The Five games that define you as a gamer

[Inconspicuous Trenchcoat]

These games defined my favorite type of game environments (in physical, emotional and virtual senses) and play styles. Either multi-player competitive rushes, or immersive exploration are my cup of tea. And exploration includes exploring interesting geometry too (I should probably try rock climbing), that's why I like Elder Scrolls, platformers, Assassin's Creed parkour and custom FPS maps so much. The geometry can get really zany in those things. I guess I mean I love being a path finder, if that makes any sense. That's why modern shooters bore me (sometimes), it's all flat, constricted and uniform. You're not a path finder in any sense. Haha, I just realized my favorite Tribes Ascend class is Pathfinder.

-I'd say StarCraft and WarCraft 3's custom map community led me down the path to discovering one of my favorite genres: MOBAs/LanePushers/DotA-likes. I've never come close to finishing either game's campaign or played more than maybe 50 actual online games between them. I was always absorbed in the awesome ideas presented in community maps. My favorite was ENFOS Team Defense, it was like cooperative DotA vs hordes of brainless bots. For me, that really solidified the appeal of controlling one powerful hero RTS style without worrying about anything else but tactics and teamwork. This led into me trying DotA; after several beat downs I retreated to the internet to search for advice, which is when I found out about League of Legends. I got into its closed beta and played almost nothing else for the next 2 years. Learning a deep game with the rest of the community is an amazing experience. There was no pressure, everyone was learning together--the community was much friendlier back then. Beta League of Legends is one of the best gaming times I've ever had.

-That's not where my multi-player career started. Counter-Strike introduced me to the rabbit hole of competitive online gaming. The rush was so powerful and engrossing that I couldn't stand to play single player for the next few years. It also cultured my love of LAN parties. Playing CS in a crowded internet cafe with my friends, where everyone there played CS together in a LAN, were some of the best times in my gaming life.

-Super Mario 64: I'd been to arcades and seen the bountiful graphics they offered. But, the 64 (I didn't own a Playstation yet) was the first time I'd had amazing 3D in my own house. That game greatly strengthened my immersion and commitment to the hobby, through awe inspiring graphics and worlds to explore. I liked the actual game too Got every star and Yoshi gave me 99 useless lives for it D: ?

-Star Ocean: The Second Story *spoilers ahead*: This was my big childhood JRPG. Final Fantasy 3, 7 and 8 were epic too, but Star Ocean got me out of bed 60-90 minutes early every school day. The characters were well developed, the story was incredible (your planet is destroyed! The second half of the game is on an alien planet!? I was depressed and felt as far flung and lost as the characters did when that happened. Some stories elements were lost on my young mind, but it was epic. The combat was real-time (with pausing) and had lots of action, so it avoided the normal RPG pratfalls of tedious combat. Also, that game has an Iron Chef competition! And there's like 50 different secondary stats and some of them you're not even sure what they're for like Poker Face. The game was huge in scope and I loved exploring both worlds.

-The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: A game that proved to me I'll take freedom and interesting places to look at and explore over game play. I've never been as immersed in a game as this one. I never understood the game's systems well so that added an extra layer of enchanting mystery. I loved how Morrowind made me so in sync with my character. I was a lost prisoner in a strange, unknown environment too. I've never completed the main quest, I simply wander. I loved making new characters, but I always did the same thing every game: I went speechcraft and sneaky sneaky. I could rarely kill anything greater than a mudcrab in a fight, but I robbed everyone blind and beguiled the townsfolk. My favorite playthrough was running around aimlessly as a Khajit, excited to see what I'd find over the next hill. I'd free every slave I came across (I didn't even know their were slaves in this world!) and steal every scrap of bread I could find. The memories of that game--it was so beautiful and dreadful every time it rained.

Achievement Unlocked: Stop Reading Forums and Do Something, Anything!

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Lets see:

Star Wars: Rouge Squadron. The first game that I replayed multiple times, and one of the first games I ever played.

I'm sorry. So very, very, very sorry.

But it's Rogue. "Rouge" is a French word for the colour red, or alternately, what women tend to slap on their lips to look pretty in some occasions. "Rouge" is not an epithet that designates people going against an established authority.

Again, I'm sorry, but that was my Pedant Chromosome kicking in. That one mistake really gets my goat because everyone makes it all the damn time.

Ahem.

