The Games That Made Me the Gamer I Am Today

This past weekend I watched a movie review show in which the critics outlined the films that had inspired them to become critics. I was reminded that despite the negative connotation often surrounding the word “critic,” ultimately these are most commonly people who have a passion—unhealthy though it may occasionally be—for that which they critique. Criticism, at least the good kind, stems from a source of love and admiration, and though it can be hard edged or even unreasonable, what you often find are people seeking greatness.

I liked this particular episode because the critics were not saying, “Here’s an arbitrary list of what I think are the so-called ‘best’ movies.” They weren’t even saying, “Here’s a list of my favorite movies in some kind of artificial order.” It was a much more intimate and personal accounting. These were films that for one reason or another had shaped them into who they are today.

I immediately began thinking about the games that made me the gamer I am today. Not the best games—in some cases, deeply flawed games—or even always my personal favorites, but the games that shaped me and made me want to become some kind of critic myself. Here, then, in no particular order, is what I think are the games that made me the gamer I have become.

Ultima VII The Black Gate and Serpent Isle – As a boy, I played Ultimas II - IV, and they formed a solid foundation for my love of PC gaming, but then I went through a period of my life spanning more than a half decade where I abandoned video games entirely. The Black Gate was the game that brought me permanently back into the fold, and probably for that reason is the most important game I ever played. Having missed years of evolution, Ultima VII was the first game that showed me the depths that a computer story could tell, beginning with a murder mystery that ends up being entangled in a massive story involving religious fervor, a society in decline and grand fantasy. While I could have picked any number of games from ‘93 or ‘94 to highlight here—including X-Wing, Tie Fighter and Wing Commander: Privateer—this was the one that brought me back.

EverQuest – When I first started to think about this list, I figured that World of Warcraft was a no-brainer, but if the measure is which game made me into the gamer I am today, then EverQuest far and away trumps WoW. I still have a Pavlovian reaction to the jangled sound of leveling up, like a trash can lid being dropped on an electric guitar. Even the background sounds alone of a place like the haunted woods of Kithicor Forest, or of night in the Field of Bone as cackling skeletons cavorted, evokes in every sense of the word an almost physical response. Just as Ultima instilled in me something I’ve never been able to quite get past, or want to, EQ made me a hopeless addict to the MMO treadmill grind, a happy slave.

Deus Ex – Just mentioning this game means that I will inevitably go back to play it again soon. A massively overwritten, convoluted and melodramatic epic tale densely packed with just about every sci-fi cliche and conspiratorial theory one can imagine. Short of JC Denton going back in time to assassinate JFK, there seems to be nothing off limits to the wild tin-foil-hat machinations of Deus Ex. And yet, that’s part of what makes the game such a joy for me. It is so reckless, somehow dancing on the razor-thin edge of self-parody. But, what is really great is that married to this twisted story is a great game mechanic that genuinely provides a sense of augmentation and was among the first of a kind of game that allowed for multiple methods of play.

Front Page Sports Football – This is a personal choice, in part because my unhealthy obsession with the ever declining genre of NFL football games is a direct result of my time with Front Page Sports, and in part because I have fond memories of sculpting my own imaginary team of gridiron heroes. I’m far from thinking this is the best football game I ever played. It was, however, the first, and is the direct source from which my ongoing toxic relationship with Madden stems. Graphically impotent, this was a game that engaged my obsession with statistics. The non-interactivity of actually playing the game made me feel more like a coach than a participant, and as a result created far more of a sense of identity within the game than most sports games have since. Even the weird role-playing aspects of becoming a player that have cropped up in sports titles over the past few years fail to really engage me the way FPS did with its spartan interface and simplistic design.

WarCraft II -–- As long as I live, I’m not sure I will ever quite feel the thrill that came with a cadre of bloodlusted ogres rampaging through an enemy’s base in the realm of real-time strategy. I shouldn’t be surprised that much of this past summer was a complete loss to Starcraft II’s story, multi-player and skirmishes. In many ways the game revisited the simplicity defined by Blizzard ages before in WarCraft II and hearkened back to a design that, for me, emphasized the fun. Though, in many ways, I like Rise of Nations slightly more as the pinnacle of RTS gaming, I discovered more about the genre and the complexities of its play within the tighter, more simply defined realm of Azeroth. Also, it doesn’t hurt that I became pretty damn good at the game.

