Your Five Most Influential Games (A TOH-Inspired Thread)

I don't think we've done this precise thing before, sorry if we have.  

Anyhoo, on Scullion's podcast, he asks his guests the following question: what five games have had an impact in your life?  Five games that were important to you?  And why were they so important?  Most will be obvious, but I'm hoping we'll get a few interesting stories about our lives and gaming experiences out of it.  If not, hey: it'll fill in some discussion until the Switch toddles along next month.  

I'll start, in chronological order.  It's been a pain in the backside whittling it down to five, I'll say that much.


Super Mario 64



This wasn't my first console game: that honour goes to Super Mario Land.  But that was a bit bobbins, with its funny enemy design and short length, in comparison to this: the first game to show me what games could truly be.  Games that had the power to create worlds that you could explore.  That passion for exploring in games stays with me to the present day, and makes me more excited for Super Mario Odyssey than anything the Galaxies or 3D Space games hinted at.


Mario Tennis



My enduring love of local multiplayer > online multiplayer stems, no doubt, from sessions of MK64 and MKDD!! with the family more than anything else.  But I'll always remember Mario Tennis as the first game I really played in four-player, with mates, where none of us felt noticeably better than any of the others.  As a shy unpopular child, getting three friends round, into the basement, stocked with snacks and with the N64 hooked up to the big (at the time) telly, and playing game upon game of doubles, was a massive coup.


Super Smash Bros. Mêlée



I will never again be as excited for a game as I was for SSBM.  What's more, to my pre-teen mind, it lived up to the hype.  Expanding massively on the already overplayed original, with more modes and many new characters, at a point where I wasn't fussed about clones (apart from Pichu, Pichu was tripe.  Oh, and Falcondorf), and, by losing nothing of value from the original (sorry Zero), being the only game in the series not to disappoint at all, this twelve-year-old definitely thought it deserved 95%.  And despite owning a DGG+ for the game, it didn't contain spoilery YouTube thumbnails; so I was not prepared at all for Mr. Game & Watch.


Meteos



You laugh.  But I brought this into school, and everybody in every class soon wanted a go behind the teacher's back.  More so, I made competitive Meteos 'a thing' in the school's group of geeks, to the point where other people purchased the game off the back of it.  (And none of them discovered the 'scrubbing' thing, so maybe Drunka is just weird.)  This was the first, and last, time I single-handedly made a gaming phenomenon, on any scale.  Also, I got so into this that I made up histories and stories and treaties of interplanetary relations for the game's minimally designed alien sprites.  So there.


Ace Attorney Trilogy



Alas, we're now in the Internet era.  You can find everything about any game before you've played it - often whether you want to or not.  You can't be surprised any more.  

Except when I picked this up, years late, off the back of Jay's DS voting thread on this very forum.  I'd not paid any attention to the series beforehand, dismissing it as a weird Japanese curio, that (being choice-based) I wouldn't like anyway.  So I went in practically blind, and blasted through it.  Turns out it's massively linear, and I'm now an enormous evangelist for the series.  It's no exaggeration to say that I bonded with 2/3 of my best friends and my girlfriend over the AA games.  A massive part of my life, considering it happened so recently.

Honourable mentions:

Your turn!

Great thread idea, Balla. I'm too burnt out after putting out the whopper of a results post for our games of the year, but I'll definitely be back to contribute here.

For some reason I thought you'd been playing the Ace Attorney games as they came out! I'd no idea you were such a recent fan.

I've not mentioned a certain game, because I've gone on about it enough elsewhere and I don't think I could ever adequately explain what it means to me. I've also left out Super Mario Galaxy because although I love it to bits, that love doesn't feel very personal. It's a perfect game, of course I love it!

