Games that defined your life Top10 - With honorable mentions

[t0yrobo]

Man some of you guys that grew up on consoles have predictible lists . Nothing wrong with that, can't blame anyone for loving Zelda or Mario. But I'm glad Green Gunstar and dsheinem shook things up a bit. When I've got some time I'll have to fill mine in. Gotta finish this homework I've been putting off since the snowpocalypse rolled through here. Don't worry, I'll have my share of predictable PC games.

[msimplay]

Man some of you guys that grew up on consoles have predictible lists . Nothing wrong with that, can't blame anyone for loving Zelda or Mario. But I'm glad Green Gunstar and dsheinem shook things up a bit. When I've got some time I'll have to fill mine in. Gotta finish this homework I've been putting off since the snowpocalypse rolled through here. Don't worry, I'll have my share of predictable PC games.

Were mine predictable too ?

I wish the other people would explain how their lists defined their lives simple lists are meaningless

[DAAAAA!!]

well, i don't know if i can think of 10 but i'll try

1-Cel Damage Xbox\GameCube
this is the game i have the most memories with, i use to play it with friends a lot.. it's an amazing game but got tons of bad reviews.. but i still think this is the most amazing game ever..

2-Raymans Raving Rabbids 1,2,3 Wii
look at my avatar and user name the second one is the best though.. and i still have to get the fourth one

3-spy vs. spy nes
this is the game that got me into retro gaming.. before this i had judged old games as boring because they were old... i was wrong...

4-super smash brothers........ MELEEEEEEEEEEE.. GameCube
i think everyone loves this game for obvious reasons..

5-Metroid Zero Mission GBA
this was my first metroid game and it got me into the metroid games

and that's all i can think of .. for now.
.
and i don't think your list was predictable user above^^
there was a lot of verity in that..

[CFFJR]

1. Sonic 3 and Knuckles - Genesis
This game created my love for ridiculously overblown and epic scenarios. Most people scoff at such craziness. I cackle like a 10 year old and scream AWESOME!!! To me, this was Sonic perfected. The music was amazing. The graphics were amazing. The levels were brilliant and fun. It had a cool story that was going in the background of the levels, subtle and smart. When people tell me they didn't like this game, my brain shuts off. I simply can't comprehend it. My feelings change here and there, but its pretty much true to call this my favorite game of all time. I've beaten this game so many times I can pretty much do it on muscle memory.


2. Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES
There's very little I can say about this game that hasn't already been said. Still the best Mario game if you ask me. Like Sonic 3, I have this game memorized. Me and my oldest friend get together frequently, but sometimes we make it a point to do so just to play this game. Hell, we bonded over this game when we were kids.


3. Rocket Knight Adventures - Genesis
For my money, one of the very best platformers ever made. I adore all 3 of the sequels as well (that's right, even the new one, haters), but the first had a magic and charm that's simply unreal. My cousins and I blew many hours in our youth playing this game. Then I went for years without playing, finally recovered a copy, and when I started it up again I could still remember all of my old patterns like I had just played it moments before. I was very happy to play the new game. Konami needs to keep it up and release more.


4. Luigi's Mansion - GC
To this freaking day, I still hear people bitch that the gamecube launched without a Mario game. To those people, I say go to hell. I bought a cube on launch day JUST for Luigi's Mansion, and it was one of the best gaming purchases I ever made. If I had to get rid of all of my Cube games save one, this would be the one I kept.


5. Grandia 2 - Dreamcast
One of the very few Jrpgs I truly love. Even when I first played it I knew that the story was cliche as hell, but I fell in love with it and the characters just the same. Plus, the battle system is so damn fun. Quality speaks for itself.


6. Fable: The Lost Chapters - Xbox
I used Lost Chapters because its an upgrade from the original, but the original was what I started with. I bought my xbox just so I could play Fable the day it come out. I fell in love. I've beaten this game so many times I've lost count, and currently working through it again. So many players ended up hating this game for all the things it didn't have. I was having too much fun with all of the things it did have. Fable still gets a bad rap from many people, but I couldn't care less. I love Fable and make no apologies for it.


