Gaming Resumé
I’ve been a gamer for about 23, maybe 24 years. And I’ve played a metric ton of titles in that near-quarter-century. So it occurred to me: “I should make a list of the games I’ve played, maybe say a little about them.” Now, I know you’re asking yourself, “Why in the world would anyone do something so incredibly boring and prosaic?” Yes, you can admit it – you use words like ‘prosaic’ on a daily basis. At least, if you’re the sort of person who’s even reading this blog, you do.
Well, it’s sort of like a score board: as a gamer, score means a lot. Score is how I keep track of progress, how I measure success, how I measure time itself. There are more ways to keep score than you could possibly imagine, and more meanings to those scores than I can even begin to describe without driving myself somewhat insane. Gibberingly.
This will be a growing-over-time list (comprehensive, but not all-inclusive), consisting of MMO (Massively Multi-player Online) and RPG (Role Playing Game) titles, as well as a few stray platformers. Some of them will also be ‘shooters’, but, technically speaking, a shooter that has a story is an RPG – after all, you’re ‘playing the role’ of the leading character. Or characters. Or horde of characters. Or machines. Or toasters. What? There could be toasters. You don’t know.
Paul’s Gaming Resumé (in mostly Chronological order)
Year | Title | Setting/Type | My Thoughts | Beta Tested |
1989 |
Hero’s Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero | Fantasy / RPG | This quaint little game was the beginning of the end for me. My First RPG, and my first gaming love. It was a PC game, created by the nice folks over at Sierra, taking place in a fictional town of Spielburg. You could choose to be a Fighter, a Thief, or a Mage, and the game was full of comedy, puzzles, action, a little romance if you played your cards right. And in the end, if you lived, you got whisked away into the second game on a magic carpet.This title was eventually changed to “Quest for Glory” thanks to a law suit from Milton Bradley, who had a board game called “HeroQuest”. Asshats. | |
1989 |
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar | Fantasy / RPG | ||
1990 |
Eye of the Beholder | Fantasy / RPG | My first D&D game. I was hooked on this silly NWSE-traveling turn-by-turn game. Sad little me. | |
1990 |
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire | Fantasy / RPG | Hero’s Quest sequel – at the end of QfG 1, you fly off into the sunset on a magic carpet… and at the start of this game you crash-land on that carpet in the desert. | |
1991 |
Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra | Fantasy / RPG | ||
1992 |
Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen (EN) | Fantasy / RPG | My introduction to bugs in a game. My friends and I had two ‘toons’ that gained experience almost exponentially. It was awesome. | |
1992 |
Quest for Glory III: Wages of War | Fantasy / RPG | An “insert” into the series (Originally, your character was meant to go from the desert to a Slavic region with vampires… This game got slapped into the middle of those, causing a renumber.), you wind up in an African area after leaving the Middle East, and do missions for genies and lions and such. | |
1993 |
Betrayal at Krondor | Fantasy / RPG | My introduction to Raymond Feist. The game was incredibly long, had a massive storyline, and tied directly into his books. | |
1993 |
Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness | Fantasy / RPG | Vampires, werewolves, and garlic, oh my! | |
1993 |
Syndicate | Cyberpunk / Top-Down Shooter RPG | One of the great classic shooters. This game incorporated missions and, for the first time, upgrade-able gear. You controlled 4 tiny agents who would do assassination and protection missions all over the world in a future where corporations ruled the earth. | |
1993 |
Wing Commander: Privateer | Space / RPG | The single greatest space flight game ever made, bar none. Missions, massive stories, epic battles, canny trading from planet to planet… This had it all. | |
1994 |
Ravenloft: Strahd’s Possession | Fantasy / RPG | ||
1996 |
Realm Online, The | Fantasy / MMORPG | Blocky characters, not many mobs, but fun no less | |
1996 |
Syndicate Wars | Cyberpunk / Top-Down Shooter RPG | Syndicate sequel – ramped everything up, including the awesome. | |
1997 |
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain | Fantasy / RPG | ||
1997 |
Diablo | Fantasy / RPG | My introduction to top-down fantasy RPG. (and many other peoples’ intro as well.) Diablo was a massive time-waster, and many of us blew a lot of money at internet cafés networked up in teams to defeat everything we met in Tristram. | |
1997 |
Final Fantasy VII | Sci-Fi / RPG | The most epic of the FF series. My roomies and I played this until passing out. | |
1997 |
Ultima Online | Fantasy / MMORPG | hailed as “the first”, but not enough to hold my attention | |
1998 |
Baldur’s Gate | Fantasy / RPG | ||
1998 |
Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire | Fantasy / RPG | End of an era. Eventually some enterprising minds would take the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion engine and try to resurrect the QfG series as “QfG3D”, but it never was finished. | |
1999 |
Asheron’s Call | Fantasy / MMORPG | My first MMORPG love. Everything about this game was awesome. | Beta Tested |
