Simple and stupid: What game or games have had the biggest influence on you? Don't need to be PC games, but let's forget card and board games, shall we

Mine are:

Leisuresuit Larry (1?)
Probably one of the first computer games I ever played. It was a loong time ago, my friend had a 286 and some games innit. Mostly my friend wanted to play Prince of Percia but sometimes I managed to persuade him into theworld of Larry. I didn't understand a word about the game but driving in the taxi was fun. He also had the Police Quest and some other wizardry game. I guess the fact that it was my first computer game experience just burned it into my memory

Goonies 2
This nintendo 8bit classic was one of my favourites at the time I purchased my own 8bit nintendo. Well my parents did, but I had to do some slavework for them to make 'em forget the money.... The game was a very simple adventure game with puzzles to solve and new levels to discover. Again, it was my friend's game so I needed to borrow it from him to get to play it. Luckily he didn't like it much so I could have it as long as I wanted. Most of my games at that time were racing games and this maybe saved me from being a total car maniac. For a while

Gran Turismo 1
This game actually just blew my mind. At the time it came out it was something completely different. As me and some of my mates used to play Need for speed 1 at times, the "depth" of the GT1 was just astonishing! But there was a tragedy too. As my friend bought it first I had to visit there all the time just to get to play it. Setting up suspensions, thinking what to buy next and racing. Sometimes we just started early in the morning and stopped late in the evening. Once I managed to persuade him to borrow it to me for two nights. He sweared that he would kill me if didn't return it on time. So I had to play 72 hours straight (joking...). It was a weekend so I played it at least 14 hours a day. After that I had my own memorycard filled with various cars and we could really take on. 500hp subaru against my rwd special nissan FXO (lol). He had the power but I had the handling. Boy what fun it was, racing was tight and fair.

Sportscar GT, for PC
My first racing sim, as one might say. This is the game that made me buy a wheel. And pretty soon after this I bought GPL. So you could say this game was my passage to sim racing. Racing against those BMWs, Porsches and others was just great fun. And it had a career mode! Well the irony is that it was an ISI game and after that I have never liked any ISI games. In SCGT the feeling was different, although the physics modelling at that time had already the same problems as the all ISI games have today. But the fact is that this, game with GPL, made me a sim racing enthusiast.

Wolfenstein 3D
Radar Rat Race - Vic20 genius
Stunt Car Racer
F1GP (Grand Prix World in other countries), the first of Geoff Crammonds GPx series
Half Life
Half Life 2 (apart from the ending)
Gran Turismo (what a mistake that was!)
GP2, 3 and 4.
LFS

Spelunker
This propably was the first computer game I ever played. I was 4 back then and the C64 came with Spelunker, Stealth, Raid on Bungeling Bay and some other game that didn't work, and I believe Spelunker was the first game we tried. Not that special game, though it has great music.

System Shock
This is simply the best game I have played. (And some people at GameSpy seem to agree with me ) In fact I have just started playing it again, since someone made a "patch" that allows using 1024x768 resolution with it. And it doesn't even look that bad despite the fact that its as old as Doom 2, it has 3D objects, real time lighting, leaning, jumping, great storyline, great voice acting... even 'bullet time' A game thats only fault was that it was 5 years ahead of its time.

Doom
I got to try Doom once when I still had an Amiga, and after that I just had to get a PC no matter what. Doom had great atmosphere and great gameplay, and very impressive "3D" graphics. I still play it sometimes using the various source ports like Doom Legacy and jDoom that add things like 3D acceleration.

Operation Flashpoint
OFP changed my view on 3D shooters. After it everything else just seems so boring and restricted, if I hadn't ever played OFP I propably would have thought games like HL2, BF2, etc. are great but now I find them as interesting as NFSU would be after playing LFS. I guess I also have had influence on OFP as I have made quite alot of mods for it...

