Kbin: What is your all time favourite video game?

The Outer Wilds. IMO, non-violence-based gameplay design is an underexplored space, especially in 3-D games. The Outer Wilds manages to feel like a fully-fledged game, rather than a traditional walking simulator, using exploration as it's core gameplay loop.

Further, it's main progression system is you, the out-of-game player, learning about the world. There's no abilities you gain or keys you have to find. You unlock new areas, not as a programmed game mechanic, but as a function of reasoning about what you've discovered and gaining insight into how the game world works. Any playthrough could be beaten in about 15 minutes -- there's nothing physically blocking you from triggering the end of the game -- but it takes you 15 hours or so of flying around the solar system to accrue the necessary insight to get there.

It's really a special game.

Elder Scrolls III Morrowind. Everything in that game feels so different than anything else, including the other Elder Scrolls.

Ocarina of Time.

Titanfall 2 is the most fun I've had with a video game. The movement is so amazingly fluid, it's like Quake or Unreal Tournament but with more verticality, and then there's the Titans themselves, which feel like awesome weapons of war, yet not insurmountable to a skilled pilot on foot. Everything from the gameplay balance to the mechanics to the visuals and sound design is incredible, and the single-player story was very touching and exactly long enough to satisfy you without overstaying its welcome. I'm gutted that we're probably never getting a Titanfall 3.

Mass Effect. The one game I wish I could entirely erase my memory of and do it all again. <3

Definitely the original portal.

I'm generally not an FPS guy, but the puzzle game in the FPS format was really cool to see.

And when you finally do beat the game you can't help but think...

"This is a triumph"

Satisfactory.

I love making efficient systems and the freedom to do things the way I want to, such as by using the game's alternate recipe system.

The exploration and movement systems in the game are also to notch. It's not quite Titanfall, but I struggle to think of any other game where simply moving around is so fun. That's on top of how pretty the actual environment is to explore.

Super Mario World

Tetris. Tetris is the King.

This was a tough one, but I think I've finally settled on Super Mario Kart.

It's not the best game in the franchise, but I think it's still my favourite, and the game I still have the most hours put into ever.

It's been 30 years of play now, and ongoing.

Stardew valley

The thing that made me fall in love with classic video games: SMB3 (NES)

Favorite game that got me into the next iteration: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. With a nice helping of a Perfect Dark as a palette cleanser.

More modern: I've got about 1000 hours into Skyrim and have played Diablo 3 more than I'd like to admit.

I'm massively looking forward to Starfield.

I can't really name a single one that would be THE one. But the one I returned to the most over the years was the original Dragon Quest Monsters.

I had it on my Game Boy since I was in elementary school and even then played through it multiple times. Later I played through it multiple times on emulators. I just love this game so much.

It has a lot of flaws, starting with the limitations of a Game Boy game, but later games and other monster collectors never captured my heart like this one did.

Tough choice as there are a lot of games I love, but I think I’d pick The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It’s definitely my favourite in the Zelda series.

Freespace 2 (I’m old). Still one of the most compelling story’s I’ve enjoyed in a video game to date.

Final Fantasy VII (the original)

EarthBound

The games that started it all for me: Mega Man 2, Earthbound

The games I've played the most: Rocket League, Starcraft

All time favorite playthroughs: Portal 2, Skyrim, Halo 3, Ghosts of Tsushima, RDR2

Super Mario 64!

Dishonored, I absolutely adore that game, and it still looks so good because of the art direction they took with it. Funny enough, it was the same art director as Half Life 2

Jagged Alliance 2

Mine are purely sentimental and I don’t expect anyone to agree, but the original monkey island, the original fallout or Baldurs Gate 1. They all have arguably better sequels but playing those games for the first time was something else.

I wouldn't live where I live if it weren't for Team Fortress 2. So I'll have to say that.

Super Metroid. Still holds up after so long.

I’m probably weird when I say Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn. At first a failed game that became a labor of love by the people that took it over. It took multiple years and expansions for it to come to a “conclusion” and the once i finished it, I was very satisfied.

To me it’s similar to the Marvel project up until the conclusion of the Thanos arc. I’m not the biggest marvel fan or much of a Disney fan. I do really respect the courage it takes to throw that many years at a project and trust it almost all the way.

FFXIV feels like that. It has that final fantasy marriage of interesting yet somewhat complex story with a message that makes you think. Its an MMO but honestly you can enjoy it up until the conclusion of End Walker with a couple of friends and some queuing up for the story fights. You shouldn’t have to do any terribly difficult encounters to progress the story and experience the game unless you choose to. The. Every so often you run into a song and get blown away. The game does a great job of usually having each expansion have a visual and music theme and sticking with that without making it feel like repetitive copy paste job.