Pokémon Blue

Pokémon was my childhood. Before this Game Boy cartridge, I'd never had the perseverance or talent to complete any videogame. Pokémon was so engrossing- toys, cartoons, cards, books, magazines, comics, playing in the playground- and the games to me were always the best bit. I wasn't just controlling a character. That was me, on an adventure, with my friends. Pokémon was the game that made me a gamer, and started me down the path of Nintendo love that got me here.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

There are a few big Nintendo games, on Gamecube or Wii, which could fill this role but I think Skyward Sword is the most important one to me personally. Did I mention I have a tattoo of it?
Zelda games, to me, are the pinnacle of gaming. The mechanics, the aesthetics, the sense of adventure, the characters, it all hits me right on the spot. While it didn't have the best exploration or overarching plot, Skyward Sword had the most beauty. The music, the visuals and most importantly the characters were all so easy to fall in love with. I played SS at a pretty low point in my life, during which I was living on some friends' sofa and later in a pretty crap bedsit. Nonetheless, my memories of playing this game are some of my fondest.

Mass Effect

I was a Nintendo-only gamer more or less from the birthday I got my Game Boy Advance until the day I bought my PS3. Even then, it was little more than curiosity and a desire to fill a few dry spells between Nintendo releases. Then I played Mass Effect and all that changed. I was so mesmerised by the world and story and characters. Shepard and Liara's romance, for me, is up there with the great love stories of literature, and it was all accompanied by action and adventure and science fiction of the highest calibre. I never believed something Nontendo could captivate me like this.

Halo: Combat Evolved

If Mass Effect marked the point I began to accept there might be life beyond Nintendo, Halo was when I threw off the shackles of fanboyism altogether. This was everything I'd spent my formative years mocking and dismissing. This was an FPS! On an XBox! This was Halo! Little did I realise the joy in classic shootybang action when it was done as well as this. It wasn't shooters I hated, just bad ones.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm still a Nintendo fan. My blood runs Mario red. What I've realised is that being a Nintendo fan isn't like supporting a football team. I'm not bound by honour to love them through thick and thin. I love Nintendo because their stuff is the best, but I can love other games as well when they're brilliant.

Monster Hunter Generations

So, this is a game that hasn't even been out a year yet. It's a game still being discussed in the ongoing voting thread. Its also a game I've played hundreds of hours of. I always liked the idea of Monster Hunter, but finally it's clicked for me and I've been bitten by the bug. Hard. I love the monsters, the gameplay, the comedy and the world so much I've dedicated myself to a weekly podcast.
On top of that, playing with the boys has really cemented that friendship. Good hunts with good cunts.

Honourable Mentions:

Kirby's Dream Land

The first game I ever played. This definitely wasn't a bit bobbins, and its funny enemy design and short length really captured my imagination when I was five. This lead to me and my brother getting a Master System, which then lead to us getting a Mega Drive...and so on.



Super Mario 64

This just about blew my cock clean off when I first played it in Beatties twenty years ago this month. I thought that just being able to run about and jump around in Peach's garden like that was something that couldn't be done in gaming. Seiously, I thought this was impossible - I was just off the back of Sonic 3D on the Mega Drive and I didn't think that games could go any further than that. I was actually going to start a thread about Super Mario 64's impact and influence, asking folk to recall the first time they ever played it and their thoughts, but I'm sure that'll get covered here.



Crazy Taxi

The best game of all time, and probably the game that got me into punk rock, which was a big party of my teenagehood. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is another game I'd credit with that happening.



Super Monkey Ball

This single-handedly sold a lot of my mates on GameCubes back in the day, and it brought a lot of us together, to a lot of empties in a lot of living rooms. I probably could have put Melee, Donkey Kong, Double Dash!! or Animal Crossing here as well to be honest, but it's maybe the best arcade-style party game of all time, and it's got genuine staying power too. Was it gjones who recently called it "a genuine example of a true classic"? He wasn't wrong.



Wii Sports

I've typed this plenty of times, but once again, this is definitely what kept me into gaming. I didn't play many games when I was in fifth and sixth year of school - it just wasn't on the agenda when I was juggling things all sorts of socially and academically. But playing this at a mates' Hogmanay Party just after the Wii came out is what brought me back into gaming wholesale. What a session that was. And what a game this was; a totally new way of playing computer games, and I loved it.

Balladeer wrote:

(And none of them discovered the 'scrubbing' thing, so maybe Drunka is just weird.)

