Pitfall, Advdnture and Defender on the Atari 2600.

I'm thinking about the games I played in my childhood that influenced what I like to play now, so it might be only halfway relevant to the question.

First monster collector: Pokemon Blue. Digimon World 1 was also one of my favourites, because of how real it felt, like a real monster. The one other monster game I really got into as a child was Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, I think I played Cobi's journey. It helped that a lot of my friends were playing it.

First builder: Simcity 3000. Started my lifelong love for city builders, even though I'm not great at them per se.

Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper 2 were my introduction to management sims and also my favourites for a long time.

As a kid I absolutely loved this RTS called Warbreeds because of the ability to graft any weapon onto any unit. Nowadays though I just find such mechanics fiddly, but as a kid it felt so sci-fi. In terms of time spent playing, though, the standout RTS was probably Starcraft.

I also played on a lot of MUDs as a kid. Wheel of Time (but had never read the books), Discworld (but had also never read the books), Aardwolf and I think one or two others. I was amazed at how it felt like I could do so much (even though most of the "free" actions were just emotes.

My first graphical MMO was I think Maplestory, which was a huge part of my social life as a kid. I think I miss the feeling of being part of a big community than the MMO experience itself, honestly. Nowadays when I try getting into MMOs it feels like that feeling of being a part of a giant community of people is gone.

Mega Man 2 Earthworm Jim Sonic 3 & Knuckles Smash Melee NBA Jam: TE

One game that I loved and never see too many people commenting on was Tomba!, specifically Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return.

Battletoads (NES) I have a few but I want to call out this as it gets memed for it's difficulty - and it was difficult - but not "can't pass level 3 speeder bikes" difficult!

The game looked great, had extremely tight controls and had an insane amount of level variety! Each of the 12 levels was unique, from platforming, rappelling, biking, surfing, flying, racing, swimming, and even weird ass wall clingers! And they all played well - It also had the most banging pause music ever haha!

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth

Super Metroid (SNES)
Final Fantasy VI (aka III in US on SNES)
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Eternal Darkness (GameCube)

Castlevania 1-3 & Symphony of the Night,

Lemmings,

The Adventures of Lolo 2 & 3,

The Incredible Machine (and any clones),

Silent Hill 1-3,

Heroes of Might & Magic 3,

Zelda 1-3,

Tetris,

Bubble Bobble,

Super Mario Bros. 3 & World,

Nethack,

Tomb Raider 1-3,

Dungeon Keeper 2,

Theme Park,

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1-3,

Rayman, Command & Conquer: Red Alert,

Megaman 2 & 3,

Metroid,

Solstice (NES),

Metal Gear Solid

Megadrive - Gain Ground, Sonic 1&2, World of Illusion

PS1 - Toy Story 2, Rayman 1&2, FFVII, Rugrats, Tony Hawks 1-4

Gameboy/Color - Pokemon Blue, Tetris, Rayman, Tweety - Around the World in 80 days

PS2 - Kingdom Hearts 1&2, GTA 3,VC&SA, Need for Speed Undeground 1&2, Tony Hawks Underground & American Wasteland, Jak 1-3, Sims Bustin Out

GBA - Pokemom Fire Red

Xbox - Halo 2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, KOTOR 1&2, Fable, Prince of Persia Warrior Within, *Fahrenheit

Gamecube - Wind Waker, Sonic Adventure 2, Mario Sunshine, Luigis Mansion (I didnt have a gamecube as a kid but was enamroed by these at a friends house)

DS - Mario 64 DS, Pokemon Diamond. New Super Mario Bros, Worms Open Warfare, Sims 2

PSP - FFVII Crisis Core, FF1, Cars, Daxter, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Puzzle Quest

Wii - Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Guitar Hero 3

360 - Rockband 1-3, Guitar Hero World Tour & 5, Halo 3, Battlefield Bad Company, Mass Effect, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, Far Cry 2, Assassins Creed 1-3, GTA IV

PC - Rome Total War, Empires Dawn of the Modern World, Black & White 2, The Movies, Sims 1-2 (I liked 3 too but I was older than a kid then), Spore

Lines are a bit blurred at a certain point for 360 and PSP to when I wouldve no longer been a kid and more of a late teenager or whatever.

