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[Explosive Zombie]

This got posted on Facebook and I was the only person replying with games from before the year 2000, made me feel old as fuck, wanted to see how different it'd be here... so here's my list...
BTW part of the idea is you list stuff based on what mattered to you THEN, no lying for clout...

Chronological order (not necessarily by release date but by when they impacted me)

1. Super Mario Bros.
2. Super Metroid
3. Doom
4. Carmageddon
5. Duke Nukem 3D
6. Mario 64
7. Mario Kart 64
8. Goldeneye
9. Half-Life
10. Halo: Combat Evolved

Honorable mentions to: Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World, Counter-Strike (honestly was out of my teens when this became an obsession but I started playing as a teen), Postal, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

The main takeaway for me from this was I didn't really diversify my genre tastes until I was a full-fledged adult, it really began with the 360 era.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

My first console was an NES, which broke in the early 90s. I played on PC and Game Boy until my teen years, when I bought a used Dreamcast, I think either in 2001 or 2002. In between, I had no consoles. So my list is pretty dominated by those two platforms, and some arcade stuff. It's funny because compared to today, our collections were really small back then, and we rented a lot. The good games rose to the top because no one wanted to waste their allowance / birthday on a crap game. It was very easy to make this list because these are the games I played and replayed over and over, either with my friends / classmates or solo.

In no order, even though it's numbered:

EDIT: I'll just add more as I remember them

1 Super Mario Bros series
2 Raiden II
3 Total Annihilation
4 Unreal Tournament
5 Age of Empires + Rise of Rome
6 Mario Kart 64
7 Tekken 2 and 3
8 Pokemon Gold
9 Commander Keen original episodes
10 Street Fighter II
11 Sonic series
12 Ultima series
13 Wizardry series
14 X-COM UFO Defense
15 Star Control II
16 Shogun Total War
17 Heiankyo Alien
18 Myst
19 Nethack
20 Descent series
21 X-wing / Tie Fighter
22 FURY
23 Uprising: Join or Die
24 Mechwarrior "simulation" series
25 Diablo
26 Starcraft
27 Rollercoaster Tycoon
28 Mega Man series
29 Star Wars: Dark Forces, DF2 Jedi Knight, etc.
30 Red Baron

 

[Breakage]

In no order:

Metal Gear Solid 2
Final Fantasy VII
Shenmue
Halo: Combat Evolved
GTA III
SSX Tricky

 

[DetectiveBananas]

Basically my timeline...
Super Mario Bros on NES “Wow!”
Super Mario 3 “Holy Shit!”
Link to The Past on SNES “This is so much better than the first Zelda!”
Street Fighter 2 “Dude!..That doesn’t count. My controller isn’t working right.”
Mortal Kombat 2 “I hope my Mom never sees this..(Finish Him!!!)”
N64 Golden Eye “”These controllers are weird as hell but 4 player FPS is awesome!”
PS2 Silent Hill 2 “What the hell just happened?!!”
Xbox Halo 2 “Get owned! (Immediately gets stabbed in the back with sword)
360 Modernwarfare “My K/D ratio is gonna be so good! (Dies from attack helicopter)
PS3 The Last of Us “SARAHHH...Nooo!!” (I’m not crying. Shut Up!!)

 

[Birdo]

Important games for me between the age of 5 to 18

1. Paperboy (C64)
2. Dizzy (C64)
3. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
4. Another World (Amiga)
5. Wing Commander (Amiga)
6. Sonic The Hedgehog (Megadrive)
7. Star Fox (SNES)
8. Metal Gear Solid (PSX)
9. Final Fantasy VII (PSX)
10. Ocarina of Time (N64)
11. Goldeneye (N64)

 

[V4skunk]

Super Mario Bros 3 /SMW
Dune2.
Boulder Dash.
Super Metroid.
Doom / Heretic / Hexen.
Mechwarrior2.
Total Annihilation.
Quake.
Golden Eye.
GranTurismo all.
Xenogears.
Parasite Eve.
FF:VII+VIII.
C&C Tiberian Sun.
Blood.
Diablo 2.
SM64.
Zelda oot.
F-Zero X.
Civ2.
Sacrifice.
Giants:Citizen Kubuto.
Unreal.
Deus Ex.
Baldur's Gate 2.