Oh, I'm definitely weird. And man, I wish I hadn't discovered how powerful scrubbing was.

JayMoyles wrote:

For some reason I thought you'd been playing the Ace Attorney games as they came out! I'd no idea you were such a recent fan.

Seconded! That's a real surprise to me.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I was actually going to start a thread about Super Mario 64's impact and influence, asking folk to recall the first time they ever played it and their thoughts, but I'm sure that'll get covered here.

I was a weird one. As I've mentioned, the home console in my tweenage life was a Playstation, and going around friends' houses I would insist on Pokémon Stadium. All of this, and having played a lot of spaceship and aircraft PC games as a kid, meant I kind of missed Super Mario 64's 3D revolution. I first played it on the DS.
And it blew my mind there. The sight of a big, three dimensional, tangible and explorable world on that little handheld screen blew me away. The gameplay and the level design was still golden. Until I was maybe 17, we only had one TV so most of my long gaming time was spent on handhelds and seeing them achieve this sort of game... glorious. I imagine this is somewhat like how Breath of the Wild will feel for me nexrt month.

A hard one but some come to mind

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

My first game and still to this day, why I don't really like 2D Marios as this has and always be what a 2D platformer should be.

Resident Evil 2

I don't know if its because I've just been playing Res Evil 7 but at the time when Res Evil 2 came out I was 8, I don't think I would have finished many games but I always remember me and my uncle playing this over and over again. With my uncle recently have his heart attack and not being well anyway, this will always be my most treasured memory of him, if anything ever happened to him.

Halo: Combat Evolved

FPS on a Console yeah sure they had been done but part from Goldeneye none has really worked properly, Microsoft making a console they make Operating Systems and Software not hardware. Ohh how I was wrong and what a time to be alive in 2002 when I got to play this in a Virgin Megastore, my mind was blown and I had to have a Xbox that Christmas (also it was getting SEGA games). In till maybe this year FPS was my favourite genre due to Halo and I got invested in the lore of the universe then came Halo 2 with online multiplayer

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

I had a GameBoy like most kids, I did enjoy Pokemon and still do along with other games. However up into that point, I couldn't careless about Nintendo as I was SEGA during the 16-Bit era and then PlayStation in the next generation. I had a N64 and played SM64, OoT etc but wasn't in-till years later, I appreciate these games as the masterpieces that they are.

Now thinking back I don't know why I wanted a GameCube but I wanted one from the get go unlike the Xbox. I think it may have something to do with Sonic and Monkey Ball. I liked Luigi's Mansion and all those but Wind Waker was when it clicked, what the Nintendo magic is and that game made me the fan of Nintendo, I am today.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots


A odd one indeed you may think but I wanted to put a Metal Gear Solid on this list and this might not best one but the story, cinematics all coming together in what was a early PS3 title being released 9 years ago but still games like this made me appreciate other story based games and that is now what games for.

Sonic it was for fun at the weekend, Halo it was multiplayer with mates and MGS4 was story. These now overlap but these a the pillars of gaming fro me.

Awesome idea for a thread! Here's mine in no particular order:

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Master System)


This may seem like a very strange choice to some but hear me out! This was the first game i ever completed and it really cemented my love for 2D platformers and video games in general! Its influence can even be seen in a couple of games i've developed over the years!

Unlike Mas i do prefer Mario for 2D platformers now though (Mainly thanks to Super Mario World)

Halo 2 (Xbox)


Halo 2 was really my first exposure to First Person Shooters on Console and to playing Online Multiplayer. It also started a move away from Colourful platformers/RPG's/Puzzle games throughout my late teens. Also LAN parties were alot of my first year of Uni memories are, nothing beats 16 mates huddled around 4 xboxes, tons of dominoes pizzas/alcohol and gaming till the sun comes up!

Ikaruga (Gamecube)


Ikaruga is probably the biggest Influence on the last 3 Years of Game Development for me. My Dev team has been making Shm'ups for a while now and the colour changing mechanic has been in just about every one we've worked on!

