What were your top favorite video games as a kid?
These could be games that left a lasting impression on you, games that had stellar gameplay mechanics, characters that captivated you, games that you played tons of hours on, etc.
These could be games that left a lasting impression on you, games that had stellar gameplay mechanics, characters that captivated you, games that you played tons of hours on, etc.
Secret of Mana on the SNES and Mario brothers 3.
A man of culture.
Secret of Evermore is also grossly underrated.
Finally found my people :)
Doom, wolfenstein, golden axe, warcraft 2, day of the tentacle. I am relatively old :D
I think you meant to say 'relatively based.' All of these are strong games.
They are. And I forgot the original prince of Persia. Masterpiece
Golden axe and PoP were great. I played a lot if Altered Beast aling with golden axe
Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter series, Ratcher and Clank series mostly. Most people usually associate childhood with Nintendo games but they're super rare in my country, I only ever got around to playing series like Zelda and Mario in the mid-2010s. For what it's worth the playstation 2 really was the console to have at the time, the games were amazing. Pretty sad Sony is reluctant to make good ports of them for the new generation.
Oh, and everyone I knew had House of the Dead 2 on the computer. Now that's a classic.
Replace Warcraft 2 and Quake 2 (Counterstrike 1.3 was my Quake) with Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Nox, and I was you.
I played Nox as well, but not so much. All those are great classics!
When I was a kid I used to walk to the movie store to rent games. I would go back every time I had money and rent Chrono Trigger, but some one would always erase my save, so I would have to start over.
On my birthday I got a check from my grandma that was for 50 dollars. I walked right up to the game store and slammed my check on the counter for one copy of Chrono Trigger. I didn't know how money, checks, or sales tax worked.
Luckily, my mom bailed me out. I played that game for years. I still have such fond memories of that game.
It's amazing that CT never spawned an ongoing franchise. Aside from the controversial CC, there have been no other followups or even remakes, only a remaster. It's like the platonic ideal of a JRPG, sitting alone and unsullied in the timestream.
Honestly though, how do you even follow it up? That game had a ridiculous dev team.
I love Chrono Trigger. I still listen to the OST at least once a month.
Without a doubt Morrowind for me.
Halo and Diablo also, in different genre.
Damnit I was hoping I was in fast enough to be the Morrowind fan girl post but you've already mentioned it lol. Still play Morrowind, my favorite game, and the primary reason I'm in the game dev field.
I wasn't even the first, someone else posted it also while I was typing my answer.
I didn't even re play it that much. I think in the end I probably have more playtime on Oblivion. But much better/stronger memories from Morrowind. It was maybe because I had less video game experience to compare it with, but this one clearly left a big mark on me. I still have incredible goosebumps when "the road most travelled" or "nerevar rising" sounds start playing from my playlists.
The gameplay maybe clunky compared to today, especially to combine weapon and magic. But everything else was so amazing for the time, and some part are still much better than recent games.
I even had a talk with someone at an "ai in game dev" conference who took as an exemple the way the diary/quest log of Morrowind was working.
Mario RPG was my favorite (yes Im eating good right now). I like describing it as a toy, there are so many things to be done for no other reason than to have fun, enabled by the fact you're a platformer character in a 3D fantasy world. You cant jump onto the store's counter in other RPG's of the time, but you get to in this game, and you're rewarded with being scolded by the shopkeep. You can jump on all the NPC's, on wedding cake, pianos, hyperactive kids, all the beds, catapults. Jumping is often times your response to NPC dialogue.
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Super Mario Sunshine
Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons/Ages
Golden Sun 1 and 2
These are the games that made my childhood great!
Golden sun games are so good. I wish that series would get a revival
Oh golden sun was such a gem. My parents bought it used for cheap and I had such low expectations - spent so many hours playing through the storyline as a kid it has to be the best playtime/$ investment in my lifetime so far.
Definitely going to go hunt down Golden Sun 2 now
Command and conquer.
Super Mario 3
Halo 1
Rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 2 (never 3)
Vigilante 8 second offense (twisted metal alternative)
Desert Strike for the Sega Genesis as wells the sequels urban strike and jungle strike. Badass attack helicopter saves the day.
Need for speed underground 2
Space cadet 3d pinball
T.H.U.G. 1 and 2
Monster Truck Madness for windows 95
Croc 1 and 2
Metal gear solid
Okay, how old am I? Lol
I'm gonna guess 37-39 depending on if you have older siblings or not.
Only child, but my best friend growing up was 3 years older than me. Surprisingly, I'm 33.
Mid thirties, cause you're younger than me. I was already in my sophomore year of university by the time halo came out, and I'm 43.
Yeah, I'm 33.
Heh, pacman and centipede.
I had the high score at the gas station nearest my house on the pacman machine until the place closed. Nobody could even get close in the local area. I would usually be in the top three at the arcade on both games, depending on whether or not I had access to time and money. None of my scores were high enough to be some kind of record, but I was the king of those two games in two counties. I'm not saying I could never get out-scored, I could. But I never had bad games, only less good, where the other players around would have way more bad than great games.