7. Doom - PC
What's wrong with modern shooters? They're not enough like Doom. I miss the days when it was just me and my big fucking gun vs. the monstrous hordes of hell. This is another game that me and my friend (same guy from Mario 3) still get together to play. I can't even begin to guess the number of hours we put in to Doom as kids.


8. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - SNES
Typical, I know, but this game created my love for Zelda (my second and third favorites in the series are Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess, which aren't so typical). My aunt introduced it to me. Its another game I have essentially memorized, well enough that I feel I would have a decent crack at a 100% speed run if I ever tried. To this day, I still refer to Sahasrahla as Sassafras, just because that's what my aunt always called him while she hurriedly skipped through his dialogue.


9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Arcade
I love beat em ups and this is the first one I ever played, as a starstruck kid in the middle of ChuckECheese. Good memories and a lifelong love for beat em ups, what else can I say?


10. Mortal Kombat - Arcade
Some people got their fighting game start with Street Fighter 2. Others began with Mortal Kombat. You can guess which camp I was in. I'm no frame counter, but I love fighters, and this is where it began. It helps that Mortal Kombat in the arcades had a certain mystique that other games didn't, what with the myriad of secrets. Where were you the first time you saw someone fall into the pit?

Honorable Mentions? There's too many. Let's allow this list of 10 to be my snapshot, and leave it at that.

[pankakes123]

These are games that have really defined my gaming experience:
(In no specific order)
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario World
Sonic Heroes
Luigi's Mansion
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Mario Bros. 3
Game & Watch Gallery 4
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Fallout 3
Halo 3

Honorable Mentions:
(Games that don't quite make my top 10)
Fifa Street for Gamecube
Ty The Tasmanian Tiger
Donkey Konga
Borderlands
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Mario Bros.
Metroid Prime 2

These games have really made me the gamer I am today. (You can tell I LOVE the gamecube.)

[Gamerforlife]

I don't think I did any honorable mentions in my previous post so I'll list a few:

Sonic & Knuckles - Possibly the best hop n bop 2d platformer I have played. Even WITHOUT Sonic 3 it is an amazing game. This is my fave Sonic game and one I have played over and over and over. I first fell in love with 2D platformers with Mario, but I would easily take a 2D Sonic game over a 2D Mario game any day of the week and that is certainly saying a lot

Starfox and Starfox 64 - It's quite possible I wouldn't give a crap about rail shooters were it not for these games. I eventually would play Panzer Dragoon Orta and Sin & Punishment, but the Starfox games are still the most fun for me. Quite frankly I have never played another space combat game that I enjoyed as much as them

Mega Man X4 - With the MMX series I went from mild interest in Mega Man to loving it. Zero is one of my all time fave video game characters and Mega Man X4 is my fave installment of the series for him alone. I actually traded in a bunch of games to buy a copy of this game when it came out on the Playstation. It was one of the dumbest things I ever did(traded in Chrono Trigger and Link to the Past just to name a few of those games I lost), but I put a lot of hours into MMX 4, so I didn't regret it at the time

Beyond Good and Evil - Made me a fan of Michel Ancel and Jade is possibly my favorite female video game character. Along with Okami, it made me happy to see another game doing the Zelda formula and making it more interesting. I consider this one of the best designed games of all time and one of the best examples of video game storytelling as well.

Space Channel 5 - I have never been big into music games, but this one charmed the hell out of me, and unlike other music games I have played, I just found my zone with this one. I was really, really good at it. While games like PaRappa and Bust a Groove were just people standing around and rapping or dancing, I was totally impressed by all the thought that went into every event and every bit of choreography in Space Channel 5. Unlike some other music games, this one had levels that actually had presence in the game. After playing this awesome game, I would eventually fall in love with Rez as well

Darkstalkers - While Street Fighter got me into 2D fighters, this was the series I really loved. Best thing Capcom ever gave to the genre for me was Vampire Savior on the Saturn and Darkstalkers 3 on the Playstation. I love fantasy and supernatural stuff, so this series hit all the right notes for me

