Gaming

Spec Ops: The Line I thought it was just another military 3rd-person shooter. Boy was I wrong. That thing hit me hard!

Also Oni by bungie. I like the style and I remember that the climax was somewhat emotional for very jung me.

This war of mine I cannot play this game for long and I absolutely love it for that.

There are others too but the common thing is that they were emotional for me. Sure I remember great visuals or gameplay but at the end of the day the games that make me feel stuff stay with me.

Basically all Blizzard games between '95 and '04 (So Warcraft 2 up until World of Warcraft). I just loved them all. Great gameplay and awesome music. The soundtracks for the games of that era are just permanently recorded in my brain and they'll randomly start playing in my mind very often.

Diablo 1 was my first ARPG and I remember playing it online and not knowing what the hell people were talking about because I wasn't familiar with the lingo yet. I loved playing online with the overpowered duped items like the Godly Plate of the Whale and the Arch-Angel's Staff of Apocalypse. It was great.

Diablo 2 was even better than the first one. My favorite ARPG of all-time and in my opinion still the best one ever made. I've spent hundreds of hours on this game online and I still wish I could relive those days. One of the greatest games ever.

Warcraft 2 was also one of my favorite games, the soundtrack was especially great. I know every note of every piece of music in that game by heart. Sometimes a random piece of Warcraft 2 music will just pop in my head and start playing on repeat for hours on end.

World of Warcraft was the first MMORPG I got addicted to. I played others before, but WoW just had me hooked. I've played this game religiously up until the end of WotLK when the game lost its magic for me. I've played all the expansions that came after that but not much, usually just one or two characters to max level and then I get bored with it.

I received Eternal Darkness for Christmas in 2002. I will NEVER forget the feelings that game inspired in me thanks to the unique "sanity" system and creepy lovecraftian atmosphere.

I remember my brothers and I huddled around the basement TV into the wee hours of the morning over our Christmas holiday totally creeped out but so driven to complete the story that we pressed onward.

What a fantastic game that was and I'm so grateful for those memories with my brothers. I don't think I've ever had such a deep connection with a game since.

Hollow Knight and Ori Will of the Wisps pop up in my head constantly. They're atmospheric masterpieces.

When I finished Life is Strange 1, it just felt I lost a friend and it lingered for weeks. Whenever I was hearing the soundtrack, I felt really sad because of stuff that happened in the game.

Outer Wilds and Omori. Both beautiful games and if I had to choose one to play through for the first time again, I couldn't.

Started thinking about it and turns out I have a few:

• Thomas Was Alone for the overall vibe, music and writing
• Celeste for the the story and gameplay
• Hollow Knight for the world, music and mechanics
• Metroid Prime for being generally incredible
• Overwatch for being my intro to online games and the friends I made playing it
• Halo 3 because a mate of mine and I played it so damn much

Well I would answer Outer Wilds (in particular, with the DLC), but since you already said it, ummm....

Probably Hollow Knight. I remember just loving the exploration in that game, and the difficulty made everything feel well earned. I haven't played Elden Ring yet, but it sounds like people had a similar reaction to that, but in 3D.

I have a couple games that stuck with me long after I played them. They're not similar to the ones that are being posted here though.

Pokerstars VR: During peak pandemic I played a lot, and a lot of the conversations have stuck with me. My irl friend and I started a little group with people we liked and it ended up being like 15 of us and at least 6 of us would be on every night. Nothing like playing poker and anonymously talking shit lol. I cried laughing a couple times

Minecraft: There are a lot of Minecraft memories I think about often. Some are back on Minecraft Pocket Edition on my iPod 4, some are playing hunger games with my cousin, others are of a server my friend and I made. I miss a lot of those old worlds and still remember where my secret chests are

A Short Hike: I played this game right after a breakup and it made me think back to what made me happy as a kid. The sense of wonder, discovery, and just not knowing anything. It made me realize that I still don't know shit and and I should still have that same sense of wonder. It has made my life significantly better

No game has ever occupied so much of my mind as NieR: Automata. I beat the game, thought "huh, that was pretty good", and then thought about it again the next day. and again. and again. again. again. again. again. again. I just could not stop thinking about what the game was trying to say or how it made me feel, and it's just become more and more important to me as time has gone on. Really incredible game

The big ones for me are the one where I made friends and very personal experiences:

Tibia, Eve Online & Warhammer Online

Which reminds me, I haven't messaged certain former guild leader in a while!