1999 |
Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast | Fantasy / RPG | ||
1999 |
EverQuest | Fantasy / MMORPG | Crack. I left as fast as I could… after I maxed my level, and made my sword. | |
1999 |
Planescape: Torment | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2000 |
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2000 |
Deus Ex | Sci-Fi / FPS RPG | Picture a shooter… where you can upgrade your character’s skills, weapons, and abilities… but where the goal is to try to shoot at little as possible, and be stealthy. That’s this. | |
2000 |
Diablo II | Fantasy / RPG | The beast came back. So we killed it again. | |
2001 |
Anarchy Online | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | Everything about this game was incredible. Flawless execution – until they reached about the 5 or 6 month mark, and screwed it up. | Beta Tested |
2001 |
Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2001 |
Dark Age of Camelot | Fantasy-Mythology (Arthurian) / MMORPG | Excellent. Customizable armor/clothing, with dyes. Great! Awesome RvR PvP. First player Housing. Met one of my longest – lasting gaming friends here. | Beta Tested |
2001 |
RuneScape | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2002 |
Arx Fatalis | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2002 |
Asheron’s Call 2 | Fantasy / MMORPG | Horrible. Seriously. What the hell were they thinking? | Beta Tested |
2002 |
Dungeon Siege | Fantasy / RPG | Great story, amazing game play, and a first: “vanishing” ceilings – there were no more ‘loading zones’ – when you walked from the surface down into a crypt, the ceiling simply vanished, to provide a seamless experience. | |
2002 |
Elder Scrolls III, The: Morrowind – Collector’s Edition | Fantasy / RPG | My first Elder Scrolls game. It was by far the most massive landscape I’d ever seen for a single-player game. And it was dark, and thrilling, and fun, and the story was rich, the history massive, and the time to complete every last quest was all but unobtainable. | |
2002 |
Final Fantasy XI | Fantasy / MMORPG | Played because I could use my console… That ‘joy’ died fast. | Beta Tested |
2002 |
Neverwinter Nights | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2003 |
Lineage II | Fantasy / MMORPG | Jiggly. Seriously, that was all this game had – jiggly dark elf females. The ‘fun’ lasted all of about a half hour, and then I was just mad because apparently the dev team spent all their time making large breasted elves, and forgot to make a game. | Beta Tested |
2003 |
Star Wars Galaxies | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | Awesome. Fully. Completely. For three months, two days. And then the Devs found out I liked it, and released horrific patches that altered things forever. Ick. Plus, when I went back about a year or so later, my toons were jedis. Wookie Jedis. Wow. | Beta Tested |
2003 |
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic | Sci-Fi / RPG | Fantastic game. Nothing that followed would ever be as good (in this ‘series’ that eventually led to SWG and SWTOR). | |
2003 |
X2: The Threat | Space / RPG | Great space fighter/flier/trader, but nowhere near as rich as Privateer. | |
2004 |
City of Heroes | Comics / MMORPG | Spandex and Leather awesome. My first ever ‘healer’ was in this game, and I was known across three servers for how well I could keep a team alive. Loved this game. I was actually sad to see it go. It was my first “go back to it when other games suck” game. | Beta Tested |
2004 |
EverQuest II | Fantasy / MMORPG | Ick. Two days. That’s how long I lasted. | |
2004 |
Fable | Fantasy / RPG | Eating baby chickens is evil. And fattening. And will get magical doors to open for you. Remember that. | |
2004 |
Ryzom | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | I remember almost nothing except a nature theme. | Beta Tested |
2004 |
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II—The Sith Lords | Sci-Fi / RPG | Not as good as the first, but still better than anything that followed. | |
2004 |
World of Warcraft | Fantasy / MMORPG | The beginning of “Online Domination” by a game company. I admit it: I played it. A lot. Not as much as some people, and not as devotedly. Many of my friends refuse to leave it and even try other games. They’re missing out. | Beta Tested |
2005 |
City of Villains | Comics / MMORPG | Ninja! Yes! CoX becomes a thing, and I’m happy to leave WoW! | Beta Tested |
2005 |
Dungeon Siege II | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2005 |
Guild Wars | Fantasy / MMORPG | Ugh | |
2005 |
Matrix Online, The | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | I had massively high hopes for this one. It just… failed. | Beta Tested |
2006 |
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach | Fantasy / MMORPG | Played until I realized… I’m not into D&D. | Beta Tested |
2006 |
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion | Fantasy / RPG | And I thought Morrowind was huge… | |
2006 |
Phantasy Star Universe | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2007 |
Hellgate: London | Fantasy / Third Person Shooter RPG | ||
2007 |
Jade Empire: Special Edition | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2007 |
