Minecraft, specifically modded Minecraft. I've been for a decade and constantly come back to it, and I can easily lose a day or 12 teching up and automating everything

The games that started it all for me: Mega Man 2, Earthbound

The games I've played the most: Rocket League, Starcraft

All time favorite playthroughs: Portal 2, Skyrim, Halo 3, Ghosts of Tsushima, RDR2

Freespace 2 (I’m old). Still one of the most compelling story’s I’ve enjoyed in a video game to date.

The original Legend of Zelda on the NES. It fully captivated me as a child. I remember taking the game map to school with me and my friends would circle trees that could be burned or rocks that could be bombed. Such fond memories.

Age Of Empires. I still play to this day!

Mine are purely sentimental and I don’t expect anyone to agree, but the original monkey island, the original fallout or Baldurs Gate 1. They all have arguably better sequels but playing those games for the first time was something else.

Super Mario 64!

Team Fortress Classic. The game was fun but the modding community really took it to the next level.

I'm going to say The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for personal reasons.

When I was playing it, I was getting therapy for clinical depression. Breath of the Wild's entire structure really helped me process my depression and contextualise my issues, and I honestly think it helped me a lot more than would any game that is actually about depression.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This was just a groundbreaking game. I know the graphics aren't as nice as Skyrim, but the world has more depth and the guilds are all full games in themselves.

Such a big open world, fully populated with flora and mystical fauna (Minotaurs and unicorns), an endless supply of side-quests.

Oblivion destroys Skyrim in the following places:

• Much more interesting and in-depth Thieves Guild, Assassin's Guild, Fighter's Guild, and Mage's Guild.
• Being a vampire is infinitely better than being a goddamn werewolf
• Skyrim leans too heavily for the Nord race, while Oblivion's story leaves race selection more open-ended. I always want to be an Argonian but it felt weird to be an Argonian in Skyrim.

EarthBound

I wouldn't live where I live if it weren't for Team Fortress 2. So I'll have to say that.

System Shock 2

Many games come close for me... Mass Effect, Zelda Link to the Past,, Factorio and Homeworld would round out my top 5 for instance. But System Shock 2 was my first immersive sim game. It started a love affair with the genre that I'm still trying to scratch 25 years later.

There were many spiritual successors, with Arkane's Prey being the closest approximation I've found. Nightdive just released the original System Shock's remake a month back, so the wait for them to announce they're giving SS2 the remake treatment is torture.

Final Fantasy IX

I just love it. The cast, the writing, the music, not a perfect game but for me a perfect story, a perfect experience.

Is it even possible to pick just one?

Several of my favorite gaming experiences are one-time, non-repeatable. Solving the Return of the Obra Dinn is up there, but it couldn't possibly be my favorite game because I can never experience it again.

Playing Dark Souls for the first time is the same thing. Discovering the world, finding the intricacies of the interconnected map, struggling with and overcoming challenging areas and bosses. The relief of unlocking shortcuts and the amazement at the maps connectivity. It was the first game of it's type I played, and it was phenomenal, but coming back to it never matches that first playthrough. And let's be honest, the bosses feel downright mundane after having played the later releases.

Disco Elysium affected me in a way no other game has. Its themes are so relevant to me that it struck me on a very personal level and it was an incredibly cathartic experience that will stay with me forever the way any great book would. I actually found it more enjoyable the second playthrough too, however, is it really even a game?

I don't know of I could ever say a single game.

Minecraft is definitely the one I've spent most time, probably more than a couple of thousands of hours

Empire Earth is the one I go back the easiest

The Binding of Isaac.

Lots of great games have been mentioned but wanted to include two recent masterpieces:

• Hollow Knight. It's such a fantastic ride, such a rich world, such great characters, and such a terribly sad but somehow poetic plot. Getting that game even today at full price is still a steal.
• VA-11 HALL-A: You're just a background NPC in a big cyberpunk adventure, nothing you do has anything to do with the main plot, you only get glimpses of it, and the story is essentially the mundane life of this person and not much else. Yet it's so rich and interesting and fun! And the music is awesome.

Definitely Dark Souls. I have played DS 1, 2, 3, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Sekiro. I only have completed DS 1 and 2 out of them (mostly due to time, with the exception of 3 which I just don't like).

I know the DS1 map like the back of my hand, the mechanics feel natural to me, I feel like I'm being treated fairly and have the skill to complete challenges, and it genuinely feels rewarding for me. I feel good after playing Dark Souls for a bit. Even when struggling with a boss, 95% of the time it felt like I had made a mistake which could be fixed next time.

There’s too many to list but Zelda 2 was the first game I finished. It was a collaborative effort, using a book, but my friend Frosty and I stayed up all night (this was in junior high so this was a big deal) and finished it. Fond memories.

There’s too many to list but Zelda 2 was the first game I finished. It was a collaborative effort, using a book, but my friend Frosty and I stayed up all night (this was in junior high so this was a big deal) and finished it. Fond memories.

I’m probably weird when I say Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn. At first a failed game that became a labor of love by the people that took it over. It took multiple years and expansions for it to come to a “conclusion” and the once i finished it, I was very satisfied.