My personal titles would have to be the following:

Myst: the first PC game to really catch my attention, Myst awakened me to the fact that you could play games that tease your brain without confirming the then-prevalent notion that gaming was for kids with too much free time on their hands. It was the first storyline I cared about and the first universe I really invested myself in. I don't think I'd be lying if I said Myst is my personal Star Wars.

Killer Instinct for the SNES: this being the first fighting game I really got into. It was the first game that showed me how it indeed is possible to physically destroy a controller because you've reached your personal plateau of efficiency with a character. Killer Instinct forced me to go looking for my entertainment outside of your then-standard outlets like Toys 'R Us and introduced me to the practice of bargain-hunting console games - a practice I now extend to the PC.

Plus, I kicked ass with Cinder and Glacier. I played against all the kids in my neighbourhood who almost all had the game, and I kicked some serious ass.

Half-Life: prior to it coming out, my experience with shooters was limited to the Doom and Quake alumni and to the really basic days of the Shareware era. "You're a guy with a gun/wand/badass mutated appendage, here are some bad guys, go to town on them". I used to think Duke Nukem 3D was a crown jewel in the medium because, hey, I was somewhere around thirteen years old and a pixellated lady who flashes her boobies? SUBVERSIVE!

Half-Life changed all that. This was the first shooter to give me a world and a story to sink my teeth into, with as much seriousness and passion as Myst. This was the first time I played a game that terrified me not because of how inhuman the sprites looked, but because of how believably frail I felt in the face of all that slotting this goddamn crystal in that goddamn anti-mass-spectrometer caused.

Half-Life is the first game that made me feel guilty and that also managed to turn that guilt into the gradual understanding of my being an unstoppable badass.

Mario Kart: not so much for the game itself, but because I remember how I bonded with other people over it. I remember getting into fights because I was too good for some other guy's liking, I remember patching up rocky friendships over my submitting myself to the later tracks on the Star Cup, which always kicked my ass. I remember my occasional peals of Mode 7 vertigo...

MicroProse's Grand Prix 2: I was never good at the game, not even anywhere remotely close to decent. I remember it because this was one of the few games I was lucky enough to share with my father. He'd try to teach me how to handle hairpin turns or the more swervy areas of certain curves, we'd talk for hours about the benefits of certain tune-ups for certain cars and drivers...

I'm still not much of a racing aficionado, but I have a healthy respect for the medium and at least some measure of understanding. Considering that, I can't not be glad to have played it.

XCOM: UFO Defense: just as twitch-fests were starting to become more common, there was this game who actively punished you for rushing your guys into the field like you were in a personal recreation of an eighties action flick. I absolutely loved the more deliberate pacing, and I tried to share it with my father, just as he shared Grand Prix 2 with me. He could never get past the silly premise, however, and tended to look on the game's tactical aspects as being less worthy of consideration because of it.

Hey, I tried, at least.

I'll always remember getting my boys butchered to the sound of the Smashing Pumpkins' "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness". It's a weird juxtaposition if there's ever been one but hey, that's life for ya.

The Settlers 2: Gold Edition: the feeling of starting with a shipwrecked crew and ending up with a continent-spanning empire is something no HD remake or snazzy-looking sequel could ever fix. I loved watching my shitty pixellated roads stretch out over my shitty pixellated hills and flatlands, to the point where the game got me to consider some of the colder proponents in the genre, from Civilization II all the way to SimCity 3000.

The Sims: as far as virtual gods or narrators are concerned, I think I'm a case of Borderline personality. I'll deeply invest myself in the task of helping one Sim through the travails of life and the duress of getting a decent job, and then I'll turn around and lock one of them into a one-room area and watch him/her die.

Before the series turned into a complete cash grab for EA, this was my premier destination for emergent storytelling.

Baldur's Gate: my first RPG ever, and the best one by far. It's funny, it's intense, it's scary, it's got the High Adventure and High Fantasy spirits going, it's even a little Pulp Era Fantasy-ish at times - it just ticks all the right boxes for me.

Plus, I just can't stop clicking on Xzar's portrait. "STOP TOUCHING MEEEEEEE!"

WarCraft II: Tides of Chaos: exploding sheep. See Xzar above. That is all. Oh - and the glory days of TCP-IP gaming. Nothing beats clogging up the family's phone lines for three hours because you're wanting to get some primitive Defense of the Ancients going against some kid from Chemistry class.