• Transport Tycoon - I recently found a notebook of mine in which I wrote detailed lists of routes and vehicles. This is maybe the first game I fully embraced and played for hours.
• Dune 2 - The first RTS game I played although I had no idea what it was all about (hadn't seen the movie yet read the book at that time).
• Red Alert - The OST is still great, the FMV hasn't aged well, but gameplay is still great. The remaster is very good (alternatively use OpenRA).
• Anno 1602 (1602 A.D.) - I played the demo for hours carefully avoiding upgrading my citizens as this would end the demo. Maybe the first game I bought myself and I still have the box.
• Dungeon Keeper 2 - My first hype game. I upgraded my system for this (it was worth it).
• Gothic 2 - Maybe the first Action RPG I played and it still holds up to current titles. In some aspects it even is better than Witcher 3 which released years later.
• World of Warcraft - I played the open beta and was immediately hooked. I played until the second expansion came out.
• Banished - Still my goto game for cold winter nights. It is incredible difficult and hard to find the perfect balance. You have to force yourself to play slowly which is wonderful.
• Oxygen not included - I can play this for hours and hours. It has the same need for balance as Banished but a unique art style and endless mods on the workshop.

Early 2000s Xbox, so I grew up on Psychonauts, Blinx the Time Sweeper, Blinx 2, Jet Set Radio Future, and Spider-Man 2 (the movie game).

Super Mario Bros 3 is probably the first game that comes to mind as I was finally old enough to really get excited for specific games, and that one was hugely anticipated at the time. The whole game blew my 7 year old mind (think thats the math at least). Up until that point it was mostly grabbing games based on their box art at the rental place, or based on what looked cool in those displays in Toys R Us. And you played those whether they were good or not. That wasn't the case with SMB3 though.

Super Mario World is probably the next example, for similar reason as above but even bigger and better. Then into the Donkey Kong Country games. Final Fantasy VI was another game that blew me away when I first saw it. That intro was crazy when you still considered the SNES a new platform. Pokemon Blue for the Pocket I got specifically to play it.

Played lots of the original Diablo, though I was terrible at it back then. Actually didn't like Diablo 2 that much when it was first released, but got into it again years later. Baldur's Gate 2 was fun for a while, but never beat it (and didn't play the first until much later). Lords of Magic was a game I played the crap out of but was terrible at the game as well.

If we are just talking about time played then games like Baseball Stars, Excitebike, Track and Field with the Power Pad, etc. You just played the shit out of every game you owned back then. Because you only got them once or twice a year.

The original Spyro was my absolute favorite as a kid, also enjoyed crash bandicoot, ratchet and clank, and the jak and daxter series. The don’t make adventure games like they used to imo so now I do a lot of strategy and sim games as I’m obviously old now

Super Mario 64. I have the best memories from. I got an N64 and Mario 64 on Christmas the year it came out.

MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat

The Remembrance speaks to us on the evil of man's will, of the reasons for Exodus, and the Rites of the Traveler. Arcadia is our destiny and our right. Enlightenment is our gift. By the Bloodnames of the founders we must return, return and protect that which is unique among the stars. Terra awaits us as it was written. We are the last of the Wardens, the sole hope for the Earth.

Wolves still prowl

F-15 Strike Eagle on the C-64

The original Tie Fighter.

Simpler times.

Sonic Mega Collection was a game I absolutely loved and provided a ton of hours of my free time when I felt like playing it. That, and around middle school I got really into Borderlands 1 and have been in love since.

FPS by age: Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Blood, Duke3D, Shadow Warrior, Quake, Tribes 2, Counter-Strike.

