Not saying they're the best. Not even saying that they're your favorite.
More so, these games changed the way you actually LOOKED and THOUGHT about videogames.

Go!

Mario 3
Fallout 3
Goldeneye
Sonic
NBA 2K
NFL 2K5
Splinter Cell
Majorca’s Mask
The Batman Arkham series
Spider-Man PS4

> Majorca’s Mask

1. OUTRUN, simply by default and the decay of memory. There was a game a friend of mine owned that was a little more simple looking and came in an all-in-one unit with a wonky little gamepad; I'm pretty sure it wasn't POLE POSITION, but the graphics sat somewhere between the two. Easy enough to understand as a 5 year old, hard enough to play over and over for half a decade, I loved these kinds of games for a long time. As an aside, a lot of games got me hooked as a kid but I always had a real soft spot for SUPER OFF ROAD.

2. SUPER MARIO WORLD, because everybody's got to have a Mario, right? My neighbor had 3 but we didn't play it often enough, usually played STADIUM EVENTS instead which is hilariously rare and expensive now. Kinda happy I grew to not like that kid.

3. RESIDENT EVIL, a series I was more than a little obsessed with through RE4 (I wrote fanfic on the IGN message boards, it was that bad) and yet also remains an outlier because I was so convinced zombies were real and a potential hazard of every public restroom I'm almost religiously averse to jump-scare style horror. I'll take a psychological mess here and there, but I've always been averse to horror thanks to this first game. Other than this series, weirdly.

4. KEN GRIFFEY JR.'S WINNING RUN, a game (alongside KGJ's MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, which I actually probably played more of) that taught me how fun it was to read (and write) box scores, kicking off a lifelong problem of always wanting to play dozens of games a year but inevitably getting hooked into one sports game franchise mode (or later ultimate team mode) or another for an entire summer and ignoring everything else.

5. GOLDENEYE 007, because it was something that I was very, very good at (left handers rise up!) compared to my friends and was one of the few games my little sister, dad and I would play for hours in the basement as well. I don't game with friends (or, have friends who game) as an adult, but this kicked off a period from roughly 11-16 years old in which multiplayer was probably the most important aspect of a game's feature set.

6. GRAND THEFT AUTO III, because I could say OCARINA OF TIME but everything I'd want to say about that game I can also say here with an EDGY, "adult" subtext, plus this game opened me up to chatting on message boards about a game as it was brand new, swapping rumors and tips and just fucking around in a game to see what would stick. It's a shame this game is practically unplayable now (as in, it controls like dogshit) because I often look back on its soundtrack (which I burned to CD-R) and talk radio and voice acting and mission design and think - yeah, that really is the source of pretty much all single player games now, huh?

7. NBA 2K6, which I only bought because the Suns and Warriors were intriguing me after a decade of not caring about basketball much post-Jordan other than the inevitable Lakers Finals series' - after this game, I maybe bought three games the rest of the PS3's lifespan that weren't NBA 2K (PS+ would eventually help me pick up the slack). The last 2K I bought full price, day one was 2K17 and I consider this series to be practically the peak of trash now, but what a decade that was.

8. METAL GEAR SOLID 2, for completely blowing the lid off what a video game could look, sound, play like and be about. If you know you know I suppose. Nothing will ever hit like Snake walking down the Manhattan (Brooklyn?) bridge in the rain for the first time.

9. SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS / ICO, because it wouldn't be fair to separate either. The former stands out because I was old enough to fully grasp what was happening there and went back to the latter to right a wrong, but boy was it neat to see games as more than entertainment products for the first time. Not even MGS gave me that.

10. THE LAST OF US PART II, in which I realized just how much growth potential gaming still has as a story telling and emotion-imparting medium, but also how far so much of the enthusiast set has to go in order to allow for games to take us there. Stuck between a messy novel and an overwrought epic, there's a lot of mess in this game but I've never felt so trapped in something, so viscerally of a piece with it as this.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

The "I made her talk" scene still gives me chills

that game is something different.