The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind: I've come to love Bethesda Softworks, but I also have a serious hate-on for them for how they made me skip class on occasion as well as for how they made me procrastinate for sometimes weeks on end because I *just* had to finish that one set of questlines and then I was done...

Thank you, Bethesda, and fuck you. Both at the same time, and from the bottom of my heart. This also applies to Oblivion and Skyrim.

Assassin's Creed: this one is special because I consider it to mark the beginning of my adulthood in the truest sense of the word. The year of its release marks my first job, it's my friend's first big gig as an animator, we splurged our first paychecks on it together and shared our first beers over it together. We tore open history books or Wikipedia pages while playing just to see who fit where in the grand scheme of things, and this marked the first time I'd have a very deep and profound respect for the inner workings of game design. It's also the first time that it would sink in that I'd probably never set a foot in that one industry's door - but that's okay.

Why is it okay? Because I consider myself as being already fortunate enough to live in a time where games have reached this deep a level of narrative and thematic complexity. The sequels only expanded on that as time went on, and I've been looking forward to each AssCreed release the way some drool when thinking of the next Clive Cussler.

 

[___________________]

1. Streets of Rage

2. Metal Gear Solid

3. Resident Evil 1

4. Final Fantasy VII

5. Tekken 3

There are more like Freelancer, Heavy Rain and stuff, but those 5 came first when it came to defining the way I like to play nowadays.

 

[Brendan Stepladder]

There's a lot more love for Halo in this thread than I would have expected. Also, significantly less Half-Life 2 than I would have anticipated from this community of Valve-sycophants.

 

[JasonBurnout16]

Hmmmmm.

1) Dino Crisis.

The first game I ever played, which I completed alongside my Uncle who has moved away. I have fond memories of the game and it will always have a place in my heart. It also birthed my admiration of dinosaurs.

2) Bioshock.

The game was simply a work of art and I fell so deep into the story with the whole Altruism/Objectivism. Very interesting.

3) Assassins Creed (2)

While the whole series has been amazing - and I'm planning on getting a tattoo of the logo - the second game onwards really stands out to me. I simply love Rome, Italy, the whole lot and again it's simply an amazing game.

4) COD4

Allowed me to play with my friends online, make new friends and generally have an amazing time, inside, away from the troubles of the rest of the world while still being with my friends? Yes please.

5) Minecraft.

It allows me to explore my creative side. Simple as that.

 

[jakel_hybrid]

Deus Ex: In my opinion one of the best games ever made. The complexity of almost every character, the choices you could make, the different ways you could play, the amazing storyline incorporating science fiction, gothic grandeur, philosophy and conspiracies. I have played through it so many times, and yet I will still find something new every time I play it.

Half Life 2: Fast paced shooter action, with strong characters and amazing story. What more could you want? Oh how about varied locations, weapons and enemies, amazing world building and the most physically true world in gaming.

Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast: This game was one of the first shooters I had ever played where the story was one of the central reasons for playing. If had plenty of characters, settings and objectives, and really got you caught up in the extended universe of Star Wars. Plus you could be a FUCKING JEDI. And because it was designed for PC, they could give you a whole bunch of powers without having to cycle through them, you just pressed the F keys.

Planescape Torment: One of the deepest and most amazing RPG experiences ever made. The story of redemption of a guy who was trying to do the right thing, but ended up basically fucking the multiverse through his attempts, is still on of the best I've ever played.

Starcraft: A deep, tactics driven multiplayer experience, coupled with an awesome singleplayer RTS. Yes please. Really introduced the RTS genre to me, and despite how many I've played, I don't think I've played any others as many times as the original and the best.

 

[Naeras]

Company of Heroes
The game that got me into the RTS genre, and also the game that made me realize that I'm actually a pretty darn good tactician. Which suits me well, because the game has a very tactical approach to the genre. As of now I'm a relatively well-known name in the CoH community, so you can say that I've spent more time on this game than any other when you factor in all my work on the forums and strategies.

Tales of Symphonia
Yeah, sure, it's a JRPG, but it's one of the better ones. It's also the first game I played that actually was about something(discrimination and social issues). The combat was also pretty good, and although the game really hasn't aged well, it still stood as my favorite game ever for five years.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Another game that's really about something, and it's about one of the themes I'm the most intrigued about(I'm a bio-science student), and had some goddamn gripping moments. It's also a prime example of how to do moral choices properly in a game, as several of the scenarios you're presented with have no simple answers. The gameplay is also really good for the most part.