Pokemon Red (GameBoy)


Although Pokemon Gold is by far my favourite in the series, Red is where it all began. I remember researching the game in magazines for the months before its release and then getting it for my birthday and playing it non stop for hours on my SNES (Via the good old Super Game Boy). It got me hooked on RPG's and from it i moved onto Final Fantasy, Suikoden, etc. Now its probably my most played Genre!

Championship Manager 97/98


Championship Manager (as boring as it may seem) is the game series that made me decide i wanted to be a game programmer. It's where i first learnt to write code (in order to add new teams, logos, kits, etc), its where i got an understanding of databases and most importantly it taught me about the game loop. The loop that makes players come back for more! It also encouraged me to do a work placement with its current publisher (SEGA) whilst i was at Uni which has massively influenced everything i do today!

So thats my little list! Honourable mentions would be Mario Kart:Double Dash (same reasons as Halo 2) and Sonic Adventure (First 3D game that i 100% beat)

Woo, glad this seems to be going okay!

JayMoyles wrote:

Great thread idea, Balla. I'm too burnt out after putting out the whopper of a results post for our games of the year, but I'll definitely be back to contribute here.

For some reason I thought you'd been playing the Ace Attorney games as they came out! I'd no idea you were such a recent fan.

That's completely fair enough sir, it was a whopping great post!  And nope, that was the thread that encouraged me, it just seems longer because I've made up for lost time by blathering on extensively.

Drunkalilly wrote:

I've not mentioned a certain game, because I've gone on about it enough elsewhere and I don't think I could ever adequately explain what it means to me.

If you want to mention That Game because it's in your five most influential, please go for it!  I'm fully expecting Jas' list to be DS1, BB, two MonHun games, and Shovel Knight.

Drunkalilly wrote:

What I've realised is that being a Nintendo fan isn't like supporting a football team. I'm not bound by honour to love them through thick and thin.

Football teams are just like corporations.  Anyone who'll think you're less honourable for changing such an allegiance ain't worth your, my, or anyone else's time.  I'm considering changing cricket team this season. (I know this could've been a joke, however based on what I know of footie fans it also could not have been...)

Drunkalilly wrote:

I love Nintendo because their stuff is the best, but I can love other games as well when they're brilliant.

Eh.  I s'pose.

Drunkalilly wrote:

Various Mario Karts and Smash Bros. Obviously, many many hours have been spent gaming with friends and wonderful memories formed throughout. That said, it would be disingenuous to attribute that to the game more than the friends. See also: Wii Sports, Wario Ware.

Hmm, that's what I did with Mario Tennis...  I get your point, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  I couldn't untangle the impact of the game from the people involved with it.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I was actually going to start a thread about Super Mario 64's impact and influence, asking folk to recall the first time they ever played it and their thoughts, but I'm sure that'll get covered here.

Dunno how you feel about it now, Cappa, but I'd be definitely up for that. I've got so much more to say about my first big game if people/threads will let me.  Plus, half the people who have posted here thus far haven't opined on SM64, which is a chuffing travesty.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

[Monkey Ball Harambe Picture]

No chance of letting this meme die like the gorilla that spawned it, I suppose?

masofdas wrote:

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

EofGizmo wrote:

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Master System)

Truly, a friendship crafted in wrongness. At least Eof has atoned of late.

EofGizmo wrote:

Ikaruga (Gamecube)

Ikaruga is probably the biggest Influence on the last 3 Years of Game Development for me. My Dev team has been making Shm'ups for a while now and the colour changing mechanic has been in just about every one we've worked on!

It's great to have an actual game dev. posting here, and that's a blinding shmup to base your work on. Er, so I'm told: never acquired it because I presumed it'd be too hard for me.

Whoa, steady on, "an actual game dev" - are we forgetting that I invented Pong?