And now I'm like a COD zombie. I get every one and play them into the ground. What trips me out is a couple years ago when I was like "aww man, they're going back to WW2 again? I'm not getting that", Activision sent me a code for a free download of the game within the first month and said they noticed I hadn't been playing the new COD. My wife thought I was BS'ing and then I showed her the email LOL

kinda changed the way i thought about the ipad at the time and the platform for gaming control schemes

9. Sam & Max
I had never played such a polished point and click adventure game with that much humor

8. Kentucky Route Zero
Similar to sam and max but i hadn't played a game so cinematic, intimate, and well directed

7. Super Mario Bros
first game i ever played

6. Cosmic Courier: Trapped in Limbo
idk if this counts but this is a game i made with a few others for a game jam and actually working on a team to put a project together was life changing

5. Jet Set Radio
I think this game solidified that there were games out there made specifically for me.

4. Dragon Quest 8
i thought i hated RPGs until i played this. So much heart in the storytelling

3. Snatcher
I used to make games in basic that were basically text adventures. Playing snatcher took me back to those times and made me remember how you dont need crazy computer power to make a page turner

2. Link's Awakening
First time i'd ever played a top down action game AND game that REQUIRED you to read. i played this when i was 7 and didnt understand it. came back a year later and it was one of the most fulfilling gaming experiences i ever had

1. Persona 5
This one actually changed my real life. The storytelling through the social links made me re-evaluate the way i was treating the relationships in my actual life

I don't think I can put this in any type of order, but we can try.

• Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

One of the games where I realized that I was growing as the characters did.

• Monster Hunter Tri

Where I realized that I prefer co-op play as opposed to versus play (with the exception of fighting games)

• Resident Evil

The first game to give me nightmares

• Eternal Darkness

I am very much freaked out by this game. The sanity meter is the most ingenious idea I had seen. To this day this game messes with my head. I won't play it at night, ever.

• Goldeneye 007

Here is where I first understood the love of FPS. I lost interest as these games got more technical.

• Mechwarrior 2

My first real PC game. I really dug this game.

• The Carmen Sandiego Series

This is how I know that Santiago is the Capital of Chile. After taking a flight from Kathmandu, of course.

• Street Fighter 2 -> Street Fighter Alpha -> Capcom VS series

So, here is my lineage of fighting games. It starts with the granddaddy OG, then to the pinnacle of the games.

• Dance Dance Revolution

I think this was the first time I saw video games as a performance art. The way people would create routines to some of these dance charts was great. And, it's a great workout.

• NHL '94

This game taught me the game of hockey.

HM: Lunar: Silver Star Story, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Mega Man 3, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

You brought back a few memories with this one. The Resident Evil mentions here have sorta made me realize that games importance, but my lack of affinity for horror as a genre overall means it didn't stand out to me. It is the only RE I've played though, thinking back, my sister liked horror and would watch me play, I did not get very far in that game for a very long time, like barely half the mansion, for I don't know how long. There were rooms I would expect a scare from that were just atmospheric, no matter how often I'd been in it. Does anyone remember the back of the jewel case? there was a picture of the scene in that hallway, but with a giant spider instead of the dogs that jump in the window. Was that a thing in the game? I never encountered it but always wondered.

I think I only had Mechwarrior 3 back then, definitely have memories of it, felt beyond me at the time but I got kinda far in it once. I do really love the design of that game and the missions and 'maps', kinda similar to how I felt about Ghost Recon in my list, they felt like landscapes that you had to figure out how to fight in without obvious cues, I miss that feeling.

I completely forgot about The Carmen Sandiego Series, I know I had one game, not sure if I remember anything I learned from it.

There are still zombies around, but they've moved locations, and several of them have been replaced with Hunters (think I dunno, green reptile-like Street Sharks lol) that are much faster and stronger as well as spiders that poison you and slow you down.


The Remake adds another "fun" wrinkle where random zombies you've previously killed can reanimate as Crimson Heads that are faster and stronger also, which means if you're a total wuss like me there's a real incentive to play as Chris since he carries a lighter he can burn their bodies with, a smart change since in the original it didn't make much sense to not play as Jill with her lockpick.



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

I feel like if I replayed the game I'd still hit parts where I wouldn't want to move forward.

https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/243402-resident-evil-director-s-cut-playstation-back-cover.jpg

This was the back of the box I remember, I don't recall ever running into a spider in that hallway. I think I'm kinda remembering them eventually, I do remember the Hunters, I finished the game once at some point.

Yo! That shit FUCKED me up. I loved every minute of it. The sanity meter was GENIUS.

I guess it didn't sell well, but DAMN was that a good game. :)

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Dude, I almost unplugged the Gamecube, packed that shit up, and when to GameStop.

I just was not prepared for that AT ALL...

Or the walls starting to bleed. It's a great game.

>Not saying they're the best. Not even saying that they're
>your favorite.
>More so, these games changed the way you actually LOOKED and
>THOUGHT about videogames.
>
>Go!

There's a bunch but I'll skip some stuff to try to hit the main ones.