 

[Vildiil]

Super Mario Bros 3
Chrono Trigger
Donkey Kong Country
Final Fantasy VII
Street Fighter 2
Everquest
Metal Gear Solid
Zelda OOT
Tekken
Mortal Kombat
Resident Evil 1 & 2

*Edit added some clarity to choices.

All of these games had a big impact on me. The fighting games lead to me becoming competitive enough to travel to tournaments for a short time. Chrono Trigger lead to a life long love of JRPGs along with FF7 blowing my mind at what would become possible within the genre with its cut scenes.

If there is one game on this list I’ve actually thought about if I could go back in time and tell myself not to play it would be Everquest. That game started a long unhealthy obsession with mmos that

 

[Captain Hero]

 

[Guilty_AI]

I really liked vehicle based games in my childhood. I played stuff like:
Driver
SimCopter
Flight Simulator 98
Test Drive 5
Rollcage
Destruction Derby 64
SF Rush 2049
Extreme-G
F-Zero 64

 

[Abear21]

C64
Load Runner
Yi Ar Kung-Fu
Bubble Bobble
Cave Man Ugh-Lympics
Ski and Skate or Die
Summer and Winter Games
Spelunker
Little Computer People
Space Taxi
Dino Eggs
Pitfall
And SO many more!

This is where my infatuation with gaming began, of course all the usual classics followed on PC, SNES, Genesis, and Sony on. Some strange stand outs though that me and friends played for hours and loved, especially on 3DO; Road Rash, Slam n Jam, and Crash and Burn. These games were worn the F out in that thing!

 

[Tschumi]

Age of Empires. When i think about what gaming has ever done for me, i can comfort myself in knowing that i certainly love history and science, etc, because of this series.

World of Warcraft. This one is bittersweet, but like so many of us i gave away almost a literal year of my life to running around azeroth across vanilla and TBC. It has helped me in a lot of ways, maybe I'm a good leader IRL partially because of what i learned raiding and such, but it also gave me a huge problem with procrastination.

Halo CE. Played this endlessly with friends on xboxes around my city~ it taught me the fun of multiplayer and co-op, and raised the bar for cinematic, polished, big budget presentation and gameplay. The definitive console experience of my life...

Wind Waker/Metroid Prime/SSX3. ...apart from these three. The only console i ever got my parents to give me was a GameCube, on huge reduction. It came with the Wind Waker, and of the myriad games i gathered from Sales bins these three left the deepest impression on me. Just *tears* wonderful gameplay and happy times.

 

[GC_DALBEN]

PES / ISS - Played everyday with my late father, only great memories!!!

 

[zelhawks37]

Super Mario World was the first game I played.

Earthbound was the first RPG I beat.

Ocarina of Time's Water Temple tested my powers of observation of moving platforms and what they hid underneath.

Perfect Dark was and still is my favorite FPS. So much content in single player, but the multiplayer sucked away countless hours of my childhood.

Tales of Symphonia made me stay up until 4am for several nights in my teen years.

Warcraft 2 was the first game I played online, followed by Diablo 2. The endless grind of Nightmare Mephisto runs never escape my mind.

Jumping Flash was my first Playstation game.

Kirby Air Ride was so much fun with friends in my teens.

 

[Rikoi]

Super mario 64
Mario Kart
Yoshi
Zelda ocarina of time
Final fantasy 8-9-10-11
World of Warcraft
Splinter cell
Golden eye
Metal gear
Fable
Tekken
Gta
Socom 1 and socom 2
Gran Turismo

In no specific order and without thinking too much

 

[MetatronLives]

