What is the most important game you have ever played?

[ShenGCH]

Of all the games you've played in your life, which one (if any) do you consider to be the most important to you, both in terms of sentimentality and the impact they had on your appreciation and love of the medium for your lives up 'til this point?

Surprise, surprise: mine is Shenmue. Before Shenmue, video games (while I still loved them, of course) were very much an A-to-B affair. Mario, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, point-and-click games, shooters, adventure games, etc., were all very well and good, but it wasn't until playing Shenmue that I realised video games were capable of much more than just being something to play and a form of entertainment. I'd simply never played another game like it before. The freedom; the reality; the emotional connection to the world and the characters within it; the utter uniqueness of how it played and how everything worked in the way it did. Everything. It was only then that it struck me that there was so much more to the medium; it gave me a whole new perspective and appreciation for video games as a whole, and the possibilities and opportunities that one very special game gave me were seemingly endless and, I believe, still fully untapped.

It's been almost fifteen years since I first popped the game into the Dreamcast as a silly nine year-old, and I am thankful every single day to have experienced Shenmue. I'd probably still be interested in video games even without it, but man did it have an otherworldly impact on me. Braid had a very similar impact on me back in 2008, but I don't know if I'd have even touched a game like Braid without having experienced Shenmue.

So, do you have any?

[Axm]

Yes Shenmue aswell for me.
But besides that id actually have to say Halo 1.

Back during High School, during what id say is the golden age of split-screen multiplayer, that game really stepped up the bar in quality and capability. You could system link consoles for up to 16 players on 4 TV's. Crazy concept back then but people did it and had a blast.
I system linked 2 consoles/TV's with 8 players and that was probably the best times ive ever had gaming.

After school it was always lets go over to someones house, play Halo and drink whatever alcohol we could get a hold of.

Unfortunately though this also caused problems with one of my friends though too.
After a session at my house one day, afterwards I noticed my big "Duke" OG Xbox 1 controller was missing. I searched all over my house for it but couldn't find it. Next time we had a session I noticed my friend (who was more of a friend of a friend) had now 1 extra Duke controller at his place then he used to. I thought, "oh man he must have taken it by accedent last time." So I asked him "Hey man that isnt my controller is it?" and he got instantly defensive about it to the point he threatened to kick my ass over it.
So whatever, I let it go. If he wanted my controller that bad for his chunky fat hands then he could have it. I got an Xbox S controller at that point and never used the Duke anymore. I cared more about trying to keep my circle of friends happy I guess.
But ya, the guy was huge. He would have kicked my ass. I got strait up jacked behind my back and then in front of my face.
The guy ended up being abit of a loser later on in life.. the poor asshole..

Halo 2, Project Gotham Racing 2, Rainbow Six 3 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein also changed alot aswell for me. Thats when Xbox Live really kicked off being super popular and when I met alot of the online friends I still have to this day. Some of which turned into in-person friends. One of them owns this site now.

[Let's Get Sweaty]

Grand Theft Auto IV.

It's the game that led me to buy a gun and kill a man, which is why I'm posting now from a prison cell.

Fortunately we all have PlayStations and mobile phones, so it's no inconvenience, but what made it an important turning point in my life is that without incarceration, I would never have discovered my love for poetry.

And for that, I am eternally grateful to Rockstar. Like a bird is grateful to the wind on which her wings doth sail, across the oceans of her mind while physically in jail.

[ShenSun]

Shenmue, Persona 4, Mario, MGS.

[OL]

Kind of hard to actually quantify importance for me. I mean, I've played so many games that all had different effects on my preferences and overall openness to variations in quality that it's hard to narrow it down.

I suppose the easiest answer I could give would be Final Fantasy VII, since it may have been the first to truly wow me with an expansive, complex world and story. I'd been invested in the stories of other games before it, primarily those in the adventure genre (Full Throttle comes to mind most prominently), but those were always paced and set up more like movies, usually with generally short runtimes and a more limited collection of characters. FFVII, however, could take dozens of hours to finish, meeting what felt like hundreds of characters and NPCs along the way, and visiting a wide variety of settings and cultures throughout. It was absorbing in a way that only a videogame can be, and that set up a certain bar of excellence that everything after would have to reach for.

Actually... putting it like that, I think Wonder Boy in Monster World may have even been more important than FFVII. Prior to it, videogames were just toys to be played with; WBiMW was actually the first instance where I found myself exploring an open game world, meeting characters that I actually gave a shit about, and just generally caring about everything in it more than I ever had with anything before it. It's easy enough to look at the game now and recognize it as simple and childlike, but it hit me at just the right time to make a lifelong impression.

So yeah... I suppose FFVII kind of set me up more for modern gaming, but Wonder Boy in Monster World set up my tastes for gaming as a whole.

[AnimeGamer183]

The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
Shenmue
Final Fantasy X

[DL30]

Probably Chrono Trigger.

It was the game that got me into RPG'S and turned me from a casual to diehard gamer.

[Mr357]

Deus Ex

[Raithos]

Sudoku

[Sonikku]

My very first video game. The game among games that arguably saved the medium.

[Sonne2]

Space Invaders: Handheld Edition from the late 1990's.

[shengoro86]

Besides Shenmue.

It is a tie between the original Halo, Final Fantasy X-2 (yep), and Dance Dance Revolution/In The Groove

Halo:
Taught me how to hack video games.