I almost never like replaying a game or heck rereading the same book. But this game is the one exception where if a friend finds interest, I’ll resub and level yet another job with them and totally enjoy all over again.

DDR probably. Helped me lose a bunch of weight and actually get reasonably healthy.

ICO

There’s too many to list but Zelda 2 was the first game I finished. It was a collaborative effort, using a book, but my friend Frosty and I stayed up all night (this was in junior high so this was a big deal) and finished it. Fond memories.

There’s too many to list but Zelda 2 was the first game I finished. It was a collaborative effort, using a book, but my friend Frosty and I stayed up all night (this was in junior high so this was a big deal) and finished it. Fond memories.

Half Life 1. That game was so ground-breaking, so atmospheric, so interesting in its puzzles and its combat that it just blew my mind and made me a forever fan.

Definitely Dark Souls. I have played DS 1, 2, 3, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Sekiro. I only have completed DS 1 and 2 out of them (mostly due to time, with the exception of 3 which I just don't like).

I know the DS1 map like the back of my hand, the mechanics feel natural to me, I feel like I'm being treated fairly and have the skill to complete challenges, and it genuinely feels rewarding for me. I feel good after playing Dark Souls for a bit. Even when struggling with a boss, 95% of the time it felt like I had made a mistake which could be fixed next time.

Gotta go with Morrowind. It was a pretty formative experience during my early teenage years, and it's one of the few that I boot back up for a fresh run about once a year. Instigating the downfall of the Tribunal has become something of an autumn ritual for me. I know the world map layout of Morrowind better than I remember the layout of some of my own childhood homes.

It's a little clunky and not enjoyable for a lot of people that jumped into Elder Scrolls with Oblivion or Skyrim, but for old school fans, it's still probably the single greatest product that Bethesda has ever released. Fallout New Vegas makes a close second place on that list, but at least in my opinion, Morrowind holds the crown and given modern Bethesda's tendencies I don't expect that to change.

Final Fantasy IX

I just love it. The cast, the writing, the music, not a perfect game but for me a perfect story, a perfect experience.

I'm going to say The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for personal reasons.

When I was playing it, I was getting therapy for clinical depression. Breath of the Wild's entire structure really helped me process my depression and contextualise my issues, and I honestly think it helped me a lot more than would any game that is actually about depression.

The Binding of Isaac.

Elden Ring

Final Fantasy II (which we later learned was IV) was my first "real" video game. It holds a special place in my heart because my Dad had me play it when I was learning to read, and he had me read all the lines and dialogue out loud.

For years I thought the opening screed read that Cecil and Kain were "swallowed by a deep frog." Imagine my surprise reading it years later to read fog. Hey, when the text scrolls by and you don't control the speed, it can lead to some misunderstandings!

Seeing Rydia chastise an adult was also very empowering for me, as a girl of similar age. When she came back later as a day-saving badass, it made me want to grow up to be a day-saving badass, too.

Undertale still holds a special place in my heart after all these years.

It made me care about its characters in a way that no game had ever done before, and few have since. The cool and replayable story, along with a great soundtrack are other things that I like. Only criticism I really have of the game is the questionable graphics, but I've never been the type to care too much about graphics anyways.

Minecraft: easily in the tens of thousands of hours played. I have been and continue to play it on and off with some regularity

Gothic I&Ii

Minecraft, specifically modded Minecraft. I've been for a decade and constantly come back to it, and I can easily lose a day or 12 teching up and automating everything

Interesting. No love for city builders and strategy games (RTS and TBS). Here are several, in no particular order:

• SimCity (4th is probably my favorite). Cities Skylines is the modern spiritual successor.
• Civilization series (arguably all versions were excellent for their own time)
• Starcraft (both are great)
• W40K Gladius (underappreciated gem)
• Kohan (nobody knows about that game. Kohan 2 was OK)
• Age of Wonders (3 and 4)
• Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War (the first one)
• Warlock - Master of the Arcane (honestly, I had more fun with that than with AoW)
• Majesty (the first one, very unique, "indirect" strategy)

The list can go on, and there were so many fantastic strategy games over the years...

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX. The originals were the games that made me realize gamrs could make me feel things, and DX is literally just them but with QoL changes.

Is it even possible to pick just one?

Several of my favorite gaming experiences are one-time, non-repeatable. Solving the Return of the Obra Dinn is up there, but it couldn't possibly be my favorite game because I can never experience it again.

