Super Mario Bros 1, 2 & 3
Super Mario World
Mortal Kombat 1 & 2
Wolfenstein 3D
DOOM
Commander Keen
Starcraft
Diablo 1 / 2
Unreal Tournament 2003/4
Counter-Strike
Half Life
Everquest
World of Warcraft
The Secret of Monkey Island
Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis / Last Crusade
LOOM
Resident Evil 1 & 2
Legend of Zelda 1
Ocarina of Time
Mario Kart (SNES & 64)
Ogre Battle 64
WCW/NWO Revenge
Portal 1 & 2
Grand Theft Auto 2, 3 and 5

Yeah I'm old. Some modern ones:
Breath of the Wild
Valheim
Outer Wilds

I've been playing games since the 80s. I wouldn't call myself a gamer. Here are a few personal hallmarks...

• Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge on NES was the first time I had fun playing multiplayer.
• Metroid II: Return of Samus was the first game I was addicted to. Super Metroid is still my favourite game.
• UMKIII was the first game I actually got pretty good at.
• Starcraft. My brother played this and I loved being a spectator, in hindsight I realized that gaming could be a sport that people would watch at this moment.
• Quake and Descent were the first times I got motion sickness playing games!
• Counter-Strike because everyone played it at university.
• FFVII because I never played it and it is apparently kinda famous...

Halo comes to mind straight away. The way the enemies react, dodging out the way or charging towards you was something special. Also the music score and freedom it gives you in the semi-open levels to play differently.

Star Control 2

Ocarina of Time is my GOAT. Finishing it as a kid and realizing that games could be more than just killing time, that they could be epic journeys with satisfying endings, that they could be a whole art form was really transformative.

Dungeon master 1 & 2 The Secret of Monkey Island
Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis / Last Crusade
LOOM
The dig Escape from Tarkov The Division Ultima 7 Wing commander series Strike commander Battletech crescent hawks inception/revenge Mech commander Payday 2

Questions like these always reveal the core audience of millennials and older Gen Z.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. First really high quality storytelling I saw in games. Setting is so unique I never saw really any copycats

Dishonored

This was a pinnacle showcase of how interactive a game could be. The sandbox design not only encouraged your creativity but met it beat for beat. This was also the game that made me understand how much world design and atmosphere matter. Making a world feel believable with environmental story telling is incredibly difficult but so satisfying. To this day, not been dethroned.

Team Fortress 2

Balance, class design, character design, game mode design, and a touch of jank; all in the name of what is the most fun. I see this as the grandfather of Deadlock and The Finals; both games I come back to more often than TF2 but who's DNA matches closest.

UNBEATABLE

Trusting your audience with regards to story telling and leaving things unsaid. Also importance of a banger soundtrack.

Sekiro

Importance of tactility and flow. Quick, slow; quick, quick; slow. Technically a rythm game too.

Z.A.T.O.

A showcase of how little you need to make a game and still have it feel impactful. Also importance of picking a target audience and nostalgia. Also visual novels rule.

NieR Automata

Do NOT **** android women

The legend of dragoon.

Chrono Cross.

GTA-all of them, (all rockstar games)

Gran Turismo-all of them.

Final Fantasy 7,8,9

Metal Gear Solid-all of them. (Except survival)

Minecraft.

DayZ.

I used to have a hard time ranking my favorite games. Often the order would change based on how I was feeling at that time.

That all changed when I found Satisfactory. I no-lifed that game for months. Never before have I felt as though a game had been made for me.

Now my ranking is

1. Satisfactory
2. (a huge-ass gap)
3. Hades 1&2 4-∞. idk like every other game that is conventionally good?

Elite - a huge 3D vector universe to explore.

Tetris - adictiveness distilled.

Driller - oh wow, filled 3D graphics on a 3.5MHz 8 bit micro?

Wolfenstein 3D - shooting nazis is fun.

Doom - incredible, improved graphics and more fun.

Quake - full 3D now, but not as fun as Doom.

Half-Life - oh yeah, now we're talking. Great storytelling and gripping fun.

Portal - fun, engaging and funny.

Bioshock Infinite - I guess I enjoy riding the skylines.

Torchlight - There's something cozy about those dungeons, I dunno.

Skyrim - how did I lose 900 hours of my life?