Super Mario 64
My first game ever. Do I need to explain any more?

Street Fighter Alpha 3
SFA3 was the first fighting game I really loved. It's probably a huge part of what got me into the genre again recently, buying an arcade stick and all. It's kind of a cheesy 90's-game, but that's part of the charm. And while I do think Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike is a better game overall, SFA3 has a special place in my heart.

 

[Marik2]

3. Katawa Shoujo
Showed me that games based on anime school girls don't have to revolve around fetishes, sex, and some odd ball stuff I won't bother mentioning.
4. Mass Effect (1-3)
Got me to acknowledge just how important a game's plot really was.

Alternative has both of those in spades

OT: Super Mario World and Mega Man X

They are both one of my first games which got me into gaming and showed me how fun and challenging games can truly be.

Halo 1 and 2

Halo 1 got me immersed in the world and was my first shooter I cared about the people in it. Halo 2 showed me just how fun FPS multiplayer can be and can bring together friends at a party.

Call of Duty 4

My first call of duty game and the one that I have enjoyed the most. Showed me how a game can have a great campaign and a very fun multiplayer.

Katawa Shoujo

My first visual novel and the game that made me cry in so many ways. It is in a special place for introducing me to this genre.

Muv Luv Alternative

This game is just wow, does so many things differently and that I did not expect. Takes the harem genre and turns it upside down. One of the few mechas I have enjoyed immensely and the one to make me cry a lot. Even with some of the criticism I have for it, it is still a game worth playing.

 

[dstryfe]

Alrighty...let's give this one a shot. In no particular order:

Pokemon Gold - The best Pokemon game of all time. Alright, fine, the remake, Pokemon Heart Gold, is better. That said, Gold was truly a sequel to Red, and the assortment of Pokemon you *could* get was pretty boss. Fighting Red was also bloody awesome.

Final Fantasy VII - The game has my vote for best Final Fantasy, and is easily the defining game of the genre. The characters each had enough personality (or a reason to mope as a flimsy replacement), and I felt the magic system was the best iteration the series has seen. The story, while noodly and complex, was moving at times, and I managed to follow enough to keep interest in it.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles - By far the best Sonic game ever made, and the defining game of my childhood. I played in a tournament (yes, a Sonic tournament) just before I turned four, and placed third (from what little I remember, it was awesome). I wound up getting the game on my birthday, and still dust off the cartridge to play fairly regularily.

Neverwinter Nights - My introduction to D&D, actually. An awesome game, which very closely approximates the D&D 3.0 ruleset it was based on. Dad and I played that thing for years, and it's still something I regularily play over LAN with a few friends.

Knights of the Old Republic - This...actually got me playing western RPGs, and officially put BioWare on my list of favourite developers (that list currently is...BioWare). You'd think Neverwinter Nights would've done that...

 

[distortedreality]

Deus Ex

First (and one of the only) games that I've played that combined all my favourite elements from other games. Shooting, stealth, great story, consequences for actions, good characters, hilarious voice acting, great soundtrack, rpg elements, meaningful upgrade paths, great world, etc etc. Still haven't played a game that i've loved as much.

Chrono Trigger

Simply the best party based RPG i've played. The sheer scope of the story is still something that you don't see these days, and didn't see very often when CT was released. All the party characters are great, with deep personalities and diverse upgrade paths and stories, the world itself is very cool, and the gameplay mechanics are without fault imo.

Counter Strike : Source

The first shooter I truly put some effort into playing competitively. Had played plenty of shooters previously semi-competitively, but CSS was just so perfect, with a great competitive scene, that I couldn't resist. Great tactical play, well balanced maps, at the time easy on the eye without crazy system requirements, and great little glitch spots that were left in the game that make for much lols. Had so much fun with that game, even while being terribly serious about it.

Monkey Island 1+2

Pinnacle of point and click adventures imo. There were plenty of brilliant ones around at the time (Legend of Kyrandia, Simon the Sorcerer, Amazon Queen etc etc) but the MI games captured the humour perfectly, the interface was perfect (with slight improvements over others in the genre), the settings beautiful and mysterious, and the puzzles ridiculously obtuse a lot of the time while still making some sort of sense. A hell of a lot of fun.

