Giant Bomb is independent for the first time, which is awesome since I used to watch it a lot and appreciate independent websites.
Anyways I pulled my head out from making a live editor for this site and post, and instead just wrote the thing. This list is loosely ranked, and mostly about the experiences I've had with my friends.
- 🌌 Phantasy Star Online Played alone oddly enough, this aesthetic lives deep in my heart.
- 🔌 Halo: Combat Evolved LAN parties, ambigious and mysterious geometry, PC mods. Honorable to Infinite for time with friends while abroad.
- 🗺️ Morrowind Beautiful world, walking out of Balmora in the morning fog to that wonderous soundtrack. Deep and wide, had no clue what I was doing.
- 🦋 Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Isometric, squad building, ability configuration. Lovely art in a portable format.
- 🐰 Final Fantasy XII Auto battling, configuration, more Ivalice. Speaks to my programming brain, 4x speed up a must.
- 🤺 Nidhogg Rivalries abound, great times playing this in upstairs on High St (I think?)
- 🌎 Super Mario Odyssey I didn't beat this one but my wife suuure did. Super fun seeing her go deep on. Great controls, music, and world.
- 🏔️ Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Huge moonshot that revolutionized the series, and some ways the industry. Beautiful piano, character progression, with calls back to 30 years of lore.
- 🚔 Need for Speed: Most Wanted Highschool PC era, comparing and discussing with Adam. Great controls, and city (if a bit beige).
- 🏗️ Minecraft Made for all Lego kids, simple, concise, endless. From an Alpha account, a break, to RTX, and then Bobcatville.
- 🏖️ Super Mario Sunshine Used to be derided, but I spent many hours just exploring. Vacation in a game with lovely music.
- 🦍 Overwatch Hours and hours with YB, including tournament hosting and streaming graphics. Rise and fall of OWL.
- 🏎️ Mario Kart DS Playing with friends at GRC, and in AP Music Theory. Crisp, sharp graphics and controls. Game sharing without a cart.
- 🪄 Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Another that was looked down upon at the time but I always loved. Spent many many hours sailing around the world.
- 🚃 Half Life 2 I had serious heart activity being trapped in the hallways after running through the rooftops. Another love of early PC gaming, Steam took foreeeever to download on 56k.
- 🧑🚀 Elite: Dangerous Evan called the shot on this one. Eventually got hooked, got some HOTAS, and my Dolphin. Built my home with the Astrobiology Research Cooperative, which turned out to be ran by furries.
- 🏟️ Super Smash Brothers: Brawl Getting utterly smacked into the ground by Jared and Stephen. Formative "adult" years at Park Street.
- 🧑🌾 Stardew Valley The dream game successor to Harvest Moon. Indie dev, everything you'd want. Some friends that don't really play games loved it.
- 🏜️ Journey Dazzling art direction with a haughty multiplayer concept. Mantha made me a beautiful scarf from my first playthrough's player icon.
- 🪐 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic One of my first Bioware, branching dialogue games. Loved building my character, turning evil at the very end and the DnD roots.
- 💣 Counter-Strike: Source Playing de_dust2 over and over listening to Vitalic. Eventually branching into the offical maps, then surf, gun game, and custom servers.
- 🚁 Battlefield 2 Pub stomping with Adam in the Apache on FuShe pass. Grenade fights in Kardand. Miss the game dearly, tragic it's not playable now. Also Project Reality bullet cracks.
- 🎲 Neverwinter Nights Some of my first exposure to DnD ideas. I remember having dreams of being a ranger after playing. I was terrible, but I loved it.
- 🐥 Sonic Adventure 2 Loved the music, still listen to it. Gameplay is rough at times, but spent many hours growing Chao in the garden.
- 🎥 Until Dawn Had a blast playing with my wife. Fun, quick, focused.
Bonus: Original Xbox
A friend wanted to make an (ordered list) for a specific console, so here's the OG Xbox. While there are some multiplatform games, I prioritized games I actually played on the big boy.
- 💍 Halo
- 💣 Halo 2
- ⚔️ Fable
- 🐉 Jade Empire
- ⏰ Timesplitters 2
- 🏂 SSX Tricky
- 🤠 Red Dead Revolver
- 🛬 Mercenaries
- 🥎 Fusion Frenzy
- 🗺️ Soul Caliber 2
- 🔨 Red Faction 2
- 🌟 Advent Rising
- 🥷 Ninja Gaiden
- 🔫 Pariah
- 🐺 Bloody Roar: Primal Fury