Alpha Centauri -- Originally I had Civilization II here, and there’s no questions that I hold a deep and special love for the more traditional of Brian Reynolds’ Civ classic, but in thinking about what made Civ great, my mind turned naturally to Reynolds' superior Alpha Centauri, which took all of those elements and added a depth of creativity, inventiveness and sense of wonder. Everything about AC was just more interesting to me, from the leaders, to the setting, to the mindworms to the very nature and ultimately the personality of the planet itself. This is a game that showed me how something already great can be massaged into something even more grand. It is a sacred text, a game that I actually never want to see remade or reimagined.

As I look back over my foundational games, I realize that mine tell the story of an unapologetic and inflexible PC gamer. These games define who I’ve become as a gamer, and I embrace them not as the best games ever made (at least not in all cases) but as the works that hold a special place in the story of me.

Comments

Great list, most of those would be on my list as well.
*Edit: added helpful links for the young-ins

I'm showing my age here but:

civilization 1

And probably most importantly (now I'm REALLY showing my age) a few bbs games;

Legend of the red dragon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Red_Dragon

Falcon's Eye http://johndaileysoftware.com/products/bbsdoors/falconseye/index.asp

Man I miss falcon's eye and LORD, sure some websites try to emulate the old bbs days but it's just not the same.

Elysium wrote:

Front Page Sports Football

The original FPS was Front Page Sports, I wasted my first year out of the service helping my older brother input all the best players from the Baseball Almanac, Tommy Lasorda BB3, Negro Leagues, Nippon League and other 'fantasy teams' from other baseball games. We'd make huge Leagues with 48 teams, 3 divisions of 16 teams each and they were all stacked with the amount of players we had put in. We'd also create one player for ourselves make them 17 and have to draft them on our team. I think we only got through 3/4 of a season (because the draft was so damn long) before it barfed (and Sierra killed the FPS brand and games) and we couldn't even look at it without thinking about all the time put in manually entering those stats and wanting to slit our throats.

And Alpha Centauri is the best Civ game ever IMO.

Damn. My memory of Alpha Centauri was that I played it for a few turns, felt like I didn't "get" it, and returned it to Electronics Boutique. I 've regretted that over the years. I don't really respond well to old games with blocky resolution at this point (for shame, I know), so I don't know if I'll get around to it.

hubbinsd wrote:

Damn. My memory of Alpha Centauri was that I played it for a few turns, felt like I didn't "get" it, and returned it to Electronics Boutique. I 've regretted that over the years. I don't really respond well to old games with blocky resolution at this point (for shame, I know), so I don't know if I'll get around to it.

I pretty much lost junior year and much of senior year of college to Alpha Centauri, so yeah.. you definitely either missed something, or have a mutation that keeps you from having fun

mousepad42 wrote:

Cliff Hanger. I only remember because it used clips from Lupin III.

Just checked it out on Youtube and that was indeed it. Thanks. BTW, most of the video was unfamiliar because I don't think anyone was able get very far in the game.

My list would be:

The Wonderful World of Eamon (Apple II, 1980): The first adventure and RPG game I ever played. It has the honor of being one of the first game to allow you to write your own adventure modules. It even came with its own construction set. Sure, it was (mostly) text, and mostly mindless hack-n'-slash, collect the loot, but it sure was a lot of fun, and had the big advantage of being public domain.

Mail Order Monsters (C-64, 1985?): A great action RPG where you built monsters out of spare parts and fought vs your friends or the computer in several different arena settings.

M.U.L.E. (C-64, early 80's): Still one of my favorite games. I wish for a Flash version of this game to appear somewhere on the web so I could play it again. It had one of the best and most intuitive auction interfaces for a game ever. It was very deep for such a simple premise.

X-Wing: I loved this game because me and my friends played it cooperatively since the controls were so complex. One person steered and fired weapons, the other was R2D2 - engine/shield power ratios and all the other stuff.

Fallout, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment - The late 90's golden age of RPGs has so many good games and so many games that I played to death that I can't choose one out of these. BG2 is the only one of the three that I haven't played multiple times, mostly because the game is so huge that starting anew is very intimidating.

Alpha Centauri - nothing more needs to be said here.

TsuDhoNimh wrote:

The Wonderful World of Eamon (Apple II, 1980): The first adventure and RPG game I ever played. It has the honor of being one of the first game to allow you to write your own adventure modules. It even came with its own construction set. Sure, it was (mostly) text, and mostly mindless hack-n'-slash, collect the loot, but it sure was a lot of fun, and had the big advantage of being public domain.

