Your Favorite Games of All Time - (AKA the Throughly Fanboying Thread)

[CarnivorousJelly]

... *looks at pitifully small game collection* Well, time for me to work more to buy more games to play more games to add more to my list of favourite games (yay for run on sentences)!
I'm not even sure I should be allowed to post here, but whatever :p

1

Spoiler below!

No, I'm not just saying that. This is, by far, my favourite. Before this game, I never - NEVER - made it through to the end of a horror game. They scare the shit out of me (pardon my language)! By about half way through the very first map in this game, my hands were actually shaking too much to play. Normally, that would be when I quit, but the delivery of the story line and my curiosity about the whole game kept me playing (and a large support group of friends, all huddled behind me while my computer screen was projected on a TV). I really just love this game. I've probably played it.... 5 or 6 times now and watched LPs of it too often to count (other people's reactions are quite reassuring that I was not alone in my terror).

Of course, I could say I've never experienced a game with such great atmosphere before, but I don't think MarioKart or SIMS really even count.

2

Spoiler below!

Within the first 20 minutes of gameplay, I had become attached to the characters. I love how the characters are portrayed and the variety of narrative devices used to give depth to them. Seriously though, the characters. Having great gameplay and aesthetics were just a lovely bonus.

I'm tempted to say that ATDD and The Last of Us are tied for my favourite. I put this game second only because I haven't quite forgiven Naught Dog for the ending (it was excellent, but emotionally traumatizing).

3

Spoiler below!

I think I saw someone mention this game earlier in the thread. I bought it shortly after downloading Steam (so.... early 2013). Even though the character animations make me cringe once in a while (I have to remind myself that this is a relatively old game), the general atmosphere makes it completely worth-while. The whole world feels like it could span out for ages and the game does a really good job of making you feel like it's part of something much larger. I've played both Morrowind and Oblivion, but I definitely prefer Morrowind's set-up.

Games That Probably Shouldn't Count Which I Love:

Spoiler below!

• MarioKart (GameCube and N64 version)
  
• SIMS (with Unleashed expansion pack)
  
• Zoo Tycoon (with both expansion packs)
  

These were my childhood games. It was hard to convince my parents to let me buy games that *may* be violent, so I didn't have 99% of the nostalgia-inducing games everyone else played (they actually thought Pokemon was violent)

Obviously my parents didn't know about my killing sprees in SIMS (or how babies were made in the game) and, ironically enough, the first game I ever owned was:
http://gamingcheats.com/materials/images/games/2655.jpg
or
http://www.searchamateur.com/pictures/de...2004-4.jpg
or
http://image.allmusic.com/00/agg/cov200/...758gux.jpg
One of those three, it's been at least 8 years since I've even interacted with this game.

I'm not sure why or how I managed to land my hands on this game (actually, it was an Easter present from my dad), but I thoroughly enjoyed killing Bambi's mother (which actually results in a game-over because you're not supposed to shoot the doe). I know. I'm terrible.

On that topic, I'm kind of curious what everyone else's 'first game' was.