The two games I played the most (PC) was Jumpman (via my Commodore 64), and the 1st Civ - had lots of time back then...

Watched hours of Dragon's Lair when it 1st came out (was way to cheap to play it after my 1st attempt lasted all of 5 seconds)

Ironman Offroad Racing definitely has the record of sucking up my quarters though.

1) I grew up with a Pong clone system from Goodwill, but my first "real system" was the Nintendo Entertainment System. I received it as a birthday present one year. My parents setup a scavenger hunt for me to find it. Some of my favorite games were Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!, Super C, Zelda, and Tecmo Super Bowl. My favorite memory though was playing through Dragon Warrior with my mom. This was my first RPG and the only game my mom ever played. I actually beat the game with a character named "mom".

2) My grandma bought me a Nintendo 64 one year for Christmas. I played a lot of Goldeneye. I remember thinking how amazing the graphics were on that system. I was just amazed by the water and fire graphics on Turok 2. Probably my favorite game on the system was Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I remember playing level one of over and over trying to set the high score. Down the right side hill, up the quarter pipe, over the half pipe, then grind all the way around while doing grabs and flips to bump up the combo multiplier. Plus, the soundtrack was amazing, and it introduced me to Goldfinger.

3) I bought my first computer in college and played the Command & Conquer: Renegades. It was amazing! Looking back this probably wasn't the best, but my college roommate and I would start a four player game, join the same team, quickly destroy the other players base and then just mess with the other players who would join. Sniping them with "invisible snipers" was fun. Another fun prank was to buy tanks, load them up with mines, and then abandon them. The other players would sneak out all careful and "steal" the tank. Then they would get all cocky in chat, and just then we'd set off the mines, MuHaHa!

4) A rental company in my town decided to clear out their game selection. I talked with the manager and she agreed to give me first crack at the games. A few weeks later she gave me a call to come and pick out what I wanted for $2 per game, plus she gave me a 20% discount when they saw that I was buying over 100 games. I bought all of the Xbox 360, plus anything worthwhile for GameCube, PS2 or Xbox. Since then I've been buying, selling, and trading games to try to build up my collection.

5) After getting into arcade games, I finally decided to build a MAME machine. My first build was huge. It was a 4-player build with a track ball. Each subsequent version has been smaller and smaller. My current build is a 2-player game inside of a Ms. Pacman cabinet. I still enjoy playing games like NBA Jam, Street Fighter, Track & Field, and X-Men with friends or games like Ms. Pacman and Tapper when playing single player.

Arcade Robotron 2084. Stuck with me forever, so much so that I now have the stand up arcade and that won’t leave my collection.

Mega Man 1-4
Bionic Commando NES
Super Mario World
Goldeneye
Conker’s Bad Fur Day
Earthbound
Ghouls and Ghosts
Wolfenstein 2 or Return to Castle Wolfenstein?
Resident Evil 4
Silent Hill

Just finished Resident Evil 7 in VR, hands down the best video game experience I've ever had.

Ha ha I hated playing that game. I like to have fun and enjoy myself, not get PTSD. I keep telling myself I should finish it but its just so fucked up and horrible I can't think of a worse way to spend an evening. It is so good I couldn't detach myself from the experience and enjoy it as a game. A landmark in gaming for sure but just too fucked up for me.

Unfortunately we had the generic punch out for nes and I think his name was Mr. Dream. I borrowed a friends mtpo so I could beat iron mike.

Pong the original.
We bought it to have at home and I got to play it the most, cause i was the only one left-handed.

Space Ace. There was a sweaty concrete cellar arcade, right next to school and me and a buddy ruled at it.

Pac-man. I had an Atari 800 and The first two cartridges i got was basic programming language and pac-man

I was main tank at wow vanilla and picked up horde first quel-serrar at the server. Awesome onyxia fight, where i missed getting it tempered in her fiery breath the week before.

First killing of nef in black wing lair. This was in the early days with limited spawns on vael and NO one had heard of threat meters.

Great Times. Feels like a lifetime.

