Yeah, they mean the original. I didn't play it as it first came out but it was still a pretty amazing game when I did. Awesome fun. And Derf, the remake was still pretty good...just not up to the standard of today's 'ambitions' a game should have. But then you have games like CoD4 who are awesome in a way but in another just a freaking scripted on-rails shooter. We can thank the consoledorks fo that.
Derf, BG2 was better than BG1 dawg!
Better villain, better NPC's (more interesting), overall much sleeker, better resolutions, bigger world, more side quests...but the villain takes the cake. Sarevok was cool as villains go, but Irenicus was a whole different ballgame. BG2 is to this day the single greatest fantasy epic ever made, for me. I will, however, agree with you on Civ 2 > Civ 4.
Never played Shogun, so I'll take your word for it that it's better than Rome. Otoh, it is set in Rome. For me, 50% of the awesomeness of RTW was getting to lead a Roman faction, getting suction with the Senate and People, double-crossing other Romans with my family of degenerates and of course fielding legions and using Roman tactics. Shogun may be cool and all, but I doubt they were Roman.
If L4D2 proves equally or more amazing as the original AND Valve somehow integrate the two games into eachother (creating one huge platform to provide for the community) L4D might be making any personal '25 best games ever' list of mine too.