Discussion Name a game that changed gaming for you

revodo

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Jun 10, 2021
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It could be an 80's game, 90's, 2000's, and up.

Name a game that completely changed gaming for you. Maybe it was one that you sunk thousands of hours into, maybe it was one that you played once, but will never forget. Let's hear it.
 
Dark Souls. Hands down.
From smashing my 7th grade skull with a controller after spending 7 hours on taurus demon to never playing skyrim again because of it's combat, Dark Souls is definitely what changed games for me. Play everything on hard or very hard depending on what it is now.
 

Udyr

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Final Fantasy III (FF6 in NA) - SNES

Commonly at the top in RPG discussions, best SNES games or best of all time. Countless play throughs and I still enjoy it if I play it again and again.

Story, character development, artwork, music... regardless of bugs and glitches, enjoyable from start to finish. Few games have come close to this.
 

revodo

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I'll add mine.

Thief: The Dark Project & Thief II: The Metal Age

Jesus Christ. There hasn't been a game that has blown me away in the last 20 years like those two. First game to use shadows and sound as a stealth mechanic, and really the first game to use stealth period. Metal Gear Solid came out two months prior, but only used line of sight as a mechanic, not light and sound. The gameplay was so fluid, the voice acting was top notch, the graphics fit perfectly, the storyline was gripping, the cutscenes were fantastic, and the sound, dear god the sound. Even now I'll play those games with headphones on and get chills.
 

_dawn_chorus_

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SOMA, Alien: Isolation, Dying Light

I hadn't touched video games for about a decade after a very game heavy youth, and had condemned them to being an utter waste of life. Seeing the trailers for those games I thought ok I gotta try these. Played SOMA and Alien on my little costco desktops integrated graphics at abysmal frame rates and settings but absolutely was blown away by the experience of both games. I realized games were an art form and an incredible interactive medium for storytelling and experience. A few months passed and I built my first rig and played Dying Light... Games were finally starting to look somewhat like real life, something I had long been waiting for.
Thousands of dollars and hours later... I'd say I am hooked.
 

Skrybe

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Jun 22, 2021
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Warcraft 2 was the first. Up til then most of the games I played were text based or RPGs. And I only played a little bit. WC2 I played to death.

Counterstrike was probably the next "whoa" game. I played other FPS but it was the first one that really grabbed me and I wanted to play for hours on end. Mostly because of the team based gameplay.

WoW was the last game changer for me. Because it took the whole team based gaming to a whole new level. It was more the social aspect of the game than the game itself.
 

JWNoctis

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How about Dwarf Fortress - Nothing else had been able to scratch that sort of deep-sim itch even now, short of some specialized not-a-game (signalbox sims, anyone?).

Artful metroidvania/platformers - Aquaria, Trine 1/2, Ori:BF, Ori:WotW. This from someone who found most other platformers and metroidvanias hard to enjoy.

Was into flight simming once - FSX with closer-to-prototype addons and interactive aspects a.k.a. VATSIM.

TES:IV and V, suitably modded - As flawed as they were, I haven't been really able to pick up any other ARPGs since.
 

kubacs

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Very generic and I might get laughed at, but CS:S, Wasn't a huge fan of 1.6, but I fell in love with the game. Fell in love with the Counter Strike series in general, apart from 1.6, I could never get the hang of it.
 
D

Deleted member 14196

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Thief: The Dark Project
System Shock 2

Looking Glass was so bad ass. And system shock successor, BioShock was a big hit because a lot of those guys worked on it. I love Looking Glass team
 

Eximo

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Privateer/Wing Commander - Not my first flight sim, but the first that was engaging with a storyline.

Command & Conquer / Warcraft II - First usable RTS for me. Didn't play Dune or Warcraft 1 until years later.
(OpenRA for a free return to Red Alert, still need to buy that remaster they just did)

Diablo I/II, Diablo being a newish genre and D2 finishing the job.