But I fucking loved pacman. The entire sensory assault of it was so damn satisfying. I was good at centipede (largely because of the trackball being very intuitive for me), but I liked it more because I was good at it than for the game itself.
Pacman though? Fuck, I'd spend hours playing it. I even had one of those old coleco mini versions that I got for Christmas one year. Which, I was not as good at, what with the difference in controls, but I still loved playing it until it died maybe ten years ago (seriously, that fucking thing lasted decades).
I was so fucking bummed when I couldn't find any place to play the real version. Later console versions didn't have the same joy for me. I've managed to luck into some time on restored machines here and there, though.
Past that, mario cart was big in our house when it came out. My sister was better at it on average, but we'd have some killer weekends playing it with our mom and friends. I never liked consoles much. The controls just didn't work for me.
So it wasn't until this century that I got back into harmony gaming at all. Mmorpgs are my thing, when I can do it (disability makes pc gaming sporadic). The first game I found that sucked me in was shaiya. It wasn't that great of a game overall. Heavily pay to win. But the story was good, and I had a great guild.
Then it was on to war and battle of the immortals. Mid tier games, but I liked the world setting.
Then, I found neverwinter and that was my game. I haven't been happy with anything else since. I don't really play any more, but that was the perfect mmo for me. The d&d world, with an intuitive and fun control setup. The classes and races were fairly well balanced. The graphics were fucking bonkers for the era too. It just made me happy. It still kinda does, but I don't have the time or stamina these days.
Pokemon gold and silver + smash bros
Freelancer
Transport Tycoon
The Guild (Europa 1400)
Empire Earth
Anno 1602 + 1503
Monkey Island
Heroes of Might and Magic 3+
Pokemon
C&C Generals
Stronghold
Star Wars Jedi Knight
Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat + Vietnam
World of Warcraft
Oh how could I forget Transport Tycoon! What a classic. I will fire it up occasionally to this day.
Intellivision (Intelligang REPRESENT):
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: cloudy Mountain
Lock ‘N Chase
Astrosmash
NES:
Maniac mansion
NES Spider-Man.
NES TMNT 2
Arcade Simpsons
Sim City and Sim City 2000, on the school’s Apple Macintosh computers.
SC 2000 was amazing!
Morrowind
3D Pinball Space Cadet
Pokémon Blue
Pokémon Colosseum, Super Mario Sunshine, Ratchet and Clank, Mass Effect
StarCraft
Super Mario world
Body harvest
Super smash brothers
Halo
Smash Bros N64. Every day at lunchtime, we would inhale our food as fast as possible so we had a chance to play a few rounds
Also Goldeneye N64
I can't believe that this is the first and only mention of Goldeneye. Though it was eclipsed by Perfect Dark, those two were the best console fps games until Halo came out and finally figured out the controls.
NES: Super Mario Bros 1 and 3, TMNT 2, Galaga and Contra (with Konami code)
SMB1 was my first game ever
Last 2 I played with my dad while friends played SMB3 and TMNT
Hell yeah Contra! I can still hear the restart screen!
One that never really took off for the N64 almost surely because the controls were so fucked - Jetforce Gemini.
Those who took the time to tolerate and master the janky controls were rewarded with a shooter that was otherwise second to none. AND YES THAT INCLUDES 007!
Hearing the music cranks the nostalgia up to 10 immediately.
On PC I must've spent thousands of hours playing The Sims, the first and second ones. They had fantastic soundtracks and were very chill experiences where you couldn't really lose and didn't rely on reflexes or strategy. Above all else I've always enjoyed being able to build cool houses. I would barely even play with the Sims themselves, I was mostly just creating families to not leave my houses empty. I had entire neighbourhoods made from scratch, all with wildly different houses with wildly different people living in them. I lost all my data a couple of times but I always kept the CD around with the key code written on it so I'd just reinstall and start rebuilding from scratch (that disc is probably still in my bedroom somewhere). Just selecting an empty lot and spending an entire afternoon building a cool house on it, then making a family to live there and putting all the furniture in place. Rinse and repeat, life was good.
I'd later go on to play other games that allowed me to build stuff trying to scratch that same creative itch. Mostly other Maxis games such as SimCity 3000 and Spore (never got into Sims 3 as it didn't run well on my PC) but also Minecraft, which was all the rage and would go on to consume countless hours of my life. A few years later I also tried Sims 4, which did run well (on a newer computer tbf), but also felt so limited with the small fixed-view non-customizable neighbourhoods. It's baffling to me that 4 couldn't have the same features 2 had a decade earlier. Oh well, at least the building tools are much better than 2's, so there was that.
Tl;dr: I like The Sims. The first couple ones, not the last couple ones.
My understanding is the The Sims 4 was originally going to be a Sims MMO style game. After Sim City flopped they scrapped that idea and turned it into a single player game, but the foundation had already been set up in a way the critically limited it. Even graphically it was only a side-grade (I think downgrade personally) from The Sims 3, but 3 could do so much more since it was designed to be a single player game. If you haven't played 3, I'd give it a go. It's so much better than what 4 can ever be. I'd say hoist the black flag though, because fuck supporting that company. Your money is better given to someone else who cares about their workers and their passions.
