Moving to: m/AskMbin!

Mine are purely sentimental and I don’t expect anyone to agree, but the original monkey island, the original fallout or Baldurs Gate 1. They all have arguably better sequels but playing those games for the first time was something else.

The thing that made me fall in love with classic video games: SMB3 (NES)

Favorite game that got me into the next iteration: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. With a nice helping of a Perfect Dark as a palette cleanser.

More modern: I've got about 1000 hours into Skyrim and have played Diablo 3 more than I'd like to admit.

I'm massively looking forward to Starfield.

This was a tough one, but I think I've finally settled on Super Mario Kart.

It's not the best game in the franchise, but I think it's still my favourite, and the game I still have the most hours put into ever.

It's been 30 years of play now, and ongoing.

Mario Kart 64

Unreal Tournament '99.

I spent hours playing on instagib servers and also replaying the 'campaign' as a kid. It was the first game I likely logged over 100 hours on.

Command and Conquer, it's one of the few things I can remember fondly sharing with my dad growing up. Also it has such a great soundtrack.

Disco Elysium

Planescape: Torment.

It had a great story that questioned good and evil (rare for a DnD style game). The graphics were great at the time. The soundtrack was (and still is) phenominal and the characters were actual characters.

Deus Ex on PC, from the year 2000.

This game made me rethink what a game could even be. Whenever I thought of what a great game would be I'd think "It's like Deus Ex but..."

Crash Bandicoot: Warped will always have a special place in my heart

Left 4 Dead 2. It's not my favorite game, or what I think is the best game of all time, but it's definitely my most played by more than 1k hours. The game hits a sweet spot in terms of tactical gameplay that's almost chess-like in its level of complexity, balance, and replay-ability. The fact that it was released 14 years ago and still has a massive modding community and playerbase speaks to its quality. It's also on sale on Steam right now for $.99, and as it uses the Source engine, runs well on the most basic of potatoes.

Freespace 2 (I’m old). Still one of the most compelling story’s I’ve enjoyed in a video game to date.

EarthBound

Half Life 1. That game was so ground-breaking, so atmospheric, so interesting in its puzzles and its combat that it just blew my mind and made me a forever fan.

Age Of Empires. I still play to this day!

This is a hard call, and after a lot of self-deliberation...It must be Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the updated 3DS version. It's a moody, dark, and interesting title within the Zelda game series! The deadline before the world ends pushes the player to figure out the most efficient way to make progress to save the world. The updated Bomber Journal makes this experience so tight and compelling!

Asteroids. I shudder to think how many quarters I spent playing that game. Sometime I’ll have to see if there is some retro arcade out there where I could go play it again.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or GTA 4. 100% nostalgia picks since these are the games that I played endlessly as a preteen into high school. I would maybe throw Pokemon R/B/Y in there too since those were the games I played endlessly until I was old enough to start detasseling and buy myself GTA 4, Oblivion, and an Xbox 360

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This was just a groundbreaking game. I know the graphics aren't as nice as Skyrim, but the world has more depth and the guilds are all full games in themselves.

Such a big open world, fully populated with flora and mystical fauna (Minotaurs and unicorns), an endless supply of side-quests.

Oblivion destroys Skyrim in the following places:

• Much more interesting and in-depth Thieves Guild, Assassin's Guild, Fighter's Guild, and Mage's Guild.
• Being a vampire is infinitely better than being a goddamn werewolf
• Skyrim leans too heavily for the Nord race, while Oblivion's story leaves race selection more open-ended. I always want to be an Argonian but it felt weird to be an Argonian in Skyrim.

Final Fantasy II (which we later learned was IV) was my first "real" video game. It holds a special place in my heart because my Dad had me play it when I was learning to read, and he had me read all the lines and dialogue out loud.

For years I thought the opening screed read that Cecil and Kain were "swallowed by a deep frog." Imagine my surprise reading it years later to read fog. Hey, when the text scrolls by and you don't control the speed, it can lead to some misunderstandings!

Seeing Rydia chastise an adult was also very empowering for me, as a girl of similar age. When she came back later as a day-saving badass, it made me want to grow up to be a day-saving badass, too.

Super Mario 64!

System Shock 2

Many games come close for me... Mass Effect, Zelda Link to the Past,, Factorio and Homeworld would round out my top 5 for instance. But System Shock 2 was my first immersive sim game. It started a love affair with the genre that I'm still trying to scratch 25 years later.

There were many spiritual successors, with Arkane's Prey being the closest approximation I've found. Nightdive just released the original System Shock's remake a month back, so the wait for them to announce they're giving SS2 the remake treatment is torture.

halo 1 the GOAT with best weapon balance in the series and solid all around design

Team Fortress Classic. The game was fun but the modding community really took it to the next level.

Bloodborne for playing, Drakengard 3 for the characters and music, Tactics Ogre for the story.

Tekken 3 for the sheer amount of times I beat it front to back. I had no memory card for my PS1 as a kid so I'd leave my Playstation on all weekend while I beat the game. Some days the power went out and I'd lose progress and have to beat it all over again.

I'm going to say The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for personal reasons.

When I was playing it, I was getting therapy for clinical depression. Breath of the Wild's entire structure really helped me process my depression and contextualise my issues, and I honestly think it helped me a lot more than would any game that is actually about depression.

considers

I think that it'd have to be something with a lot of replayability, which doesn't lose value to me after one playthrough.

Also, it can't be a genre where the game was limited by technology. I mean, I remember Wolfenstein 3D being amazing when it came out relative to other games of the time -- walking around in a 3D world was so mind-blowing -- but the novelty of that technology has long-since worn off, and there are many more-impressive 3D games today.

I guess roguelikes are probably about the top of the heap there, and my favorite is probably Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I still regularly play that, which seems to me to be a good test of whether it's still at the top of my list.

Probably Dark Souls for me, the replay value and the many different ways to take on challenges in the game haven't really been replicated, even after many attempt. If not that, then Alpha Protocol. I think they did choice and consequences the best in a game. I'll also throw Dwarf fortress in there too, since people need to play it.

Hard to choose one, but maybe I'd say Kerbal Space Program 1. It had a really profound impact on the way I understood the world, space, physics, and gave me one of the best feelings of pure exploration. It was amazing to drop into progressively lower orbits around a new planet or moon before finally landing and walking around.

The original Legend of Zelda on the NES. It fully captivated me as a child. I remember taking the game map to school with me and my friends would circle trees that could be burned or rocks that could be bombed. Such fond memories.

Burnout 3: Takedown

Final Fantasy VII, it's the most pefect game made by human hands.

probably Forza horizon 5. closing in in 500 hours

best memories are from Minecraft for sure tho

Probably Life is Strange. It did a lot for me in my mid-late 20s.

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