My 5 favorite games/moments, in no particular order:

- "Zanac" for NES. When my parents finally gifted a NES for my 10th birthday, my uncle gave me some weird game that surely came from a discount rack. I never heard of it, couldn't understand it, it was brutally hard... so I hated it. A couple years later I was a bored, better plater, so I tried it again... and it clicked. Still not easy, but I began to understand the patterns and the reactive A.I. - yes, this game had an "AI" (as any could have existed then) and once I got to unlock this game's secrets, it became awesome. FINALLY BEATING THE DAMN THING still ranks as one of my favorite gamer career achievements. This is STILL one of my go-to keepers that keeps my NES dusted off. SO MANY great sound effects!

(Fun facts about Zanac: its sequel is better known, in the US anyway as "Guardian Legend" (also an awesome game). And it also has a weird "debug/cheat mode" whereby if you raise the NES cartridge while the system is on, then push it back down just as the system starts to reset, you can unlock all kinds of cheats and tests. This trick takes some practice for the timing. It was published in EGM back in the day and I thought it was a scam until it finally worked.)

- SNES Super Mario Kart. I'm OG MK all the way, my brother and I played and played and played that game until we broke the code along with the controllers. For a real challenge, try to play such that every character finishes a cup with at least 1 point! To really see the extent to which the CPU TURBO FUCKING CHEATS, place a peel or shell in front of a yellow bounce tile to trick the CPU characters into jumping over the obstacle - into the hole - and watch insanity follow as it cheats for catchup. A well-placed obstacle will trick multiple CPU drivers and then all bets are off - for that lap, anyway.

- PC Diablo II - fond memories of LAN parties, and to this day the only PC game my wife ever got sucked into.

- GameCube, Cel Damage - a simplistic but underrated game. Looney Tunes meets Carmageddon. My kids and siblings and I *STILL* keep this around because of the insanity; put it on a booming sound system and the sound effects just add to the delightfully chaotic mayhem. 3 or 4 player Flag Rally against ramped-up CPU with all weapons unlocked is about as close as you can have a pinball-style "WTF?!?! Just?!? HAPPENED???! BWAHAHALOL!" experience with a video game. (my favorite character occasionally goes on a full-on censored profanity rant for good measure).

- NES Metroid - first game I truly got completely and imaginatively sucked into. It was desolate and creepy and challenging, the heart-pounding escape at the end, and then the hero turns out to be a girl?!?! *11yo headasplode*

Played "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" recently.

Recommend it for anyone that noted "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" as a favorite. Bloodstained is the closest successor to it IMO (over the handheld games as it's intentionally made with SotN in mind, despite not being an actual Castlevania game) and has some direct references to SotN.

The previous, 8-bit style Bloodstained is also amazing (was fun to play through several times in a row to experience the character variations and different endings).

Currently playing "Castlevania: Rondo of Blood" and impressed thus far.

It starts out that way but get's more "normal" once you get out of the house.
Great puzzles. mega boss fights, fun weapons with a great inventory management mechanic.

Hmmm...good question

1. Cracking open that 2600 as a kid on Christmas and all that followed
2. Resident Evil
3. Fri/Sat nights at the arcade Street Fighter Alpha 2 with 15 people deep waiting to challenge
4. Final Fantasy VII
5. Left for Dead co-op with a few friends drunken nights

If I had time to go over to my buddy's house now whom has a slick VR rig I'm sure that would be in the mix.
Dammit, Super Mario 3 in there of course too

The best to me would be either The Last of Us or Half life 2. I cant wait for the new ones.

I hope so. I think its one of the most anticipated games ever.

About 10 years ago I was in a eb games and saw a banner for a soon to come Half Life 3 or whatever they were calling it. Can't remember if it was ps3 or 360. Guess it never happened? I wonder what happened to those banners?
My first 360 purchase was the orange box. Half Life 2 was awesome I thought. Wasn't a pc gamer so never played it when first released. Besides the GTA series I think it is one of the best 1st person games.

1. Dragon Age Origins
2. Mortal Kombat 2
3. Shattered Galaxy (PC)
4. Goldeneye (007 on N64)
5. Ninja Gaiden (NES)

Honorable Mentions:

WCW Nitro on N64
Final Fantasy 2
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2
Twisted Metal 2
Megaman (any of the first three)
Resident Evil (first four games including Code Veronica)
NBA Jam
Pit Fighter (arcade)
Double Dragon (arcade)
Ninja Gaiden 2
Legend of Zelda
Legend of Zelda 2
Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past
Civilization
Civilization II
Civilization III
Populous
Eternal Darkness (N64)