What game holds a special place in your heart?

Outer Wilds, I refuse to elaborate because it will ruin the experience.

Two come to mind.
First is Monkey Island. It's the first game I ever finished all by myself. The opening scene with the theme music still gives me goosebumps.
The second is Daggerfall, the first game I devoted an ungodly amount of hours to. I spend all my time exploring every nook and cranny of that world, playing the tourist, borrowing huge amounts of money in some tiny country with no intend on paying back, splurging that money on houses, boats, clothes, armor and whatever else I wanted :)

Sid Meier's Pirates! I played it so much as a kid. Now I'm 43 and I played it a couple of months ago. It's still a great game!

SOMA. Go in blind.

Probably a lame answer, but Minecraft for sure. No other single game has stuck with me this long, and I have so many good memories of playing it over the past 12 years. Sure there are franchises like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing I come back to every time there's a new entry, but Minecraft has been this continuous thing that's just always there, and I can never really stop playing it for more than a couple months before it brings me back.

The only other piece of media that's stuck with me so long is a book series that's still getting new releases every year or so.

Life is Strange. For me it was the most emotion I ever got out of any medium ever

Planescape: Torment
The game changed the nature of who I am.

Borderlands. Couch co-op with my brother was pretty much what videogames was to me as a kid, and borderlands was always our favorite. I can't wait to have a platform I can play borderlands 3 and the tiny Tina game on with him over the Christmases when hes back in town (I know they're not quite as good, thats perfectly okay)

These days, hollow knight is also genuinely very special to me. I don't think there's any game I hold in the same kind of place of reverence

Star Control 2

There have been so many great games but I don't think I've had as much fun in video games than I did in Minecraft or Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Spiritfarer. I don't think I've ever cried harder while playing something than this.

Tekken 3. The first game I got for my PS1 as a kid and the only one I had for a while.

I didn't behave a memory card so I must've unlocked every character at least 10+ times because the power went out or my mom discovered I left the PlayStation on.

Sim city 2000

Any of the PS1-era Crash Bandicoot games.

My dad, my older brother, and I would spend hours playing those games with each other. Dad wasn’t the greatest gamer, but he was always patient enough to get my brother and I a ton of lives so we all could play without worrying too much :) Still got those discs in good condition too, just played them again with my dad a few months back for the first time in forever!

Disco Elysium. It's like a rich, dense cake frosted with depravity and layered with melancholy and hope. The VO work combined with the delectable dialogue really can't be beat. You'll know within the first minute if it has you.

Capitalism 2 It's one of the older games, but it's pretty good at learning to understand supply chains and costing

Street fighter II

growing up with line ups of kids playing sfii in the arcades, leaving your quarters on the cab in a line to figure out who’s next, and when someone finally beat that Asian kid (who knew every move you’d make and always picked chun li) who played for free all day beating everyone else was finally beaten and the cheers and the whooping and sometimes even the real fist fights over it.

Street fighter ii was an absolute phenomenal moment in gaming

Ghost Squad, also an arcade game.

For roughly 3 years of my life in college... after class, I'd go to the local arcade, spend $1, play roughly ~1 hour of the game... beat my old high score and go home. I did look up world-records and I'm a nobody on the world-record list, but I was #1 through #50 on that machine on the high score list, no one else at that arcade could even take out my #50 score.

SNES -- Super Mario World. I got to the point of ~12 minute speedrun, also no where near record-breaking world record or anything, but I'd like to think I'm better at that game than most people. Before college, my routine when I got home was to speedrun the game and beat it within ~15 minutes.

Factorio is probably the "long running game" that I put a lot of effort into.

The only games I ever reached "advanced/expert" level in were BlazBlue, Puyo Puyo, and Tetris. I wish I had the guts to actually go to a major tournament for Blazblue (the most popular of the three games I reached expert status into...). I'd expect that I probably was strong enough to qualify for Evo but I wouldn't expect to be in the top 32 even... just barely a qualifier. I was a regular training partner / punching bag for a few top-of-the-USA players on my friends list. I would lose 80%+ of the time but I was strong enough to occasionally eek out a victory vs top-level play (though you're never quite sure if the expert is feeling bad and letting me win, lol). I did play at some local tournaments though and knew I was near top of my state/local neighborhood at least. So I think I qualify for the expert ranking, though there is a huge tier of difference between "top of USA" and "top of local tournament".