Half Life
Live for Speed
Secret of Mana
Zelda: A link to the past

Well, these are the ones I play(ed) most. Lately I also learned what fear means thanks to the old but good System Shock 2

Also I really liked the Max Payne series and its way to tell you the story. Half Life 2 was/is awsome in the graphics and physics department, and I also think the story was ok the first time you play it (if you did a bit of research before and actually understood that most story parts are very well hidden) but I've not been hooked by it.

What always influenced me too were gaming milestones in the realism department. After playing LFS the first time I realised how crappy actually every other racing "sim" was. After playing Operation Flashpoint I noticed how crappy "realistic" HL mods really were.

Pirate's Adventure (C16/Vic20) - It taught me english in it's simplest form ("say YOHO", the world spins around and suddenly you find yourself on a deserted beach. To the west you see a lagoon. The tide is coming in)

Impossible Mission (C64) - Just one of the best thought out games ever made. Simple, yet addicting.

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (PC) - The first ever Interactive Movie... The concept was great, the gameplay was even better... And of course a Ginger Lynn Allen that did not get nekkid.

Tex Murphy Series (PC) - The PERFECT detective/puzzle adventures. Great stories, great playability, and very difficult to solve.

NASCAR Racing by Papyrus (PC) - Got me into NASCAR and oval racing, which to this day is still my favorite form of racing.

Special mention:
NASCAR Racing 2002 Season (PC) - Made me my first ever money by playing a game... Won me the 2002 ESCORS European Challenge Series sponsored by Ball Racing Developments. 400 UKP cheque. Woohoo.

The game that hooked me on console I cannot remember. But I can PC. So I shall share.

It was a cold night back in 1998, and I had a nice box on my table. This was new, it had been praised by all, so I decied to buy it. Upon opening the box I was greeted by a CD, and a book. This book was different to most, but I don't know why. Placing it on one side I loaded the CD into my computer, to which it began to autoplay.
Click click click I went making my way through setup, when will this end I cried, but then there was light, it came close, I could feel it. Complete.
On the edge of my seat I made my way to the shortcut and clicked not once but twice, CD-Key entre I must, so CD-Key entre I did.
All is dark did it work? Who knows, lets wait- that music, where is it coming from, horar it worked. Now to play, New game I do think, ah, sweet loading screen.

A tram... what the- Oh well, it can't be much longer for the game to start.

[20 minutes later]

ARGH END ALREADY WHAT THE HELL YOU STUPID LUMP OF *(&)&*)&£")%&!
Whats this, I stopped at a station, YAY the torture is over I can play the game [Note to self: Never start this game from the start again].

That game changed my life. It got me into FPS like a rapest in some womens pants, following that I decied one day to play TFC, and that was it for my social life.

Then I get my claws on 1nsane. And I put down FPS for a racing game like no other. Anyone who has played it will know why. That game is pure crazyness. And was a god to me. Even upto early this year I played it. Then my fave site for 1nsane stuff (www.insanegarage.com) closed down. And I was sad, and a few weeks later I stopped playing the game. Never to go back I even got my wheel just for that game, as rock crawling was a bitch with a keyboard.

I would have loved to say HL2. But really, that was no game. It seemed more like a demo of what the source engine can do, then it being a game.
The story agreed followed on nicely. But it was more linear then the first game (how do you get more linear then a line :o ). None of the puzzles needed as much time to work out, in HL1 if you got lost, you was lost. In HL2 there are sign posts everywhere. In HL1 you spent ages on one problem. On HL2, you spend 30 seconds.

I really didn't like the game. I me being a HL fanboy that I am, was sad. They removed all the stuff they had shown at E3 for 3-4 years. They didn't even tick a check box that lets stuff block doors... I swear Vavle had two games in development there. HL2 E3 Edition, and HL2 What WE Will Sell Our Loyal Fans.
What sucks even more is I'm still waiting for TF2. Which is the game that started development of HL2. I mean, wtf, people cried over HL2 be delayed. TF2 was due for release Summer 2000... still waiting.