1. Super Mario Bros 3 - The first video game I ever remember playing. To this day, still my favorite game of all time.
2. Legend of Zelda: The Adventures of Link - The first Zelda game I ever played, and I was extremely confused when I played Zelda 1.
3. The Neverhood - The first PC game I ever played right after my dad bought a Gateway Windows 98 PC.
4. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - The first game I ever emulated.
5. Bubba in the Turd Dimension - The first BieberSoft game I ever played. I actually played all the BieberSoft games when I was very little, and I'm kind of sad they are so hard to find now.
6. Super Mario Sunshine - The first game I owned for my first console, the Nintendo GameCube.
7. Doom - The first FPS to truly scare me.
8. EarthBound - The first RPG I ever played.
9. Chrono Trigger - The best RPG I've ever played, with the best music I've heard in a game.
10. Within a Deep Forest - The first Nifflas game I played, and my introduction to tracker music.
11. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - The first game I beat on my GameCube.
12. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door - The first RPG I ever beat.
13. Super Mario Galaxy - The first game I played on my Wii after I got it.
14. Cave Story - Started with the PC version and got the Wii version when it came out.
15. Chzo Mythos - The first adventure game to scare the hell out of me and still manage to do it years later.
16. WarioWare: Twisted - The first GBA game I remember playing.
17. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past + Four Swords - The most fun I had playing the GBA.
18. Knytt Stories - The first game with a level editor I enjoyed.
19. Tanks! on AddictingGames.com - The game my friends and I all played to pass time in school.
20. Second Life - The first MMO I ever played, I was 13 when I did and a bunch of people in the game made fun of me for it. XD
21. Graal - The most fun I had with an MMO when I was little.
22. MapleStory - The MMO I ended up putting the most time in.
23. The Orange Box/CS:S - My introduction to Steam.
24. Garry's Mod - It was all downhill from here.
25. Minecraft - The first "early access" game I ever played, also probably the first "early access" game.

I'm cutting it off here because everything after Minecraft was after I graduated high school. These days I'm playing a lot of older games I missed out on. Right now I'm playing Ys Book 1 & 2 for the TurboGrafix-CD and I am absolutely in love with the soundtrack. As a music person, if I had to pick the games from this list that influenced me to go into game audio, I would have to say Within a Deep Forest and Chrono Trigger. Some of the best music I have heard in my life.

 

[Mochilador]

Shit, there are a lot of games so I'll list just a few of them:

Metal Gear Solid
Final Fantasy 7
Zelda OoT
Mario 64
Resident Evil
Diablo
Warcraft 2

 

[carlosrox]

Too many to name.

My first two games ever were Castlevania 1 and Mario 1.

Super Metroid, FF3, OOT, Turok, Half-Life, Shadow Man, Resident Evil 1, Suikoden, and Unreal all had large impacts on me as well.

Mario 64 blew my nearly 10 year old mind when I first saw it.

Played endless amounts of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark.

 

[Ashraf’s Lioness]

I didn’t have a happy childhood and my family had several more important priorities than a pc but I remember playing a 2D Hercules game on my friend’s. The memory is still as vivid as ever. That game was awesome

 

[Old Retro]

Asteroids
Combat
Haunted House
Donkey Kong
Yars Revenge
Gyruss
Pole Position
Yie Ar Kung Fu
Karate Champ
VS Super Mario Bros
Ghosts & Goblins
Out Run
R-Type
Kid Icarus
Metriod
Castlevania 2 Simons Quest
Mega Man
Metal Gear
Street Fighter II The World Warrior

 

[Vawn]

The Legend of Zelda
Final Fantasy II SNES (IV)
Resident Evil (I was 17 or so)

 

[Digity]

1. Duke Nukem on DOS
2. Psycho Fox
3. Zelda A Link To The Past
4. Sonic 2
5. Ridge Racer
6. Crash Bandicoot
7. Gran Turismo
8. Metal Gear Solid(1, 2, 3, 4)
9. Final Fantasy VII
10. The Legend Of Dragoon

 

[Tschumi]

I didn’t have a happy childhood and my family had several more important priorities than a pc but I remember playing a 2D Hercules game on my friend’s. The memory is still as vivid as ever. That game was awesome

I've got that as a PS1 game on my PS Vita: it's aged really well, the graphics are nifty and look great, superb animations~ It remains awesome to this day.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

ITT: Everybody posts, nobody reads.

