Not a lot of games hold up to replays. What games have you played through several times, and had fun doing it?

Modern Games? I've got 400 hours in L4D2. It totally turned around my once very-negative view of multiplayer online.

X-Com: UFO Defense

I play though that game about once a year.

My UFC fitness game for the Kinnect?

Generally though i think the strategy games like AoE etc have best replay and the 1st person shooters the least.

Would a game like Civ IV count?

Historically? 'The Big Twos': Civ 2, MoO 2, Star Control 2, Sim City 2000, etc.

Lately? For me, Crusader Kings.

Used to be Europa Universalis, but from the sequel on the fantasy sandbox mode turned to shit with a ridonkulous tight ass European bias ("I thought this was fantasy sandbox mode? Why can't I play a Mali empire conquering France?..."). Hearts of Iron if you're into WWII, but I'm way over WWII.

Biggest thing on the map for me is Battle for Wesnoth, the free turn-based fantasy strat-sim with online community free to craft their own scenarios. And the scenarios can be full productions. Anywhere from 3 to 20+ maps, various units with their own advancement, possibly unique story arc units, different unit pixels, etc. And the story is free to be whatever the designer wants. Kinda like an open source turn-based Shining Force with the map tools immediately available. Love it myself.

I don't do 1st person shooters, like Counterstrike, or either God of War 3rd person camera behind, because of motion sickness. Rarely if ever play sports games for fun. Don't do real time strats, a la Warcraft/Starcraft (miss turn-based strats). And puzzle games are now just stuck in a creativity rut and glut of "me-too!"s.

So I'm not really a great help about what to play nowadays as I'm currently NOT the video game market. Oh well, it was bound to happen someday as I aged.

4X games, definitely. Civilization, Colonization, Master of Magic. Civ1 for simplicity, MoM for complexity. There is a threshold here, though; I couldn't get into Civ2 or Alpha Centaury so well. I prefer something more streamlined.

Games with a ton of good fan content. Thief and Thief 2, mainly (there are altogether something like 900 missions for them, four of those mine, and I think that number doesn't count The Dark Mod), but once upon a time, the Duke Nukem 3d community was bringing out tons of these innovative, fun maps. Unfortunately, level-building has become significantly harder with modern engines, but apparently, Minecraft fills that niche somehow.

And puzzles. I am usually not much into puzzles, but Microsoft had a game called Pandora's Box by Alexey Payitnov (who designed Tetris), and I must have replayed all those puzzles four or five times. Just the right balance between being challenging and being relaxing. Actually, my brother, Dad and Mom all loved it, which really makes it a unique thing. No other game did that. Unfortunately, I don't know where the disk is anymore, and it's not for sale at the moment. Maybe one day.

Hah!  I envy you people and your, "game finishing."

I don't think I've ever finished any game I've ever gotten, yet I still keep them...

As far as replay goes, I've never really uninstalled Unreal Tournament 2004 or the Starfleet Command series.

Once I figured out how to hack the settings, C&C Red Alert did it for me. Loads of nonstandard units and mods floating around out there too. Generally anything I can hack and mod keeps me entertained, Civ 2 was another one, I set that up so it would only advance to the medieval age and played it as world spanning kingdoms and empires, and likewise at the musket age and classical age. Sometimes its more fun doing that than actually playing!

Come to think of it I haven't actually played a game on a PC in many years.

They're pretty bad games then, Butch.    But that's design talk and probably not very useful for this thread.  

More on-topic...

Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries was pretty good for replay since it had a ton of missions and was less linear than the original Mech4 or its first expack, Black Knight.  There's also the fact that Mech games have a ton of customization built-in, so really even the more linear ones offer a variety of experiences and ways to challenge yourself.  Mech2 I've played through several times and it's always fun.  The new Mechwarrior Online will offer full mech customization as well as persistent tracking of a faction's holdings and whatnot, so it'll have some focus on long-term play.

As others have said, Civ is super-good for replay value.  

Supreme Commander (the first one) is extremely fun even if you just take Instant Action into account.  Thousands of units onscreen at once + robots + nukes == awesome.