I think I played a Commodore 64 port, or maybe ripoff, of that. My clearest memory of it was modifying the BASIC so that my characters would all have insanely-high stats.

Most of my really formative gaming experiences were on the C-64 or the VIC-20 that preceded it: Sword of Fargoal (a roguelike), Gridrunner, Bard's Tale, MULE, Elite, various Infocom games.

Then there was a second wave, when I was in college -- Spaceward Ho! (streamlined 4X with a sorta-Wild West theme and a quirky sense of humor), Marathon, Mechwarrior 2, Starcraft.

TsuDhoNimh wrote:

M.U.L.E. (C-64, early 80's): Still one of my favorite games. I wish for a Flash version of this game to appear somewhere on the web so I could play it again. It had one of the best and most intuitive auction interfaces for a game ever. It was very deep for such a simple premise.

Go to Planet M.U.L.E. I think you'll like it.

This really dates me, but I'd probably put Starflight, Wasteland and the Gold Box games (Champions of Krynn and the first Buck Rogers one especially) on my list. Also there was a little-remembered game called Sentinel Worlds 1: Future Magic that had me transfixed. To this day, science fiction RPG's remain my favorite genre.

After a bunch of goodjers put together our top 100 pc games this week I dug out the old Civ 2 cd again, and now I'm in the middle of another great campaign. Civ 3 and 4 have had their time, but they aren't the warm & fuzzy Civ 2.

It's fun to go back and look at the games that shaped our interests. When I was a little kid my parents got Temple of Apshai for the TRS-80. Then it was the Zork & Wizardry series, until I discovered Ultima. Ultima 4 was a landmark game because it introduced hidden variables (your 8 virtues) for your avatar and for me that was so captivating.

Games that defined my experiences?

1. Ball - the very first "computer game" that I played. This was actually on a "Game and Watch" and was all about one guy and lots of balls being juggled in the air. It was simple, primitive and gloriously fun. This one started it all.

2. Lode Runner - one of the very first PC games introduced me into the fun of navigating a game on a machine interface designed for word-processing. Lots of computer games are not like Lode Runner, but gaming on the platform in general is represented to me by this title.

3. Super Mario Brothers - Lode Runner for consoles. Still a great classic, it's regarded as a pinnacle and landmark work by gaming enthusiasts everywhere. If we had to point to just one single videogame "Citizen Kane," this would be that work.

4. 1942 - The game that told me how bad I would have it. The game has no saves, has 42 levels, and many of the last levels would give modern bullet-hell experts a heart attack. I finished this game and the end screen was plain black with "C O N G R A T U L A T I O N," printed in plain text. I loved it. It was all too predictable that I would come to adore Megaman and Ninja Gaiden later on.

5. Starcraft - a special PC game that introduced me into social gaming, tournaments, and prize competitions. Winning a thousand dollars on the strength of a back-alley tourney was sweet as all get-out.

Do really agree, the article is awesome, I'm looking forward to playing the game
I also enjoy winamax poker for its easiness and possibility to get some money

billt721 wrote:

I would actually love to see SMAC remade, or perhaps updated is a better term. The factions and leaders absolutely have to remain the same - they're what gave the game a personality that none of the Civ games has been able to match. Really - a graphical update and the ability to run well on modern systems would be fantastic.

This. This. A thousand times, this. Update the graphics so that it looks good on modern, widescreen monitors. And then don't touch a damn-thing in the game.

I've said it a couple times before here, but I don't think my gaming cred matches up well with most GWJers, though I do consider myself a gamer (small g). That said there are a couple games that kept me interested in gaming since high-school on:

The original Sim-City
NHL Hockey (first version on the Sega Genesis)
Might and Magic (Sega Genesis)
X-Wing/Tie Fighter
Civilization
Master of Orion
Alpha Centauri

After AC, I took a pretty long break from gaming until maybe the past 4 years or so, when I got into an MMO (Vanguard), decided I didn't like that but did like gaming, and started back in with CivIV, GallCivII, Mass Effect, and so on. As you can guess I'm a PC gamer. Sega Genesis, with it's three buttons was pushing my dex capabilities, so I have a hard time with modern console controllers and their plethora of buttons.