Streets of Rage


While my first game was Alex Kidd in Miracle World on the Sega Master System, the first game to really leave a mark on me was Streets of Rage. I owned it as part of Mega Games II (along with Golden Axe and Revenge of Shinobi) and it was the first 2-player game (along with Golden Axe) that I played to death. This was the era of owning five games on a console and playing them so much that you learn every trick to complete the game each time you play it. I found the sequel to be inferior (which is NOT the popular opinion) with slower gameplay and less satisfying sound effects. Granted, Streets of Rage II is a great game, but I prefer the original. I'm sure it was also the first time music was a big part of what I identify with a great game (all my favourite games, as well as these ones listed, have superb soundtracks), and the house/hip-hop flavour of Streets of Rage is timeless.

Goldeneye 007


I feel Goldeneye 007 was bigger than some give it credit. This game was massive and a key part of my early teens. I remember playing it at a friend's house in 1997/1998 and I was over the moon when I got the N64 with Goldeneye in December 1998 - I still recall playing the first level before school on my birthday. The N64 was a system that shaped a friend group in Year 7, with four of us all owning one it ensured a tight-knit crew was established throughout 1999 and 2000. We would play all the great 4-player games like Mario Kart, Snowboard Kids, Mario Party, Smash Bros and Perfect Dark: a Saturday evening would always turn in to an all-nighter. 2000 was also the year we all got in to wrestling (WWE specifically) and WCW vs. NWO Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and then WWF No Mercy were all go-to games, but Goldeneye 007 was the one that started off all the fond memories I associate with the N64.

Tony Hawks 2


This game was influential on my music tastes. As you may know, I love hip-hop music and 1999 was the year I purchased my first rap album (Dr. Dre's 2001), but I was listening to a lot of Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and DMX. All very much mainstream rappers of the time. Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 was the game that revealed a different type of hip-hop to 13-year old Grant, with a KILLER soundtrack. It had underground crews like High & Mighty and Styles of Beyond, older acts like Naughty by Nature and Public Enemy, and then groups like Rage Against the Machine who talked to the side of me that was loving wrestling themes and the nu-metal wave the likes of Papa Roach were at the forefront of.

I traded in my copy of Perfect Dark for Tony Hawks 2 and don't regret it one bit. While 3 and 4 are better games, I think 2 was during that golden period of games with licensed music (Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi being two others) and at a time where music played a huge part in both my friend circles and my time spent playing games alone. Shortly after, Grand Theft Auto 3 was another with incredible licensed music.

Shenmue


While Shenmue continues to have a rabid, cult-like following nowadays, it's very much a product of its time. It's difficult to gauge just how jaw-dropping this game was in 2000 - it felt photo-realistic coming off of the back of playing blurry N64 games. The cinematic approach to not just the cut-scenes but the insane, orchestral soundtrack. The fact every character had spoken dialogue. It was simply an incredible experience that remains the only game to truly take me to another world - it is the reason I travelled to Japan in 2006 and have been interested in Japanese culture ever since. I'm sure I've mentioned this elsewhere, but few games feel like they have a soul. That indesrcribable sensation a game gives you when EVERYTHING just perfectly meshes - Super Mario Galaxy is one I'd consider to have soul, Shenmue has so much soul that it stays with you for many, many years and that's why it has such a deeply passionate fanbase. They felt what that game offered and I did too. It plays like a janky game of Knightmare these days, but it's still worth trying if you can adjust to the game world.

Outrun 2


I'm including this because it is the only arcade game I've ever really enjoyed. A lot of arcade experiences leave me feeling shortchanged, particularly given they are a £1 for (usually) 1 to 5 minutes of gaming. Despite this, I found an Outrun 2 cabinet (2 seats) in Folkestone and it was 20p a go. At that price, it meant a pal and I could get good at the game and would have some really close-fought races. The game itself is classic SEGA - cheesy tunes, tight controls with satisfying drift mechanics I've yet to see bettered, and a machine that felt so good when you slammed on the brake to enact a drift. I always thought SEGA Rally was a bit pants, Daytona is not as great as people say it is, and House of the Dead is too hard to be "fun", but Outrun 2 is f***king special. The Xbox port was amazing but didn't compare to the arcade experience. I still play it when I can - last year at a Haven holiday park they had a machine and it still holds up - I'm actually off to another holiday park over the half term next week so hoping there's an Outrun 2 machine there.