EDIT: In terms of USA players, I'd regularly qualify for Puyo Puyo and/or Tetris tournaments. But I'm not top10 or anything crazy. Of course, USA-play is much weaker than overseas players. I'm not that good with regards to speed, only ~1 minute 40-line clear, but I think my downstacking and opening-theory is stronger than most people in Tetris and I can regularly beat faster players than me. Note that Puyo Puyo Tetris is a relatively slow Tetris game so top-tier PPT players are only ~40-seconds 40-line clear in this game, there's a lot more focus on downstacking efficiently since line clears are so slow.

I can sometimes 14-chain in solitaire Puyo / training mode, though my style is mostly harassment / beginning to screenwatch at the midgame for Puyo. Again, expert level in USA, but only maybe "advanced" as far as Japanese players go. I'm relatively bad at chaining but I think my midgame is good enough to qualify me for the expert level. I never outchain players of equal ranking to me, but instead perform crushing power-2 or other harassments while they're vulnerable on the 2nd level.

I also tried to reach advanced levels in Starcraft: BW and Age of Empires 2, but alas, I'm not that good at RTS. I'd say the games are still close to my heart due to the many hours / months / years of practice I put in, but I'm a nobody in these games.

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty

It got me into RTS and the novels as well.

Also David Lynch's batshit insane original movie.

MYST. I still think about this game and the sequels weekly. I would sit next to my dad and explore, take notes, read books, and become completely immersed in the worlds of MYST.

Psychonauts, basically my first "hard" platformer, I did play Spyro and Crash before by I always had my big brother for the hard parts, Psychonauts was my first time going solo.

Of course there is so much more to that game, the humor, the style, the psychic powers and the challenges, amazing overall game.

FF7 ps1

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for the GameCube. I had rented it during Spring Break one year. I also got sick during that same Spring Break. Playing that game helped me though the sickness and kept me occupied when I probably would've went stir crazy otherwise.

Legend of Mana and the Tomb Raider series.

Halo 2 basically got me through hurricane Katrina

Wing Commander. It needed expensive hardware, like a 33MHz CPU, and some features were disabled when you had less than 1MB RAM but it was worth it. To me, there was never another one like this.

FFVII Deus Ex Baldurs Gate Alpha Centuri Master of Orion (1&2) UFO: Enemy Unknown Homeworld

All the originals

Very few modern games have captured me the way those did back then. It's like trying to enjoy modern music, nothing sounds as good as the stuff your 20s

Like others have said. Hard to pick one.

I had an Age of Empires demo disk that I played through dozens of times before actually receiving the full game.

Crash Bandicoot for PS1 on Christmas day at 7 years old is definitely a core memory.

But more recently I've really enjoyed games that have a good blend of story/gameplay or that really nail a theme. Subnautica was an awesome experience to play (dark room and good headphones are recommended for the first time playing through), Portal 2 because it was so unique (I played #2 before #1).

Ico on PS2 by Fumito Ueda.

I binged the game over a long weekend whilst suffering from flu, my partner at the time picking it up from Blockbusters based on the box art alone.

The mood of the game, its lighting, the mysterious setting and circumstances, paired with being ill was already quite the experience. But what completely caught me off guard was a simple but rather genius mechanic.

As to not spoil the game (too much), throughout much of Ico, you lead another character around the game by holding their hand. This is implemented as holding down R1.

I can’t explain it but it was an emotional experience when you had to get go of R1. The risks, the worry, and the longing to hold your follower’s hand once more.

Binging the game, you do a lot of hand holding, but you truly feel it in your hand too; that comforting tension of gripping the controller, squeezing R1, and holding a digital hand.

I appreciate it’s not an accessibility friendly mechanic but I still think about how meaningful holding a single button could be in a game.

Ico proved to me that “games” can be art, designers can be auteurs, and that the medium can be more impactful and evocative than absolutely any other.