Since WoW, I didn't play much strategy games I used to play, but it changed this year when I started play a lot of TFT.
PC: Dune 2, Prince of Persia, Doom
Amiga 500: Turrican, Turrican II, Lemmings, Lemmings II
Arcade: R-Type, R-Type 2, Street fighter 2
super breakout on the 2600 was the game in our house when i was a kid. mom was the champ, though, forever and always. aided by the weeks of practice she got ahead of everyone else as she'd get it out and play at night before santa brought it
It was Arkanoid for me.
i wanted to like arkanoid and its variants on the c64, but all the ones i uh.. 'acquired'.. used joysticks, not paddles; and joysticks are just wrong for that type of game.
Jak and Daxter, Crash, and the Lego Star Wars games for sure.
I also loved Wii Sports, Pokemon, and Mario Kart.
Edit: Also admittedly Call of Duty was a big one for me. Stopped playing after MW3.
Golden Eye, Perfect Dark, Time Splitters
We grew up poor but my parents managed to get us an nes. We had a half a dozen games we'd trade back and forth with friends.
Megaman 3, Jackal, fist of the north star, Batman, street fighter 2010, TMNT, are some of the great games I grew up on
I was a beast at Jackal. Could play that game without dying easily, and made up my own lyrics to the music. (I remember one song was about Colgate Jr.)
I think I loved how in so many games getting hit by any enemy meant death. But here you could run over guys. Fun game.
Anyone said Worms 2 yet?
Fuckin hell, that was hilarious while stoned as fuck.
Don't think they ever surpassed that one
Armageddon and World Party were pretty decent.
Well, in early 90s it was NES games: Darkwing Duck, Super Contra 6, Robocop 4, Battle city. Then, in lately 90s it was PC games: Half-Life, Warcraft 2.
Super Mario 3. Street fighter. Mario Kart. GoldenEye. Warcraft 2. Diablo 2. Ocarina of time.
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, still the single best computer gaming representation of an epic D&D campaign, edging out even Baldur's Gate 1-3 in my opinion.
Ultima 7: an RPG built around the goal of immersing the player completely into the game world, eschewing any straightforward gameplay loops. If only the Ultima series had continued going strong, like the Elder Scrolls, rather than fizzling out with 8 and 9...
Tetris, backyard baseball & football, Pokemon yellow, age of empires II, and command & conquer red alert II.
Duke Nukem 3D, Morrowind, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Age of Mythology, the Sims 2. Diablo 2
Megadrive - Gain Ground, Sonic 1&2, World of Illusion
PS1 - Toy Story 2, Rayman 1&2, FFVII, Rugrats, Tony Hawks 1-4
Gameboy/Color - Pokemon Blue, Tetris, Rayman, Tweety - Around the World in 80 days
PS2 - Kingdom Hearts 1&2, GTA 3,VC&SA, Need for Speed Undeground 1&2, Tony Hawks Underground & American Wasteland, Jak 1-3, Sims Bustin Out
GBA - Pokemom Fire Red
Xbox - Halo 2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, KOTOR 1&2, Fable, Prince of Persia Warrior Within, *Fahrenheit
Gamecube - Wind Waker, Sonic Adventure 2, Mario Sunshine, Luigis Mansion (I didnt have a gamecube as a kid but was enamroed by these at a friends house)
DS - Mario 64 DS, Pokemon Diamond. New Super Mario Bros, Worms Open Warfare, Sims 2
PSP - FFVII Crisis Core, FF1, Cars, Daxter, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Puzzle Quest
Wii - Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Guitar Hero 3
360 - Rockband 1-3, Guitar Hero World Tour & 5, Halo 3, Battlefield Bad Company, Mass Effect, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, Far Cry 2, Assassins Creed 1-3, GTA IV
PC - Rome Total War, Empires Dawn of the Modern World, Black & White 2, The Movies, Sims 1-2 (I liked 3 too but I was older than a kid then), Spore
Lines are a bit blurred at a certain point for 360 and PSP to when I wouldve no longer been a kid and more of a late teenager or whatever.
As an adult I've looped back around to the DS. Never really appreciated it as a young teenager but it has an amazing library. Ace Attorney and Devil Survivor have racked up a lot of play time from me in the past few years.
Yeah I'm currently playing the DS at the moment after getting a DSi recently. Trying to play some that I didn't know about as a kid like Hotel Dusk
Adventure on the Atari 2600. Pitfall on the same system.
Sinistar and Mr. Do! in the arcade.
ETA: Ultima IV on the Commodore 64
IDK if you know, but Ultima IV is free on gog.com always... with V and VI being super cheap as well.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/ultima\_4
Have you seen MoonRing? It was released like.. weeks ago. It's very Ultima inspired game from one of the original devs on Fable.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373630/Moonring/
Oh... and it's free as well.