Honorable mentions:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Whoa, steady on, "an actual game dev" - are we forgetting that I invented Pong?

You aren't the first person to not shower for three years. It doesn't count as inventing pong.

Balladeer wrote:

masofdas wrote:

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

EofGizmo wrote:

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Master System)

Truly, a friendship crafted in wrongness. At least Eof has atoned of late.

I think this is like what I've said before about games is time and place as I'm talking Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive, where EofGiz is talking Sonic 2 on the Master System then from what he's told me the next system he had was a Super Nintendo.

Back then gaming was still niche, and I know I was the only one on the estate to have a Mega Drive and some girls around the corner had a SNES but I never really knew anyone else that played games.

I played the SNES but to me it was LAME as Mario was slow and boring, years later I've course played the 8 & 16- Bit 2D Marios but I always think, I could be playing Sonic 2 on Mega Drive instead.

If I had a SNES instead like EofGiz during the 16-Bit era, I may now think Sonic is lame.

I have a SNES and a Mega drive, im an equal opportunities platformer :p

That's now though, not back in 1994 is what I'm on about and how me only having a Mega Drive and having basically no exposure to the SNES.

And how you had a SNES back then, if we switched it would our views on Mario and Sonic be different?

balla wrote:

If you want to mention That Game because it's in your five most influential, please go for it!  I'm fully expecting Jas' list to be DS1, BB, two MonHun games, and Shovel Knight.

I have a few games in mind at the minute but I think you'll be a bit surprised when I get around to putting my post together.

Ooh! I look forward to it!  (I'm still expecting at least one From game, mind.)

I'd love to say something about GJones' epic post, but the only one I've played was GoldenEye and little me couldn't aim a gun (bigger me still can't) so I didn't like it much.  Grand stories though, sir.

As for Mas, I completely get why that made the Sonic game one of your most impactful, but where you continue to wallow in wrongness and Eof saves himself is:

masofdas wrote:

...as this has and always be what a 2D platformer should be.

It's been a while:

(Disclaimer about personal opinions, objectivity, games being art, blah blah blah.)

OK, I'm ready.

Chuckie Egg



The first gaming device we had at home was an Atari 65XE. It was basically like Atari's Spectrum/C64 and we had Chuckie Egg for it. It was the first game I played and played until I gott gud. Although it took Super Mario Bros. to cement my status as a gamer properly, this was definitely where it began.

Dr. Mario



This started my love of puzzle games, I'd say. Although we also had Tetris on both the NES and the Game Boy, the good Doctor's colourful gameplay that captured Young Zero's imagination. Another game I just played and played.

The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past



I want to type 'The perfect SNES game' here, but that's not the main reason I'm including it. It captured my imagination brilliantly from the off - the famous rain-soaked opening, followed by finding your poor uncle slumped in the tunnels and whisking La Princesse to the Sanctuary. I downloaded it for the Wii U not terribly long ago (uh, of course ) and still loved it.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney



Two reasons for this little belter. Firstly, it (and a few others) turned me into a handheld gamer. As a young lad, the Game Boy was always something my brother Peter was into; sure, I played some Super Mario Land, Tetris and Dr. Franken II (a gem), but I was never massively into the machine. PW (and its colleagues) showed me that handheld games could do things that would not work on a home console. Secondly, it helped change my definition of what a game could be and do (Professor Layton and the Curious Village also had a tearful hand in this). It's essentially nothing more than one of those 'Choose Your Own Adventure!' books but by 'eck is it good.

Super Mario Sunshine



This proved to me that I could enjoy 3D games. You may literally LOL out loud at that, but it was touch and go for a while. I didn't like Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 64, and subsequent 3D adventures didn't fully turn me around. Then Sunshine and, despite the bizarreness of F.L.U.D.D., it was simply good fun. I am thankful for Sunshine.

Les Mentions d'Honneur:

I've got my list... when I put some thought to it, my list ended up a lot weirder than I expected. It's not so much a list of my favourite games (Mother 3, Overwatch and many others are missing) but, as the thread dictates, a list of games that have shaped my gaming tastes.