RTS by age: Dune 2, C&C, Tiberium Sun, Red Alert, Red Alert 2, WarCraft 2, StarCraft, Warcraft 3

Sim by age: Conway's Game of Life, SimCity, SimCity 2000, The Sims, The Sims 2

Strategy by age: Civilization, Civilization 2, Masters of Orion

RPG by age: Final Fantasy 2 (4), Chrono Trigger, Pools of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima Online, EverQuest, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind

Adventure by age: Pitfall, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, King's Quest, Space Quest, Tomb Raider, Grim Fandango

Honorable mentions: Microsurgeon, E.T., AD&D Minotaur's Labyrinth, Golden Axe, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ecco the Dolphin, Eternal Champions, Android Pinball, Solar Winds, Detroit (not Become Human; it was a car making sim on DOS), Crusader: No Remorse

Warcraft 3, Age Series (AoE, AoE2, AoM, AoE3), Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005)

I played the first age of empires when I was 6 or 7 y/o and I've played all of the games besides AoE4 (including Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds).

As a kid we had few crappy dell computers connected to just a hub (LAN without internet) and would play a lot of Age of Empires 2 and C&C Red Alert 1 & 2 multiplayer.

Age of Empires and Red Alert were also games I would frequently play at small LAN parties (although everyone was really bad)

I played a bit of online AoE2 when AoE2 HD came out on steam but it was pretty bad so I stopped playing it. When DE came out I started watching AoE2 content but I'll never play it because I've come to greatly dislike Microsoft over the years.

I've replayed Need for Speed Most Wanted (and also Carbon) tens of times over the years, and I still play it every now and then (with mods now)

But the game I've played the most is probably Warcraft 3. I've played a ton of custom games on Battle.net (RIP) and it's what got me a bit into programming since I liked making custom maps and making triggers eventually led me to learn JASS (Just Another Scripting Language)

If Blizzard didn't completely ruin Warcraft 3 with WC3 ~~Reforged~~ Refunded I'd probably still be playing it and making custom maps every so often.

I have played a bit on private servers but it's just not the same anymore.

There's a pretty cool Warcraft 3 open source project called Warsmash though so maybe one day I'll start playing again.

Crash Bandicoot Warped and Toy Story 2 for PS1, I come back to the latter multiple times per year yet.

Among my most memorable:

• Police Quest 2
• Metal Gear Solid
• Blade Runner
• NFL 2K5
• Unreal Tournament

Mario kart Street fighter 2. Super Mario world Tetris Dr Mario AND Dr ronitniks mean bean machine. Sonic 1+2

Now playing sf6 and buying son Mario kart and switch for Xmas.

Suprised no one has mentioned Minecraft yet. That's probably it for me.

Now you've got me longing for my old Atari back. My top 3 games by a country mile were:

Supercars 2 - must have played it through a thousand times.

Ellie Frontier - sank many hours in to it despite never being very good at combat.

Sensible soccer - one of the most fun games I've ever played. Would often play with my step dad. Some epic matches.

Ps2: GTA sanandreas, gauntlet dark legacy, onimusha2( mostly watched my older brother play), need for speed underground2, midnight club2, resident evil 4(also just watched my brother play), On WII: redsteell, super samsh bros brawl, mario galaxy, mario kart, On pc: world of warcraft online, club penguin and flash games in general

Mega Man X on the snes was my favorite for the console, the day I got to play the first time I managed to beat Chill Penguin, Spark Mandrill and Armored Armadillo. I couldn't for the life of me, for the next 5 or so hours, beat any other boss. That I played that long without any progress probably shows my dedication.

Donkey Kong Country 2 was my second fave. Never managed to "legally" get all 75 kremcoins, or beat all the 5 special stages back then. Hell, even getting to the final world was a challenge back then.

On the ps1, Mega Man Legends 1 and X5. I'm only counting the games I played when I was "a kid" (< 12yo). I still love most Mega Man games.

Pokemon (1st gen and 2nd gen -- plus some of the spin-off stuff from that era to a lesser extent) captivated me in a way no other games have before or since. Honestly, I hope nothing ever grabs me that hard again; it's kind of scary how obsessed I was in retrospect.