Hitman 1+2

Epic, epic amounts of fun. A great idea fully realized, the first two Hitman games told an engaging story which was never just an excuse to go out and kill people in as many different ways as possible. While the later games looked prettier, had more weapons and more ways to kill people, I still think these two got the balance spot on between the seriousness of killing people and the coolness factor of planning out the killings. I think the later games have gone a little overboard in the "funny ways to die" factor. Not a bad thing at all, but I enjoy the more serious tone of the first two games.

 

[Ieyke]

Megaman X & Megaman X4 -
They are sort of jointly my favorite game. Megaman X introduced me to Megaman and something a lot more....dynamic....than Mario. Megaman X4 is that game evolved to perfection. Just absolute, rock-solid, perfectly tuned, perfection.

Assassin's Creed II -
I am a Renaissance Man of sorts. My interests and skills occupy a vast list. Leonardo da Vinci is sort of a personal hero, and his entire era is one of the most amazing times in all of history. I'm the sort of person with a deep respect for Renaissance art, classical music, and that sort of thing. I'm also a very basically trained ninja (as in I have trained in ninjutsu and have spent a bit of time in gatherings of the deadliest people in the world.
To be able to have a game that gives proper respect to all that history, makes it something action packed, and then makes that action in a vein sort of resonant to my own training..... Yea, for me that's an INCREDIBLY compelling setting, and Ezio's first game is still EASILY the best in the series (unless AC3 suddenly becomes utterly epic whenever it is that I finally get to play as Connor...)
Hell, Assassin's Creed II's soundtrack is even one of my favorite soundtracks of all time (pretty much tied with Tron Legacy).

Left 4 Dead 2 -
I, like so very many people, perpetually have the Zombie Apocalypse on my mind. I want one.
L4D2 is pretty much the best zombies game ever made.
Incidentally, you know how people will always randomly have that one game that they're just some sort of crazy super prodigy at for no apparent reason? For me that's Left 4 Dead 2. Maybe it's practice. I've played this game a lot. I can solo (as in I kill off the 3 bots) No Mercy on Advanced. I very routinely kill more zombies than the rest of my team combined. I've literally only ever run into ONE guy who could routinely get a higher score than me.
Dunno if I like this game so much because I'm good at it, or if I'm so good at it because of how much I like it.
Also, it now contains all of Left 4 Dead 1.
Just awesome.
Can't wait for Left 4 Dead 3.

Super Mario RPG:Legend Of The Seven Stars -
Fantastic RPG. Super fun.

Arcanum:Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura -
Like Fallout, except steampunk fantasy, and therefore 1000x more awesome.

---------------------------------
Beyond this point it gets murky.
---------------------------------

I have a vague cloud of "favorite" games -
*Assassin's Creed 1/Brotherhood/Revelations/3
*Okami
*Castlevania:Symphony Of The Night
*Final Fantasy Tactics(AKA War Of The Lions)
*Suikoden II
*Fallout 3
*Portal 1&2
*Batman:Arkham City
*Mario platformers
*the other Megaman/Megaman X/Megaman Legends games
*Age Of Empires 2/Age Of Mythology
*Battlefield 2142(when it worked properly...)

And then a vague cloud of games that I like a ton, and played insane amounts of -
*Diablo II
*Team Fortress 2
*Pokemon Blue/Gold/Sapphire
*Minecraft
*Transformers:War For/Fall Of Cybertron
*God Of War series

 

[Jak23]

Jazz Jack-rabbit.
First game my dad bought *cough cough* me, and first game I ever played.

Yes! Someone else who's played Jazz Jackrabbit! I was playing that and Commander Keen when I was little under 2 years old, so I've been a gamer since before I can remember. It's weird because I always consider myself a retro gamer because I played all the old games, even though I'm only 16...

 

[Frezzato]

Lets see:

Star Wars: Rouge Squadron. The first game that I replayed multiple times, and one of the first games I ever played.

I'm sorry. So very, very, very sorry.

But it's Rogue. "Rouge" is a French word for the colour red, or alternately, what women tend to slap on their lips to look pretty in some occasions. "Rouge" is not an epithet that designates people going against an established authority.

Rouges Cinq ordres en attente!

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Metal Gear Solid 3

Well designed and challenging with multiple ways to complete any aspect of the games. You know, the kind of game Peter Molyneux wishes he could make. It was humourous at the right times but had an amazing story. It was the canonical Metal Gear story.

The enemies were weak alone, but powerful when just 2 or 3 caught you off guard. The boss fights were works of art (The End still goes down as the best boss fight I've played in a video game next to killing Liquid Ocelot in MGS4).