Cool, did not know about U4 on GOG. Thanks for that.
And yes. I have MoonRing now. Someone posted it here on kbin/lemmy a couple/few weeks ago.
Edit: a word
Warcraft 3, Age Series (AoE, AoE2, AoM, AoE3), Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005)
I played the first age of empires when I was 6 or 7 y/o and I've played all of the games besides AoE4 (including Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds).
As a kid we had few crappy dell computers connected to just a hub (LAN without internet) and would play a lot of Age of Empires 2 and C&C Red Alert 1 & 2 multiplayer.
Age of Empires and Red Alert were also games I would frequently play at small LAN parties (although everyone was really bad)
I played a bit of online AoE2 when AoE2 HD came out on steam but it was pretty bad so I stopped playing it. When DE came out I started watching AoE2 content but I'll never play it because I've come to greatly dislike Microsoft over the years.
I've replayed Need for Speed Most Wanted (and also Carbon) tens of times over the years, and I still play it every now and then (with mods now)
But the game I've played the most is probably Warcraft 3. I've played a ton of custom games on Battle.net (RIP) and it's what got me a bit into programming since I liked making custom maps and making triggers eventually led me to learn JASS (Just Another Scripting Language)
If Blizzard didn't completely ruin Warcraft 3 with WC3
ReforgedRefunded I'd probably still be playing it and making custom maps every so often.I have played a bit on private servers but it's just not the same anymore.
There's a pretty cool Warcraft 3 open source project called Warsmash though so maybe one day I'll start playing again.
I forgot all about Age of Empires. I used to play the shit out of AoE 1 and 2 and also cossacks European wars and rise of nations.
Super Metroid (SNES)
Final Fantasy VI (aka III in US on SNES)
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Eternal Darkness (GameCube)
Diablo 2, Black & White, Star Craft, Lords of the Realm 2, Twisted Metal, Tony Hawk Pro Skater....many I've forgotten.
I call Spectre!
I've got a really fond spot in my heart for The Neverhood. It really opened my young eyes to the possibility that video games could be weird and artistic. They didn't have to be an action packed generic mainstream capitalization of whatever is popular at the moment. As a kid, I could still tell it was a unique piece of work that required a lot of passion and creativity. I consider it the first indie game I ever played and it absolutely set the tone for what I chose to play to this day.
I still listen to the soundtrack nearly three decades later.
Thank you for mentioning this. My personal favorite was Skullmonkeys. High school in the ‘90s was a wild place.
One game that I loved and never see too many people commenting on was Tomba!, specifically Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return.
MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat
The Remembrance speaks to us on the evil of man's will, of the reasons for Exodus, and the Rites of the Traveler. Arcadia is our destiny and our right. Enlightenment is our gift. By the Bloodnames of the founders we must return, return and protect that which is unique among the stars. Terra awaits us as it was written. We are the last of the Wardens, the sole hope for the Earth.
Wolves still prowl
Become warden, help to protect the word.
I still have the Clan wolf propaganda flyer the game came with and it turned into a lifelong hobby, I'm still making my way through all the Battletech novels.
House Davion was the first house I fought for on the SNES
Mega Man 2 Earthworm Jim Sonic 3 & Knuckles Smash Melee NBA Jam: TE
Transport Tycoon Deluxe was amazing, as a kid it took me so long to understand how the game worked (being from a non-English speaking country it was mostly trial and error) but once i understood i spent hours on it every day. I still remember the excitement of completing my first campaign, and getting the pop-up message in 2050 that I won the game, such a wonderful feeling.
There is an open source remake of it called OpenTTD available on steam, which is the same game with quality of life improvements, better graphics (as far as pixel style games go), and lots of customizability options that I still play to this day, it still is one of my favourite games of all time
OpenTTD is fantastic. But after playing Banished and ONI (among others) it is just too easy. There is no real challenge unfortunately...
I mean I personally prefer not too difficult of a challenge, as I don't have all that much time to play games. But another really cool thing I like about OpenTTD is the fact that you can choose what kind of AI opponents to play against, from a big pool of community created AI's, which can allow for really difficult challenges sometimes. Like if the AI builds fast, with all the different vehicles available and you don't allow yourself to buy them out, it can get really difficult, and you can make the game as fun as you want it to be
F-15 Strike Eagle on the C-64
The original Tie Fighter.
Simpler times.
Civilization, Marathon, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and F/A-18 Hornet
Falcon 3.0 was my first taste of sims. The manual alone was so hefty and captivating.
Gridder for C64
Sonic, streets of rage, tekken 2 and 3. Original gta, WWF attitude. Crash bandicoot.
GoldenEye , Diddy Kong racing and Mario kart.
GTA 3 , Vice city and San Andreas. Halo 1-3, Kotor 1-2, mass effect trilogy. Wipeout games. Skate 3, OG tony hawk games. Original modern warfare 2, morrowind, oblivion and skyrim. Final fantasy 7,8,9 and 10, also the splinter cell series.
Thats all that comes to mind but I would have spent a good amount of time on them throughout the years.
