I’ll start:
I could never choose a single game, but some of my favorite games that I played as a child are Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 & 2, The Sims 1 & 2, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Runescape 2 (“OSRS”) and GTA San Andreas.
The RCT and Sims games gave me a lot of freedom, while making it hard to screw up. It was so cool that I could design my own house or amusement park. I loved spending hours doing just that. I also learned a lot about living life, managing people and things like economics.
Medal of Honor Allied Assault was my favorite shooter in that time. It very well might be my first proper FPS. The atmospheric story-driven campaign drew me in a lot. The music and missions gave some very intense moments and the online multiplayer was absolutely amazing. Rifle-only battles, freeze-tag or a regular (T)DM were a blast!
Runescape is one of those games that I never really get tired of. As a child I only played as a free user, while being impressed by every member I saw. I loved the atmosphere, the people that I met and the progression of my character. I went on adventures in the wilderness with classmates or went mining for hours to make some money.
I can still get drawn into this game and really feel like I’m on MY adventure, where anything might happen. There are not many games that have this effect on me, so intensely.
This game also learned me a LOT about life. I learned about having to work for getting a result, I learned about economics and how you can use markets to make some money (this was long before the Grand Exchange). I also learned to watch out for ill-intended people: I stopped playing for a long time when 11 year old me got scammed out of my gold-trimmed black armor that I had been saving up for for a long time.
Lastly GTA SA made me feel in love with the GTA series. I already loved previous games as I had played a lot of GTA 2 and a little bit of GTA 3. But San Andreas was on another level. The huge feeling map, the intriguing story and all the thing that I could do blew me away.
I loved learning about the lore/backstories of the characters and even joined a GTA-related forum which opened up even more to me. I stayed a big fan of GTA and Rockstar Games up untill GTA 4 and bought all theirs games, often multiple times on multiple platforms. GTA 5 was fun to me, but it never really got to me like the previous entries did. I think this is partly because I really enjoy the stories and characters of the previous games, and the (admittedly interesting) choice to use three switchable protagonist resulted in character development that wasn’t as deep and refined as games like GTA SA or GTA IV. But San Andreas… Man, I love that game!
Now I’m curious about the games that you loved playing during your childhood! What made them so special to you?
I got a whole list, but I’ll stick to a few:
Super Mario 64 made me fall in love with video games in general. In another timeline, I would have been a game journalist because of this game.
Spyro the Dragon was super impressive when it came out, and was the second game I ever owned. It made me fall in love with the PlayStation and choose it for my first console.
Final Fantasy 7 is my Baby’s First RPG. But, Chrono Cross has the honor of my first major fandom. I enjoyed weird timey wimey stuff even then (and when I got to Chrono Trigger, I loved it too).
My dad surprised me with a PlayStation 2 due to my really good grades. He also bought me a copy of Tekken Tag Tournament. Later I got Final Fantasy 10 for Xmas, and that is still my favorite FF to date.
And like I said, PlayStation was my first console. What I missed out on, I emulated. Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, but most importantly: Radical Dreamers and Bahamut Lagoon.
Honorable Mention: my family played Bejeweled on the family computer A LOT. My little sister and I also played the hell out of that Gorilla DOS game.
Heros of Might and Magic 3 is still one of my favorite games. Too many games from childhood to name, but that one holds a special place in my heart.
Ooh! Nostalgia time!
I have very vivid memories of Sonic, Pac-Man 2, Moto Racer 97, Contra, Final Fight 2 & 3, Knights of the Round, Earthworm Jim, Spyro, Phantasy Star IV, and Mega-Man. I don’t remember a lick of storyline but when I close my eyes, they’re there.
As for games that have a more emotional tether, that would be things like Legend of Mana, Chrono Cross, and Threads of Fate. All of which helped build my love for fantasy. I was enamored by the art style and gameplay of LoM, the fact that you could mix and match different skills and discover new ones was like a drug, add in a crafting and pet system and I was stuck. I have a deep love for the soundtrack of Chrono Cross, the combat system also challenged my stupid child brain. Threads of Fate was more of a casual playthrough, but I remember going back to it over and over again, because I kept losing my saves.
I also have games that were more communal: sometimes played with cousins and siblings or with me as the riveted audience. Things like Bomber-man, Tetris, Puyo-Puyo 2, Worms, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7-9, Valkyrie Profile, Prince of Persia and Grandia. I have stories for all of those but this is already getting too long. 😅
a game that i don’t see discussed a whole ton is ape escape 3. i’ve actually never played any other games in the franchise but 3 has solid platforming, cute character design, tons of things to unlock, cool soundtrack and the gameplay and puzzles weren’t too hard for me at 8 or 9. i’ve replayed it tons.
Sim Tower and Sim Ant, Escape Velocity, Age of Empires and later on Starcraft
Sim Tower and Sim Ant, Escape Velocity, Age of Empires and later on Starcraft
It’s cool how most here seem to be older, I was almost expecting people to name drop Skyrim and make me feel like a dinosaur lol.
I used to love the text-based adventures, like “Adventure” and I believe one was called “Humbug”. Even learned C programming at a young age in an attempt to make my own.
Enjoyed the Hugo trilogy too. Wasn’t a big fan of side-scroller games but I fondly remember Secret Agent, Duke Nukem I+II and Commander Keen.
My real love was RPGs, specifically Ultima VII.
It’s hard to pick just one but… the Tony Hawk Pro Skater Franchise! I played this with my childhood best friend during the “skating and ska is cool” phase we had in the 90’s - early 00’s. I remember we’d try to replicate the moves on our skateboards in his basement. Also the soundtrack was one of the best I heard at that time and it really shaped my musical tastes
Mega Man 3 which was , at the time, the only title I owned. I remember taking the Nintendo Power issue to a friends sleepover when it came out. I played that game over and over so many times.
Super Mario 64 was a snow day ritual for myself and a friend. I had finished it and helped him beat the game little by little when we didn’t have school.
Final Fantasy 7 is another. I was blown away by the FMV at the time and stayed up all night playing it which was not something I did regularly even that young. I also played through that game a half dozen times.
It’s cool how thinking of those games, or even playing them now, takes me back to exactly where I was at that point in time.
I go way back to the early days. I played some of the Ultima series on a friend’s computer, Atari 2600 stuff, C=64 etc. Zork and some of the infocom games. First PC game I played I guess was one I typed in on my Atari 400 and saved to casettte.
The first game I played till the sun rose was Populous. 1989. IIRC I had a 286-16.
After that, my great love affair was Ultima Online, which I played on the Baja shard from just around beta. I got a little taste of the dread lord days and into the rep system etc. I lived for that game. Moved on to EverQuest and WoW which both never really captured me as UO did. Spent some time with Ashron’s call.
I’d have to give an honorable mention to Total Annihilation and Warcraft and I am sure many others I can’t recall.
I spent a lot of my summer vacations as a kid playing Asheron’s Call. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