I would actually love for AC to get a complete aesthetic and functionality overhaul. Change none of the important aspects, but institute modern UI conveniences that all of us take for granted now. Some streamlining of unit design would be fantastic as well.

mwdowns:

MoO but not MoO2?!? Get yourself down to GoG right now, my friend! MoO2 is awesome, the pinnacle of 4X space games against which all other such games are measured.

LarryC wrote:

I would actually love for AC to get a complete aesthetic and functionality overhaul. Change none of the important aspects, but institute modern UI conveniences that all of us take for granted now. Some streamlining of unit design would be fantastic as well.

mwdowns:

MoO but not MoO2?!? Get yourself down to GoG right now, my friend! MoO2 is awesome, the pinnacle of 4X space games against which all other such games are measured.

Woops, yeah, MoO2 too. I loved that game, but it really sticks in my mind how the original was everything I'd hoped and dreamed for in a Civ-type game in space. I think I bought the MoO/MoO2 pack the day it was available on GoG!

The games that made me.

I played Intellivision a little when I was very young, but it was when I discovered PC gaming that the bug really bit.

F19 Stealth Fighter was my first obsession, but there have been very few similar arcade flight 'sims' that I've found on PC, so its influence is minimal.

Later, after I moved out of my parent's house and I discovered VGA computers.

Warcraft II/Starcraft. I put them together because I discovered them at the same time, to this day the RTS is my first love and these games are the reason.

Dungeons & Dragons Birthright. My first real exposure to TBS. Probably shallow and lame now, there were RPG style quests which were terrible so I never bothered. I just liked moving my armies around and using domain magic to curse enemy territory.

Baldur's Gate. What else can be said about this game? The great grand-daddy of the modern RPG and yet to be exceeded. Some rate the sequel higher, but everyone remembers their first time fondly.

I've been giving this some thought since I saw the article, and I've had to dig deep to figure out the games that actually made me the gamer I am:

1. Choplifter: I played this at a computer camp when I was young (before we had a PC at home), and for an entire year I daydreamed about going back to computer camp and playing this again.

2. Adventure: XYZZY and all that it encompasses. Same computer camp -- playing on terminals on the campus' mainframe.

3. Atari 2600: Combat, Adventure, etc. Nothing that would make a list of best games ever, but it certainly defined me.

4. Starcross: Zork is the king, but Starcross was my first adventure on our new PC.

5. Wizardy I: I never had a group that I could do table top gaming with, but Wizardry introduced me to the wonderful world of party adventuring and PC RPG's.

6. Kings Quest I: I almost played the entire game at the store on the PC Jr. while waiting for the version that would play on standard IBM PC's. It didn't matter. Once I got my grubby hands on my own copy, I was lost in a world of wonderful adventure.

Everything beyond these were just icing on the cake.

I've been reading the site for ages, but this post finally inspired me to create an account...

Contenders:

Early consoles:
River Raid
Pitfall
KC Munchkin

Apple ][ era:
Wizardry Series
various Sir-Tech strategy games
Rescue Raiders
Lode Runner
Autoduel
Might and Magic 1 &2
Ultima IV

DOS era:
Ultime VI
Wing Commander
Command and Conquer
Sim City
Civilization 2
Tetris
Dune 2

SNES era:
Secret of Mana
Mario Kart
Mortal Kombat

Mac OS 9 era:
Diablo 2
MoO 2
Marathon
Spaceward Ho!

Playstation era:
Gran Turismo
Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo
Armored Core

Mac OS X era:
EverQuest
World of Warcraft

iOS era:
Too new for me, but I'm sure some of my daughter's foundational games will be in this list.

Finalists:
Wizardry, Rescue Raiders, Ultima IV, Tetris, Wing Commander, Dune 2, Mario Kart, Diablo 2, Gran Turismo, EverQuest

I still have the Mordor Charge card that came in the Wizardry box...

Bast wrote:

I've been reading the site for ages, but this post finally inspired me to create an account...

Contenders:

Early consoles:
River Raid
Pitfall
KC Munchkin

Apple ][ era:
Wizardry Series
various Sir-Tech strategy games
Rescue Raiders
Lode Runner
Autoduel
Might and Magic 1 &2
Ultima IV

DOS era:
Ultime VI
Wing Commander
Command and Conquer
Sim City
Civilization 2
Tetris
Dune 2

SNES era:
Secret of Mana
Mario Kart
Mortal Kombat

Mac OS 9 era:
Diablo 2
MoO 2
Marathon
Spaceward Ho!

