See, it's not just about not being technosavvy. These parents are giving their phone or tablet to their children and they're not watching them while they play. If you end up paying hundreds of dollars at $5 a pop, that's a lot of microtransactions. If you don't notice them as they're being made, it's because you're not watching at all.

Edit: and in that situation, what's stopping the kid from going to the Play Store/iTunes and buying random stuff? To what extent do we want to protect stupid people from giving their credit card info to their children and then leave them unattended?

If stupid parents let their children use their credit card to buy microtransactions, it's their own problem. The government should not intervene. Your child maxed out your credit card by playing Candy Crush or whatever? I'm glad he did, I hope you learned your lesson.

These games are free to play. The name is fine. I'm starting to develop some serious disdain for people who are on this ridiculous crusade against these games. They're not scam. They're not misleading. They're not a "problem".

It depends on the game.

Maybe if you repeat it in 1258 more posts, it will become true.

Funny, when I look at what's on my phone I see games that are more than mindless and shallow games with bad controls. Osmos, World of Goo, Shogun, Crayon Physics, Kingdom Rush, Strikefleet Omega, Sentinel 3, Aquaria, Nihilumbra, etc. But maybe I'm not "dedicated" enough to see that these games are very very very bad, and meant to be played 2 minutes at a time...

@Some-Mist: All this DF talk reminds me that I never played as much Guwange as I wanted (because I was too busy getting my ass handed to me by DF). That's another experimental Cave game that really did a lot of things right, and that really deserves a revisit.

From that description, Bayonetta seems like it deserves a fair try! I've also added Stalker on my to-watch list! The trailers I've seen don't say much about its plot or anything, but the atmosphere is definitely there.

Dangun Feveron is all kinds of awesome. I never could 1CC it or get a decent score, it's so fast and colourful that I'd systematically get "bad" deaths, especially in the later stages, but at the same time, that craziness is what makes me love it. And its disco soundtrack is top-notch.

Now that's a list thread worth replying to. I agree with none of your choices, but they're personal and I enjoyed reading the write ups.

Some-Mist has a very interesting list too. I really need to give Bayonetta a shot (I hate its art style, but if its combat is better than DMC3's I should play it!)

Here are my favourites, in no particular order

Unreal Tournament 2004
This game, in my opinion, is the epitome of the pure deathmath genre. Yes, I think it's better than Quake 3 and UT99. Its movement mechanics really make it reach the next level. I was amazed when I first realized what dodge-jumping and wall-jumping entailed, and I still am. The community never really took off as much as its 1999 predecessors, which is a shame.

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
Despite all of its glitches and lack of polish, this game stands above all others in the single-player FPS genre. Its core gameplay is tight, its AI is very good, its environments are amazing, its atmosphere is unequalled, and it's just a very interesting game experience.

Ikaruga
Ikaruga is not the best-designed shmup. It's not very hard (well, compared the to rest of the genre), and it's not very deep. But as an overall game, it's my favourite of the genre. It's beautiful, its soundtrack is amazing, and I actually like its color-changing gimmick a lot, a lot, a lot. When the genre fell out of the mainstream, I kinda stopped paying attention to it, until this gem came out for the Dreamcast and woke me up. Shmups are still my favourite genre, though I don't have enough free time to actually be decent at them anymore.

Grim Fandango
I wish I could say that my favourite adventure game is something other than everyone else's favourite adventure game. It's not. Grim Fandango has such a charming, funny, well-written story that it's impossible for me to name anything else.

F-Zero GX
My favourite racer of all times, by a very wide margin. It's unforgiving, it's fast, it's silly. It's both fun and mean. It makes you want to throw your gamepad at your TV, but you can't stop playing it because it's so good.

Aquaria/Metroid Prime/Super Metroid
I couldn't choose which one I prefered, so here's all three. I love them all for the same reasons: their worlds are perfectly designed, they are very atmospheric games with excellent exploration, they are contemplative and interesting, they have great soundtracks and they're beautiful games. (To me, Metroid Prime is a perfect 3D successor to Super Metroid. Aquaria is different enough to stand on its own, and it's high-quality enough to be compared directly to its influences.)

FTL: Faster Than Light
This is a game that I will still be replaying 20 years from now. Its design is fantastic and timeless, and everything about it is essentially perfect. These guys took a (fairly simple) concept and explored it in depth to create a well-balanced, extremely well designed game that does everything that you'd expect it to do. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Honorable mentions: Death Rally (the original), Panzer Dragoon Saga, Dangun Feveron (for its crazyness), DoDonpachi (for its design), No One Lives Forever 1&2, Pac-Man, Shadow of the Colossus, Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Batman: Arkham City (imo, this is the game that represents the 360/PS3 generation)

Very stupid post. People are willingly paying for their microtranscations, and they're getting what they paid for. There is no scam there, except when it involves children (who shouldn't have access to credit cards in the first place).

In 2014, some people still don't know that you can plug a gamepad (among other control methods) to a PC?

<3 NOLF 1 and 2. It's a shame Monolith lost their sense of humour.