1. Super Mario 3: I thought I had seen it all once I got Mario to fly. Holy shit did I love that game.

2. Tecmo Super Bowl: playing a season with the stats, injuries, and leaderboards!? Shiiiid.

3. Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition: fighting games were and are still the shit. This is the game that made that clear to me and mine the first time.

4. Fire Pro Wrestling: 6-man Scramble: customization for that azz! I still dabble in Fire Pro World on PS4 now. Such a beautiful system for a wrestling game.

5. Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 is still my favorite time playing wrestling games. The All Japan dudes were king shit, and making all of the WWF/WCW dudes was an option too. Loved that game, floaty arms and boxy bodies be damned.

6. Street Fighter 4 is probably why I still play video games. All of those red ring XBox 360s, EA killing NFL 2k, and a bunch of going out and acting fool had me drifting far away from games. SF4 put me back on the controller. I still regret not getting to play people in person more on that game.

7. God of War 3: Also kept me into games when I was starting to drift off. It was the reason I got a PS3 (which I still have hooked up to a TV).

8. Ninja Gaiden 2 (The Xbox one): wow. I still can't finish it on a level higher than normal but I really felt this hard ass/occasionally shady game (getting hit by projectiles from someone off screen is bullshit to the max). That staircase stage is legendary.

9. NCAA Football (the Sega Genesis years then the PS1 games): this bullshit broken set of games brought me and a bunch of dudes I didn't know together in college. We're all still friends TILL THIS DAY because of the absurd number of hours we put down on this game.

I will now cheat with a 2 in 1: 10. the 2k sports games:

NFL 2k5: EA is still some mark azz tricks for robbing us of more of this game. Who knows how pay to play it would be by now but we deserved to find out, damnit. It is a DAMN shame that Madden right now is still missing shit that was in this old ass game.

NBA 2k2: it was wide open but I considered it the perfect bball game. It was NBA Jam, NBA Live, Run and Gun, and Double Dribble somehow all packaged together in my mind. You could post, play defense, make open shots, box out/rebound, and generally do some rock solid video game hooping. It was sim enough without feeling sterile and restrictive. Sure, Reggie Miller in the 4th quarter was broken, but c'mon. Shit was still hella fun.


I will now really cheat to make sure I bring up Punch Out and Mike Tyson's Punch Out. I remember my pops taking me to the corner store on Sundays to play Punch Out cuz I was dying to get to and beat Sandman. It took a shitload of Sundays but I eventually got there. Then, whoever they made me fight after that, I was so mentally shot that I promptly got knocked out. I didn't GAF tho!

And I remember rounding up every dollar I had to my name to get MTPO from Toys R Us and boy was it fucking worth it. I played it a ton until I could get to and beat Mike Tyson regularly. About 10 years ago, I tried to beat that fucker and couldn't do it. I try again every few years. Still no dice. I'm overdue to try again sometime. We'll see. I can get pretty close but I'll fuck it off in the 3rd round when I can remember and/or react to some rando shit that he does.

This wasn't easy to come up with, and hard to differentiate between choosing stuff from my childhood and still being able to explain it, and recent stuff that makes more sense to my adult expectations.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
This is an old game, but I also just played through it again on my old SNES (made a post in that covid gaming one). This still feels like the most relevant Mario game to me, and I think it's always had something to do with the character and world building, giving everyone (but Mario) dialogue and a personality, that I'm not sure I really realized mattered to me as much in a game until then, even if I didn't realize it.

Conker's Bad Fur Day
N64 classic. Didn't even know what we were getting into at first, Dad rented it with a bunch of games back in the day, thought it was a good 'kids' platformer like Mario or Banjo that my sister also liked to play, she comes out and tells us there's cursing and stuff and it ends up being my favourite game for a long time. I had a Playstation, I know it was more 'adult' than Nintendo at the time, but I feel like this game did more cross so many lines in an interesting way. Played the story, played multiplayer even against bots, had some CTF games against einstein AI that I still have memories of, had to give credit to the AI back then when you could even rely on your teammates to do the right thing.

FF7
I almost didn't include this and the Mario RPG. It's typical, but it was also my first Final Fantasy and probably broke me into games like this, my experiences in previous gens I guess were just limited. The moment in this game that changed things for me the most was actually the first time you leave Midgard and see the World Map. I can't really explain why in retrospect, but before that moment I assumed that game was just going to take place in Midgard entirely, just destroying all the reactors and then the tower, like levels. It was so much more.