Not a fantastic game, but the first Walking Dead Telltale series really hit me in the feels and so has stayed with me. The Witcher 3 definitely affected me, but it's hard to seperate that feeling from the books.

I'd say Kerbal Space Program, Factorio and Rimworld because whenever I play those it's like coming home, but since I'm always playing at least one of them, it feels a bit like cheating.

The feeling of the Tribes games is always there in my mind. I occasionally go back but the freedom of movement in that game is just so liberating. I never know why they aren't more celebrated. (Titanfall 2 comes close, but still not quite the same).

Battlezone 2 is IMHO another unsung classic. I loved the mix of RTS and FPS. Another one from before the mechanics of FPS and the general feel of motion had standardised (to a fault) which I think helps it keep it's hooks in me.

Firewatch, Hellblade, the Mass Effect trilogy, Cyberpunk 2077 to name a few. ME and CP77 are probably the ones that lodged themselves hardest in my mind by far.

Immediately reading the title, Outer Wilds was the first to come to mind. There's nothing quite like it, and I wish I could relive the feeling of playing it for the first time again.

Neverwinter nights and it's expansion packs still sticks with me

Outer Wilds and Soma.

Both live pretty much rent free in my head since I played them.

A few that come to mind:

• Gris - such a beautiful game. I was going through something when I played it and I just felt such a connection.
• Undertale - just an all around incredible game. I'm a big fan of Earthbound and this scratched a similar itch.
• Beneath a Steel Sky - I love point and click adventures and this one will love forever rent free in my head. (bonus: it's free on GoG)

I think skyrim and Hitman Absolution. They were the first games that I bought by myself ob my pc, starting my real gaming era.

Star Wars Galaxies - the open world, the city building, the player housing, the ground and space vehicles, the player market, the world pvp. It was so much goodness. Broke all future games for me.

The closest is Ghost Trick I guess? But frankly while being another masterpiece, it didn't stick THAT much more than the others, after a month or two even the 10/10 games come to mind only if I think of a related topic.

The most influencial would be Etrian Odyssey IV since it got me into giving JRPGs another go, after years of not being impressed by any of the classics (Final Fantasy 4-5, 6 kept my attention until the endgame, Golden Sun...), and now I basically beat them (mostly Atlus' so far) on a bimonthly basis. I guess EO in general sticks the best, but it's hard to label one game since I quickly went and started playing all of them.

Hugos House of Horrors was the first video game I played — I was probably 7 or so and my mother would perm this ladies hair every few weeks. She was a family friend and was in a wheelchair, so we would go to her house. She had a computer that had this game on it and I was just mesmerized by the whole creepy/campy vibe.

Alpha Protocol, cause and effect and replayability just made it one of the best of all time in my opinion.

Night In The Woods deeply affected me first with the ending, and then again with the whole scenario that unraveled outside of the game. Few things make me feel melancholy like thinking of that game.

The ending of Unreal 2 (the single player game) when your team have all died and left messages for you to listen to as you fly away alone on a spaceship

Mass Effect trilogy gave me the harshest gaming hangover in my life back when I finished all of them back to back like 10 years ago

There's also Ichiban Kasuga living rent free in my head, yesterday's trailer made it worse

Kenshi. Kenshi is the single most unique game I have ever played I think. There is no campaign, you are just sent into one of the largest maps ive heard of in a video game with the goal of "survive". So many ways to play, I've had so many different adventures in that game, with stories that I crafted that have stuck with me for years. I am still heartbroken I lost my saves from 2019 :(

Second choice is prototype. I dunno why but I just adore the shapeshifting combat, and edgy early 2000s aesthetic. Alex Mercer is one of my all time favorite supervillian/hero characters, he's just cool, man.

SOMA. The ending still freaks me out until this day.

Half Life 2. Specifically, the crossbow that shot rebar. That thing was AWESOME.

For me it was Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4, as well as Devil May Cry 3.

I used to have a pretty hard time thinking about what were my favorite games and the ones that changed my tastes and probably perspectives.

I realized that every time get asked this question the first games that come to mind are always these 3.

Mother 3 still affects me in ways no other game has, even to this day. It's truly a beautiful game.