Freelancer was pretty fun, and has a theoretically infinite number of missions, but gets repetitive after a while.  Despite being shallow compared to other space trade/quest games, it's still pretty fun and good for killing time.

Team Fortress 2 and Tribes Ascend (both free, though I've paid for the former) are my go-to FPS multiplayer games atm.

The Elder Scrolls and the new Fallouts potentially have a lot of replay value, but I find myself getting bored with them after finishing the main quests.  If you're a completionist or just like fucking around, they'll do you good, though, and I have a few friends who enjoy playing just to see what sort of crazy items they can craft or hijinks they can pull off.

If you like sims, IL-2 Sturmovik has a ton of content at this point and the 10-dollar pack gets you all of the accumulated content for the original series (do not buy the spin-off title Birds of Prey or whatever it is).  Not to mention it has a quick-mission builder.  You could spend ages playing this game, but you really have to commit to learning how to fly if you want to get the most out of it -- the physics are extremely well done and demand competency.

Also, if you're a masochist who really loves space-trade games, the X series is prettymuch unlimited gameplay/stuff to do.  But they're pretty mediocre in terms of design/production values, so I can't recommend them for everyone.

Oh, and I've only played it once, but Vampire: Bloodlines has several different endings/paths, as well as a completely different set of dialogue options for Malkavians.  It's definitely a diamond in the rough, but when it shines, it's pretty awesome.

Quote from: Peregrin;558590They're pretty bad games then, Butch.    But that's design talk and probably not very useful for this thread.  

Hell, why not? I love a good threadjack. Fire away.

Quote from: Peregrin;558590The Elder Scrolls and the new Fallouts potentially have a lot of replay value, but I find myself getting bored with them after finishing the main quests.  If you're a completionist or just like fucking around, they'll do you good, though, and I have a few friends who enjoy playing just to see what sort of crazy items they can craft or hijinks they can pull off.

Which one of the Elder Scrolls is best for this sort of crafting or hijinking? I've heard Morrowind, but I'd like confirmation.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has more replay value than any other game I've ever enjoyed. It's been my primary computer game ever since it became free to play in September of '09.
 
Apart from DDO, I got alot of replay out of Moo 1&2, Civ 1&3 and Dungeon Keeper 1&2.

Quote from: The Butcher;558628Hell, why not? I love a good threadjack. Fire away.

Well, I won't go on a rant, but I'll say if you have some spare time, look up Raph Koster.  He has a theory blog (very down to earth stuff, though, compared to most game theory) and has also written a book called The Theory of Fun.  He has some good articles on what makes games unique, and good games vs good media experiences, etc.

QuoteWhich one of the Elder Scrolls is best for this sort of crafting or hijinking? I've heard Morrowind, but I'd like confirmation.

Skyrim is definitely a smoother experience, and one of my friends has spent ages just mucking with the crafting system and making his own sets of gear, but I can't say how it compares to the details of Morrowind's since I haven't played Morrowind for any real length of time.  Oblivion I've played a decent amount of but don't much care for, and I wouldn't recommend it, honestly.

Depends on your rig, too.  Morrowind is older so it'll run on a lot of different machines, Skyrim is quite a bit more graphics intensive.

I'm not a big video game person. Never bought any kind of console, very slow to get new games. But there are several games -- Doom 1, Quake 1, Hexen 1, Heretic 1/2, Rune -- that I will play completely through every other year. ZDoom (which will handle Doom 1/2, Hexen 1, and Heretic) is also good when combined with a random level maker, like Oblige.

Right now, I'm running through Dungeon Keeper 2 again, looking for new ways to approach the old problems. I fiddled around a little with a random level maker for that, too, but it's very iffy.

Dominions 3 gave me a ton of play value; I'd still be playing but I switched laptops and haven't been able to transfer it over.

Pretty much all turn based strategy games have been good for me....Age of Wonders is pretty awesome, too. Right now I'm totally hypnotized by Endless Space, though it has a few flaws.