Battletoads (NES) I have a few but I want to call out this as it gets memed for it's difficulty - and it was difficult - but not "can't pass level 3 speeder bikes" difficult!
The game looked great, had extremely tight controls and had an insane amount of level variety! Each of the 12 levels was unique, from platforming, rappelling, biking, surfing, flying, racing, swimming, and even weird ass wall clingers! And they all played well - It also had the most banging pause music ever haha!
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth
Super Mario Bros 3 is probably the first game that comes to mind as I was finally old enough to really get excited for specific games, and that one was hugely anticipated at the time. The whole game blew my 7 year old mind (think thats the math at least). Up until that point it was mostly grabbing games based on their box art at the rental place, or based on what looked cool in those displays in Toys R Us. And you played those whether they were good or not. That wasn't the case with SMB3 though.
Super Mario World is probably the next example, for similar reason as above but even bigger and better. Then into the Donkey Kong Country games. Final Fantasy VI was another game that blew me away when I first saw it. That intro was crazy when you still considered the SNES a new platform. Pokemon Blue for the Pocket I got specifically to play it.
Played lots of the original Diablo, though I was terrible at it back then. Actually didn't like Diablo 2 that much when it was first released, but got into it again years later. Baldur's Gate 2 was fun for a while, but never beat it (and didn't play the first until much later). Lords of Magic was a game I played the crap out of but was terrible at the game as well.
If we are just talking about time played then games like Baseball Stars, Excitebike, Track and Field with the Power Pad, etc. You just played the shit out of every game you owned back then. Because you only got them once or twice a year.
FPS by age: Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Blood, Duke3D, Shadow Warrior, Quake, Tribes 2, Counter-Strike.
RTS by age: Dune 2, C&C, Tiberium Sun, Red Alert, Red Alert 2, WarCraft 2, StarCraft, Warcraft 3
Sim by age: Conway's Game of Life, SimCity, SimCity 2000, The Sims, The Sims 2
Strategy by age: Civilization, Civilization 2, Masters of Orion
RPG by age: Final Fantasy 2 (4), Chrono Trigger, Pools of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima Online, EverQuest, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind
Adventure by age: Pitfall, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, King's Quest, Space Quest, Tomb Raider, Grim Fandango
Honorable mentions: Microsurgeon, E.T., AD&D Minotaur's Labyrinth, Golden Axe, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ecco the Dolphin, Eternal Champions, Android Pinball, Solar Winds, Detroit (not Become Human; it was a car making sim on DOS), Crusader: No Remorse
Apparently we had the exact same childhood.
Castlevania 1-3 & Symphony of the Night,
Lemmings,
The Adventures of Lolo 2 & 3,
The Incredible Machine (and any clones),
Silent Hill 1-3,
Heroes of Might & Magic 3,
Zelda 1-3,
Tetris,
Bubble Bobble,
Super Mario Bros. 3 & World,
Nethack,
Tomb Raider 1-3,
Dungeon Keeper 2,
Theme Park,
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1-3,
Rayman, Command & Conquer: Red Alert,
Megaman 2 & 3,
Metroid,
Solstice (NES),
Metal Gear Solid
The original Spyro was my absolute favorite as a kid, also enjoyed crash bandicoot, ratchet and clank, and the jak and daxter series. The don’t make adventure games like they used to imo so now I do a lot of strategy and sim games as I’m obviously old now
Early 2000s Xbox, so I grew up on Psychonauts, Blinx the Time Sweeper, Blinx 2, Jet Set Radio Future, and Spider-Man 2 (the movie game).
Red Alert 2 & Yuri's Revenge are my favorite games of all time. I sunk so much time as a kid beating the campaign and then making custom maps and levels for fun. The installer and the cut scenes were so memorable. It also had an amazing sound track. It was also one of the few RTS I tried at the time where the game didn't feel like it took forever. For contrast I remember playing some C&C and also Dune 2000 as a kid and I remember each campaign easily taking over an hour to complete. I also remember it got kind of boring fast.
Aside from those some other honorable mentions:
Sonic Mega Collection was a game I absolutely loved and provided a ton of hours of my free time when I felt like playing it. That, and around middle school I got really into Borderlands 1 and have been in love since.
Sid Meier's pirates for c64
I'm thinking about the games I played in my childhood that influenced what I like to play now, so it might be only halfway relevant to the question.
First monster collector: Pokemon Blue. Digimon World 1 was also one of my favourites, because of how real it felt, like a real monster. The one other monster game I really got into as a child was Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, I think I played Cobi's journey. It helped that a lot of my friends were playing it.
First builder: Simcity 3000. Started my lifelong love for city builders, even though I'm not great at them per se.
Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper 2 were my introduction to management sims and also my favourites for a long time.
As a kid I absolutely loved this RTS called Warbreeds because of the ability to graft any weapon onto any unit. Nowadays though I just find such mechanics fiddly, but as a kid it felt so sci-fi. In terms of time spent playing, though, the standout RTS was probably Starcraft.