FFX2:
Gave me a deep sense of philosophy

DDR/ITG:
Put me in shape and gave me many dates in highschool I also love music so this hit the spot.
I now do work for the company that made ITG and play professionally. I also have my own cabinet.

phpBB [video]

[Hyo Razuki]

Well, S1 and S2, obviously. But the most meaningful and important game to me will be Shenmue 3. I've been waiting for it all my life and I've invested a lot of passion and money into that game, like a lot of us did. No matter how the game turns out, it will be a lifetime dream coming true in any case.

I can appreciate games like Killer 7, Nights into Dreams or Persona 4 as great works of art just like a great novel, a great movie or a great painting. Also Virtua Fighter, the Phantasy Star (offline) series numerous Sonic games and Street Fighter and King of Fighters have had some kind of impact on my life in terms of harbouring lots of happy and fond memories and still creating many fun hours for me.

But still, those are all just games to me. Shenmue is more than a game to me. It sounds silly to say but I have been feeling incomplete as a person throughout all the years with the Shenmue saga being unfinished. At least S3 will take the saga one step closer to conclusion.

While there is a lot of games I love, I'm fine without them too. The games bring some fun and enjoyment into my life but that's it. I wouldn't really say that right now, I feel that any game is "important" to me or anything. Shenmue is the only exception. For Shenmue, it's different. It has become a part of me.

[St. Elmo's Fire]

Before I had a console and I used to have to go to friends' houses to watch their SNES and Megadrive (Genesis), there was something magical about those 16-bit games with their trippy graphics and their MIDI soundtracks, a sort of magic that I still feel when I see a proper old school game of that age being played, or even when a soundtrack that is kinda reminiscent of that era is played somewhere.

Doom and Doom 2 on the PC came later, they properly immersed me 'cos a (fake-)3D shooter was quite a big deal back then. I used to still play them sometimes (along with Final Doom) when I had the PC before this one, 'cos it had a CD drive and this one doesn't. Quite liked the groovy music in them too (also MIDI files, but mostly a lot different to the SNES/MD tunes).

Ridge Racer in arcade form was awesomeness, I loved everything about it, from the utopian seaside sun-drenched setting and generally bright graphics, to the Japanese music (my first introduction to it I think), to the oversteery handling. I wasted a lot of money on it back in the day. Any time I see a RR cabinet (they do still exist, though they are quite rare now, not seen one in ages) I will still play it too, and be quite good! Knowing that the PS1 had an even better version, I knew I had to get into console gaming, so a PS1 was purchased (which arguably actually makes this my "most important" one. How shallow of me, a racing game with one and a half tracks! ).

FF7 though was the first proper bowl-me-over game I played. The PS1 was my first console so it probably helps that my introduction to owning my own console had the arrival of FF7 shortly afterwards to boost those nostalgia feelings. Unlike Ridge Racer, which was a game I knew and wanted, FF7 was something I didn't know much about, I just knew it had to be a big deal since it had TV adverts was back then. I played it without any expectations. Being new to gaming, it took a while to get used to the stats and materia junctionings, but the story and all the little extras immediately had my attention, and kept it for the next 60-odd hours. I replayed it countless times and actually still have the original double-hinged PS1 box version of the game. It will be worth a lot on ebay one day, but to be honest, it reminds me so much of a simpler and more innocent and just "fun" time of my life I may never get rid. Music was also top notch IMO, how many other games have an end-boss scene where the music has an orchestra actually singing the bad guy's name? Can't be many. When I see the opening scene on youtube, or even hear the intro theme, it gives me goosebumps, no shit. Don't know what that means since I'm not a woman, but some sort of emotional attachment is there. I will replay it again some day too. Have it on the PC from Steam, but it's not as much fun I don't think...

Special mention to Deus Ex too, I remember when we got our first PC (Doom was initially played on PCs that weren't mine) I bought Deus Ex soon after and was amazed by it most of the way through. I think I still had a PS1 at the time so Deux Ex was proper next-gen stuff back then.
I especially liked to wander about twatting people with that really sharp light blue sword that you ended up with. Decent story too I thought. And I think it featured Wan Chai before Shenmue 2 did!

[Henry Spencer]

Aside from Shenmue? Ocarina of Time was the first big "wow" moment for me since it proved what game experiences can do next. Felt like it just next level to the games I had played prior. Keep in mind, I didn't own a PSX at this point in time (and therefore didn't play JRPGs) and chose an N64 as a kid over the Saturn and PSX therefore that game seemed very special and still is. My experience with Zelda games prior to this was really just the CDi games and Link's Awakening on Game Boy.

Mario 64 was also a shocker because it was my first ever 3D game I had ever played in my life. It was obviously the beginning of a whole new game world where you could look around, move anywhere; no more was I restricted to just 2D planes, there an entire world to explore. Which followed up with me getting a PSX and shortly after getting Metal Gear Solid which introduced a storyline that I got so immersed into unlike any games before it. I mean, yeah, I played some point and click adventure games but none of them really had a narrative that captured my imagination like MGS1 did. Everything in MGS1 was so cinematic and gave me a shock of "can games be more like movies" since it was really the first effort I'd played up until that point that seemed to do such a good job at it and have the depth of a TV series or comic book and the quirks of them too. Then Shenmue came along and became my first sandbox game experience and proved games were evolving even more, once again making me get into playing games with a different perspective. I'd definitely say it was OoT, Mario 64, Metal Gear Solid and Shenmue (among others around those times when games were evolving so much, so quickly) that made me look at games differently and get into playing games more often, rather than as a casual basis thing.