Playstation era:
Gran Turismo
Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo
Armored Core

Mac OS X era:
EverQuest
World of Warcraft

iOS era:
Too new for me, but I'm sure some of my daughter's foundational games will be in this list.

Finalists:
Wizardry, Rescue Raiders, Ultima IV, Tetris, Wing Commander, Dune 2, Mario Kart, Diablo 2, Gran Turismo, EverQuest

I still have the Mordor Charge card that came in the Wizardry box...

You worked so hard on that I had to quote it to make the tags work.

Welcome, and the limits on newbie tags will be up in a couple of weeks, so stick around.

Jackel - Something about this game made it fun to play through over and over. I ran though this game a few months ago and it still holds up.

Shining Force 2 - The first time I ever had a game with "grinding," but getting Sheela to level 99 and having her go toe to to with Zenon without flinching was completely worth it. Oh, and Chester is a douche.

Final Fantasy IV - Sure, not the most complex story, and it seems a bit overshadowed by VI or VII, but there is something so great about its simplicity that would be lost in later installments. I'm a fan of most of the series, but IV hold s special place in my heart.

Street Fighter 2- My friend and I played so similarly that we'd mirror each other each round for at least 5 moves. Nothing worse though than spending hours perfecting combos and special moves only to get beaten by a button mashing e-honda.

Herzog Zwei - Don't know why, just loved this game. I remember the hours staring at that vertical split screen, going blind trying to see all my guys, and flying around that map, rematch after rematch after rematch.

Total Anihilation- I would spend hours upon hours filling the skys with fighter jets and clogging the land with the wrecks of my dead tanks. I'm no good at RTS's, but this one is just so fun to play that it doesn't matter.

Morrowind - My time on this game is better measured in weeks than hours. I don't think I ever completed any of the story arcs, but I honestly don't care. It was just so fun to pretty much do nothing. Loved it.

Halflife - Wow, a game that actually made me flinch. Cinematic gameplay was really introduced here, putting you into the action like no other game. Its hard for me to play games with cut-scenes now, just because of this game.

Portal - This is probably the most important game of the last 5, maybe 10 years. When people tell me that they think video games are bad or destructive, this is the game I go to. It is smart, funny, interesting, and, more than anything else, fun. It elevates games as an art form. Ya, I'll spend days on end shooting people in the face in CoD:BO or sawing people in half in GoW, but I'll still make runs through Portal just to hear GlaDOS's quips and veiled threats, not a drop of blood in sight (well except mine.)

Ultima 3 would be the most important game for me. It could be the timing of when i played it or the cloth map but I have never been so immersed in a game like I was with that one. Now that i think about it the fact that I had just gotten my own Atari 800XL in my own room may have added to it's mystical recollection.

And whoever mentioned Temple Of Apshai gets a high five. Loved all of those when i was a young man ... I wonder if the combo of electronic gaming and immersive manuals is what appealed to me so much. Will have to think on this ..

I became a gamer in the hours I spent in arcades with never enough quarters, on basement couches huddled around a console and a tiny screen waiting for my turn, and in my school's computer lab after the final bell rang, but it was Battlefield 1942 that brought me back from a gaming hiatus in my late twenties. The only reason there is a gaming PC sitting next to my desk today is because of that game.

It is responsible for the Xbox that sits next to it, as well. I took the plunge on the original Xbox because it pioneered online shooters in the console world.

StAugustine wrote:

Total Anihilation- I would spend hours upon hours filling the skys with fighter jets and clogging the land with the wrecks of my dead tanks. I'm no good at RTS's, but this one is just so fun to play that it doesn't matter.

That one almost made my list too, such a great game. Even better when you patched it to up the unit limit. Any game that allows you repeatedly launch nuclear weapons in formation at your bewildered opponents is OK by me

There is a mod for Civ4 that re-creates AC called Planetfall. You can even import the music and art files.

@TsuDhoNimh - There is a remake up on the internet at planetmule.com. Was one of my favorite games on the NES.