I also played on a lot of MUDs as a kid. Wheel of Time (but had never read the books), Discworld (but had also never read the books), Aardwolf and I think one or two others. I was amazed at how it felt like I could do so much (even though most of the "free" actions were just emotes.
My first graphical MMO was I think Maplestory, which was a huge part of my social life as a kid. I think I miss the feeling of being part of a big community than the MMO experience itself, honestly. Nowadays when I try getting into MMOs it feels like that feeling of being a part of a giant community of people is gone.
Super Mario 64. I have the best memories from. I got an N64 and Mario 64 on Christmas the year it came out.
Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Metroid prime, Unreal tournament, Minecraft, most of the 3d Zeldas, warcraft 3, smash bros melee
Pitfall, Advdnture and Defender on the Atari 2600.
I can't belive someone else mentioned this!
This is by far not my favorite game, but one that distinctly remember. I didn't have any video game systems before I was 10, so my uncle let me borrow his. I played this sooo much before I had to give it back.
Did you play all those games?
I still have my old Atari 2600...and the TV I played it on.
There are also several Atari Flashback units around for retro gaming greatness.
Ps2: GTA sanandreas, gauntlet dark legacy, onimusha2( mostly watched my older brother play), need for speed underground2, midnight club2, resident evil 4(also just watched my brother play), On WII: redsteell, super samsh bros brawl, mario galaxy, mario kart, On pc: world of warcraft online, club penguin and flash games in general
Now you've got me longing for my old Atari back. My top 3 games by a country mile were:
Supercars 2 - must have played it through a thousand times.
Ellie Frontier - sank many hours in to it despite never being very good at combat.
Sensible soccer - one of the most fun games I've ever played. Would often play with my step dad. Some epic matches.
These days you can emulate old consoles almost perfectly, with a lot of quality of life improvements. The whole memory can be written and retrieved in milliseconds so you can save everywhere and anywhere.
Retropi.org.uk
A raspberry pi 4 can emulate any console up to the N64. I'm still running a pi 3. The 3 can't do the N64 well. I'm unsure how good the pi 4 is with the graphics of the N64.
I can run basically any game published before 1995. It's just a matter of finding roms. They used to be easy to get, but Nintendo got angry with websites that were hosting them. So now you have to dig a little more to get them.
Star wars Jedi knights games for sure. Asheron's Call also got a lot of playtime as my first MMORPG. Tony hawk pro skater 2.
Do you remember which server you played for AC?
It was so long ago, I honestly can't recall. I remember playing on one of the pve servers for a while before moving to a pvp server.
Edit: Did you play as well?
I did! I played on Harvestgain server (and then near its end I moved to a PvP server)
Pretty sure my first major video game was Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and it started my fascination for cars.
My favorite game from my childhood would probably be Mafia 1 though, I still replay it like once a year. Halo CE is a close second.
Mario kart Street fighter 2. Super Mario world Tetris Dr Mario AND Dr ronitniks mean bean machine. Sonic 1+2
Now playing sf6 and buying son Mario kart and switch for Xmas.
Suprised no one has mentioned Minecraft yet. That's probably it for me.
I figure most of us on here were teens or adults when Minecraft came out, leading to why no one has mentioned it yet. Great game back in the day though.
Which suprises me. Someone who was a kid when Minecraft came out would be 25 now. I wonder what the age demographics are like on Lemmy.
Among my most memorable:
Bubble bobble
Castlevania
Metroid prime
Also as a kid remember playing some old school ghostbusters game that consisted of mashing a button over and over as quickly as possible.
Mega Man X on the snes was my favorite for the console, the day I got to play the first time I managed to beat Chill Penguin, Spark Mandrill and Armored Armadillo. I couldn't for the life of me, for the next 5 or so hours, beat any other boss. That I played that long without any progress probably shows my dedication.
Donkey Kong Country 2 was my second fave. Never managed to "legally" get all 75 kremcoins, or beat all the 5 special stages back then. Hell, even getting to the final world was a challenge back then.
On the ps1, Mega Man Legends 1 and X5. I'm only counting the games I played when I was "a kid" (< 12yo). I still love most Mega Man games.
I personally maintain that the first Megaman X is the best game ever made. The controls are so tight, even modern developers have a hard time achieving something similar, the progression is straight up perfect, the story is great and the blend of easy/hard secrets allows for a lot of replayability for a game that old.
The original Genesis Sonic trilogy was a constant replay for me as a kid and even on occasion now as an adult. I loved the visuals, the music, learning how to master every level, playing as the different characters. It was all so good to me.
As someone who only got into retro RPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger as an adult, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was the first game to show me how games could tell an epic story. There is a reason it was held up as one of the greatest games ever made during its heyday and even holds up well now. It had huge varied environments for its time, memorable scenes and characters, and IMO a perfect difficulty curve to its dungeons and puzzles. Even after playing many of the later Zelda games, it remained my favorite Zelda game until Breath of the Wild.
And of course, the original Smash Bros 64 started off the ultimate fun party game series, my siblings and I spent hundreds or even thousands of hours playing Smash 64 and Melee growing up.