Pokémon Silver



My first console was a Game Boy Colour, and whilst Pokémon Silver wasn't my first game for the system (that honour would fall to either Star Wars or Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins), it was the game that cemented my love of video-games. I'd rocketed through both Pokémon Red and Blue but I was left craving more. I was watching the anime religiously, and lo and behold, along comes Silver.

I think this is the first game I was properly obsessed with. I was determined to catch them all, roping in a buddy with Gold to try and grab every 'Mon. I was power-levelling my Feraligatr to LVL 100 to ensure I could take down any foe. I had my mind blown when I found out you could return to Kanto and experience an abridged version of the first game's world. From this point onwards, I was properly into video-games.

Runescape



It's not a game I've often spoken about - if at all - on the forum, but it could be the game I've put the most hours into. From 2006-2007 and then recently, for the first half of 2015, I was an avid player of online MMO Runescape. I'd race home from school to see if the latest quest had dropped for me to complete, or I'd be levelling one of the many skills to gain access to the next quest. Compared to other MMOs, it's pretty primitive but it's important to me for two reasons:

1) It taught me games aren't just something to be enjoyed alone. I mean sure, I was alone in the room I was playing, but I was sharing quests and battling with thousands around the world. I made friends in the game, and the game incredibly improved my typing speed. It probably made it easier to start posting back on the NGamer forum, to be honest.

2) It introduced me to so many different films and books, and shaped my sense of humour. Runescape is unique in the fact that it's developed here in Britain, and thus carries with it a quintessentially British sense of humour. Most items in the game and in the scenery can be examined and normally have a witty comment tied to it, or a reference to a piece of media that I'd then track down and look more into.

When I revisited it recently, it was a shinier game, but the social aspect had gone sadly. I'd play it again if I had somebody to talk to and play with, but at its core it was the friendships I'd made that resulted in Runescape being truly special to me.

Lost Odyssey



It's no secret I love RPGS - most of this list is dominated by RPGs, after all. Lost Odyssey is a particularly special RPG for me because it's when I realised games could be more than just fun to play, they could be fun to experience from a story standpoint. At its core, Lost Odyssey is a pretty simple RPG, considering it's a typical turn-based RPG battler.

What truly roped me into this game was the story - I'm pretty certain it's the first game to make me feel really emotional when watching a cutscene of one of Kaim's memories. This game cemented RPGs as my favourite genre, I think. Well, if not this game, then it was definitely....

The World Ends With You



Probably my favourite game, to be honest. Looking solely at the game itself, it's easily the most fun I've had playing an RPG. The dual screen battle system was mind-blowing coming from the clunky turn-based system of Lost Odyssey. The characters, as edgy as they are looking back on them, were captivating and the premise was so refreshing stacked up against the usual world-ending menaces of other RPGs. I've spoken about how much I love the game itself before, so I'll spare you from hearing it again.

The real reason this game is on my list is because it created another obsession for me - the NGamer forum. I was constantly posting in the TWEWY thread back in the Old Place, and it introduced me to a group of genuinely brilliant folks who I've got to know even better since the transition to GNamer. Having said that, my love for Nintendo and consequently the amount of time I spent here might have waned had it not been for...

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS



I disappeared from here in mid 2014 - mostly because uni work was mounting up, but also because I'd no real desire to play any Nintendo games. I'd no interest in buying a Wii U, and at that point I didn't own a 3DS. But, with Pokémon X garnering a huge amount of chat and with the announcement of Smash on 3DS, I decided to jump onboard with the 3DS. I'm glad I did, as it prompted me to jump back to GNamer and chat about the 3DS games I was loving so much.

Whenever I've found myself with nothing to play, I'll fire up Smash 3DS for a few bouts. It's kept me interested in gaming over the last couple of years at a time when my love for Nintendo was beginning to wane. I think I've racked up close to 400 hours on it. And now, I can see the Switch being my main gaming console of choice in 2017. So, thanks Smash for saving my love for Nintendo.