A number of N64 games also made a big impact on me. Majora's Mask was probably my second favorite game (after Pokemon) for many years. (OoT made an impression too, but I played MM first.) I loved the music in Diddy Kong Racing. I got 120 stars in Mario 64, and when I tried it again as an adult, I really appreciated how short and to the point levels could be (not that I played that way as a kid) -- also the camera in that game sucked. Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness kind of disturbed me a bit as a kid, but it's probably the first game I encountered a sort of "New Game Plus" in, which was neat. (People have since told me that's the "black sheep" of the series and that it's really weird that that's the only one I've played significantly.)

Duke Nukem 3D was the first game I modded, I think (very simple graphical stuff). Definitely wasn't age appropriate but I played the heck of it anyway. Didn't really get much into other shooters other than playing through the main game of Perfect Dark on N64 and playing split-screen Golden Eye with friends.

I also played a lot of Sim\ games -- particularly SimCity 2000, SimEarth, and SimTower. Also had a bunch of others like SimFarm and even some of the more obscure ones like SimSafari. Streets of SimCity and SimCopter being able to load SC2K maps was really neat though. Played a fair amount of other city builders and simulation games like Caesar III and Roller Coaster Tycoon too. My parents probably hoped I'd become some sort of business manager. :p

I had a lot of creative tools back then as well which I treated as not-that-different from video games. Various Kid Pix programs (one of which had a bunch of odd video clips integrated -- including a short documentary about jackalopes of all things), Kid's Studio, Digital Chisel, some version of HyperCard, etc. Game Maker -- which I found around the year 2000 back when it was still on www.cs.uu.nl -- ultimately led me to being a professional programmer.

Star wars Jedi knights games for sure. Asheron's Call also got a lot of playtime as my first MMORPG. Tony hawk pro skater 2.

Gridder for C64

Sonic, streets of rage, tekken 2 and 3. Original gta, WWF attitude. Crash bandicoot.

GoldenEye , Diddy Kong racing and Mario kart.

GTA 3 , Vice city and San Andreas. Halo 1-3, Kotor 1-2, mass effect trilogy. Wipeout games. Skate 3, OG tony hawk games. Original modern warfare 2, morrowind, oblivion and skyrim. Final fantasy 7,8,9 and 10, also the splinter cell series.

Thats all that comes to mind but I would have spent a good amount of time on them throughout the years.

Sid Meier's pirates for c64

The original Genesis Sonic trilogy was a constant replay for me as a kid and even on occasion now as an adult. I loved the visuals, the music, learning how to master every level, playing as the different characters. It was all so good to me.

As someone who only got into retro RPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger as an adult, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was the first game to show me how games could tell an epic story. There is a reason it was held up as one of the greatest games ever made during its heyday and even holds up well now. It had huge varied environments for its time, memorable scenes and characters, and IMO a perfect difficulty curve to its dungeons and puzzles. Even after playing many of the later Zelda games, it remained my favorite Zelda game until Breath of the Wild.

And of course, the original Smash Bros 64 started off the ultimate fun party game series, my siblings and I spent hundreds or even thousands of hours playing Smash 64 and Melee growing up.

Bubble bobble

Castlevania

Metroid prime

Also as a kid remember playing some old school ghostbusters game that consisted of mashing a button over and over as quickly as possible.

Pokemon Blue

Pretty sure my first major video game was Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and it started my fascination for cars.

My favorite game from my childhood would probably be Mafia 1 though, I still replay it like once a year. Halo CE is a close second.

Tomb raider, AOE, command and conquer. Those kinda games

I've got a really fond spot in my heart for The Neverhood. It really opened my young eyes to the possibility that video games could be weird and artistic. They didn't have to be an action packed generic mainstream capitalization of whatever is popular at the moment. As a kid, I could still tell it was a unique piece of work that required a lot of passion and creativity. I consider it the first indie game I ever played and it absolutely set the tone for what I chose to play to this day.

I still listen to the soundtrack nearly three decades later.