Tomb raider, AOE, command and conquer. Those kinda games
Crash Bandicoot Warped and Toy Story 2 for PS1, I come back to the latter multiple times per year yet.
Ha, I recently saw that Toy Story 2 was in the retro library of my PlayStation Premium subscription. Invited my brother over and we spent the next day or two running thru it. Clunky as hell these days but still weirdly endearing enough to be just as much fun as we remembered.
Do you really feel that it is clunky? Heck I think it aged beautifully lol.
I mean, yeah it is lacking a second joystick to move the camera on a 3D game... But still...
Yeah, just a tad bit too much for me to have a "smooth" experience. But not enough to be unenjoyable or anything. Not at all. I had a blast and I'm absolutely going to enjoy my next emulated playthrough when the inspiration strikes.
Pokemon (1st gen and 2nd gen -- plus some of the spin-off stuff from that era to a lesser extent) captivated me in a way no other games have before or since. Honestly, I hope nothing ever grabs me that hard again; it's kind of scary how obsessed I was in retrospect.
A number of N64 games also made a big impact on me. Majora's Mask was probably my second favorite game (after Pokemon) for many years. (OoT made an impression too, but I played MM first.) I loved the music in Diddy Kong Racing. I got 120 stars in Mario 64, and when I tried it again as an adult, I really appreciated how short and to the point levels could be (not that I played that way as a kid) -- also the camera in that game sucked. Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness kind of disturbed me a bit as a kid, but it's probably the first game I encountered a sort of "New Game Plus" in, which was neat. (People have since told me that's the "black sheep" of the series and that it's really weird that that's the only one I've played significantly.)
Duke Nukem 3D was the first game I modded, I think (very simple graphical stuff). Definitely wasn't age appropriate but I played the heck of it anyway. Didn't really get much into other shooters other than playing through the main game of Perfect Dark on N64 and playing split-screen Golden Eye with friends.
I also played a lot of Sim\ games -- particularly SimCity 2000, SimEarth, and SimTower. Also had a bunch of others like SimFarm and even some of the more obscure ones like SimSafari. Streets of SimCity and SimCopter being able to load SC2K maps was really neat though. Played a fair amount of other city builders and simulation games like Caesar III and Roller Coaster Tycoon too. My parents probably hoped I'd become some sort of business manager. :p
I had a lot of creative tools back then as well which I treated as not-that-different from video games. Various Kid Pix programs (one of which had a bunch of odd video clips integrated -- including a short documentary about jackalopes of all things), Kid's Studio, Digital Chisel, some version of HyperCard, etc. Game Maker -- which I found around the year 2000 back when it was still on www.cs.uu.nl -- ultimately led me to being a professional programmer.
Mario RPG, half life 2, and Halo 1, those are easily my top 3 games.
Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. The open-world gameplay melted my adolescent brain after growing up on NES games. I haven't stopped playing such games since, and I still go back and play them again occasionally.
Go for the eyes Boo!!
Not really my favorite, but I never see these games listed in places like this, so I'm going to be the change I want to see in the thread.
Check out Lufia and Lufia II for the Super Nintendo. It's crazy how underrated these ended up being, and how good they were. I've played them semi recently, as SNES games go, and the second one still holds up well. The first is good, but feels a little more dated.
Recently set up a Recalbox on a Retroflag box. Will check these out. Thanks for the recommendation.
Pokemon Blue
Metal Storm, Super Mario 3, Street Fighter 2, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Jet Moto, Final Fantasy Tactics
When I was a kid, I felt pretty confident no video game would ever top Dragon Quest 4 (known as Dragon Warrior 4 to me, at the time).
It has been since surpassed, but I do still think it's pretty damn excellent.
Other big games for me were Ultima Online, later World of Warcraft.
Prior to those MMOs though, I was a big MUD (multi-user dungeon) player. I used to connect to Arythia.org via zMUD or old telnet and spend hours at a time playing and chatting with people in the entirely text-based proto-MMO
Edit: typos and a clarification added
As a kid, probably Lode Runner. It ran on my pc. Some arcade games were fun. I enjoyed Asteroids. Colossal Cave, and the Infocom games like Planetfall were fun too. Though what really hooked me was Doom. It was the first real 3d FPS game and it blew my mind. It's been my favorite genre ever since.
Super Mario Bros., Balloon Fight, that one Robocop game for the NES, Sonic The Hedgehog and a top-down strategy shooter for the Genesis/Mega Drive that I can't remember the name of.
Pong.
Ooh, there were a couple of them.
Pokemon Blue/Yellow/Gold
Theme Park World (never see this mentioned anywhere??)
Diablo II
Warcraft 3
Mario Kart Double Dash
Super Smash Melee
XG2 (Extreme G 2)
Screamer 2
F-Zero GX
Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit
These are the ones I can remember right off the bat, might add some more if I remember them.
and about a hundred more, probably. These are all on the ZX Spectrum. No one else start out in the early 80s with a Spectrum or Commodore 64 or Dragon or whatever?!
