Marathon Infinity, Action Quake II, FFVII, etc. (Score 1)

wow, what a great question! How does one judge? I have been playing games since I was a kid and this question was a trip down memory lane. How can I name just one? Every stage of my life had games that either affected me personally or that introduced me to the joy of different types of gaming.

I started off with Wolfenstein 3D because a friend let me borrow it, but then he introduced me to Wing Commander. But the game the hooked me the most as a kid, the game that kept me in gaming (until I got to college) was Marathon Infinity. I have never experienced a more frightening or difficult game. The atmospheric sounds were the best, the creaking metal of the spaceship on the first level frightened the crap out of me and the p'for and the s'pht were always good for a surprise and a trip back to your last saved game. The plot was outstanding as you played for different bosses and it always took a level or two to figure out what was going on. The story was so great, I never would have believed it but I was acutally sad when I had to take out Durandal during the game.

During college I was introduced to Quake II and the joys of multiplayer gaming. But there has never been anything like Action Quake II. I worked harder at that game than I did at school my first semester. I was totally hooked. No game has come close to that kind of realism in game play since, not even Counterstrike. I know of no other game where you have to bandage when you get hit or when you limp because you got hit in the leg. Just plain awesome!

The list goes on of course. For me games have always been a social activity. My friends from freshman year are the people I played Quake II with, or the people who watched. Then we sat around my friends computer and watched the story of Final Fantasy VII unfold (I too cried when Aeris died - the orchestral score to that scene is simply incredible) and took turns leveling up and collecting materia. When I moved around it was games that got me hooked up with people when I didn't know anybody. Our Starcraft parties never broke up before 5 AM and Need for Speed - Porsche Unleashed was always around when we needed to unwind after the computer kicked our ass in Starcraft. Those guys are still my friends. Civ III still haunts me in my sleep, and "just one more round" has eaten more hours of my life in the past few years than television and my friends and I could talk for hours about the best civs or about this great war I have set up (my friend spent a lot of energy and time creating a situation where he could beat every civ on the map in ONE turn!).

Whatever the content of the games, they always had this magical property to them that brought people together, to talk about it, to play it, to get advice about it, whatever. Some of the best times of my life happened because of these computer games, not necessarily while playing them, but there was this one time . . . Everybody who plays games has those stories, those ultimate successes, for me it is what gaming is all about. No better feeling in the world than doing something awesome and having people around to see it.