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - I was never that much into Metroid OR Castlevania, but after this game I came to love Castlevania and respect Metroid for its influence on this game. This is the title I compare any Metroidvania style game to, including games like Shadow Complex or any other 2D Vania games

Tenchu: Stealth Assasins - I don't consider myself a huge stealth fan, but I love this series. This is what I think of when someone mentions stealth gaming

Dynasty Warriors 3 - Showed me a whole new take on beat'em ups and I was addicted as hell. Only after playing DW 4, DW5 and all of the expansions in between did I eventually grow tired of the series.

The Sly Cooper series - Simply the best 3D hop and bop platformers I have ever played. The characters are the best I have seen in the genre. The mix of stealth/platforming makes it stand out and Sly's awesome platforming moves made him a joy to watch before I ever played Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. There are so many mixes of gameplay in Sly 2 and Sly 3 that you're not left wanting for anything and they handle all of these different styles pretty well for the most part whether it's third person shooting as Carmelita, beat'em up gameplay as Murray, Monkey Island style pirate insult battles, racing levels or 2D shmup gameplay when Bentley hacks computers, these games do it all

Grandia/Skies of Arcadia - As far as 2D rpgs go, I have never played any with more charm than these two and Grandia features my favorite rpg combat system of all time

Ninja Warriors(SNES)/Turtles in Time(SNES)/Streets of Rage 2(Genesis)/TMNT II:The Arcade Game(NES) - I have probably sunk more time into these than any other beat'em up

Tomb Raider on the Playstation - Made me a life long fan of TR, though not every installment has been good or even worth playing. For me, this was probably the first time I had a favorite female in gaming I think, while for others it was probably Samus Aran. This is the game that sold me on 3D gaming, while for others it was Mario 64

Dino Crisis 1 and 2 - When people talk about old school survivor horror, they'll mention the Resident Evil series, Silent Hill, maybe even Eternal Darkness, but I had the most fun with the Dino Crisis games.

I could probably mention more games, but this is a good list

[MrEco]

1) Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence


Quite simply, this is the game I hold all others up to. It set the bar so absolutely high and in such a variety of fashions that I can compare games of almost any genre to this. Especially though, it is the absolute greatest example of good storytelling in video games I would ever consider giving. An excellent contender for the "are games art?" question, and although maybe not as good as Shadow of the Colossus in that regard it is a far better game over all in my opinion.

2) realMyst


In my honest opinion, realMyst is the single greatest "game of exploration" in existence (Though I don't claim to have played all of them). It may be a point-and-click puzzle game at it's heart, but my fond memories of it will always be the great fun of simply exploring the surreal world that Myst takes place in. Of course exploration and adventure are almost nothing without atmosphere, which is something this game has in spades as well. Also, this was one of the first "real" games I ever played.

3) Runescape

Somewhat embarrassingly this free to play MMO was the first game of the RPG genre I ever played. Though nowadays I wouldn't consider the game of very high quality I have to mention it for the fact that RPG's have since become my absolute favourite genre. Also, this was once again one of the first "real" games I ever played.

4) Demon's Souls


This game is without a doubt the magnum-opus of RPG's. If Runescape taught me what an RPG is, then Demon's souls taught me what an RPG can be. It has an amazing atmosphere and sense of exploration on the level of Myst and easily blows all other RPG's I've ever played out of the water in those regards. It's tight and intuitive gameplay is far better than any action game I've ever played, and more fun than most other RPG's. And it's story, while generic at first look, is incredibly deep if you know where to look in the game for all the juicy lore. I did say MGS3 is what I compare almost all other games too, but for RPG's only the story get's compared because for every other aspect Demon's Souls is what sets my role-playing bar.

EDIT: One of the pictures for Runescape was way too big so I just deleted it since it wasn't very impressive anyways.