Ghost Recon
OG Xbox Live version. This is kinda getting credit in my life for more than just the game, but also experiences with people in it as it was one of my main first intros to online gaming then. A guy who hosted games for a group of us, fostered a real sense of community, is the reason I started watching Stargate lol, and ended up passing away and someone he knew signing in and telling people in his friends list to pass it around, showed how much that could mean. There were also just experiences we created ourselves that new games try to fabricate, like organizing our own squad and targets and firing together on a countdown and watching everyone drop at once, like Wildlands lets you do with markers and your squad AI but way more satisfying and without the UI helping us.

Portal
This one is here mainly because of how immersed I was in that world in my playthrough that one night all at once in the dark. I was so sucked in I was convinced for a moment I was supposed to fall in that pit at the end and die and that the game itself somehow didn't expect me to escape. The kind of thing that is hard to replicate but you wish you could experience fresh again.

Valiant Hearts
The ending of this game makes me cry, in a way few things game or otherwise ever have without any obvious personal relevance. It is great artistic storytelling, and one of the strongest examples of why I think video games can be the greatest form of it, even just with the very last 'level', when executed properly when you are required to 'participate' in the moments that matter and feel like you are taking part in them, and not just watching/reading them.

The Witness
Immersive puzzle game. The stuff behind Braid impresses me, but I didn't really get that deep into the game itself. I still haven't completey finished the Witness technically, but did a lot of the stuff, and just the layers and the design are very cool and I hope to go back to it and start over sometime and hope it feels close to fresh again. To have a game in it's entirety almost be about some kind of philosophical idea and to be so thoroughly thought out has stuck with me. Some games seem to try to be like part of it, but only puzzles, or art style, or something, but never execute all parts like this did.

Night in the Woods
I wish this game never ended. My favourite part about it was how it almost didn't feel like a game, and the experience for most of it of being played day by day (wake up in the morning, go back home to sleep at night). I played it after work every day, essentially one day at a time in game, and never wanted that to stop. Eventually it had it's ending but I just wanted to keep coming back and living in that city and keep talking to people every day.

Wolfenstein
This is kind of a cheat one. I may be referencing both Return to Castle Wolfenstein (X-Box Live) and The New Order. Xbox live is similar to Ghost Recon in the social gaming aspect of it's importance, playing with Brits who never slept until the late hours, coming up with knife games in rooms where no one joined, then getting one guy who tried to break in on his own to die on the barbed wire. The New Order I feel deserves credit as such a great re-introduction to the franchise, in a way I wasn't even completely expecting. I'd heard good things but it took ages for me to finally get my disc copy to work (it had known download issues, had to go back and uninstall and re-do it offline or something but I procrastinated), but when I did I regretted not doing so earlier. There was one random article that makes a point of stating that the sex scenes in the game are actually really good, and that stuck with me, especially when you realize just how true that is and honestly they feel better and more genuinely executed than a lot of the sex scenes they throw in tv shows nowadays, which is something you don't expect a game to do but that I think it deserves a lot of credit for and I wish it could serve as some kind of example lol.

Starcraft
possibly a cheat too. Definitely Starcraft and Brood War were important in my random early pc gaming along with some others that could be on this list, but I had way more consoles and crappy pc's. Part of this is what Starcraft is to me now, which is more than a game. I didn't have much experience back then, one month of playing with a friend thanks to phone line internet until his mom got the bill. He reached out to me ages later about SC2 and we both got it and played together for a bit, don't anymore, but with more internet access now I discovered it as an eSport and what was going on in Korea all that time and got completely sucked in and still follow it. Hard to think of anything else that ever had me up at 4 in the morning on multiple weekdays to watch GSL, or attending some of the Live events in Toronto and them feeling like they held as much importance to me as my trip to see two Moto GP races in Portugal/Spain. Even if I don't always watch and keep up with everything as much anymore, I always have my eye on it, and it exists as a sport I follow as importantly as Soccer essentially.

lots of agreeable replies so far. I had to think about this quite a bit.

Super Mario Bros. (NES) -- I still never beat it. but this is videogames to me.

Sega Rally (Arcade/Saturn) - pretty much every racing game was an "arcade" racer at this point, so when I finally played this one, it was the first time it felt like you were actually driving a real vehicle. the physics were amazing, and you couldn't just power slide, Mario Kart style through entire races. but it was still arcade-y enough to be fun and not painfully challenging.

Harvest Moon (SNES) - the first game for me where you could do nothing. there was no time clock (aside from the passing of days) or farm monster coming or any real crisis to attend to. it was pure side-quest fun, as a main game. I loved it.

