Indeed.

Daggerfall, the first time I stepped out of the beginning dungeon into a forest, it was night and snowing. Then I looked at the world map and realized just how massive the game world is, mostly generic content as I found out later but it was highly impressive nevertheless. Inspired the imagination.

EDIT: forgot to say that Garrett, I'm slipping! (=not in)

Braid
Dreamweb
The White Chamber

are mindfuck-games

Seems no one's mentioned it yet so; The Cat Lady. This helped change my life right here. I've always had a strong affinity for dark stuff and it was so perfectly realistic and gritty and surreal and well voiced and and and *Deep Breath*

Sorry, I was super depressed when I played as I sometimes get and used to be a lot back then; it spoke so perfectly to me and as a result I now love point and click games. I used to actually really dislike them but after it I've found a few I loved too, The Edna and Harvey games actually were awesomely funny and really dark at the same time. Still haven't found too many that fit in the same niche as these two but that's okay.

It really helped me get out of depression and become a more social and good person all around, I've always sort of wanted to tell the developer he helped change my life but I'm unsure he would understand my English, sometimes Google translate isn't enough.

Really, I can't tell you anything about it because I would want someone who likes the look of it to play it completely blind with no expectation.

Also Garrett, I'm slipping!

Many, many games, especially in my youth. Games tend to be like that.

The game I hold in the deepest regard is Planescape: Torment, because it showed not that you could tell a good story in a game, or that the game could be focused on story-telling, but that a game could actually make you think, that it was possible for the script of a game to be in that rare echelon where every word rings true, where every plot twist is unexpected yet right, where every idea feels profound.

For me, it's Grand Prix Legends.

What can I say, it was the pinnacle of racing simulators. One of the most difficult sims I played and the most enjoyable. I remember I printed some 500 pages about car physics, aerodynamics, suspension setup and what not and I studied them religiously all the time.. And it is the only sim I raced with others cause the community was mature and actually cared for the races. (I am singleplayer kind of gamer)

I'm still racing with it, trying to beat the chrono and searching for the best car setups.. :-)

I am a taffer.. Thank you!

I would have to say the original ! The 3D graphics were truly groundbreaking at the time. Quake 1 had very good A.I. and a vast improvement to multiplayer when compared to the Doom series. It would be great to see [url=http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/quake]Quake on GOG someday!

Thief 1 is definitely the game that did that for me, and influenced my view of all future games. It made me think of games as creative art, and focused on "atmosphere" (clarification: NOT immersion, but atmosphere from an artistic/aesthetic standpoint... realism is a completely irrelevant issue to what I'm describing). It remains one of my favourite games of all time.

I was also greatly influenced by the original Doom, and continue to compare the gameplay of all fps games with that of Doom (vs. its level design, enemy types, etc.).

Grim Fandango for adventure games, and NWN for RPG's.

I'm a taffer!

CRobots blew my mind a few years ago... You basically build your own AI using your own logic and C programming. Curiously the example bots are really weak and very easy to overpower with just a little bit of thought, so after that you can challenge your neighborhood (if there are any other CRobot programmers that is...)

There are lots of branches in the roleplaying tree, so they all have different appeal. What appeals the most to me about an RPG is the tactical combat (turn-based party-based, please), the exploration, the number-crunching and character-building, the fun of creating ALL of my characters myself and building the perfect party, the atmosphere, the challenge (both from difficult battles and just figuring out how to progress and where to go), the focus on gameplay over story, and more. You don't always find all those things in one package, but when I think of great RPGs, I think of those qualities. My favorites are from the late 80s or early 90s, long before Baldur's Gate.

Incidentally, there's more than one way to tell a great story. Modern RPGs usually try to do it with a lot of talking and cutscenes. That doesn't really appeal to me. The Dark Savant trilogy mostly just sits back and lets you find your way through the game, and yet it has one of the most epic RPG stories I've ever experienced.

Some were easy, but many were hard as nails, at least until you worked out their secrets. Many were also unfair, sadistic and cheap. That's okay though, you can handle it.

Garrett, I'm slipping!

Not in, but thought I would share. In the past 30+ years of gaming the following are all experiences I spent many hours with and will never forget (in no particular order):

Maniac Mansion
The Bard's Tale trilogy
Legacy of the Ancients
Resident Evil (PS1)
Dishonored
Quake
Unreal Tournament
Pirates Gold!
Third World War (Sega CD)
Medal of Honor Allied Assault
Call of Duty
SimCity 2000
Dark Forces: Jedi Knight II
FlatOut
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
Fallout New Vegas
Theme Hospital
SimTheme Park
Postal 2 (just a guilty pleasure)
Redneck Rampage
Yoot Tower
Sims 2

"I had no idea games could do that!"

Martian Memorandum -- animated digitized characters, digitized speech, special effects... all through PC speakers! Sometimes it was what could be done on limited hardware, like on console systems. (The cinematic Yu Yu Hakusho on the SNES, the high-speed Rekka on the NES, the rich colors of Pier Solar on the Genesis/Mega Drive...)

Scorched Earth 3.0 -- the first "game mod" I did was simply altering the game's TXT file to add in personal taunts. Later stuff, like DOOM mods and the thorough "Priss/Nene Nukem 3D" mods were really impressive. Our campus Quake server, with custom runes (in addition to speed/power/regen/armor we had jump/vampire/death aura/life aura/roulette) and weapons (grapple hooks, portal guns, remote rockets, fake deaths, etc.) were really impressive.

And the little things, like SimCity 2000's old save importing were also impressive. (Yay backwards compatibility!)

(Also, I'm a taffer ... for Thief 2.)

I think there are quite a many of those games.
I was suprised how Resonance got me in awe after the end credits started rolling.
Same seems to be happening with Gemini Rue, which has even lower resolution (I think).
Less music, Less impressive graphics, but still it's a nice feeling to say I love this game anyhow.

From the memory lane: Neuromancer, for the feeling created from point zero.
Even before I read the book, it was an amazing feeling to be a decker cowboy in debt wandering the streets.
Also Frontier, that was a mindblower to cruise around over the cityscape, learning the controls and the laws of the game universe.
On Amiga, OnEscapee almost made me cry when I was through. Just the music alone. And there is a scene when you are allowed a bit of a breather, stopping at a cliff, watching a megacity from above, and then this strange music just comes out of nowhere, and nothing else happens... whoa! :)

of course Ultima IV... I was very young (maybe 7-8) when I saw it on someone else's computer (C64) and man it was just something otherworldy. (Is that a word :) ?) The intro with the ship and the dragon... not sure I understood much of it then.

How do you like the classic stuff in rFactor 2?

For me, there are several games that blew my mind.

One of the first games that blew my mind was Pokemon Special Pikachu Edition. It was the first RPG I ever played, and I captivated me. And now I am hopelessly addicted to the genre.

Another game was the JRPG The World Ends With You. This game is AWESOME! Its crazy plot, likeable but flawed characters, and great gameplay made this game hard to put down. Surprisingly, one of the things I remember most was the changes in Neku, the main character, throughout his ordeal.