 

[Handel]

I got a PS1 for Christmas when I was 6, was my first gaming device and the game with it was Croc : Legend of the Gobbos. Probably only a decent platformer at best but I didn't know any better, and played it a lot with my grandpa watching, so have very fond memories of it. The other game on PS1 that was big for me at that time was Legend of Dragoon, which I still love to this day despite it's flaws. Was the first RPG I ever completed, and I put it above FFVII and FFVIII.

I then became a Nintendo kid in the next gen having a GameCube and GBA, spending a lot of time with my friends playing Smash, Tales of Symphonia, MKDD, and other multi-player titles. Golden Sun, Pokemon R/S/E, TLOZ : Wind Waker, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, etc. all ate up a bunch of my time when it comes to single player titles.

Then in my late teens the Xbox 360 with TES : Oblivion, Halo, Mass Effect and Bioshock dominated my gaming interest. My love competitive multi-player was at it's height here, and these big RPG worlds with near full voice acting, and more "mature" stories, blew my socks off at the time. Height of my teen edginess.

I think that switching between each of the big 3 during my childhood really helped me to not be tied to one console manufacturer as a fanboy.

 

[wyvern_bloodfist]

The Legend of Zelda
Ultima: Quest of The Avatar
The Immortal
Beyond The Beyond
Alundra

Those games helped me at pivotal moments of my life; they all have a special place in my heart

 

[Koenigssee]

Metal Slug/Crisis Beat for introducing me to console gaming
StarCraft Brood War introduced me to PC gaming
Final Fantasy VIII was super impactful and epic beyond imagination to my childhood
Grand Theft Auto Vice City showed me there is no limit to video games.

 

[MaestroMike]

Super Mario Bros. 3, LoZ: LttP (Didn't really play, but watched my bro play), Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Super Mario RPG. I had so much fun with those games as a young lad. What a time to grow up.

 

[Abear21]

Reading through lists, including my own, I’m surprised at the lack of Arcade titles, I guess that’s why they died...

I had a great time playing Arcade classics like Out Run, Afterburner, Silent Scope, Mortal Kombat/SF2 and TNMT in actual real life arcades back in the day, crazy right?!

I beat Afterburner by just going around the outline of the screen over and over, yeah it was technically cheating, but I had a crowd behind me when all was said and done!

 

[German Hops]

-Final Fantasy VII
-Metal Gear Solid
-Mario 1-3 + World
-NBA Jam
-Street Fighter II
-Double Dragon 1-3
-Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
-Blades of Steel
-Gameday 1998
-Sonic 1-3
-Starfox
-Mario 64
-Pilotwings
-Chrono Cross
-Xenogears
-Sonic & Knuckles
-Contra
-Twisted Metal 1 & 2
-X-Men the Arcade Game
-Joe Montana's Pro Talk football
-Primetime Football
-Sonic Adventure
-Tecmo Bowl
-Ken Griffey Baseball
-Ninja Gaiden
-Mega Man 1 - 3

.. I probably forgot a ton more, but I'll leave it there.

 

[Goro Majima]

As a kid:

Legend of Zelda
River City Ransom
Mega Man 2
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Final Fantasy
Super Mario 3
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2
Sim City

As a teen:

Final Fantasy 3 SNES
Chrono Trigger
Secret of Mana
Uncharted Waters New Horizons
PTO 2
Doom 2
Civilization II
Panzer/Allied General PS1
Panzer General II PC
Final Fantasy VIII

 

[Dark Star]

Sega Genesis :

Sonic The Hedgehog
Jurassic Park
Mortal Kombat

PS1 :

PS2 :

Hitman Contracts
Need for Speed Underground 2
God of War
Prince of Persia The Sands of Time
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Shadow of The Colossus
Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3
Spider-Man 2
Resident Evil 4
Silent Hill 2





Gamecube :

Super Smash Bros Melee

DS :

Super Mario 64

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Hot seat gaming with my siblings playing Summer and Winter Games.

 

[BlueLyria]

Reading through lists, including my own, I’m surprised at the lack of Arcade titles, I guess that’s why they died...