Ape Escape (PS1) - I couldn't tell you shit about this game, I think I only ever played it on a PlayStation magazine demo disc, but it still broke my mind because you had to use both analog controllers at the same time. I was an analog hold out (didn't like the N64 controller) and most 32-bit games were still clunky enough that it didn't matter (remember when 30 FPS was amazing and 15-20 FPS was acceptable?). this game made me realize there is life after the d-pad.

Myth: The Fallen Lords (PC/Mac) -- I was so hyped for this because there wasn't much interesting gaming happening on the old Apple computers. Bungie was only marquee gamedev for Macs (Marathon series) and this was going to be a huge cross-play title for them. the reason it makes the list, however, was this was the first game where I enjoyed online gaming. it wasn't an easy game to play, but you didn't just get bulldozed like FPS games (Doom, Quake) if your skill level wasn't elite. so many great memories, and the first and only time I was ever part of an online gaming community.

NFL Gameday '98 (PS1) - if you were a gamer during the 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit ages, you definitely have a ton of crystalized moments where you felt the technology taking you to new places. watching fully polygonal football players, with smooth motion capture, move around the field was one of those moments. it made Madden look like pure dogshit and sports games were never the same.

Metal Gear Solid (PS1) - this was the first defining "game as a movie" for me. the playable beginning, where you get shot from a torpedo tube and sneak into the elevator, then the opening title rolls as you ascend…just the first of many amazing sequences that had never been experienced before. the next generation of gaming went too far with the cinematic concept (and we found out most game directors would be shitty movie directors), but this experience will forever be an unassailable landmark.

Half-Life (PC) -- this came out right after MGS, but it took me a while to play it since I didn't have a gaming PC at the time. I know there are predecessors in the FPS genre that did a lot of the real-time story-building that Valve accomplished, but like MGS, this was the complete package for me and changed how I thought of FPS games. I still have a mental scar from the first time I got pulled towards the ceiling by a barnacle.

Street Fighter IV (PC) - I played Street Fighter since II in the arcades, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo took away so many hours when it hit SNES, I would say that Alpha 3 is one of my favorite games of all-time, and I remember watching EVO Moment #37 not too long after it happened. that said. the coalescence of IV reviving the fighting game genre and later, live streaming through Twitch, made me realize I've been playing fighting games for 20 years but had no idea really how to play them. plus/minus, frame traps, mix-ups…the FGC became a whole new world to me and occupied most of my gaming hours for the next several years.

Final Fantasy VI (SNES) - I can't really pinpoint which was the first great RPG I played, since I got into them all at once -- from 1993-1995 I remember renting Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger from Blockbuster, while scanning FuncoLand ads for used Final Fantasy II/III (US) cartridges that were less than $70.

but I do know that Final Fantasy VI was the RPG that made me a fan for life. the imagination, the art design, the ensemble cast that all had their own characterization, the gotdamn best villain ever, the 16-bit soundtrack that blows away most orchestrated attempts to rival it, the beautiful layers to the story -- fuck, how many games since then have had moments that come close to Setzer piloting Daryl's airship out of her tomb? which happens right after Celes on Solitary Island?

videogames had always been fun, but this is the first one that made me "feel" something. a perfect gaming experience.

Oh man, those broken jukes! And the Broncos were pro bowl team status on this one and 99.