LFS has got me hooked in racing games again, and what a choice I made :P Kicks the ass of the rest (bar 1nsane, tbh) and imho was betterthen NASCAR Racing Season, though as my CD looks like it's been ranover with a SimBrick, I can't install it anymore anyway =/

Super Mario:
I guess I don't need to explain this. It's still one of the best games in my shelf.

Slicks'n'Slide:
Classic arcade-game. Pure fun. GeneRally reminds this a lot.

The Legend of Zelda: A link to the past:
Blew my mind. At the time, it was the only game with wizards and fairies and magic that I enjoyed. And I still would, but it's nowadays broken

Super Mario World:
The only game I really miss. It was so great... I loved every single level in it.

NHL 93:
The first icehockey-game I got my hands on (excluding Blades of Steel). Was great fun playing against someone.

NHL 98:
Aah the times back then. Me and my friend playing this til late in the night, with only 2 teams. Me with Colorado Avalanche and he with Detroit Red Wings.

Call of Duty:
Changed my mind about first person shooters. I got really hooked on multiplayer, and CoD UO is still the best WW II games I know.

GeneRally:
I allways wanted to create tracks, and now I could. Made quite a few of them. And playing GR was incredible fun too (It still is, btw)

Live for Speed:
First sim that really felt good. I don't think any other sim will ever feel so good than this. I'm loving it.

Lol nice thread. Let's see now, in not necessarily in the right order:

Nethack
Vaguely remember watching my uncle play this.. later I got hooked

Alley cat, LoL gr8 fun

Stunts
Played this all nite long making crazy tracks

NHL'93
The pathetic AI and goalkeeping gave me several nites of headache

UFO: Enemy Unknown
Probably the best turn-based startegy ever, I still play this!

Slicks, best top-down racer ever. Still have it.

Mario 1, 2 & 3 (NES) fun fun fun! Don't have it.

Wolf 3d, simply awesome..

Doom, countless hours hogging my school's computer lab playing on the LAN! Still got it.

Terminal Velocity

Pizza Worm!!!!

F1GP, ooh the most realistic F1 racer at the time. Still got it.

Transport Tycoon, enjoyed this mgt sim. Still have it.

The Dig

Breakout (arkanoid clone)

Tetris

Bubble Bobble (NES)

Lemmings

Rescue Rover

Action Supercross

Worms

Manager, an *auld* uk footy manager based on b4 the premiership was estd. (i think)

Need for Speed 1, shut up! yes it's NFS but it's the gr8est NFS ever and is nothing like the current arcade crap.

LFS

and loads of others I can't even remember the names of

F1GP for Amiga - My first contact with real sims.
Flashback for Amiga - The first real adventure game I got hooked on.
Elite for Amiga - I think I played this one for 16 hours straight when I got it.
SCGT - My second contact with driving sims and the one that got me go buy a wheel.
Nascar Heat - The sim that saved SCORE. Best multiplayer code I've seen so far.
LFS - Probably the one sim that has potential to break up my marriage

Well apart from the obvious LFS, I never really play many other games, but ones that I remember got me almost as hooked was:

GP2 and GP3
Toca 2 ( Finished 3rd overall in the Wireplay League )
Fifa 2002
Command and Conquer

And see if anybody remembers these little Beauties

Mega-lo-Mania and Turbo Outrun ( Early Amiga days, TO music was Awesome for its time ) and Sensible Soccer

Stunts - my first racing game

Lemmings - ah, the good old days

Sim City - the original

Sam Secret Agent 006 (?) - nice Jump & Run game

Sim City 2000 - the first game I bought

Grand Prix 2 - my first racing simulator

Need for Speed 3 - my first racing game with hardware acceleration, force feedback and a nice network mode (cops & robbers)