The features that this game brought to the table were amazing. I'm sorry Theif fans, but this is a game that lets me sneak through almost all of it using nothing but CQC, a cardboard box and a banana to dispatch guards and therefore is a better stealth game.

Bushido Blade 2

Also known as the best weapon based fighting game of all time in my opinion. Screw Soul Calibur to be honest. Balance in that series fluctuates and is always leaning towards whatever "special" characters they decide to jam in.

Bushido Blade 2 is a fighting game with no health bars or OP special combo hyper whatever moves. If you get your arm cut, you can't use that arm(which means for a 2 handed weapon, your life just got twice as hard). Legs get cut? no sprinting in the 3d terrain for you. Head cut? Dead. Heart stabbed? Dead.

A bunch of different weapons to choose from each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

A bunch of characters that handle different weapons in their own way, better with some than others. And great for multiplayer fights.

Tekken 3
The game that got me into fighting games, and the reason why I will always hate anything Street Fighter. The fights may leads towards a combo juggling fighter, but this game is a 3D fighter, so it makes doing long combos hard. No characters were too powerful (maybe True Ogre but what boss character isn't?) and super moves left you extremely open.

Tales of the Abyss
Because screw Symphonia. It wasn't as good no matter what Tales fans say. Abyss had a much more serious story and its typical JRPG humour wasn't as crammed in as it was in Symphonia.

This game also has one of the more original twists out of any games story ever. A few of them actually. Its battle system still goes down as the best one in the Tales series.


Total War Shogun 2
This game is the only game to do any justice as a realistic portrayal of Sengoku Period Japan's wars. I'm very happy to have played this game and very happy to say that if it were not for this game, I would not have discovered the Total War series. Each clan was researched very well to add to the authenticity of the warfare in this game. Every battle is hell, but enthralling at the same time.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Rouges Cinq ordres en attente!

"Rouges Cinq - Rouge à lèvres - Tirez!" *insert mouth laser sounds and whatever sound comes up when you crush a lipstick tube directly against a solid surface*

"Rogue Five responding to call, I repeat, Rogue Five responding to call...
- Too late, Rogue Five, the Rouge Squad already took care of it!
- Those damn lipstick fanatics, always stealing our kills!"

Bushido Blade 2

Also known as the best weapon based fighting game of all time in my opinion. Screw Soul Calibur to be honest. Balance in that series fluctuates and is always leaning towards whatever "special" characters they decide to jam in.

Bushido Blade 2 is a fighting game with no health bars or OP special combo hyper whatever moves. If you get your arm cut, you can't use that arm(which means for a 2 handed weapon, your life just got twice as hard). Legs get cut? no sprinting in the 3d terrain for you. Head cut? Dead. Heart stabbed? Dead.

A bunch of different weapons to choose from each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

A bunch of characters that handle different weapons in their own way, better with some than others. And great for multiplayer fights.

Oh God, this game. I was a big fan of just pulling out my katana, running up to my opponent, and trying to kill them in one slash. I wanted to keep running past them for a couple steps and then see if I couldn't just stop and watch 'em die, Yoshiaki Kawajiri style.

It worked on occasion. Right up until you meet the cowboy douchebag. Then your character's damage model goes nuts. I couldn't beat the last fight in the story mode without looking like there was more gauze on me than skin.

 

[Fatmanjj]

Well let's see it's hard to narrow it down to just five games, but I'll give it a try

In no particular order.

Super Mario world/Kirby superstar. can't really decide which as I played both of them as a child around the same time
and they truly instilled in me a deep love of gaming playing these games with my sister was some of the most fun I ever had

Tactics ogre the knight of lodis. This game introduced me to tactical RPG's I was absolutely blown away when I first played it
I had never played a game that required me to strategize so much before I instantly became completely immersed in commanding my troops and played for 24 hours straight The day I got it

Age of empires 2. Had basically the same effect on me as Tactics ogre but on a much grander scale as all of my friends played as well. Organizing epic battles with each other was ridiculously thrilling
and coming out victorious after a two-hour siege was amazing

Final Fantasy VIII. My first real introduction to JRPG's and games that actually told a story it was the first time I really cared about the characters in a game

BioShock. The most atmospheric and immersive game I've ever played everything about this game from the sound to the graphics gameplay and story completely blew me away when I played it

 

[Jaeke]

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
My first real gaming experience that immersed me in gaming when I was about 5. It is responsible for my convertion into the gaming lifestyle. It set in scope how I feel about games and planted the idea that the game's environment make the most important contribution to their success.(Followed closely by Metroid Fusion, talk about atmosphere...)