To me it’s similar to the Marvel project up until the conclusion of the Thanos arc. I’m not the biggest marvel fan or much of a Disney fan. I do really respect the courage it takes to throw that many years at a project and trust it almost all the way.

FFXIV feels like that. It has that final fantasy marriage of interesting yet somewhat complex story with a message that makes you think. Its an MMO but honestly you can enjoy it up until the conclusion of End Walker with a couple of friends and some queuing up for the story fights. You shouldn’t have to do any terribly difficult encounters to progress the story and experience the game unless you choose to. The. Every so often you run into a song and get blown away. The game does a great job of usually having each expansion have a visual and music theme and sticking with that without making it feel like repetitive copy paste job.

I almost never like replaying a game or heck rereading the same book. But this game is the one exception where if a friend finds interest, I’ll resub and level yet another job with them and totally enjoy all over again.

I'm pretty old so have a lot of games I feel terribly nostalgic about, but I'm going to pick a relatively recent one in Deep Rock Galactic.

It just feels like such an absolute triumph of game design in so many ways. I've always had a soft spot for Co-op PvE, and it's just done right. Having a dedicated key to rock and stone (cheer on your teammates) is an absolute genius move for promoting positivity and cutting down on toxicity. Gunplay is good and varied. The feeling of exploration is AMAZING! Probably the game that's kept me going 'wow' when I go to a new place the most consistently after hundreds of hours.

So much respect for the devs who are continuing to absolutely nail it!

Gothic I&Ii

Gotta go with Morrowind. It was a pretty formative experience during my early teenage years, and it's one of the few that I boot back up for a fresh run about once a year. Instigating the downfall of the Tribunal has become something of an autumn ritual for me. I know the world map layout of Morrowind better than I remember the layout of some of my own childhood homes.

It's a little clunky and not enjoyable for a lot of people that jumped into Elder Scrolls with Oblivion or Skyrim, but for old school fans, it's still probably the single greatest product that Bethesda has ever released. Fallout New Vegas makes a close second place on that list, but at least in my opinion, Morrowind holds the crown and given modern Bethesda's tendencies I don't expect that to change.

Undertale still holds a special place in my heart after all these years.

It made me care about its characters in a way that no game had ever done before, and few have since. The cool and replayable story, along with a great soundtrack are other things that I like. Only criticism I really have of the game is the questionable graphics, but I've never been the type to care too much about graphics anyways.

Going all the way back to the NES for me, and I'm getting the feeling I'm quite a bit older than most of the commenters here: Super Mario Bros. 3 - best game of all time. :)

Left 4 Dead 2. It's not my favorite game, or what I think is the best game of all time, but it's definitely my most played by more than 1k hours. The game hits a sweet spot in terms of tactical gameplay that's almost chess-like in its level of complexity, balance, and replay-ability. The fact that it was released 14 years ago and still has a massive modding community and playerbase speaks to its quality. It's also on sale on Steam right now for $.99, and as it uses the Source engine, runs well on the most basic of potatoes.

I started with a super nes - super mario world will always be my game!

Command and Conquer, it's one of the few things I can remember fondly sharing with my dad growing up. Also it has such a great soundtrack.

Gonna have to say Warframe

I started playing in 2013 when it went open beta. I've had a couple breaks from it during the last 10 years and every time I come back its like a whole new game. At this point its like 10 different games wearing a trench coat lmao.

I'm honestly stuck between Tetris (basically any form of it) and the entire Binding of Isaac series. I have put countless hours into these games and they're the ones I constantly go back to, no matter what.

Stardew valley was a really fun game to play with my wife

I spent like 15 years of my life on World of Warcraft through all the good and bad, but it was the friends I made and the late night messing around that was the fun.

Either Super Mario World or FF7

What a tough question to answer, stretching all the way back to Atari 2600 for me.

I think I'll pick No Mercy/Virtual Wrestling Pro 2 on the N64. Possibly thousands of hours both solo and competitive at a friends with some incredible round robin tournaments with up to five participants. Just amazing Create A Wrestler and one of my handful of favorite gameplay mechanics ever. Also we were paying during the exciting days of pro wrestling so we had that enthusing us as well.

It might sound dumb, but Guardian Tales. It's a gacha game on mobile and Switch, but I really love it. The story is great, it's fun to play, and the devs are very generous. I've played it multiple times on different accounts just because I have so much fun with it.

considers

I think that it'd have to be something with a lot of replayability, which doesn't lose value to me after one playthrough.

Also, it can't be a genre where the game was limited by technology. I mean, I remember Wolfenstein 3D being amazing when it came out relative to other games of the time -- walking around in a 3D world was so mind-blowing -- but the novelty of that technology has long-since worn off, and there are many more-impressive 3D games today.

I guess roguelikes are probably about the top of the heap there, and my favorite is probably Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I still regularly play that, which seems to me to be a good test of whether it's still at the top of my list.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Had no idea what I was getting into and have been chasing that same experience ever sense.

While it's hard for me to come up with an ALL TIME favorite... playing Doom 2016/eternal is one of my greatest pleasures in life. Just simple mindless hack and slash that can get MUCH more difficult if you want it to