[pakopako]

1. Night Racer.
First game I had ever seen. Arcade cabinet sitting in back of the dusty barber shop. It had a steering wheel and the way the road moved with you and the barricades zoomed in, it look like real driving. The flashing lights scared me a bit though. The hotel had a much nicer, seated driving sim in Pole Position, but the cost was a bit more than I could fancy. Pac Man and Pengo were more my speed. Looking back, a strange trackball version of 1942 embedded into a dinner table held my attention. From there, it was LCD games.

2. Airforce Fighter.
My first LCD video game. My first definition of home-gaming. I had seen a cousin play like Space Invaders and SIMON, and a friend had Nintendo games like Donkey Kong and Cement Factory. I still miss Airforce Fighter a little. True arcade gaming anywhere you wanted.

3. TETRIS.
The Windows PC version actually grabbed my attention. It was very colorful compared to the GB version, even if there was no music or VS mode. It also made me realize how games could jump from console to console. In fact, right around when I was introduced to this...

4. Star Control: Episode IV
Before Star Control II took over as my favorite PC game ever, the original had me humming. It was a step up from basic games like Gorilla and Snake. It was even a level above games like Captain Comic and Lemmings. This was a game that gave two players a variety of fighters to choose from. You had to pick a match up that was advantageous to you and then you had to pilot to WIN. Not only did you have to rely on your reflexes, but there was a strategy game mode (an early 4X game) where you had to THINK too. This led to more games of the sort: Jagged Alliance, Betrayal at Krondor, Martian Memorandum, Breath of Fire...

5. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, The Legend of Zelda
One was a point-n-click PC game, the other an action-adventure NES game.
What did they have in common? The neighborhood.
These were games that we just couldn't out-think by ourselves. Four or five of us would put our heads together on these games and try to map out all the secrets, make it to the next level, and figure things out between bouts of RC Pro AM, Contra, and Scorched Earth. A very stark contrast to twitch-gaming, but also the fact that this banded players together cooperatively rather than competitively. One of my fondest memories of early gaming, and perhaps why I like gaming forums so much.

6. Double Dragon, River City Ransom, Street Fighter 2, F-1 Race
In contrast, these games all taught me to be competitive. From waging war for the sake of Marian, arguing over picking up weapons, to outright blasting someone in the face with an uppercut, we as gamers learned to use everything and anything to our advantage. Cheap? Yes. Turtle up? Yes. Level up and use new combos, attacks, and escape techniques. You bet.
Arcade games were either single-player games where the crowd cheered Albatross on against the KKK, leering to see if you'd saved Madonna from the skinheads, urged your Dragon to curl its tail around the hero, or Duke to punch the lights out of the arsonist... Or they were co-op games where strangers had to work together to hunt down the Kingpin, shield the Wizard from Gildass' fire, dogpile on Mr.Smithers, split up BeBop and Rocksteady, protect the camp from gnomes, or lob quarters in so Elf stops complaining about hunger. No. Now this was all out war. Even little GameBoy F-1 proved that up to four players (usually three) could take each other on simultaneously.

7. Final Fantasy Legend II
Speaking of GameBoy, it taught me what it was like to play a game to death.
I borrowed this game along with a GameBoy, 4 AA's, a Handy Boy, a battery pack, no AC plug, and had only a weekend to play it. I already saw what the previous game was like, and while intrigued, I wasn't wow'd. The interface was clunky and the challenge was unforgiving. This game just came out, so I wanted to "break it in." I spent 20+ hours straight, hiding under a blanket at times, and managed to at least make it to Valhalla, home of all-father Odin (and who I thought was the last boss) before the batteries died. Between this game and Secret of Mana a few years down the road (40 hours straight, no breaks) I taught myself self-control: to pace myself with gaming. And to never turn on a game console past X:00 o'clock. (Games along the way that helped reinforce the idea: Dragon Warrior and Civilization.)

8. Legend of the Red Dragon
In a related note, dialing out of state to enter various BBS' sites to play games and getting the phone bill the next week also helped. I had some fun with LORD, but logging in the next day to find out I was killed really harshed the buzz. Other text-MMORPG like MUDDs were too clunky and I would literally starve to death before I got that first door open.