I bought Continue?9876543210 because I thought it sounded interesting and had about $10 to burn.

I thought it was hauntingly beautiful, and I got hung up following Jason Oda after that. I think he's got great instincts for video game design, even if his last game Waking still needs polish (but is also gorgeous). I'm actually afraid he's thrown in the towel, having tried to bite off more than he could chew, but I hope to keep seeing new works from him anyway. Solo indie game development is a kind of hell I assume.

• Warzone 2100
• Nexus the Jupiter Incident
• Ground Control
• Homeworld 1
• Supreme Commander
• Gris

I’ve been chasing the high of Asheron’s Call my entire adult life.

In terms of nostalgia, ffvii, but the most moving experience I've ever had with a video game is mother 3.

Gain ground and shadow run on the genesis. Fable on xbox

Alex Kidd in Miracle World for the Sega Master system.

And get off my lawn.

I don’t think I could possibly pick just one.

• Playing Civilzation: Call to Power, together was one of the first shared activities I ever did with the woman who is now my wife.
• When I was in middle school, my dad made me a text-based game (mildly Roguelike, even, if I recall correctly) set at school centered around going to classes and solving puzzles/collecting school supplies.
• Years ago, I made a game myself for my then-girlfriend to play that secretly just an elaborate proposal wrapped in a video game.

Honorable mentions would go to Xenogears, Metroid 2, Ur-Quran Masters, and obscurities like Rollin’, Tranquility, and Omega, which collectively ended up defining my taste in games, more or less.

Minecraft. I didn’t have the best home life growing up and it was where I was able to escape to.

Lords of the Realm II

It was my favorite game as a kid, and I still enjoy playing it today. It was perhaps the first game that I could do about as good or better as my older siblings, and I loved playing with the various settings and features.

An honorable mention is Sim City 2000, which we took turns playing. I don't play it anymore though, so it's more nostalgia and less something I actually play. I now play Cities: Skylines as a form of homage to those memories.

Freespace 2, and particularly the Freespace Open mod Blue Planet. Fantastic gameplay and the story/characters/mission design in the Blue Planet mod take a 90s game and make it better than most current ones.

I have two that are forever up in the ranks. First is probably Street Fighter II for NES. Yeah, there was Mario and other classics, but SF2 was probably the first video game where I wanted to strive my damned hardest to get better. After getting wrecked over and over by older kids, I was determined to be good at this game and it was a ton of fun in the process. Thus began my lifelong love of video games.

Second is TMNT: turtles in time for SNES. It was probably the first time I enjoyed an activity with my father. He wasn't around much but on the rare occasion he was, we would play the crap out of this game. He used to play with me until his thumbs cramped up. It's always been a loving core memory of my father for my entire life.

MYST. I still think about this game and the sequels weekly. I would sit next to my dad and explore, take notes, read books, and become completely immersed in the worlds of MYST.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_II:_The_Doomsday_Papers

I printed out the certificate it gave me for finishing the game and proudly hung it on my bedroom wall. I guess that makes me an officially certified hacker.

For some reason, Adventure Quest, yes that old flash game :p.It got me hooked when I was 7yr old and I find myself coming back every now and again.

Secret of Evermore (SNES). The atmosphere, the gameplay, the characters.. It's an absolutely awesome game.

So many.

Doom, the og, first FPS... we had Wolfenstein 3D before that but it always felt like it was a demo of something to come for me. Doom felt like it stood on its own. I couldn't play it at home, had to go to a friend's house to play, for two reasons. 1. I couldn't run it, and 2. My parents were kinda uptight... they loosened up over the years, but it kept me from a lot of good stuff.

Quake was the next one up really land at least on PC.... we had a lab of Pentium computers at school that were all networked with what I now know is called 10Base5 or 10base2 (not sure which)... it was the first "real" network we experienced, and it was great. At the time those premiums were basically brand new, state of the art machines..... the teacher was cool enough to let us use the lab to play quake over the lunch hour sometimes... so we had quake LAN parties over lunch.

On PC, there were a lot of greats, but nothing too groundbreaking until half-life... but I'm guessing most people experienced that. I'll give an honorable mention to unreal and unreal tournament as well (every version). Bluntly, UT was significantly better than quake arena.

