By pure numbers, mine has got to be GTA San Andreas since I only had a PS2 for the longest time. I think that might be why I kinda hate games now? Buying a new game and you get maybe a couple dozen hours if you’re lucky kinda sucks. Oh it’s just a campaign of like 9 missions? And the missions are pretty linear? idk man, might be worth like $10 but definitely not fullprice $60 or even half off $30.

Pokémon, wow, final fantasy tactic advanced, harvest moon, civilization I guess ?

Pretty much every Sierra franchise.

Warcraft, C&C, Street fighter two turbo, and final fantasy!

• super mario world
• doom
• age of empires 2
• RuneScape
• world of warcraft (only started it as young adult though)

• Super Mario 64

• Pilot Wings 64

• Balloons Tower Defense

• Portal 2

• Banjo Kazooie: nuts and bolts (I dont care if it killed the franchise, I really enjoyed this game)

• Commander keen

• Wingnuts

• Burn:Cycle

• Myst

• Duke Nukem (the first one but also 3D)

Wingnuts was a dumb fmv ‘dog fighting’ game, but when you beat it you could play it again with silly dialogue. I also remember when setting up the sound card the test audio was a guy saying ‘ah veiners, just ze vay I like zem!’ In a bad German accent.

Burn:Cycle was an fmv adventure game that I adored, it also came with a sound track cd and a little packet of leaflets based on in game stuff that was really cool. I still listen to the ost on occasion

• Pacman (bar arcade game with joysticks on the top and bottom, my mom worked there so I was often there during the day)
• Civilization 1
• The Incredible Machine
• Super Mario Bros.
• Duke Nukem 3D (Learned the commands to call a friend on my modem and then boot up duke3d.exe and play multiplayer, all from DOS)

Baulders gate on ps2 was my introduction into RPG and a bonding experience with my aunts ex.

GTA 1 was my escape from an abusive house

Tony hawk kept me from getting picked on for my gaming choices

Smash bros had me bonding with my closest friends

NBA street helped me and my brother escape from our parents.

• Sims 3

• Skyrim

• Animal Crossing New Leaf

• Cities: Skyline

• Sims 2

So I don’t really feel that old when reading the notes, I do however apologise to anyone having an age crisis reading this.

• Star Fox 64, for sure
• Half Life was a very big deal for me. Couldn’t finish it when I was 8 because it was too scary, and it felt absolutely amazing coming back at 15 and blowing through it.
• Turok 2 seeds of evil. Didn’t play it outside of using the cheats. It was basically a gore Sim for me.
• LoZ series was a very big deal.
• Much later, Armored Core 4 and 4A would make me obsessed with good mech gameplay.

Man, it’s hard stratifying games you care about, especially when you have a massive log of them that all impacted you in one way or another. There were a bunch of free Linux games that I have very fond memories of too, like Nexuiz, OpenArena, Abuse, etc. Also a bunch of weird niche games and demos, like One Must Fall and Food Fight and Fur Fighters. It’s an impossible task, honestly.

• Zork Zero
• Streetfighter II
• Diablo
• GoldenEye
• World of Warcraft

• Dizzy (ZX Spectrum), all the games in the series
• Heroes of Might and Magic, played up to 5, but 2 and 3 were my favorites
• Masters of Orion 2
• Little Big Adventure
• Monkey Island, all the games in the series

My top 5 were (in no particular order):

• Pokemon Diamond
• Star Wars Battlefront: Rogue Squadron (PSP)
• Fossil Fighters
• Skyrim
• FTL: Faster Than Light

Just five is so limiting:

Mario Kart Mega Man 3 Donkey Kong Country Jet Moto Final Fantasy VII

Even expanding to ten feels restrictive, alas:

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 The Neverhood Perfect Dark Seventh Guest Earthworm Jim

• Space Invaders I feel like I should include one of the classic games I played in the 80s. You never forget your first, and I played this more than any others and it influenced my career as an adult. However I think 10 mile hike, burger time, breakout and pacman are better.
• Heroes of Might and Magic 3 My room mates would hotseat games while watching movies. A lot of fond memories
• Factorio Probably played more than any other game
• Golden Axe Warrior Not to be confused with Golden Axe. This was a Zelda clone on the Sega Master System. One of the best games on that platform IMO.
• Boulders gate 1 Besides golden axe warrior the only other RPG I really got into. Unfortunately I wiped my hard drive with a game that I had been playing for months and I just couldn’t get back into it after that.