>lots of agreeable replies so far. I had to think about this
>quite a bit.
>
>Super Mario Bros. (NES) -- I still never beat it. but this is
>videogames to me.
>
>Sega Rally (Arcade/Saturn) - pretty much every racing game was
>an "arcade" racer at this point, so when I finally played this
>one, it was the first time it felt like you were actually
>driving a real vehicle. the physics were amazing, and you
>couldn't just power slide, Mario Kart style through entire
>races. but it was still arcade-y enough to be fun and not
>painfully challenging.
>
>Harvest Moon (SNES) - the first game for me where you could do
>nothing. there was no time clock (aside from the passing of
>days) or farm monster coming or any real crisis to attend to.
>it was pure side-quest fun, as a main game. I loved it.
>
>Ape Escape (PS1) - I couldn't tell you shit about this game, I
>think I only ever played it on a PlayStation magazine demo
>disc, but it still broke my mind because you had to use both
>analog controllers at the same time. I was an analog hold out
>(didn't like the N64 controller) and most 32-bit games were
>still clunky enough that it didn't matter (remember when 30
>FPS was amazing and 15-20 FPS was acceptable?). this game made
>me realize there is life after the d-pad.
>
>Myth: The Fallen Lords (PC/Mac) -- I was so hyped for this
>because there wasn't much interesting gaming happening on the
>old Apple computers. Bungie was only marquee gamedev for Macs
>(Marathon series) and this was going to be a huge cross-play
>title for them. the reason it makes the list, however, was
>this was the first game where I enjoyed online gaming. it
>wasn't an easy game to play, but you didn't just get bulldozed
>like FPS games (Doom, Quake) if your skill level wasn't elite.
>so many great memories, and the first and only time I was ever
>part of an online gaming community.
>
>NFL Gameday '98 (PS1) - if you were a gamer during the 8-bit,
>16-bit and 32-bit ages, you definitely have a ton of
>crystalized moments where you felt the technology taking you
>to new places. watching fully polygonal football players, with
>smooth motion capture, move around the field was one of those
>moments. it made Madden look like pure dogshit and sports
>games were never the same.
>
>Metal Gear Solid (PS1) - this was the first defining "game as
>a movie" for me. the playable beginning, where you get shot
>from a torpedo tube and sneak into the elevator, then the
>opening title rolls as you ascend…just the first of many
>amazing sequences that had never been experienced before. the
>next generation of gaming went too far with the cinematic
>concept (and we found out most game directors would be shitty
>movie directors), but this experience will forever be an
>unassailable landmark.
>
>Half-Life (PC) -- this came out right after MGS, but it took
>me a while to play it since I didn't have a gaming PC at the
>time. I know there are predecessors in the FPS genre that did
>a lot of the real-time story-building that Valve accomplished,
>but like MGS, this was the complete package for me and changed
>how I thought of FPS games. I still have a mental scar from
>the first time I got pulled towards the ceiling by a
>barnacle.
>
>Street Fighter IV (PC) - I played Street Fighter since II in
>the arcades, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo took away so many
>hours when it hit SNES, I would say that Alpha 3 is one of my
>favorite games of all-time, and I remember watching EVO Moment
>#37 not too long after it happened. that said. the coalescence
>of IV reviving the fighting game genre and later, live
>streaming through Twitch, made me realize I've been playing
>fighting games for 20 years but had no idea really how to play
>them. plus/minus, frame traps, mix-ups…the FGC became a
>whole new world to me and occupied most of my gaming hours for
>the next several years.
>
>Final Fantasy VI (SNES) - I can't really pinpoint which was
>the first great RPG I played, since I got into them all at
>once -- from 1993-1995 I remember renting Secret of Mana and
>Chrono Trigger from Blockbuster, while scanning FuncoLand ads
>for used Final Fantasy II/III (US) cartridges that were less
>than $70.
>
>but I do know that Final Fantasy VI was the RPG that made me a
>fan for life. the imagination, the art design, the ensemble
>cast that all had their own characterization, the gotdamn best
>villain ever, the 16-bit soundtrack that blows away most
>orchestrated attempts to rival it, the beautiful layers to the
>story -- fuck, how many games since then have had moments that
>come close to Setzer piloting Daryl's airship out of her tomb?
>which happens right after Celes on Solitary Island?
>
>videogames had always been fun, but this is the first one that
>made me "feel" something. a perfect gaming experience.

MS PAC MAN
PITFALL II
SUPER MARIO BROS
METROID
ZELDA
STREET FIGHTER II
TEKKEN
NBA2K
CALL OF DUTY
DESTINY

That game was dumb fun, dumb hard. As the Nintendo console got more powerful the storyline became more complex.

I really liked those games. I'ma miss that about moving away from Nintendo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NjCICl7dDo

looks good!

off the dome

Super Mario Bros.
Contra
Resident Evil
Evermore
Bully
Prince of Persia
Techmo Bowl (sp?)
Doom (PC Version)
A Wolf Among Us
The Oregon Trail

I'm pretty proud of my list. CLEARLY I'm an old head. lol

in no particular order

1) Street Fighter II Arcade - probably the first game i went actual insane lengths to get really good at. I was absolutely confident i was the best Ryu player on the west coast of the United States
2) Goldeneye 64 - i can still hear the guns sounds in my head perfectly
3) Metal Gear Solid II - I doubt i'll ever play a game that immersed me more into the environment than this.
4) Sekiro - first game i ever platinum'd. hardest game i will ever play without a doubt.
5) Company of Heroes 2 - only PC game that will be on my list but the only PC game ill ever need
6) Twisted Metal - hard to find a more fun multiplayer game at that time
7) Madden - i wont say a particular year, but I have played too many seasons in franchise mode to leave it off my list
8) Tiger Woods 2002 - i also thought i was the best tiger woods player on the west coast. i rarely lost to anybody in this game
9) NHL Hitz 2002 - probably the most fun multiplayer game of the early 21st century
10) MLB The Show 21 - i chose this because i've logged over 100 hours on RTTS already, and for the most part, i fucking hate it, because it has more bullshit than fun, but i am too obsessed with hitting dingers. so i guess it changed my life because i realized i go back to it even tho its more anger than fun. 60-40 split.