Lord of the Rings Online, The: Shadows of Angmar | Fantasy / MMORPG | OMG! YES! Childhood dreams realized, when I stood, as a hobbit, inside Bag End. And as an Elf inside Rivendell. If it had picked up more custom, it could have taken WoW apart. | Beta Tested |
2007 |
Mass Effect | Sci-Fi / Third Person Shooter RPG | Amazingly well done, in every way. Sadly the two sequels would never fully recapture the joy that was this game. Except the elevators – those were awful. | |
2007 |
Tabula Rasa | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | FPS MMO RPG… Yeah… I wasn’t sure what to make of it, and I tried to make something of it… and failed. | |
2007 |
Two Worlds | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2007 |
Witcher, The | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2008 |
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures | Fantasy / MMORPG | Another game that could have dethroned WoW… but again, failed. | Beta Tested |
2008 |
Fable 2 | Fantasy / RPG | Eat more baby chickens! | |
2008 |
Fallout 3 | Post-Apocalyptic / RPG | Epic. Watch for mutants, and look for bobble heads in a world where bottle caps are currency! | |
2009 |
Champions Online | Comics / MMORPG | Would this replace CoX? Turns out, not. It had great potential, and failed utterly. | Beta Tested |
2009 |
Dragon Age: Origins | Fantasy / RPG | Great game. Very long. Excellent story. | |
2010 |
Fallout: New Vegas | Post-Apocalyptic / RPG | Fallout 3… in Vegas. | |
2010 |
Mass Effect 2 | Sci-Fi / Third Person Shooter RPG | ||
2010 |
Star Trek Online | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | CO in space. In my humble opinion, an utter flop. Yes, you could fly your own ship. Yes, you could make your own crew. Yes, there were Away Missions. And space flight in combat made me ill. Not from the realism, but the utter lack thereof. | Beta Tested |
2011 |
DC Universe Online | Comics / MMORPG | At last! A spandex wonderland with a basis in well – known titles! I actually still like this one, and revisit from time to time. | Beta Tested |
2011 |
Dragon Age 2 | Fantasy / RPG | Better, visually, but worse in story than the first. But it did have a character based on, and played by, Felicia Day – who eventually did a Live-Action ‘mini’ web-series about her character. | |
2011 |
Elder Scrolls V, The: Skyrim | Fantasy / RPG | I play it whenever I feel like taking an arrow to the knee. | |
2011 |
Fable III | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2011 |
Rift | Fantasy / MMORPG | I tried it… I was unimpressed. | |
2011 |
Star Wars: The Old Republic | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | This… This was the title I thought, finally, irevocably, would dethrone the evil god that is WoW. I mean, who doesn’t like Star Wars? Who doesn’t want to swing a lightsaber, or ‘shoot first’? I love the game… now if they could just make the planets a bit more different for the classes, to introduce some replayability. Still, I love it. | Beta Tested |
2012 |
Diablo III | Fantasy / RPG | You could call it an “MMO”, but you’d be kidding yourself. The most “massively” it gets is 4 people at a time. | |
2012 |
Guild Wars 2 | Fantasy / MMORPG | This made up for a horrible GW. Good story, great character skills, fun classes, great all around. And less ‘anime’ feel than the first one. | |
2012 |
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning | Fantasy / RPG | ||
2012 |
Mass Effect 3 | Sci-Fi / Third Person Shooter RPG | Ending of the 3-part story… massive let down. | |
2012 |
Secret World, The | Horror / MMORPG | Great idea. I’m still not entirely sure what I think of it. No real ‘classes’, ability to use any weapon, train any skill, move between weapon types at will. Dark storylines… Fun, but sometimes maddening game. | Beta Tested |
2013 |
Defiance | Sci-Fi / MMORPG | FPS MMO RPG. So far, great game. And the “clincher” is that the story is told both in the game, and in an accompanying SyFy TV show. | Beta Tested |
2013 |
Saints Row: The Third | Open-World Action / Shooter RPF | Great story, pretty graphics – think GTA but you’re not alone – you’ve got a gang. | |
2013 |
Tomb Raider | Adventure / RPG | Epic Tomb Raider. Best of the series, imo. | |
2013 |
Neverwinter | Fantasy/RPG | Return to D&D RPG computer gaming… | Beta Tested |
2013 |
Kerbal Space Program | Space Flight | Space! Physics! Mindless destruction! Rockets! It’s all there, and then some! | |
2013 |
Tera Rising | MMORPG | Beautiful models, engaging story… Well done! | |
2014 |
The Elder Scrolls Online | MMORPG | It’s a work in progress. | |
2014 |
Wildstar Online | MMORPG | Very pretty. Strange game play, but interesting. | |
2014 |
ArcheAge | MMORPG | Beautiful, strange, epic… That about describes it. | |
2014 |
Thief | Action/RPG | One of my favorite games from my past… revived for the XBox One! | |
2014 |
Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag | Action/RPG | The best of the AC games so far. | |
2014 |
FIFA ’14 | Sports | Very nicely done. | |
2014 |
Watchdogs | Action/RPG | Like GTA mixed with True Crime, and then some. | |
2015 |
Aion | MMORPG | I believe I can fly | |
2015 |
Final Fantasy XIV | MMORPG | Until Firefly Online comes out, this is kind of IT. |
I don’t know how you have that much time on your hands to have played all of these games or make a blog about it, but I like you just a little bit more now 🙂