Civilization II
I remember watching my dad play this game for HOURS. As soon as I was old enough (around 7) I finally got my hands on it and could not let go. I played the game for days until I could finally rival his score. I think my deeply-rooted love for strategies is because of it.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
That game. The game.
The game that I will be buried with. Oblivion is the game that set me in stone as the kind of gamer I am today: an RPG lover of open-world environment where I make the choices that matter.

Dragon Age: Origins
Basicly the game opened me to appreciating real stories in games after I had stopped gaming for a couple years. I instantly fell in love with it. I had played KOTOR 1 and ME 1 long before this game was released and liked both of them but it was only until I played DA:O that I came to really understand the beauty and art of their design.

That fith one is kind of a tie between Halo:Combat Evolved and Unreal Tournament 2003:
Both of these games are keystones for my FPS preferences. Obviously they are on pretty different ends of the FPS spectrum but that's kind of the point, they are both different kinds of FPS and I love them both. I think modern-day FPS should borrow from them in terms of single-player and multiplayer, respectively. (Metroid Prime was my precursor to finding these kind of games interesting). I remember playing a few FPS before these though, such as Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Battlefield 1942, both of which I have very fond memories of but never thought of them as much more than fun games to play on your off time.

Very honorable mentions:
Earthworm Jim (ealiest game I can remember)
Super Smash Bros. (got me into Fighers, my favorite being Soul Caliber 2)
Half-Life (my FIRST FPS)
Fable (first time I remember liking an RPG)
Chromehounds (how squad-based multiplayer should be)
Tenchu Z (my first love of Stealth games)

 

[Dr.Panties]

I going with current games that define me as a gamer.

(1) Vanquish- Simply the best, most hardcore 3rd person shooter yet released. It's forced me to really improve my game, so to speak. My game of the generation.

(2) Hotline Miami- A brutal retro-stylised psychedelic top-down massacre action puzzle, with the best soundtrack in recent years. On-the-fly strategy meets twitch. Love at first byte, and a contender for my game of the year.

(3) Frozen Synapse- I love a good tactical squad TBS, and Frozen Synapse takes it to a new level. Tense, and totally engaging.

(4) Dishonored- My fascination with the stealth genre began with Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. Dishonored is a shining example of why I continue to love the genre.

(5) Left4Dead 2- Tight mechanics, good characters, zombies, randomisation, co-op, versus. This is what I look for in a FPS.

Honorable mentions: Bulletstorm, Demon's and Dark Souls.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

Huh. This looks fun. Here we go, then. The five games that define me.

1. Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo was one of the first games I played that wasn't on a Nintendo console. It was also what got me into more "serious" gaming. My mom had encouraged me to stop playing as many video games as I got older... they were a "boy thing," as I was told... but the thrill of playing Halo against my brother's friends (and kicking their asses) made me take another look at that "boy thing" that I was being encouraged to dismiss. Years and years later, I'm still gaming. And, of course, this FPS was what eventually led me to...

2. Bioshock
I loved, loved, loved this game. Its atmosphere was unparalleled. It had some weak points, and it went downhill after... a certain point (avoiding spoilers, ahoy!)... but it was still an incredible game. And the English major in me loves the Ayn Rand parallels and themes. It really challenged my perception of what a game could be.

3. The Mass Effect series
I like my RPGs medieval, with magic and swords and shields and all that. Mass Effect was what really challenged that preconception for me. I got absorbed in its world, its lore, its characters... everything. It wasn't perfect, but nothing is. Is it cheating to pick a series? Maybe. But I'm doing it anyways.

4. Soul Calibur II
This game got me into fighting games, a genre I now adore. For me, it's still the epitome of the Soul Calibur series, and I'll still pop it in at parties to have a 8 vs. 8 match with my friends. Good times.

5. Tales of Symphonia
This game got me into JRPGs, yet another genre that I'm quite addicted to nowadays. I still replay it every once in a while, and I've never gotten tired of it. The graphics may be dated, the gameplay may have improved in later titles, but the incredible story and (yeah, I'll admit it) my nostalgia carry it through.

Honorable mentions: Super Mario Bros., Super Smash Bros., the Dragon Age series, Final Fantasy X.