9. DOOM II, Final Fantasy
But while I was online, I saw games could be modded. These are the two that introduced me to mods. From Sailor Moon to Ruin Explorers, playing these games with different "skins" seemed more amusing than the original games.
Both titles also served a dual purpose. DOOM II introduced me to death-matches via modem (with an infuriatingly superior opponent). While I did get school on a consistent basis (at least in Street Fighter I had a CHANCE of winning), it did lead me to join the Computing club in college where we sank countless days playing and making Quake Mods. Final Fantasy will be discussed in the honorable mention section.

10. Final Fantasy V
The next step after using mods: making some of your own. Translations were big at the time, like FF V and SD3. I had gotten into Japanese ROMs like Patlabor and Langrisser and wanted to help on more. It even got me to tabulating all my old game information and publishing FAQs under another pseudonym, and my name even pops up in the credits of Flav's SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash 2 translation.

Honorable Mention

A. Mega Man III, Super Mario Bros. 3
These are finally console games that I could beat. Twitch mechanics be damned, I'll just harvest 1-ups and power my way through!

B. Metal Storm, Final Fantasy, Super Mario Bros.
And of course these are games I could beat.... eventually. After years of experience with more titles and more sequels, I could finally go back and have some closure. Metal Storm
's smooth controls were a godsend compared to Ryu Hayabusa and Simon Belmont's stiff movements. Knowing elemental resistances made the last leg of Final Fantasy feel like less of a grind-fest (though I discarded a Ribbon). And applying SMB3 jumping techniques to SMB1 and watching them work was amazing. (Like taking combos Street Fighter Alpha and seeing them work in Street Fighter 2.)

C. Ogre Battle
And just as I got back in the seat of improving my reflexes, I come across this SNES gem to get back into micromanagement. This (and Terranigma) actually spear-headed my search for rare games and rare ROMs. (At the time, no one had a good dump of Ogre Battle. I still have the original set I found in an import store; the maps are all ragged and the box's UPC was cut out.)

D. Crystalis, Star Tropics
Epic tales in small packages. Before I went through Final Fantasy Legend, I did not think a game could have gut-wrenching death scenes and dramatic comedy. Maybe it was Knights of Xentar that messed me up (man, how the heck did I remember that one), but End Day in Crystalis was wonderfully done and the endings to both games were just breathtakingly satisfying.

E. Star Control 2, Fallout 2
Taught me the joys of good writing and the option of having multiple choices. Both were played so much that I knew them inside and out. Star Control wasn't as known so I espoused about it as often as I could. I went so far as to register on a brand new BBS under GameFAQs just to talk about how great this game was. (By now, Internet was NOT a $2/minute phone call.)

F. Phantasy Star IV
I was wrong Matt. The SEGA Genesis had great RPGs. This game alone got me looking into the Genesis as more than just a ramped up NES with an inferior SPU and GPU and CPU compared to the SNES. Of course this also ruined PS2 and PS3's rudimentary presentation in comparison. (PS1 was playable only because I had played Zillion in my youth and liked it so much better than Metroid... if it only saved.)

G. Metroid
Inspired me to draw fan-art (because I could design maps better than that maze-like cave-fest).

H. Phantasy Star Online
Fairly recently. Got me to understand why people like hack-n-slash games. Still not my cup of tea, and I won't be putting in thousands on hours trying to log into a foreign server and avoid getting my inventory stolen, but it is fun.

I. Guardian Heroes
Cart-before-the-Horse scenario. I bought Guardian Heroes from a used game store, scratched up as heck, because I remembered GameFAN's coverage about how awesome this game was (right after they covered how awesome PS4 was). They were right about PS4, why not GH? After that, I hunted down a Saturn and was into retro gaming as opposed to being too cheap to afford a next-gen console.

J. Dance Dance Revolution
While I was amazed by FF7, Crash Bandicoot, etc., I was never into the Playstation. When DDR craze swept the nation, it was hard to avoid playing the game, having DDR parties, and the like. Bigger than sharing drunk nights playing Dunk Hunt, DDR was a social gaming phenomenon. People who would go out, play games, flail around, and interact socially. And I got to be a part of it.

