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

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

My top 5 were (in no particular order):

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

In chronological order

1. Breakout
2. Oregon Trail
3. The Secret of Monkey Island
4. Sonic Spinball
5. FF8

There are so many more but these were all big moments. Ugh I didn’t even mention the IBM golf game or Carmen San Diego, I think I need to do this list based on the systems we had.

Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Space Invaders (on an Atari 2600), Tempest and Pitfall!

Halo >!because I played it with my older sister!<

Skyrim >!because it reminded me that I like RPGs!<

RuneScape >!because it taught me that I like RPGs!<

Minecraft >!because I played it with my little brother!<

DOOM >!because I was young and too scared to play it myself, but my mom enjoyed gaming sometimes, and watching her play are happy memories!<

Zelda II The Adventure of Link

Super Metroid

Another World / Out of This World

Myst

Doom

Honorable mention goes to Super Mario Land.