Morrowind - the first game that let me leave the path. It completely changed RPGs for me, and I loved it.
Solasta - this game captured the D&D feeling like no other game has. My wife and I have spent hundreds of hours playing this together.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard - this game touched me emotionally, more than any game before it. The whole 3rd act is an emotional rollercoaster. Plus it has one of my favorite action sequences ever, in The Siege of Weisshaupt.
Skullgirls - Simply the best fighting game ever made. There’s so much depth in a comparatively small roster that I could basically never get bored or see every viable strategy in it.
Baldur’s Gate 3 - Tried and true RPG mechanics combined with the best version yet of Larian’s engine that encourages free form problem solving. And on top of that, they managed best in class presentation in NPC dialogue and had some of the best writing in the genre. This will be a tough act to follow, especially since I don’t think their last two Original Sin RPG systems were anywhere near as good as D&D 5e.
Elden Ring - It’s been a great couple of years for two of my favorite games of all time to come out within a year and a half of each other, but this is another one of those games where there’s just so much to see and so many ways to solve the problem in front of you. Pattern recognition for where to find your next reward is up to you; your next goal is up to you; how you conquer the bad guy in front of you is up to you.
All three of these games just respect your intelligence and are composed of systems deep enough to give you countless ways to solve their challenges.
Not that they’re the best games, but they’re definitely my favorites. Though if I’m being honest there’s a large gap between number one and number two, and anything other than Satisfactory feels like it could move in the top 10 depending on my mood.
So I guess if I’m being honest with myself it’s more like
1: Satisfactory
massive gap
2-∞: any other traditionally well-liked game, depending on my mood on a given day
One has to be Crusader Kings III considering the amount of time that died in that game. I did Lingua Franca (world domination) when mods and savescumming voided achievements, my whole empire fell apart literally 20 seconds after I achieved world domination lol, could barely hold it together to achieve the feat.
The other one is probably Rocket League. Low skill floor, skyhigh skill ceiling, wonderfully designed esports game. If you could still freely go in and out of casual games, I‘d probably still play it. But I peaked and don‘t feel the need to play ranked anymore and casuals started to feel like ranked.
After these two I can probably name ten more but I can‘t say which takes a top 3. League of Legends, Counterstrike 1.6, Battlefield 3, HITMAN, Dark Souls II (yep lol, I could probably draw a map of this game from memory), NIOH 1/2, Monster Hunter World, Sleeping Dogs, Muse Dash, all these games killed countless hours with fun, but it‘s hard to put one above the other. Apart from League of Legends, that one takes the rear.
Witcher 3 was one of the first “big games” I got to experience. I still think of the characters occasionally and it has some very memorable quests. It’s been on my “to replay” list for a while to see if it still holds up against my memories of it.
Nier: Automata
This is another early “big game” I played, though I didn’t finish it then. I won’t spoil it, but at some point I was up against a boss, way under levelled and didn’t feel like grinding. However I started a new playthrough this year, got further along and it’s still very good. The story telling and world building are simply excellent, combat is fun (except a certain section I won’t spoil) and I really want to see what else happens in my current play through. My only gripe is that keyboard & mouse sucks without an overhaul mode, which unfortunately doesn’t work on Linux.
Other games
I couldn’t think of a third game, so here’s a list of other good games that don’t quite make it.
Cyberpunk 2077: I like it, but it hasn’t really had as much of an impact as my two favourites.
Baldur’s Gate 3: Very good contender for my 3rd favourite spot, but I need to play through it a bunch more times.
Dishonored: I haven’t thought of this game in a while. It’s still very good, just not a contender for favourite.
Skyrim: One of my higher playtime games, but I see it more as a modded sandbox à la Minecraft that’s fun for 2 weeks.
Receiver 2: Very neat gun mechanics with an important central message
1000xResist: Interesting story and message, though you won’t play this for the gameplay. Some awe inspiring visuals occasionally
Wing Commander 4 - At the time, I was very young, and this game changed how I looked at videogames. For my little brain, the FMV cutscenes and genuinely decent acting (ffs, it has Mark Hammil) somehow made it click that games could have compelling narrative
Kingdom Hearts - this game changed my life in many ways. I can genuinely say I wouldn’t be doing what I do today if it weren’t for this game and my involvement in the fan community around it. This game is very special to me because of its themes and major plot beats, and how those interacted with my life at the time. This game taught me that you could go beyond “compelling narrative” and break my heart with a video game lol
Natural Selection 2 - I wish this game were more popular in its prime. This is the epitome of what I think good competition looks like, and a great manifestation of what I personally love in esports
Age of Empires II I've played since release and still do occasionally.
Everhood 1 everything about it I love. During covid things got very dark for me personally and this game just hit perfectly on some stuff plaguing my mind at the exact right time I most needed it. The devs were one hit wonders unfortunately. Coming from that, the sequel was atrocious.
Thief 2: The Metal Age. It's like crack to this brain of mine. Yes I play The Dark Mod too.
Aye and it helps the fans are so passionate making new maps to play for both Thief games and TDM.
DKR holds up so much better. It's just more* realised too. Way more stuff to do. MK64 is skeletal more like an arcade game really. Wish it'd get some reverse engineering love as much as I enjoy the fan made map packs for MK64.
With DKR once you get used to the car drifting camera movements, bunny hopping the hovercraft, letting go of the gas before hitting boosts, and learning the plane can also trigger ground boosts you'll feel like a god.
I see a lot of people shit on the hovercraft while I'm over here bunny hopping sharp corners jumping up to smash into walls on purpose like a psycho so I don't slow down ping ponging all over. It's such a joy.
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