Looks like I'm one of the oldest here (Pacman guy presumably older)...
Battlefront & battlefront 2 first and foremost for sure. Classic battles for socializing, space battles for crash fun, single player galactic conquest
Battle for Middle Earth 2. Big improvement over 1 and you could play as anyone, although Men was outrageously overpowered
Unreal Tournament 1999
Starcraft: Broodwar. We were shitty turtle players, but so much fun
Warcraft 3 (mostly dota, twilight's eve, and TD)
CS 1.6 and CS:S
Mario kart double dash
super smash Bros melee
Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones
Pokemon Emerald
They don't make games like that anymore, but then again, it is definitely 75% nostalgia and the good times with friends that I had during those years instead of the actual games.
Now we are stuck playing CS2 online getting rolled by kids on shitty comp servers with 100+ ping 1 day per month or so because there is a 7 hour time difference now. Because online games without sweaty, toxic communities are pretty far in between. Miss the days when video games were fun lol
UT 99 was the best. So much fun with Pulse Rifle combos! CS beta 8 was the end of a era.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 1, 2, and 3 when I was quite young. In my teens it was Minecraft.
IK+ was where it was AT
X-COM: UFO Defense (1993) Fallout 2
The game that had the single biggest effect on my current taste has to be Another World.
Lasting impression top 5:
Great Gianna Sisters, Last Ninja 2, Castles, Loom, Moraff's World
Two games on the C64: "The Castles of Dr. Creep" and "Elite". The first was a jump-and-run platform game with incredibly simple and lowres graphics, but perfect for two cooperating players. The second was the absolute classic space game by Braben and Bell.
Played a lot of games... But the NES didn't really have that many standouts for me. I could write an extensive list of games I played for a lot of hours but out of the raft of games there wasn't many that particularly were a favorite more like a dichotomy of whether each bit of the list enjoyable and not. The SNES was definitely Super Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country and Chronotrigger but it was the N64 that got me games that I replayed like crazy.
Zelda Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Super Smash Bros, Harvest Moon 64, Snowboard Kid's 2 and Diddy Kong Racing made the top of that list. Those were fucking awesome games.
By the time I got a PS2 I was technically an adult and Nintendo never really recaptured my heart like it did when I was a kid. I have been a playstation loyalist since then but that N64 still has a spot in my basement.
Think Quick! immediately comes to mind as the an early one I played a lot of, followed by Mines of Titan.
I am not sure I could go through the 90's games that left lasting impressions on me. I guess Homeworld, Sacrifice, Marathon, Alpha Centauri, and Chrono Trigger have occupied a massive amount of my mind for ages now, haha.
I wasn't able to start gaming until I was around like 12, but when I did, I loved a game called Dungeon Defenders on the Xbox 360. Came out in 2011, so it's not nearly as old as most of the games listed here.
Dungeon Defenders was actually full of modded accounts on the Xbox, and they distributed loot everywhere that did like a billion damage and one shot everything (yet somehow I still sucked at the harder maps lol). I could never enjoy the game now with all the modded shit, but back then it was fucking awesome. It's the game that got me into modding and is the reason I'm as computer savvy as I am today, so it will always be a fond memory in my head.
Dungeon Defenders was a fantastic game. Too bad DD2 flopped, and now there's barely anyone playing.
Street fighter and Mario kart 64.
Awesome (psygnosis on the Amiga) and probably Parsec on the ti 99 4/a. Yes i’m old
Spyro. Hard stop. Beat over 100% several times. Loved the platform mechanics, the visuals, the humor, and the sense of wonder. Lovely games that basically scratches that itch of a mobile collecting game but with a story to follow and purpose for doing it.
The Halo franchise is also up there but i actually was just one of the people that just built maps in forge for custom game modes and think that was super fun, limits that made me more creative with how i built the maps. Then to see them get played and filled with people was always so fun.
Chase HQ on the famicom is one of the first games I've ever played and I especially loved playing it on the arcade even though I wasn't very good at it. Chrono Trigger is the other game that I still love.
Adventure of Link
Ultimately V
Ultimately VI
Wing Commander
I guess I really liked Origin.
Lemmings, AoE, RCT
syphon filter and syphon filter 2. The multiplayer against my cousin where we just ran around and throw grenades at each other was just pure fun.
the first syphon filter was so mind blowing as a teen.
Nox. It's a computer game by Westwood Studios.
golden sun, pokemon, fat princess, time commander,
Crusader: No Remorse and it's sequel. FMV cut scenes, isometric shenanigans. I would love a modern day remake that obviously isn't a shitty cash grab.
There's something special about those old FMV games. Sega CD had a bunch. Megarace is another that always comes to mind. And Mad Dog McCree!
PS2 really had the bangers.
FFX, Devil May Cry series, and MGS3 were awesome.
Moved over to the 360 and played MW2 / Halo 3 with the bros in highschool.
Oh yeah dmc was realy good though i just watched my brother play it, i only actually played last year with the hd collection
The second game is torture but i finished somehow