Based on how many times I have started the game, but never finished

• Stardew Valley
• Terraria

Based on number of hours played

• Modded Minecraft
• No Mans Sky

• Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar - yes I’m older then dirt but I played my first real video game on an Apple IIe and it was a revelation real puzzles and my first choices with consequences
• Tetris - ok so a great game doesn’t need a story or puzzles or anything but good game play
• Gauntlet: Red Elf needs food badly. My first exposure to cooperative gameplay.
• Pokemon:RBY - I love the mechanics and they were the best turn based combat.
• Halo - Great storyline’s really do help but the gameplay was a real game changer for me I enjoyed how if you wanted to you could get through a level in several different ways.
• The Last of Us - Literary Characters that I came emotionally attached to. There’s a reason the first season of the TV series was so good it was because the writing of the game was just so good. I still remember the finale in the operating room when I (Joel really but I was so invested) found Ellie I was angry I was mad and I shot the nurses because I was so mad. I’ve, to this day, never felt so inside a character in any media as I felt then.
• Spiritfarer - My first cozy game and the only game I’ve ever played that made me stop and think about what just happened. I don’t ever want to spoil the game for anyone so all I’ll say is it’s less then the cost of a Happy Meal on steam and worth more for your soul then you can put a price on.

When I was 6 I was so excited to get a SNES. I wanted the bundle with super Mario World but it was sold out. So my parents gave me the option of waiting of getting this other bundle with this Zelda game. That sounded kind of girly to me being 6 and knowing nothing, but I was also 6 and had no patitience so Zelda it was.

I got home and started playing and was immediately hooked. I spent the next few years exploring every inch of Hyrule and the Dark World.

To this day I still don't have Super Mario World and have only played a few levels but I have played every Zelda since.

I've played dozens or hundreds of games since thrn, many that were absolutely amazing but nothing until Breath if the Wild gave me that same magic of wanting to discover every nook and cranny of the world just to see what's there.

• TIE Fighter
• GoldenEye 64
• Diablo II
• NetHack
• Doom/Doom II
• Descent/Descent II
• Galactic Battlegrounds
• Super Mario World
• Dark Age of Camelot
• World of Warcraft
• PlanetSide
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (yes, it's my favorite game in the series, fight me)
• Wing Commander: Privateer
• Torchlight II
• Hammerfight
• Carmageddon 2
• Freelancer
• DoomRL
• N/N++
• FreeSpace
• Katawa Shoujo
• Unreal Tournament
• Minecraft
• Cave Story
• FTL
• Dark Souls
• Slay
• Terraria
• Ender Lilies
• The Binding of Isaac (and Rebirth)
• Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
• Dead Cells
• Hollow Knight
• Kerbal Space Program
• Transformice
• Soldat

Minecraft, Warframe and old school Runescape.

Everything else I've loved over the years has fallen out of favour with me, but I'll happily dive into those 3 for a few hundred hours again

• Morrowind
• Final Fantasy 7 (the original not the aweful Remake)
• Final Fantasy 9
• Secret of Mana
• Secret of Evermoor
• Planescape Tornment
• MegaMan X
• Gothic
• German trading simulators (Hanse, Fugger 2, Vermeer, etc.)
• all the many games on my C64

• Halo
• Life is Strange
• Final fantasy VIII
• World of Warcraft
• Expedition 33

None of them are perfect but they all made me think about games in a different light and keep me wanting to play.

ITT: A bunch of people misunderstanding the question

Playing Minecraft multiplayer in 2010 blew me off my socks and I will never experience anything as intense as that, video game wise.

Early games are easy to say like Ocarina and such but I think the games I really started to compare to:

Ratchet and clank- sure I played mario64 but I didnt really grasp the breadth of platforming until ps2. The Jak/Ratchet games really secured my expectations in future platformers for what I expect from movement and targeting in games. Especially by Deadlocked, being able to strafe and fire/keeping your gun/ camera on target and snappy switching between them is something I notice even new games not get right. A great example of this is Darktide - for all its fun sometimes the button inputs for weapon swap dont trigger due to input overload. For me this is the "Why doesn't this third person game just have Ratchet controls"

Exploration was easily shaped by Ocarina of Time. Where checking behind the waterfall isn't an easter egg, it's an expectation. The temples certainly stretched the imagination for puzzles, and modern game puzzles genuinely don't feel like they rise to it. Being older and sharper has helped but perception wise it felt like the first game to challenge me like an older game did was Portal 2 for difficulty, and Genshin Impact for small fun puzzles. (Not that they are particularly hard but it takes some thought and intentional placement) for me some games just hit the "exploration and puzzles should challenge the player"

This one isn't new or controversial: but gaming in the 360/ps3 era and older, seeing cash shops lock up cosmetics you used to just....unlock. like whole ass costumes and easter egg outfits. Colors and reskinned weapons all sold back to players now. I get the whole f2p "gotta make a sale to stay free" but holy shit $20 for a fortnite skin is disgusting considering how many people buy that specific skin. It pays for itself and THEN some, and they drip these every week or so - and every single one sells a thousand copies to different users. "Game companies got greedy, and cut content to sell back to you after swearing they wouldn't"