We had a short list of consoles over the years. But I have to take my hat off for final Fantasy (either 3 or 6, whatever you want to call it, the one on the SNES)... which I was obsessed with for a while there. We only had three consoles over the years that I recall... the NES, SNES, and genesis. After that, we couldn't continue to convince my parents to keep buying consoles. I eventually picked up a PlayStation, but that was a long time later.

Definitely Lego Star Wars (original trilogy of course). My brother and I played it almost endlessly on our PS2 when we were children. Later on we got it on both PS3 and 4, and I even bought it in steam a few years ago for the nostalgia. On the computer I naturally use my PS4 controller for it.

Suikoden 2. That game was just amazing. I think there is a remaster on the way..

Rainworld.

An animal survival simulator with trippy buddhism lore/story

There’s a lot, but similar to yours, probably the original Killer Instinct arcade version. My parents were in a bowling league every year and I’d go when I was younger. It was on Friday/Saturday nights. They’d give me money for the arcade every time. Plenty of nights where I got to play for a long time only paying once cuz I had got so good at the game. There was only one other kid that could take me down.

I didn't see it mentioned so..

Original EverQuest. Up to Rise of Kunark expansion specially.

It was my first MMORPG. I miss the way I used to feel playing it! Miss having to camp spawn points and actually talk to / interact with others to share resources and camps etc.

Ya'all too young. LOL.

The game that holds a special place in my heart was Destiny of an Emperor. It was a little-known RPG that came out in the late 80's. It's not entirely obvious from the name, but it was my first introduction to the Romance of Three Kingdoms. I was a little spoiled brat of a kid. Over the years, I racked up about 50 NES games (sure, most were flea market finds, but that didn't make me feel less badass nerdy)... But the one I kept going back to again and again was Destiny. It's what immersed me in story-first RPGs when (oddly) Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior 1-3 didn't scratch that itch.

If you're willing to try an NES RPG, and you haven't, definitely check out Destiny of an Emperor.

Let's see... Mario Kart Wii, Pilotwings Resort, the Forza Horizon series, and New Super Mario Bros.

Marathon.

Wing Commander: Privateer. I dunno, there's something special about a sandbox-trading-combat game where the story must be stumbled upon.

It's hard to really pinpoint just one game...but I would argue Skyrim is my nearest and dearest. 10k hours of playtime since release, haven't played for nearly 2 years but I still keep tabs on mods in the event I go back (I will).

I was maybe 12 when I first played Skyrim, roughly a year after it was released and I was enthralled by it. By that age the most "expansive" game I'd played was maybe Minecraft (Beta 1.7.3). I think it might've been my first open world game?

Either way, the music, the questing, the exploration and detail in the worlds always held my ADHD brain's attention well. I saw the flaws, sure. However I thoroughly enjoyed that janky buggy game more than any other thing out there for a long long while.

Right behind Skyrim would have to be Dishonored. It's actually one of the only two games I've gotten a physical PC copy for. But the lore, story, and vibes of the game were genuinely so cool to me. I replayed that and the games sequels several times now.

Minecraft holds a close place in my heart too, I generally come back to it once a year for a nice, lightly modded hardcore playthrough. It especially helps me with creativity, since I get to build something without it feeling like work.

But yeah, Skyrim will always hold a place in my heart, and to a level it even influenced parts of my younger personality.

I'm old and have enjoyed many, many games over the years. However, the one that hit me hardest in the feels was The Witcher 3. The ending where Geralt realizes that he has to let Ciri make her own decisions, scary as they are... wow, it was so well done. It's one of the best examples of how a game can become art on the same level as cinema and literature.

Edit: I want to add another. The first game that made me feel actual dread was the original Quake, especially when played in a dark room. The soundscape was incredibly immersive. I remember literally moving my own head to try to peer around corners.

The Talos Principle for sure, and now i hear they're coming out with a sequel!

King's Quest III

It was the first game I remember playing solo without help, I really sunk my teeth into it. I was 8 and it had been released a few years prior, so it was also the first game I bought with my own money when I found it in a bargain bin at a computer convention show in the late 80s.