Age of Empires 2 - first game I've played online

Grand Prix 3 - made the famous GP3Update for it

Live for Speed - the best online racing simulator

well this is mostly a list of games that were the ones that got me interestet in their genre

pong - the first game i remember playing and therefore probably the one that got me addicted to games

nibbles (seriously) - first game i ever played on a x86 and the one game that founded my believe that splitscreen and 4 hands on the keyboard is the ultimate kind of multiplayer

mario andrettis racing challenge - my first "real" x86 game (still got the disks somewhere round here) and the number 1 reason why i want a dirt oval and sprint cars in lfs

wing commander 1 - the one game i played the most on our good ol 386 and still by far the best of the wc series (you can tell i love that game by my handle)

stunts - the gem among all of the arcade racers ever made ... lets see im crashday can live up to the myth

monkey island - you just gotta love the lucas adventures ... all of them :monkey:

fatal racing - it combined 2 of the most important assets a game could have ... stunts stile driving and splitscreen ... plus i got it for free bundled with my beloved voodoo graphics

half life - first fps i ever liked ... even made me play nothing but ego shooters for a few years

lfs s2 - first sim that got me hooked on that genre ... mostly because its the first sim that ever felt right

Definatly Nascar Racing 2/1999 was the biggest influence on me, that was basicly the first sim I played and that game really taught me a lot about how a race car works and got me into racing.

GT1 Got me into cars, I learned more about cars from that game than I had ever hoped to learn about everything, and If not for that im not sure I ever would have gotten interested in them.

Nascar heat- First sim like game I Ever played online, got me into online racing. (word to any IRF racers still hangin around)

Nascar Racing 2003 first game I ever had the privlage to mod, and really refined my driving.


LFS- Taught me what sim really meant...



non racing


Sim City 2000-This game was basicly the first computer game I ever played, and i still play it to this day.

Earth 2150/C&C: generals-Only RPG's I like because I enjoy playing em on lan against my brother.

What video game influenced me the most? Definately Indycar Racing 2. I never was much into the console thing. Yea, I had a Sega Genesis (still do, in fact) that we drank beer and fought all night long on who had the next game of NHL93. I got my first PC in 1995, a Pentium 75 with a whopping 8 mb ram. The first game I saw was, *cough* Need for Speed, the original. Well, back then it was OK, not like it is now with Underground. Then a few weeks later I found ICR2 and was hooked. So hooked that I actually was still playing it a year ago this month. I still had the old P75 up through November last year when I got a Celeron 667 of my wife's Aunt. You all over at RSC have heard about that one and S1. Anyways, when I got the 667, I was able to move from ICR2 to Nascar 2002. I ran that up until I found LFS in March this year. LFS was my first online racing experience, and of course, now I won't ever race offline again. Now that the novelty of S2 is wearing off, I'm starting to fly with Microsoft FS2004. So, now I'm dividing up my time between FS2004 and LFS.

Hmm... I can't remeber the exact name of the game, but I believe it was called Indianapolis 500. This was before the Indycar Racing 1 times. That was the first game I had ever played on the computer, and it was - to my knowledge - the first '3d' racing game. I had a lot of fun with that thing. After that game, I moved on into the NASCAR Racing and Indycar Racing games from Papyrus, and then into GPL. From there I moved into SCGT, then to F1C, and now to LFS (and sometimes rFactor.. it needs some mods for me to play it more methinks tho....)

There are random games interspersed here and there, but those are the main ones I played.

I also got hooked on the Gran Turismo series. I have all 4 of the North American releases, and I still play GT4 quite frequently. My buddy in college and I are planning on running the Nordschleife 24 hour enduro next weekend

MAGGOT

As a kid:

Hard Drivin' and Race Drivin', the Arcade versions. They were so realistic for being made in I believe the 80's, maybe? But they taught me car control and also how to drive a stick when I was probably 8 years old!

Now:

Counter-strike. Face it. I can't see myself ever not playing it on a regular basis. And I've met lots of friends playing it!