Street Fighter II (arcade)
the jump-off point of my biggest gaming obsession

Virtual On
expanded what was possible with fighting games with its unique twin-stick controls and 3D arena. I would still love to own an actual Virtual On cabinet one day...

Tekken 2/3
so many hours battling friends and perfecting techniques. crazy CG intros and loads of modes beyond just ‘Story' and 'Vs.' BETTER than "arcade-perfect."

Guwange
helped me fall in love with the beautiful chaos of bullet hell shoot-em-ups. looks utterly impossible, but isn't...

Chrono Trigger
simultaneously ignited my interest in RPGs and doomed it by setting a bar too high for anything else to reach. played it last year for only the second time ever and was just as enthralled as when it was released.

Resident Evil
a game I only ever watched others play, but had tension and an atmosphere I'd never experienced before. the first appearance of the Hunters messed me up for a good while.

TMNT (arcade)
perhaps the first licensed game I played that actually did the source material justice and made me feel like I was controlling my favorite characters from TV/movies. I'll never forget seeing this in the arcade for the first time.

Tetris (GameBoy)
my GameBoy was essentially a Tetris machine. I might as well have glued the cartridge in.

Hyper Light Drifter
I've *never* been more completely won over and entranced by a game's entire package (visual/audio aesthetic, gameplay, lore, etc). this game has some mysterious, intangible quality that no other game I’ve played has. I was 100% sure I would love it before I played it and I was 100% right.

and finally, echoing Sleepy with Carmen Sandiego (and Number Munchers!)
gotta give 'em their props; they actually did "make learning fun." I was jonesing to play these in elementary school.

could almost be mine

>Street Fighter II (arcade)
>the jump-off point of my biggest gaming obsession

there's something about SFII in arcades that could never be replicated. people who were even semi-good at it were local legends, and putting those quarters down to be next in line was like entering the Octagon for an adolescent.

>Virtual On
>expanded what was possible with fighting games with its unique
>twin-stick controls and 3D arena. I would still love to own
>an actual Virtual On cabinet one day...

loved this game; Saturn conversion was fun and VOOT made me buy a Dreamcast. it really only works in the arcade though, especially with the versus cabinets facing each other.

>Tekken 2/3
>so many hours battling friends and perfecting techniques.
>crazy CG intros and loads of modes beyond just ‘Story' and
>'Vs.' BETTER than "arcade-perfect."

Tekken was probably the first FG series that made the "Story" interesting for me. had more style that Virtua Fighter because of that. Tekken 3 running on original PS1 hardware was still an OH SHIT moment for us when we brought it home from Blockbuster.

>Guwange
>helped me fall in love with the beautiful chaos of bullet hell
>shoot-em-ups. looks utterly impossible, but isn't...

ESP Ra.De for me (also a Cave title though). never loved the memorization pattern shooters but the bullet hell shoot-em-up hit the spot. there is nothing in gaming like navigating an impossible section of a Cave bullet hell shooter.

>TMNT (arcade)
>perhaps the first licensed game I played that actually did the
>source material justice and made me feel like I was
>controlling my favorite characters from TV/movies. I'll never
>forget seeing this in the arcade for the first time.

hell yes. I was a heavy TMNT fan as a kid and put more hours into TMNT2 on NES than probably any other game.

>Tetris (GameBoy)
>my GameBoy was essentially a Tetris machine. I might as well
>have glued the cartridge in.

so much Tetris. my Dad loved it, so it was sort of the one game we could share common ground on (he didn't mess with videogames after that until years later, when he got addicted to Gran Turismo)

>there's something about SFII in arcades that could never be
>replicated. people who were even semi-good at it were local
>legends, and putting those quarters down to be next in line
>was like entering the Octagon for an adolescent.

well said. actually rubbing shoulders with complete strangers as you prepared to battle it out in some smokey, potentially sketchy arcade is some real character-building stuff, haha.

>loved this game; Saturn conversion was fun and VOOT made me
>buy a Dreamcast. it really only works in the arcade though,
>especially with the versus cabinets facing each other.

I remember a buddy describing the original game before I played it and me struggling to imagine it in action. VOOT was one of the few games I had in my Dreamcast library, and while it was still great, it's definitely one of those games/series that needs to be played in its natural habitat for the true experience.