My Dad was busy and couldn't install it for me right away, so it was also the game that got me started using MS DOS (everything I ran prior was installed by my Dad and launched via [IIRC] WordPerfect Shell).

Yes, I'm old.

Baldur's Gate 1. It was my childhood game, i played it when i was 12 years old and it was amazing and very hard. I haven't progressed beyond the first chapter with the kobold's mine and Boo's quest but i enjoyed replaying it every summer, at the beggining.

And i finished it once for all when i was a student. The game was amazing. Time pause, speech, character creation...

And the second is the mmo Dofus, very cool turn based strategy game. :)

Freelancer. Exploring through the jump holes and all the beautiful systems in-game was very satisfying. Nothing else has really hit the spot.

The Longest Journey. Wonderful story, great voice acting, beautiful environment.

Ace Attorney trilogy, Hotel Dusk and its sequel and Time Hollow, visual novels are really an underrated genre.

Crash bandicoot

Grew up playing crash. Helped me connect with my siblings and it is still a comfort game for me despite being hard on players.

Bioshock

I had the wrong perception that fps games were dull and wasn't good for single player experience until I played bioshock.

Last of Us Had a big impact on me and made me realise writing is an important part in any medium.

Saints Row 2 and 3 I loved saints row because of how much it had to offer with clothes, vehicles and gameplay elements like melee, weapon and ability to taunt. I loved 3rd and liked the tone shift but was slightly disappointed by how much it lacked quality of life features like it's predecessor.

The original Starcraft.

First game I ever bought with my own money. It's a bargain bin edition I still own to this day, with a bug that prevents one level to be loaded and crashes the game.

Had to discover the cheat codes in a time where the internet was still dial up and not affordable for the average commoner.

Managed to finish the game nonetheless. Made such a great impression in me that cimented my passion for space science fiction.

Still not going to buy Starfield any time soon.

Sonic the Hedgehog and Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Super Metroid

Fallout 1 and 2

FF7

Time Crisis

Soul Blade

Quake

Tomb Raider

Persona 4 Golden!!!

Cybernator on SNES - I never even beat the second boss but the game always looked so cool. I should see if I can beat the second boss now...

Close Combat: A Bridge to Far. It's a real time strategy game with a larger regional map where you control simple supply lines and troop movement between battlefields. My two brothers and I would sit and watch each other play for hours because we just had the one computer back in the late 90's/early 2000's. We made a stupid rule that you had to be present to get your turn so we would often wait nearby for several hours for our chance at glory/survival.

Dear Esther made me realize games can be beautiful. The soundtrack is fantastic too.

Tank 1990.

I think it's a bootleg version of a Japanese game and came on a 200 games-in-one NES cartridge. I have good memories with my father before our relationship went to shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)

The Night of the Rabbit by Daedalic was the only video game that made me cry. I never felt like that because of a game ever since.

Games that I want my kids to play as soon as they are old enough:

Secret of Mana Ocarina of Time Diablo 2 Minecraft

Some Sega Genesis games when i was a kid, Streets of Rage, Sailormoon, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which i have never finished IDK maybe its the game that's a bit too hard or maybe I'm just too dumb.

Fast Forward to 2009, i played a game called The Mana World. It's my first and only experience with online game. I made some good friends on and from the game, i think the overall community is very nice and helpful. I got hooked leveling up and reached to level 93 in few months. Unfortunately i have to cut the game because i need to focus on my study. Still its my greatest memories with gaming!

Zork

Ocarina Time and Kingdom Hearts 2 were really big games that affected me

The Spyro Trilogy. All 3 games are brilliant and technological standouts for the era and has held up very well over the years.

But if we are going weird. Harry Potter 1 + 2 for GBC or PlayStation. They aren't good games, they are watered down clones of Pokemon and 3d Zelda respectively. But the theming and genera is such a perfect fit that I love them to this day. Plus the Jeremy Soule soundtrack is fantastic.

Mech Warrior on PC. The first one. Recruit wingmen, salvage mechs, negotiate with those cheap kurita bastards, regain your family's honor.

16 colors of line-rendered mecha in glorious 386 powered 3d.