Name a game that changed your life

[javixblack]

I grown playing single-player games. My brothers was never interested to play with me, and for that reason, the ps2 give a really strong feeling of loneliness. In my 16, I was playing Silent Hill 2 in the port version for PC (I finished the game). After three or four years I want to play it in ps2, so I get a copy (we won't talk about this part... ehem), and start to play. For a few days I was feeling a bit depressed, and I don't understad why, I am talking about 1 or 2 weeks with that feeling. And one night I realized Silent Hill 2 was depressing me. The game itself got an atmosphere really sad, melancholic, and depress, but that, plus my experience playing always alone my ps2, give me that horrible feeling. After that I decided to left the game inmediatly.

[Nikolas]

Hmmm...

In order of appearance in my life, rather than importance.

1. Bard's Tale I (Tales of the unknown)
2. Police quest I
3. Eye of the Beholder I
4. Oni
5. Cave Story (Dukotsu)

All of them are big, long games, that I've spent ages playing. Each one unique in their own way that made me dream that I could make up stories like that, to make games like that. 

[LimpingFish]

I don't know...

What I mean is that it's too difficult to pinpoint exactly any one game that pushed me in any one direction. For instance, I could say that Galaxian, possibly the first video game I ever played (I think I was six years old when I discovered it), set me on the road to where I am now.

If I was to break it down into various phases in my videogame history, I suppose I could say Mercenary 3 on the Atari ST, Flashback on the Megadrive, Super Castlevania IV on the SNES, Resident Evil and Silent Hill on the Playstation, etc.

But we're talking about a history of 30+ years, so, as I said, it's pretty hard to pinpoint precisely those games that had an effect on me.

I will say that Silent Hill probably did have an effect on me, beyond most other games at the time; I remember the day I bought it, and I remember completing all available endings over the period of a single weekend.

[milkanannan]

Finally on Christmas holiday and revisiting this thread for some ideas while I have the time off. (Sorry for necroposting.) Anyone play anything life changing in 2023?

[Danvzare]

Finally on Christmas holiday and revisiting this thread for some ideas while I have the time off. (Sorry for necroposting.) Anyone play anything life changing in 2023?

Life changing? Not really.

But I can list some of the best games I've played this year.
First there was Scribblenauts Unlimited. A game which I played back when it came out, but I played again this year, and boy is it still an incredible game.
Then there's Neptunia: Sisters Vs Sisters which had a really fun (and complicated) story and is quite possibly now my favourite in the Neptunia series. The clear increase in budget was a welcomed addition. 
The latest great game I played this year (as in the one I played most recently) was Alice: Madness Returns, I've never played a game with such buttery smooth controls before. Or a platformer with combat that's actually fun. Shame that the music and level design aren't as good as the first game, but hey, the second game comes with the first game, so at least there's that, and the story's pretty good too. (Also yay, they wrote Alice fairly accurately to how she acted in the book.)

But the true highlight for this year for me is easily It Takes Two (which I played at the start of the year with my mother).
I would go as far as to say that this game has the makings of a future classic. In terms of gameplay, it throws every possible cooperative platformer gameplay element you can think of, at the wall, and a surprising amount of them stick. Then there's the story which actually has nuance! 
It also has some really good relationship advice.   
Although I really wish they burnt that book at the end. I absolutely hated it! 

But yeah, none of those were life changing.
I played a lot of games this year (including Red Dead Redemption 2), but those were the highlights. 

What about you?

[Ponch]

Half Life: Alyx. Headcrabs went from annoying in every other Half Life game to a constant source of pants-fudging terror. 

Also, Duke Nukem 3D. Whatever became of Duke's legacy after, I don't know that I ever had as much pure fun with any other game as I did with that one. It was an absolute blast to play. An incredibly inventive shooter for its time, in my opinion. Also The Last of Us. I wish that thing had never had a sequel. What a tremendously great ending to roll credits on. A perfect example of an ambiguous ending that can only be diluted by revisiting that world and its characters.