[Itchyant]

What a great topic. It's easy to list my top ten games of all time, but it has been so much harder thinking about the games that have defined my gaming tastes (or even lifestyle) now. I could probably list more arcade games as definers, but thought some console love should be shown.

Alex Kidd (SMS)

The Sega Master System was the first console I owned (which my parents brought for me), and Alex Kidd was built into the system. Funnily enough, I don’t really remember playing too many other games for the SMS, but i sure gave Alex Kidd a flogging. It started my love of platformers, setting me up for the joys of Mario when I eventually brought a SNES.


1942 (arcade)

The first shmup to hook me. Whilst pretty basic and repetitive, it set the scene for twin cobra, slapfight and raiden. My top score is around 216k, pretty pitiful really but I can’t seem to get close any more.


Wonderboy in Monsterland (arcade)

Ah, the platformer with RPG elements, a major obsession for me in my teens. This was a tough choice, the other candidate being Black Tiger, but although I prefer the later title now, Monsterland is where it began for me.
I was a big fan of fantasy novels, D&D and all of that growing up. This video game was the closet thing to recreating those books I had access to at the time. An added bonus was that I was able to get to the end more often then not, representing excellent value for my 40c, as a game would often last more than 30 minutes. I still give it a crack occasionally through mame, and seemingly get the 66 golds more often then I used to!


SFII (arcade)

The game that made me go buy a snes. I fed it more money in the arcades than any other machine, and certainly more than I could afford. It was a massive effort to stop putting feeding coins, so I could save for the console version. I still love it in most of its forms, and it is probably my number 1 game of all time.


Zelda - Link to the Past (SNES)

Once I managed to separate myself from SFII on the snes, I thought I’d give this Zelda game a look-see. ‘Nuf said really!


Super Mario Kart (snes)

Mario Kart = time trial obsession. I couldn’t stop trying to shave fractions of seconds from my times. The worst was the Ghost Stage (from memory the third stage?) with Toad, it was down to the merest of pixels when cornering to try and beat my best!


NBA Jam (arcade)

I loved it then, I still love it now. I haven’t brought the new 360 version yet, but regularly play the original through mame. The machine was situated near the front counter of a video rental store - I felt so sorry for the staff, coz the machine’s volume was cranked on full volume. Boomshakalaka! He’s on fire!


Parappa the Rapper (PS1)

This represented a lot of drunk nights at mates places. I don’t remember a lot of the game, I killed way too many brain cells in that period of my life, but I do remember having great fun with my mates.


NBA 2k9 (360)

I always have a sports game on whichever console I have at the time. I have a bit of an obsession with franchise / manager modes. This selection was a really tough choice - FIFA 99 on PS1 dominated 6 months of my life back in the day. But I’ve since settled on NBA 2k9, so much so that I haven’t bothered to update to the two latest versions. I don’t play often, maybe once a fortnight at most, but it satisfies my need for stats...


DoDonPachi (arcade)

The game that rekindled my love of shmups. Through the wonders of mame, we are spoilt with a glut of genre defining shmups - the Strikers 1945 series, Dragon Blaze, Ketsui, EspGaluda, Battle Garegga - but the one that kicked it all off again for me is DoDonPachi. Infuriating and addictive, the chaining mechanism is what does it for me. I’m torn between playing for score or trying to attain that first loop, but it always keeps me coming back.

[mluitjens1031]

The first 8 games in my top 10 are in the list for the same reason: I played the shit out of them as a kid (in no particular order):

1. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (Genesis)
2. Tiny Toons: Buster's Hidden Treasure (Genesis)
3. the Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutant (NES)
4. Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle 2 (Game Boy)
5. M.C. Kids (NES)
6. Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
7. Kirby's Super Star (SNES)
8. the Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past (SNES)

The next 2 games are my first experiences with a popular francise that I never thought I would like, but was very, very wrong:

9. Final Fantasy IX (PS1)
10. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP)