in no order:
The Halflife series: all of it. including portal.: perfect storytelling, perfect pacing, and the atmosphere in my opinion is just unparalleled. wonderful voice acting, fantastic character models. One of the most menacing universes I've ever played around in and all the sweeter for it.
The total war series: all of it: Ever since shogun I've been hooked on total war games. I only ever successfully completed shogun once because it was so damned hard. I absolutely loved the clear division between the economic and diplomatic focused campaign map and the combat focused battles. Despite each games dubious commitment to historical accuracy, (as somebody who fills their shelves with books on ancient history, Romes inaccuracy was a thing of ire for me) they were just so fun to play that it was easy to forgive. Recent games in the series, Rome and Medieval 2 have been disappointing due to weak AI and literally absent diplomacy, but I still spent way more time in them than in any other game on their years of release.
(ok, that's cheating, but each game of their respective series have offered me countless hours of gaming. I have lost count of the amount of times I've finished halflife 1, 2, and the episodes, and I've been playing the total war series for such a long time and it's really shaped my view of how FUN strategy games can be.)
Homeworld 1: If I didn't feel like it was cheating so hard, I'd just pick all the homeworld games again. 1, cataclysm, and 2, are all damned fantastic games, but I forced myself for a simple reason. Homeworld 1 done it first and done it so very right. the jawdropping visuals, and who can forget that theme music. (Agnus Dei, by Barber, if anybody was ever interested and never found out.)
KOTOR: I'd pick KOTOR 2 if they ever finished it. despite common criticisms I and many others level at Bioware games, they still somehow manage to be excellent. I practically played KOTOR 1 from start to finish without pause and I had little goosebumps at the end just from the achievement of completing something so wonderful. looking back on it now, it's full of little flaws and unsatisfying moments and black and white choices that are too stark to be believable, but at the time it was a true experience.
Team Fortress 2: This game NEVER gets old for me. I can understand why it does for others, but it's an endless well of entertainment as far as I'm concerned. Every time I feel I've reached a plateau in terms of skill, I figure out some new little trick, or discover some new fun map that shakes it all up. Mind your head.
Call of duty 4: ok, it's far too damned short, and I'm not interested enough in the multiplayer to sink hours into it, but whilst it lasts... damn. That's all I can say.
Max Payne 2: another game I've replayed into infinity. This game still is cinematic perfection. the cliched characters, the overly grim and dark noir setting almost farcical but once it sucks you in, it works. I genuinely cared for max and mona. Silly perhaps, but fantastic nonetheless.
Thief 2: Do I need a reason to burgle your house, taffer? Thief 1 made the stealth genre viable, if not inventing it outright. Thief 2 took out most of the zombies and let you rob people blind. The setting was gothic-steampunk awesome, and the guards obsessed with rats. Add in the various cults (mechanists or hammerites, I'm not fussed), and you will be praising the Master Builder for his judgements.
Shining force 2: this was my introduction to RPG games, and still a game I play from time-to-time. Sure it could be pretty unforgiving (that damned kraken, that damned chessboard game) but gods it was... something else at the time. The imagination and scope involved for a mere megadrive game should put most modern RPG developers to shame.
Hitman: Blood Money. Why blood money and not the others? Well, hitman one was pretty broken, and required psychic knowledge of many levels to win. That's not how I wanted my assassin game to go. Not hitman 2: gods no. the fact that simply walking close to an enemy could ruin your disguise was a little too arbitrary and random. And the Japanese levels. 'nuff said. This was like hitman turned into a dumb FPS. Not contracts? oddly enough, I feel contracts to be the second best game of the series. whilst occasionally enemies will still see through your disguise just for being closeby, I thought the level design and the generally higher production values and emphasis on not just slaughtering your way through the levels got it more right than any hitman game before it. Blood money, however, is an evolution on the same theme. everything the hitman series had gotten right in the 3 games before it is in there. My only qualm is that there is too much a 'correct' way to do the levels, and whilst I loathed hitman 2 for entire levels full of run and gun, I do feel a hitman game would benefit from a little more gunplay than is currently involved. As it stands, it is a wonderful puzzle game, but I want it to be a gloriously freeform ASSASSINATION game. Blood money gets closer to that than the others manage.
There's my list, with full justifications.
