The Top 5 games that defined your childhood

[prfsnl_gmr]

Hmmmmmm.....for me, I would have to say:

1. Duck Duck Goose
2. Hide and Seek
3. Tag
4. Freeze Tag

and...I almost forgot...

5.



...because it alone (and also tektoro) is responsible for the death of my family and placement into an orphanage.

DAMN YOU, BALLZ (and tektoro)!!!! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!!!!

[Violent By Design]

" I played 124 hours that year, without even playing multiplayer."

[3DSStrider]

" I played 124 hours that year, without even playing multiplayer."

Well I was an only child.

[AznKhmerBoi]

Top 5
-Mario/Duck Hunt
-Commando NES
-Adventure of Billy Bayou
-Sonic 2
-Mortal Kombat 2

[Overload]

1. Super Mario World
My mom and I would play it together quite often
2. Zombies Ate My Neighbors
My dad and I used to blast zombies together.
3. Power Stone
Friend and I would kick the shit out of one another, often in the am before school.
4. Pokemon Red Version
Brother got me into it. We'd trade and battle. I was hooked from then on out and could
be seen trailing behind my parents in a home improvement store GBC in hand, making my
way to mewtwo.
5. Killer Instinct
Many times did Eyedol crush my young self's hopes and dreams.

[nagwack]

- Alex Kidd and the Enchanted Castle (GEN)
Such catchy music

- SMW (SNES)
The one that came bundled with the SNES. Can't count how many times I finished that game with 96 exits.

- Zelda ALttP (SNES)
I rented this game so many times. The last time I rented this, on the day of the delivery, I was close to slaying Ganon when the cart bugged and erased all the saves... Nice.

- Secret of Monkey Island (Amiga)
I didn't really know english at the time, and never seemed to get the gist on the swordfighting, but it was fun to try every possibility on adventure games.

- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC)
I played this one over a course of years, because I didn't have a PC at the time, so I played it at my cousins, where I used to go 2 times a year.

[Gunstar Green]

Not all of these would land on my list of favorite games today but they're the ones that made the biggest splash on me as a kid. As you can see I did a lot of PC gaming. I look upon the DOS era especially with extreme fondness.

1. Sonic 3 and Knuckles - Genesis: Such an epic and sylish platformer. The little speachless cutscenes left a big impression on me. The first game I really set out to master. I had played the other Sonics as well but this is the one that really clicked with me.

2. One Must Fall 2097 - PC: I still kind of like this better than Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2 and other fighters from the era. It's extremely playable and unique with both the standard story mode fighter and a cool tournament mode with RPG elements. The latter really fascinated me and I set forth maxing out every robot on the hardest difficulty.

3. Wing Commander 2 - PC: The first time I encountered a really epic, well written story in a video game and the first game I ever played that you could consider a cinematic experience. Not only that but the sci-fi space opera setting was cooler to me than even Star Wars. It was my introduction to Wing Commander as well which became one of my favorite video game series.

3. Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries - PC: My introduction to the Battletech universe which I really love today. Everything about this game was cool from the crapsack future with giant robots to the cynical attitude of the game's characters to the glorious bastardry required to pull off its missions. I wasn't able to do the economy mode when I was a kid bit as I got older I understood it better and was able to beat the game the right way.

4. Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES: It was just so much better than what came before and I already really loved the first two Super Mario Bros. games. For a while I wasn't sure it could get any better and as far as Mario goes I personally feel it never has.

5. StarCraft - PC: Along with Diablo this was my first taste of online gaming, something I'm not too big on today but in the early days of the Internet the concept of being able to meet and play with people from around the world was incredible. I also was really in to StarCraft's story and universe if you can't tell that I have a bit of a sci-fi obsession by now.

6. Doom - Multiplatform: Doom was more than a game when it was in its prime, it was a religion. Nothing else could touch it though I also enjoyed the earlier Wolfenstein 3D and later Duke Nukem 3D, either of which could've been on this list. But Doom, with all of its WAD modifications and inherent greatness, takes the crown. I still really enjoy playing it today using the Chocolate Doom source port so it plays like it did back on DOS.