I had a great time playing Arcade classics like Out Run, Afterburner, Silent Scope, Mortal Kombat/SF2 and TNMT in actual real life arcades back in the day, crazy right?!

I beat Afterburner by just going around the outline of the screen over and over, yeah it was technically cheating, but I had a crowd behind me when all was said and done!

That's just because most people didn't actually get a chance to finish them, I still have fond memories of Afterburner on MegaDrive, and for arcade memories, actually finishing Time Crisis, Which I'm also quite fond of the home consoles versions.

Without any particular order, my childhood/teen games got to be:
-MGS 1, 3 and 4
-Shining on Sega CD
-Popful Mail
-Capcom Vs Snk2
-MVC 1
-Street Fighter Ex
-Half Life
-Timesplitters 3
-Kingdom Hearts
-Dark Cloud 2
-Onimusha 3
-TMNT Turtles in Time
-Streets of Rage 2
-HDN Victory

 

[Northeastmonk]

Kid: Super Mario World, Pilotwings, F-Zero, Super Metroid, Star Fox, Killer Instinct, and Street Fighter II Turbo. DOOM and The Three Wonders. The Mega Man X series. Ocarina of Time was a huge milestone in my life. I had two guides for it. Waverace, 1080 Snowboarding, 007 and Star Fox 64 were played a lot.

At the arcade: Mortal Kombat 1-3, Street Fighter II, Killer Instinct, Time Crisis, Crisis Zone, Hydro Thunder and Sunset Riders. Also have to include Magician Lord, NFL Blitz, and Magic Sword.

Teens would take a while and it gets complex. My list is already pretty random. There was so much more exposure to games at home and at the arcade. A huge influence from Namco, Midway, Sega and Capcom. At home it was a lot of PS1 JRPGs and brand new PS2 games. I think I did a good job at preordering. It would take a while to list them all. I began my teen years obsessed over the Dreamcast, preordering PS1 JRPGs, and then the PS2 was when I was at the mall a lot picking up games. I had all of 2001’s PS2 lineup at launch. It was great. That grew and the last console I had as a teenager was the 360 and then the PS3.

 

[DelireMan7]

Cool thread.

Memorable games from my childhood/teens (no specific order) :

• Ecco the Dolphin
• ToeJam & Earl
• Streets of Rage
• Street Fighter II
• Zelda : Link's Awakening
• Transport Tycoon
• Final Fantasy X
• Half Life
• Jedi Knight : Dark Forces II
• Warcraft 3
• Guilty Gear X/X2
• Garou : Mark of the Wolves
• Metal Gear Solid 1/2/3
• Devil May Cry
• Tomb Raider : the Last Revelation
• Tomb Raider Chronicles
• Civilization III

I probably forgot some

 

[Cracklox]

Hmmm. This might make me look old

Wonderboy C64 - appealed to small me

Ghosts and Goblins C64 - as above

Megadrive Sonic games - was never into Mario but this was the first mascot I could get into

Anything AM2 on the Saturn - Virtua Cop 2, Virtua Fighter 2, Decathlete, Sega Rally. Loved my saturn

Nights on the Saturn - Everyone else was playing Mario 64 but Nights was my jam

NBA Jam at the arcade - This arrived at the perfect time as it was the beginning of a long love affair with playing and following basketball, and NBA jam played into that perfectly. Many a wasted quarter of pocket money

Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 arcade - Still have memorys of cheesing the first one with Sub Zeros freeze, uppercut, slide combo. Also that led to my first exposure to the internet when a friend at schools mum,
printed off 10-15 pages of cheats and secrets for MK2. Didn't understand the the whole 'online' concept at the time, but it was pretty fucking sweet either way

Blast Corps N64 - Had two games for my 64. Turok and Blast Corps. Both great. If BC had trophies back in the day I'd have plat'd it easy. Spent a tonne of time doing absolutely everything. Under rated game btw

Resident Evil 1 - Shit blew my mind when my older brother got it and showed me

Probably others but theyr'e the main ones that come to mind