UO is probably one that really defined my sense of exploration and how awesome the MMO worlds can be. Story time!:
Within maybe like an hour or two of logging into UO, some guy ran up to me on a horse and said "Hey, you new and need some help?" I'm like "Sure!" He opened a gate and said step through. We wound up in some bugged little area under brittania that was only like 4x4 and they summoned an earth elemental and was like hey fight it and we'll let you out and get you some stuff. So I did and died, through much of his laughing and ressing me, this repeated for a little bit, then a gate opened and one of his friends came in. Even though I was dead, I ran through the portal and wound up in some far off town. I had no idea where I was, so I wandered. I finally found a npc cleric to res me and there was a pretty big pvp battle going on nearby. I remember seeing fireballs being thrown around and someone showed up with a dragon. I was in awe. After being ressed a few times I finally managed to run away without being killed. I began exploring the area and using the foldout map that came in the box to try and find out where I was. Once I found the moonstones and returned to the main land. More running around and consulting that map, and my long run back to Brittana began. There was so much awesome stuff I remember seeing as I kept running and checking the map. Now I go out of my way to explore the lands, just to see whats out there. I still think of it as such an epic adventure and it's one of my fondest memories of MMOs.

mousepad42 wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:
mousepad42 wrote:

For every good game there has to be a couple rotten eggs that really makes you turn away from certain games. For me, Dragon Lair is probably the one game that embeded a disgust for every game that followed in its footsteps.

There was a game in the arcades around the time of Dragon's Lair that was very similar. It had anime style animation that started with two guys running (I think they were robbing a bank?) and you had to jump over objects (I think the game actually yelled at you to "jump"). Then they would get in a car and you had dodge other cars. I tried this game several times and was only able to play for about 12 seconds each time. Absolutely hated games like that!

Anyone know what the heck I'm thinking of?

Cliff Hanger. I only remember because it used clips from Lupin III.

For Cliff Hanger, Stern electronics borrowed/stole game footage from two Lupin III movies, Castle of Cagliostro and Mystery of Mamo. It's a shame, because that means there's little to no chance of seeing my favourite laserdisc game emulated in future.

hubbinsd wrote:

Damn. My memory of Alpha Centauri was that I played it for a few turns, felt like I didn't "get" it, and returned it to Electronics Boutique. I 've regretted that over the years. I don't really respond well to old games with blocky resolution at this point (for shame, I know), so I don't know if I'll get around to it.

Two words: ideological ontologies.

Are you playing yet?

It also had a surprisingly interesting story, and really neat quotes.

Oddly, I didn't like SMAC too much when it came out. I thought the prose was overwritten and the story rather bland, and that put me off the rest of the game. But I revisited it on Gametap a couple of years ago, and that time it hooked me... I finally played the game as a game, instead of as a story, and loved it.

Gametap's failure to renew the license for that game, in fact, was the driving reason why I dropped my subscription.

Zork and King's Quest games on old monochromatic screens made me both the gamer and the writer that I am today. Not only am I still hopelessly addicted to adventure and narrative heavy games, but I write best on a monochromatic screen minus all of the bells and whistles to distract me. Nothing like beautiful green text on a black screen.

My most impactful "formative games" off the top of my noggin (aged 3-18). I grew up in a great time to be a gamer.

Atari 2600 - Pitfall!, Asteroids, River Raid

NES - Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!, Dragon Warrior, FF Series, Gradius

PC (huge adventure gamer) - Sierra On-Line Adventure games (Police, Kings, Space, Quest for Glory Series), Sim City Doom/Doom II, Myst, Wing Commander, The Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, The Tex Murphy Series (Martian Memorandum onward), Half Life, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, The Sierra Network/Imagination Network (Red Baron! Yserbius! Boogers!)

BBS - LORD, Usurper, Tradewars, The Pit

Arcade - late 80s, early 90s renaissance --> TMNT, The Simpsons, Super Off-Road, Tatris, Shinobi, SFII, Mortal Kombat I/II, Every Pinball Machine Known to Man (ever since I was a young boy...)

SNES - Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy Series, Actraiser

Genesis - The Sonic series, Streets of Rage 1 & 2, ToeJam and Earl

PS - FFVII/VIII, Tekken 3, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania: SOTN

The first game that hooked me was 'Adventure' on the Atari system. I didn't own the Atari, my friend did. I became that 'friend who uses his friend to play his cool game'. It was at that time that I saw a future with the potential for amazing games and one where I would be addicted to them.

After that: Civ 2, Front Page Sports: Baseball '98 (I'm a football fan but this had sooooo many stats!), Planescape Torment, and finally the RPG that ensnared my soul... Morrowind.