generating money (but money is also directly gained by refining oil). It got an expansion and a remake before Eugen went with the more tactical wargame series of game

Master of Orion 1, it was overshadowed by MoO2 but i still play it.

Saboteur just got a steam release actually, I went back and replayed it. I really liked that the progression system was based on challenges, if you wanted to you could go and do all of them before you even started the story. It still holds up graphically thanks to the way they did the colour.

My one would be Quake Wars (2007). It was the first asymmetric multiplayer game I ever played and it was the last proper Quake game.

I played all of Saboteur again last year!
You just need the GoG version, that one is fixed for Windows 10 and multi core systems.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Saboteur

There's a game I don't remember anything from beyond that it was a very interesting RTS with good graphics for it's time and a load of different factions and heroes that had unique dialogue with each other. One of these heroes is a killer cyborg and in an interaction with another hero it'll say "you've got pretty eyes" and then it gets a positive response so it asks "May I have them, if you're not using them?"

That game haunts my mind.

Also just RTS games in general. I miss them. Dawn of War: Dark Crusade was peak and the fact it became yet another squad/hero thing was so sad.

Oh fuck I didn’t say Arcanum because I assumed we are always thinking about it

https://xenkogames.gitlab.io/DIDOEN/

genuinely one of the best incremental games I've played, wish it got more progression.

Stunts/4D Sports Driving. That game was pretty incredible for the time with its 3D graphics, instant replays and track editor. One of the games that made me a racing game sicko as a kid.

Freespace 2 is one of my favorite sci-fi stories, and an incredible game. Has shockingly good ongoing mod support, there are tons of high quality, fully voice acted campaigns.

So I'm old, but there's this NES game called Abadox that my brother and I played growing up. It was an insanely hard shooter that scrolled horizontally and vertically. You're inside some sort of alien body zooming around killing shit, but also some paths will dead end and you just die if you go the wrong way so you gotta memorize (or hand draw) the maps. One hit kills you and you lose all upgrades, so sometimes continuing becomes impossible because the enemies are too hard without upgrades.

I used to have nightmares about this game