Mario bros/duck hunt- 1st game i ever played
pole position/rad mobile- 1st racing games
Ridge racer - introduced me to drifting
Mortal Kombat- got me into martial arts.
Gran turismo- introduced me to a bunch of car's i'd never heard of.
Unreal tournament- 1st FPS i really got into.-made me upgrade my pc for 1st time
America's army - 1st time i'd ever joined a competitive clan in any game.

LFS- best racing game out sofar

Richard burns rally- really rubs it in that WRC drivers have balls the size of the boulders that line corners they powerslide around.

there are some i'm forgetting but its 3 in the morning...

Super Mario
MS Flight Simulator
MS Train Simulator
LFS

Only couple of people even mentioning GPL! Shame on you.

In rough order of playing:

Paratrooper
Wolfenstein 3D
Battlecruiser 3000AD (the original)
QuakeWorld (mm, 2fort and rocket jumping soldiers!)
Unreal
Unreal Tournament
HalfLife
EVE: Online
LFS

I think any game you play incluences you in a way - one more, one less, maybe related to the time you play it.
And if you begin to think more about games rather than just playing them, you will notice very interesting things

Quote from Hyperactive :

Only couple of people even mentioning GPL! Shame on you.

Well I did play GPL... Just didn't mention it cause it didn't have that much of an impact on me. No open wheel cars ever did. Had there been a mod for GPL with real cars (yeah, yeah, don't start, I've heard it all ) I would have played it more. Shame that GT40 mod never made it to release...

In order:

Flight Simulator 1.00


DOOM
Mechwarrior 2
Quake (and all later versions)


Then I got into car games, and the most influential: GPL.
I played GPL on an old HP 200mhz computer first with my force feedback joystick, and man was it challenging. This game is what eventually taught me all the aspects of a racing game, and I played it for several years ever since I bought it on the shelves weeks after it was released. My favorite combo was Monza with the Ferrari, Nurb was too hard for me at the time .

I've tried a lot of racing simulations between now and then (gpl) and I haven't been satisfied enough with most titles other than Papy's Nascar 2k series, until I tried LFS. Which is why I am here now, I have been influenced by this game far too much, and I don't know if or when it will ever end, hah!

Also used to play alot of CounterStrike/Halflife, both old and source. Someone mentioned Operation Flashpoint, and even though the bugs pissed me off sometimes, I was still liking that game too. I made a few multiplayer maps too and have to say that was one game that did things differently, in a good way. Battlefield 1942 took up a lot of my time in the past, especially with the Desert Combat Mod and huge online tournaments I was involved in (When I tried LFS for the first time, I put it away for a while and was gone playing this game, then it died off and I came back here ). Now I own Battlefield 2, and that is quite fun too... but I try and avoid the addictions I had in the old Battlefield .

Quote from Shotglass :

fatal racing - it combined 2 of the most important assets a game could have ... stunts stile driving and splitscreen ... plus i got it for free bundled with my beloved voodoo graphics

Whiplash - First game with something more complex than jumps. Most stunts are based around it, but still fun none the less! I still play it even today. (Note to Shotglass: Fatal Racing is called "Whiplash" over here)

LFS - Gave me a reason to stop playing most of the PS2 games I own. :ices_rofl

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies - The first and only air combat game I've played. Dang fun trying to shoot down some enemy planes, but gets a wee bit boring after a while.

Age Of Empires - The very first of stratgy games I played. I don't play it anymore and I dunno if I even have it anymore.

Impossible Mission (C64) - "Another visitor. Stay a while. Stay forever!!"

Warcraft II.
Age of Empires II.

Unreal Tournament
Battlefield 2

FIFA 97
NBA 2000

Stunts
GP3 by Geoff Crammond
Colin McRae Rally
LFS

Flight Simulator 2000 (even was in a Virtual Airlines )

Oh, and forgot the game I spent the most time playing with: Indianapolis 500 (very nice game from 1990)