• Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Chrono Trigger
• Ultima VIII (mostly as a gateway to the others in the series, but still got a soft spot for it)
• Final Fantasy VII
• Xenogears

Star Ocean 2, FFVII, Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, Resident Evil 2.

Honorary mention for literal every ps1 game.

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

• 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.

• 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)

• 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

• Half life
• NFS Most Wanted (2005)
• Heroes of might and magic 3
• Delta Force
• Unreal tournament

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

• Dizzy (ZX Spectrum), all the games in the series
• Heroes of Might and Magic, played up to 5, but 2 and 3 were my favorites
• Masters of Orion 2
• Little Big Adventure
• Monkey Island, all the games in the series

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!<

Morrowind Ocarina of Time Donkey Kong Country The Sonic chaos game on dreamcast Time splitters

• Baldur's Gate 1 (I think it took me 10 years to actually get to the point where I was able to finish this, but it was still the best advertisement that D&D, and fantasy media in general, could have hoped for)

• DX Ball (breakout clone)

• Minesweeper

• Gothic 1 (Elder Scrolls just fucking sucks compared to this series, especially the melee combat system and the characterization of the NPCs (TES does have better lore))

• Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (to this day, I still haven't finished it. Outstanding multiplayer mode, though!)

I'm not that old, ya old coots!

Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask

Super Smash Bros Melee

Halo: Reach

RuneScape

Guildwars 2

The instructions are contradictory. I’m not sure how it’s possible to comply.

• Pac-Man (Atari 400)
• Pole Position (Arcade)
• Parsec (TI-99/4A)
• The Legend of Zelda (NES)
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (PC)

In no particular order

Command and Conquer Red Alert 2

Caesar III

Spyro

Metal Gear Solid

Gauntlet

Half life/2 should probably be on there, but it still doesn't feel like an "old" game, especially since I play them every year or two, they haven't left my computer since 2010, and honestly I can't see myself not playing it when I'm 60.

xenogears final fantasy 7 final fantasy 10 super smash Bros melee Diablo 2

Moo2

FFT

Golden Eye

Red Alert

Mariokart 64

This list could also be alternatively titled: "Why I flunked out of college the first time."

I can't limit it to 5.

I keep trying to, and it doesn't work, I end up leaving out something that I spent a massive amount of time on and also very strongly impacted my conception of what a game can be.

• Sonic The Hedgehog
• Ms. Pacman
• Diablo
• Starcraft
• CS:Source

In rough chronological order:

Starflyers

Mario Kart

Shadow cities

COD zombies (ios app version)

Minecraft

I'm stopping this list before high school, as I built my first PC and figured out emulation, so I started playing a lot more games.

• Pokemon gen 1 and 2 I guess
• Majesty
• aoe 2
• WoW
• gizmos and gadgets

-Pokemon Gold (OG)

-Metroid: Zero Mission/Fusion

-SSBM

-Battlefront II (The OG one)

-The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

• Super Mario World
• LoZ : Link to the Past / LoZ : Ocarina of Time
• FFVIII
• Super Smash Bros.
• Ragnarok Online

• StarCraft
• Heretic
• Diablo
• Quake
• Half Life / Counterstrike

1. Zork
2. Civilization
3. Daggerfall
4. MechWarrior 2
5. The Journeyman Project

I played a lot of Atari and Collecovision as a kid, but games didn’t feel “important” until my family bought our first PC. After that, game consoles in general stopped being important. It was a new world of possibility.

1. Sopwith

2. Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards

3. Super Mario 1 & 3.

4. 688 Attack Sub

5. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe

Halo:CE would probably be the single most important, but it just missed my teenage years.

-Copy Kitty

-Undertale

-Super Smash Bros. (4 & Ultimate)

-Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

-Fantasy Life

• Starcraft
• Age of Empires 2
• Freddi Fish
• Pokemon yellow
• Zelda Ocarina of Time

Man, this is hard to narrow down.

• Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
• Dungeon Siege II
• Guild Wars
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Battlefield 3

Lego Star Wars

Discworld

Unreal Tournament

Doom

Halo

• super Mario world
• earthbound
• Mario kart 64
• halo 2
• modern warfare

Off the top of my head:

• Karate Champ II (arcade)
• Pac-Land (arcade)
• Gryzor aka Contra (Amstrad CPC)
• Sorcery (Amstrad CPC)
• Xenon (Atari ST)

Oh wait, Elite (BBC, Amstrad, and ST) — probably more so than Xenon.