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ganked from queenlua 

• 5) Monster Truck Madness 2 - I was a little gremlin obsessed with monster trucks in the way other kids were obsessed with dinosaurs aaand so this fucking trip of a ungodly pixelated game was my entire life for quite a bit. Probably the source of my undying fondness for gleefully cheesy punk art. God, I had fun finding all the glitches in this game before gamefaqs was a thing and playing-with-the-cars-as-characters.
• 4) (Star Wars) Starfighter - the only way to experience this is with one of those sidewinder joysticks (that actually post-covid is a pet project of mine to see if I can track down and make that + this game work again with a gaming PC. i'd spend... easy three figures to play this game again).  With that though?  There is something unspeakably beautiful and dare i say almost-holy in the absolute freedom of careening through limitless space with the devil-may-care of an ace pilot and the only things mattering being your ship and the enemy.  Damn, the physics was good. Cemented my undying fondness for bounty hunters.
• 3) Mass Effect 2 - Sort of cheating as this one was early-college, but idk never have I experienced a story about trauma and being reborn from a literal dead body and hellfire quite as masterfully in a game as this one. Bared teeth dripping with blood and renegade vanguard-smashing through the epic there kiiinda saved my sanity in a real way.
• 2) Legend of Zelda; Majora's Mask & Ocarina of Time - Probably the two games that's influenced my sense of space-in-art and world-building tastes the most.  Like going through an incredibly *sculpted*, sometimes haunting wormhole, with MM being the mindfuck of an acid trip as a treat after the first. Putting together since I was one of the lucky SOB's that got the gamecube deluxe CD with both bundled.
• 1) (Fire Emblem) Path of Radiance - literally no part of my life would be the same now if I hadn't crossed paths with this game which is wild to think about lmao. Story/characters that still holds up to the point of being a masterpiece, probably the most well done gameplay-and-story-meshing I've seen in a RPG. Still sincere in a way I've never seen replicated.

Honorable mentions: Myst (hello, first game period), Age of Empires 2 (saved my mind from boredom after one of many surgeries), LoZ: Wind Waker (pretty much tied with MM/OOT), Buzz Lightyear (most deceptively epic use of jazz music through the entire OST), Nancy Drew (always co-played with then BFF and her sister which is honestly the only way to do that series), Super Mario Sunshine (the only Mario that matters), SSBM (the technical depth to this one still fucking blows my mind).