>ESP Ra.De for me (also a Cave title though). never loved the
>memorization pattern shooters but the bullet hell shoot-em-up
>hit the spot. there is nothing in gaming like navigating an
>impossible section of a Cave bullet hell shooter.

MAN! I went back and forth on Guwange or ESP Ra.De. for my list. ESP was the one that lured me into the genre seriously, and Guwange sealed the deal. I really hope it gets re-released on modern consoles like the other Cave titles.


>so much Tetris. my Dad loved it, so it was sort of the one
>game we could share common ground on (he didn't mess with
>videogames after that until years later, when he got addicted
>to Gran Turismo)

I'm always a bit jealous when I hear about people playing games with their parents. my folks humored me on a few occasions, but they were never *into* it. must be so dope to experience a game with a parent who's just as excited as you are.

1: Donkey Kong - First game to really get me addicted.

2:Pac-Man; I was anti-pattern until I tried it. Loved the deterministic quality.

3: Excitebike - First game I truly mastered, could literally play it for HOURS on a quarter. often I'd walk away form it and just let other people play the lives.

4:Shadow of the Beast (Amiga version) - Craziest graphics

5:Street Fighter II (arcade) - Got me addicted again

6:NBA Jam - Another one where'd I'd go into an arcade to play

7: Unreal Tournament 2004 - Got me back into games

Did you play Excitebike 64? I actually really liked that game and thought it was quite underrated how well they brought it to that 64bit 3-D generation.

If I were to say games were to simply say games that I got lost in I'd say OG Gears of War, BOTW, Street Fighter II & IV, Fallout 3, Vegas and 4, Last of US 2, Inside, Hades, BioShock, Metal Gear Solid Snake, NBA 2k series and Red Dead.

At least that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

I need to give OG GOW another run, that game definitely achieved a feeling especially with the 'boss' monster fights of just taking them on with the games fps mechanics and no qte stuff or whatever, that they never really replicated themselves and not many other games do in that genre either.

Outrun (Coin Op)
Space Harrier (Coin Op)
After Burner (Coin Op)
Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
Returnal (PS5)
Silent Hill (PS1)
House of the Dead (Coin Op)
Ridge Racer (PS1)
Altered Beast (Coin Op)
Bust A Move (PS1)

Outrun (arcade)
Just remember fun times with this one. Especially the coin op version that you could sit in that moved. I remember family playing it as much as I did as a kid when we went to a ski resort.

Tiger Heli (arcade)
As a teen working in a movie theater, this was my game. Every time I went on break. And when I was working, I always gave the stink eye to any patron trying to break my high score. I eventually pretty much 1-man Contra'd the game. One helicopter, and I could beat the whole thing. To this day I think it's the only arcade game I mastered to that level.

Solar Warrior (arcade)
Just thought it was a cool ass game that I couldn't get enough of.

Metal Gear (NES)
Good Lord, the hours wasted on this one. In hindsight it drew me in because of the deep (at the time) gameplay. Being able to call people on the radio. Changing equipment to make a difference in the gameplay, it all came together beautifully and changed how I thought about games.

Donkey Kong (Colecovision)
One of the first console games I mastered. I remember I had a Colecovision with the Atari 2600 adapter! (would never happen in today's environment!) My friends would come over, but none could conquer me. Although to be fair, that version only had like three screens.

Madden 93 (Genesis)
I'm certain I annoyed the fuck out of my suitemates in college who had this. Played every time they left the room. Also cratered my gpa.

Final Fantasy (NES)
The first RPG I ever played. Like Metal Gear, there was nothing like it. Being able to determine the development of your character and equipping different things for effect. Blew my damn socks off. Add in the lore and the story that you gave a damn about, and I was hooked.

Legend of Zelda (NES)
Almost self-explanatory, but what other game really inspired that sense of wonder and adventure at the time like this one? Also one of the first quest-y games I ever played.

Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)
C'mon, son! I remember grabbing this, then taking it over to my boy's house immediately! We all used to game at his place since he had a big screen. I remember telling them "man, you literally can do anything in this game!" They didn't believe me. Then I got a lady of the night, beat her and took the money back. Jaws dropped.

Fallout 3 (Xbox360)
Still one of my favorite franchises ever. Loved the post apocalyptic setting, the consequences of your actions being a real part of the gameplay, exploration, companions, dialog, story, lore. It all came together. Damn shame the franchis is kinda stale now.

______________________________________________________________________________

"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.