7. Space Quest Series - PC: A series with a great sense of humor that lovingly parodied all the sci-fi stuff that I loved. There's not much I can say about this early adventure game series other than they need to make a new one already.

8. Ghostbusters - Genesis: My quest to find a fun Ghostbusters game ended with this game. I absolutely loved it. I rented it all the time to beat it over and over again. When the rental store was finally selling its copy I was more in to PC gaming and I passed up on it. After that I could never find the game again and it became sort of an obsession to do so. Eventually I discovered ROMs and all was right with the world. Of course it's part of my Genesis collection today, one of the first games I bought when I started collecting.

9. Mortal Kombat 2 - Multiplatform: Mostly on the Genesis but also on the SNES and later 32X (which is a wonderful verison by the way). My gateway drug to fighting games. I can't really get in to it today but I remember long marathon weekends of either pounding through the lengthy single player or beating on my friends.

10. Quake - PC: Ah, Quake. The other multiplayer game I really got in to, especially the original Team Fortress which was a bucket of fun. The single player was great as well and the graphics blew me away. It seemed like id software could do no wrong, at least until Quake 2 left me scratching my head.

[BogusMeatFactory]

2. One Must Fall 2097 - PC: I still kind of like this better than Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2 and other fighters from the era. It's extremely playable and unique with both the standard story mode fighter and a cool tournament mode with RPG elements. The latter really fascinated me and I set forth maxing out every robot on the hardest difficulty.

3. Wing Commander 2 - PC: The first time I encountered a really epic, well written story in a video game and the first game I ever played that you could consider a cinematic experience. Not only that but the sci-fi space opera setting was cooler to me than even Star Wars. It was my introduction to Wing Commander as well which became one of my favorite video game series.

3. Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries - PC: My introduction to the Battletech universe which I really love today. Everything about this game was cool from the crapsack future with giant robots to the cynical attitude of the game's characters to the glorious bastardry required to pull off its missions. I wasn't able to do the economy mode when I was a kid bit as I got older I understood it better and was able to beat the game the right way.

You just defined my childhood even more! One Must Fall still to this day ranks incredibly high in my all time favorite games, one that I still play to this day. I loved it! The Wing Commander series, especially the first really showed me an interesting and exciting world. The Sega CD version was the first I played and it really popped!

With Mechwarrior, that was a game my brother's played religiously and, in my youth, had no idea what I was doing, but loved it none the less. Such a great game!

Thank you for sharing that man. good to see people still remember some of these more forgotten titles.

[J T]

One Must Fall 2097 was made free awhile ago.

For anyone interested:
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download ... fall-2097/

[pakopako]

Can't really pin down what "define my childhood" means to me.

The five earliest titles that got me interested in video games were Night Racer (first electronic game I ever saw), 194x (wow-factor of being built into a table with a trackball for a joystick), Bubble Bobble (might be the first arcade game I ever played), and Super Mario Bros.(first home-console game).

Most of my early gaming experiences were always with other people since they knew better. So it was a lot of beat'em ups in arcades (Double Dragon, Golden Axe) and VS games on PCs (Star Control, Scorched Earth), with Street Fighter II being THE game that brought in such large and diverse crowds, it made me open up dialogue with strangers and learn arcade etiquette.

Then there are the "gateway" games.

• Cut my teeth on Dragon Warrior, which begat Crystalis and other "RPG games" at the time...
• which lead to Final Fantasy Legend, whose sparse worlds got me interested in JRPGs
• Grand Prix Circuit, my first bought PC game...
• ...which led to many hours of Betrayal at Krondor, making me realize how impressive PC games were
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego...one of my earliest exposures to PC games...
• ... that "fish eating" game whose name I can't remember that taught me the value of memorizing patterns and weaknesses
• Zillion, for being a more easily accessible adventure (because Metroid was hard)..
• ... lead to so much Legend of Zelda, cartography, and involving teaming up with everyone on the block
• Adventure Island II, which I picked over...
• G.I. Joe, a game I spend years pining over before I could play (and then more years before I could own), teaching me the value of patience