Playing Dark Souls for the first time is the same thing. Discovering the world, finding the intricacies of the interconnected map, struggling with and overcoming challenging areas and bosses. The relief of unlocking shortcuts and the amazement at the maps connectivity. It was the first game of it's type I played, and it was phenomenal, but coming back to it never matches that first playthrough. And let's be honest, the bosses feel downright mundane after having played the later releases.

Disco Elysium affected me in a way no other game has. Its themes are so relevant to me that it struck me on a very personal level and it was an incredibly cathartic experience that will stay with me forever the way any great book would. I actually found it more enjoyable the second playthrough too, however, is it really even a game?

Outer Wilds and 2nd place isn't even close

Going all the way back to the NES for me, and I'm getting the feeling I'm quite a bit older than most of the commenters here: Super Mario Bros. 3 - best game of all time. :)

Knights of the Old Republic I & II, I've spent so many hours playing those game when I was a teenager that I don't even know. I remember finishing them multiple times with different build and when I though that there was nothing left to do I discovered the restoration project and mods that the replay options became infinite.

Duke Nukem 3D

System Shock 2

Many games come close for me... Mass Effect, Zelda Link to the Past,, Factorio and Homeworld would round out my top 5 for instance. But System Shock 2 was my first immersive sim game. It started a love affair with the genre that I'm still trying to scratch 25 years later.

There were many spiritual successors, with Arkane's Prey being the closest approximation I've found. Nightdive just released the original System Shock's remake a month back, so the wait for them to announce they're giving SS2 the remake treatment is torture.

I'm pretty old so have a lot of games I feel terribly nostalgic about, but I'm going to pick a relatively recent one in Deep Rock Galactic.

It just feels like such an absolute triumph of game design in so many ways. I've always had a soft spot for Co-op PvE, and it's just done right. Having a dedicated key to rock and stone (cheer on your teammates) is an absolute genius move for promoting positivity and cutting down on toxicity. Gunplay is good and varied. The feeling of exploration is AMAZING! Probably the game that's kept me going 'wow' when I go to a new place the most consistently after hundreds of hours.

So much respect for the devs who are continuing to absolutely nail it!

Planescape: Torment.

It had a great story that questioned good and evil (rare for a DnD style game). The graphics were great at the time. The soundtrack was (and still is) phenominal and the characters were actual characters.

@GeekFTW Duck Hunt and Zelda A Link to the Past on SNES. Core childhood memories with family.

The King of Fighters, the whole franchise, it's just that special to me since my childhood

Hard to choose one, but maybe I'd say Kerbal Space Program 1. It had a really profound impact on the way I understood the world, space, physics, and gave me one of the best feelings of pure exploration. It was amazing to drop into progressively lower orbits around a new planet or moon before finally landing and walking around.

Pokemon Sapphire

Bloodborne for playing, Drakengard 3 for the characters and music, Tactics Ogre for the story.

I don't know of I could ever say a single game.

Minecraft is definitely the one I've spent most time, probably more than a couple of thousands of hours

Empire Earth is the one I go back the easiest

Lots of great games have been mentioned but wanted to include two recent masterpieces:

• Hollow Knight. It's such a fantastic ride, such a rich world, such great characters, and such a terribly sad but somehow poetic plot. Getting that game even today at full price is still a steal.
• VA-11 HALL-A: You're just a background NPC in a big cyberpunk adventure, nothing you do has anything to do with the main plot, you only get glimpses of it, and the story is essentially the mundane life of this person and not much else. Yet it's so rich and interesting and fun! And the music is awesome.

The original Legend of Zelda on the NES. It fully captivated me as a child. I remember taking the game map to school with me and my friends would circle trees that could be burned or rocks that could be bombed. Such fond memories.

I've played a lot of the games on this thread and more that haven't been mentioned which deserve to be recognized, but for my experience The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth goes at the top.

There are others more nostalgic, others with more acclaim, but I always come back to Isaac. The RNG, art, humor, and item combos made that game stick to me like nothing else. It has just a little hit of inspirational game design that speaks to me.

Team Fortress Classic. The game was fun but the modding community really took it to the next level.

Witcher 3 is, for me, the best single player game I've every played. Though Ocarina of Time comes a close second - and I never even played it on release only years later when I bought an N64 at uni.

For multiplayer, however, you can't beat Halo with a load of mates round and a crate of beer.

Asteroids. I shudder to think how many quarters I spent playing that game. Sometime I’ll have to see if there is some retro arcade out there where I could go play it again.