Black ops 2: I didn't play earlier games and mostly grew up with cartoon violence, so this was my first real foray into an online environment and experience that I compare shooter level design to. I still compare the new(ish) call of duties to it. Moreso like "how the fuck are spawns still this fucking dogshit, have they learned nothing in 20 years" and "How the fuck is nuketown still a map its too small to make any really plays, it's just spawncamping for 10 minutes" (the answer is kids like it for some reason). And why I haven't bought a cod since cold war (the homies all wanted to play so we made a game night out of it).Anyway BO2 is what I compare shooters to. If you can't match a 2012 game in terms of how easy it is to traverse a pvp level, and the player feedback of a kill (like how impactful it feels to secure the kill is almost on par with Doom2016) "Kills should feel punchy, dynamic, like you actually hit that fuckin dude through a wall, not just tickled him and he ragdolled"

Pokemon gold/silver and Emerald. "Games don't have to have super deep or complex stories, or fantastic budget breaking graphics to be fun

Half life 2. I could conceive of shooter games but until playing HL2 as a teenager, I didn’t quite understand how much storytelling they could pack in. Suddenly, it felt like games could be thoughtful and entertaining pieces of art instead of solely fun time

fallout 3 and then skyrim changed my life. it was incredible i could just go anywhere i wanted. i could kill (almost) any npc i wanted to for any reason. i never felt more immersed in a world in my life

Spyro the Dragon:

This is basically the pinnacle of game design to me. It is a collect-a-thon of course, but the gems always sparkle no matter how far you are from them so that if you are in line of sight you will know that they are there making it easy to find them.

Far off sections of the map are basically always reachable and rewards you for trying to get there and utilizing uncommon paths through the map.

When you beat the game to 100% it rewards you with extra stuff and a little more game to show it had fun being made as much as you hopefully did playing it.

All with a fun story that wraps it up and doesnt require anything special to jump in. I want to see games that have thoughtful level design and world building while using the game mechanics in fun ways. The fact that you jump into levels directly and the loading screen is akin to you actually flying to the world is all engrossing to the world.

My Younger days:

• Legend of the Red Dragon
• Police Quest 1
• Anarchy Online
• Bard's Tale (OG)
• Shadowgate
• Metroid
• Forgotten Worlds
• Super Mario World
• Paper Mario TTYD
• Guitar Hero
• Tony Hawk's Underground
• Star Wars: KOTOR

More recently:

• Cave Noire
• AC: Odyssey
• Fallout 4
• Cloverpit
• Offline Games (Android)

Mostly tried to stick to a single release per platform for the earlier games. I'm sure I've missed some.

Newer games...I know the AC and Fallout titles aren't most people's favorites, but I love those worlds. Games are all about comfort for me.

A few that seem under represented here:

Oregon Trail

Sim City 2000

Earthworm Jim

Nothing has shaped how I view games more than Dark Souls.

Super Smash Bros — I play better when I play to get better and have fun. Worse when I try to win. Was a great lesson in general.

Hollow Knight & Silk Song — art and music and such tight games

Slay the Spire — hedging bets and long term thinking in a way that’s much more nuanced than standard RPGs

Sekiro — like playing an instrument

Fallout New Vegas set my expectation for quest choice and faction interactivity. I could go on about that, but everyone knows what people think about New Vegas.

Last year, I beat Dark Souls. That's now set my standard for RPG gameplay. There's bullshit, same as any game, but I don't think I've ever played another RPG where I've felt my skill going up alongside my in-game stats. Then you get to the Bed of Chaos, and that kinda goes out the window...

Here is my Quality Slop list (I only like them because they are good):

• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Metal Gear Solid
• NieR Gestalt
• Test Drive Unlimited 2
• Halo Combat Evolved
• Dark Souls
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
• Silent Hill 2 (the original, not the remake)
• Super Metroid
• Need for Speed Underground 2
• Shenmue 1, 2, and 3 (Shenmue 3 is probably the worst game on this list, but its still pretty good regardless)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2
• Age of Empires II
• Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
• Policenauts
• Panzer Dragoon Orta

Each of these have contributed to my high bar of expected quality for games. Most of these games were made on a very tight budget and schedule, with pretty harsh hardware limitations, usually with a small team of less than 100 people, and are the greatest games of all time. Modern game studios have no excuses for the awful quality they launch games in today with more time, money, more people on the dev team, and lack of hardware limitations.

Some that I don't think I saw mentioned, roughly in the chronological order I played them in:

• Mario 3
• Kirby Superstar
• Super Mario RPG
• Baldur's Gate
• Lords of the Realm 2
• Diddy Kong Racing
• Tales of Symphonia
• Undertale