The five games that defined me as a gamer are:
1. Planetside on PC: What's funny is how much influence this game had on my life, especially considering I never actually bought or played it! It was just the idea of a modern FPS with decent graphics that inspired me to build my first true gaming rig. I ended up picking up Counterstrike instead and bumping into some furries randomly on a server and making a lot of friends that way (I still talk to a few of them actually).
2. Fallout 3/NV: These two sync with personal interests. I looove exploring and I looove post apocalyptic settings. I'm kind of sad now that I finished literally all of the DLCs for both titles and fully explored the worlds. I can't get enough of these (I also played Fallout 1 and 2 a fair amount, although they didn't have the influence that 3 and NV had on me).
3. Final Fantasy 1 on NES: I remember seeing this at a friends house a long time ago. This *is* the game that single handedly pulled me into the rpg genre. I like how you can design your own team in this also. The only other games that are similar really are Dragon Warrior 3 and those old SSI D&D PC games. (I cheated and stole the dragon lance off the default team in one of them )
4. Sega Rally (original) on PC: I wanted to say Gran Turismo but this was easily one of the best racing games I've ever played. It had so many variables like car damage, weather, multiple tuning adjustments, good music and fairly realistic physics and so on going for it. It was really, really fun and a bit ahead of it's time IMHO. A modern version of this as mentioned by another poster is DiRT, another really sweet racing game (also one of the rare few that I played through all the way to the end).
5. Dark Souls on PS3: This is what you get when you combine all the fun aspects of games like Contra, Zelda: OoT, Tomb Raider and Metroid into one port. What I mean by that are: Fast paced action, Z-targeting / dodging, exploration with minimalistic story telling and music (similar to Tomb Raiders, "less is more" philosophy) and the ability to hot swap gear on the fly, including some utility items (like binoculars), not to mention minimal save points (bonfires). Once you figure out the controls it's a very rewarding and interesting experience to partake in, unlike anything else on the market IMHO.
1. Planetside on PC: What's funny is how much influence this game had on my life, especially considering I never actually bought or played it! It was just the idea of a modern FPS with decent graphics that inspired me to build my first true gaming rig. I ended up picking up Counterstrike instead and bumping into some furries randomly on a server and making a lot of friends that way (I still talk to a few of them actually).
2. Fallout 3/NV: These two sync with personal interests. I looove exploring and I looove post apocalyptic settings. I'm kind of sad now that I finished literally all of the DLCs for both titles and fully explored the worlds. I can't get enough of these (I also played Fallout 1 and 2 a fair amount, although they didn't have the influence that 3 and NV had on me).
3. Final Fantasy 1 on NES: I remember seeing this at a friends house a long time ago. This *is* the game that single handedly pulled me into the rpg genre. I like how you can design your own team in this also. The only other games that are similar really are Dragon Warrior 3 and those old SSI D&D PC games. (I cheated and stole the dragon lance off the default team in one of them )
4. Sega Rally (original) on PC: I wanted to say Gran Turismo but this was easily one of the best racing games I've ever played. It had so many variables like car damage, weather, multiple tuning adjustments, good music and fairly realistic physics and so on going for it. It was really, really fun and a bit ahead of it's time IMHO. A modern version of this as mentioned by another poster is DiRT, another really sweet racing game (also one of the rare few that I played through all the way to the end).
5. Dark Souls on PS3: This is what you get when you combine all the fun aspects of games like Contra, Zelda: OoT, Tomb Raider and Metroid into one port. What I mean by that are: Fast paced action, Z-targeting / dodging, exploration with minimalistic story telling and music (similar to Tomb Raiders, "less is more" philosophy) and the ability to hot swap gear on the fly, including some utility items (like binoculars), not to mention minimal save points (bonfires). Once you figure out the controls it's a very rewarding and interesting experience to partake in, unlike anything else on the market IMHO.