That Dr. Mario vs Tetris game. My mom would bust it out and we’d have competitions way past bedtime because she was addicted. So some good childhood memories attached to a fun little game.

Mario RPG. It's just enjoyable, it's a video game toy you really play with. Throughout you're encouraged to just have fun and not take anything seriously. Yeah jump on whatever you want, see if you can land on that Toad running around in circles. You did it, here's a funny little animation as a reward. run up a debt at the hotel and play bellhop, get yelled at for jumping on the shop counter, officiate a wedding, do some random backtracking to see Samus sleeping, go on a world spanning scavenger hunt. All while every little attack and magic is a little minigame to play with. Dont worry about grinding, here's a power star to run through a dozen battles worth of xp in a few seconds.

Streets of Rage 2. Favourite soundtrack, too.

Trials of Mana. Actually the whole Mana series were completely unique and very innovative when they first released. But the combination of story telling, party building, and combat system still hasn't been topped for me. The games are something I always have ready to emulate at all times. Fingers crossed they decide to remake the rest of the Mana series. Legend of Mana needs some love even though I remember most people weren't really keen on building their own world.

The Tales series was probably the closest before the switched from 2D to 3D. The switch, I thought, took away a lot of what made them stand out from other jrpgs in the market.

My close 2nd is Legend of Dragoon since it actually changed the combat system in a really meaningful way. Legend of Legaia also did something similar but I thought the storytelling was better in Legend of Dragoon.

Soul Sacrifice still needs some love. It's only downfall was releasing on such a niche system like the Vita. It actually moves the MH formula forward in a really interesting manner by forcing you to make really interesting choices in the story.

Curse of Monkey Island, not even close.

Like some already said, I too love Mass Effect, Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls, Zelda TP and Stardew Valley. It's hard for me to chose a favorite game… There's a few of them I equally like, and it kinda changes depending on my mood.

Saints Row 2 is one I haven't seen mentioned yet. There's always something fun to do in this game and it’s hard to get tired of it. The map is packed full of interesting stuff, feels bigger than it actually is. And without writing a novel about it, I like the story a lot. It's a perfect balance between wacky and serious, plus the characters are great. Truly underrated game imo. Shame what happened to the series…

Being totally honest, I don't think I can just settle on one game like that. I play different games for different reasons, and what genre/titles I've played the most has varied a lot throughout my life.
Up there, however, is Dark Souls, as well as League of Legends (despite all the issues I have with it, it's sucked me back in for over a decade now).

Final Fantasy VII

NFL 2k5.

And I'm still mad with EA about the exclusive NFL License.

I started with a super nes - super mario world will always be my game!

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This was just a groundbreaking game. I know the graphics aren't as nice as Skyrim, but the world has more depth and the guilds are all full games in themselves.

Such a big open world, fully populated with flora and mystical fauna (Minotaurs and unicorns), an endless supply of side-quests.

Oblivion destroys Skyrim in the following places:

• Much more interesting and in-depth Thieves Guild, Assassin's Guild, Fighter's Guild, and Mage's Guild.
• Being a vampire is infinitely better than being a goddamn werewolf
• Skyrim leans too heavily for the Nord race, while Oblivion's story leaves race selection more open-ended. I always want to be an Argonian but it felt weird to be an Argonian in Skyrim.

Skyrim because it's not just vanilla skyrim.

Vanilla skyrim is good, but skyrim is also modded skyrim.

Some of those mods are basically games in their own right. And not average games either. Enderal and The forgotten city have won awards and are genuinely great.

You can easily spend a thousand hours playing Skyrim and that's saying something for a game that doesn't rely on grinding or have an online mode.

Deus Ex on PC, from the year 2000.

This game made me rethink what a game could even be. Whenever I thought of what a great game would be I'd think "It's like Deus Ex but..."

Unreal Tournament '99.

I spent hours playing on instagib servers and also replaying the 'campaign' as a kid. It was the first game I likely logged over 100 hours on.

Tecmo Super Bowl

Holiday Island. And Transport Tycoon Deluxe...

Gonna have to say Warframe

I started playing in 2013 when it went open beta. I've had a couple breaks from it during the last 10 years and every time I come back its like a whole new game. At this point its like 10 different games wearing a trench coat lmao.

I spent like 15 years of my life on World of Warcraft through all the good and bad, but it was the friends I made and the late night messing around that was the fun.

Star Control 2. My son and I just started another playthrough.

It's a tie between Wildermyth or Yakuza 0.

Two games that tell their stories in wildly different ways. Yet, they both got me to feel some serious emotions.