Balladeer wrote:

As for Mas, I completely get why that made the Sonic game one of your most impactful, but where you continue to wallow in wrongness and Eof saves himself is:

masofdas wrote:

...as this has and always be what a 2D platformer should be.

It depends on the games but Super Mario World, even though it's great I find it slow and boring but Yoshi Island, I adore it because its different to the standard Mario game.

My statement is sort of wrong as not all 2D platformers need to be like Sonic but if its like Super Mario World then its not really for me.

I am so happy to see someone mention lost odyssey! Probably a cert for top 3 criminally underrated/underplayed games of last gen!

I've been thinking about this on and off for days... narrowing it down to 5 is tricky! All mine are quite old I notice. I think I'm jaded

Repton 3

What a fucking surprise. (Also, I've inadvertently linked to a Gintendo screenshot!) I was a bit young to appreciate things when our family got our first computer. However, most games were slow ports of standard arcade games, that warranted 5 minute plays at best, or clunky arcade adventures that were only possible to complete if you were able to see inside the mind of the developer. However, this was a puzzle game that actually involved both reasonable brainpower and decent twitch-skills to do well at; a game actually worth playing. Given that there were (after expansions) 150 levels, this was a giant chunk of videogame to get through.
Donkey Kong could have been in this slot as an old video game actually worth playing.

Zelda II -  The Adventure of Link

My Acorn Electron and Amstrad CPC were OK, but any big action/adventure games were either impossible (see above) or clunky as all hell, with the machines not really capable of handling this situation. Then a school friend told me about a game he had on his Nintendo called Zelda. He was describing the first palace; I was imagining a 2 colour Speccy Port like I was used to. Then I got to go round his house and play it. Oh my goodness me. The world was gigantic, it looked pretty, it moved at more than 3fps... I know Zelda II is considered to be a "weird game" today, but to me it was the first indication of how video games could be.
Super Mario Bros. 3 could have been in this slot, as a massive advancement.

Microprose Grand Prix

Technology has irreparably ruined Formula 1. In the olden days (1991) there were 30 cars vying for grid positions, let alone points, and the team leaders couldn't accurately predict that the driver will finish 7th before the race had even started. But in 1991, prior to this, the best racing game I knew was Turbo Racing. But this game let you drive round the actual circuits with actual cars as the actual drivers (names exempt) in actual 3D! I know the graphics look shit now, but in 1991 this was witchcraft; the tracks are really accurately modelled, considering the flat untextured polygons. This was the first simulation I could play, for long long periods of time, that felt like the real thing.
Pro Evo Soccer 5 could have been in this slot.

Super Bomberman 2

I think this is why we bought a multi-tap. We used to swap out for Super Mario Bros. 1/3/World, and Micro Machines, but this was the first game my family really enjoyed playing together, regularly. Hapy memories there.
[Goldeneye could have been in this slot.

Super Mario 64

I know it's easy to say this, but, when CD-ROM first became a thing, and early consoles swapped between grainy film and clucnky simplistic gameplay, I could see that this wasn't going to take off - despite the flashiness, nothing looked as fun as Mario or Zelda. I'll admit I also thought that when I saw Super Mario 64; 3D was cool, but the graphics looked a bit ugly. Although it didn't help I was reading Total! magazine at the time - towards the end of its life, it decided to make everything as unreadable as possible. I wasn't convinced 3D was the future of gaming though. AND THEN I PLAYED IT. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Ocarina of Time could have been in this slot - again, it changed games forever, but Super Mario 64 was the first.

Other honourable mentions, even though I've had loads already:

Did a google image search for Battletoads Dark Queen and yep, I get it.

I never put any honourables, I brought up Pokemon and if it was more then 5, I think I would put it on the list. Others that come to mind are Bioshock, Journey, Mass Effect.

You were very disciplined to keep it to 5, mas! I juggled between about 9 for the last few days.

Yeah, this has been really hard. I'm fairly sure that if I'd been asked on the spot, I'd not have got the carefully-selected five in my list.

It's been really cool to see everyone's picks - the games that formed us as gamers, a good portion of which I've never heard of. It's also tainted my view of Battletoads forever. /