Elden Ring, Dwarf Fortress, and Disco Elysium.

• Left 4 Dead 2 - for the awesome vs teamplay
• The Last of Us (remake) 1+2 - stunningly gorgeous, emotional heavy hitter
• Disco Elysium - art, literature, as a game

edit: I forgot Guitar Hero / Clone Hero was a game not a 'standard hobby', I play e-drums on that daily still..

Only 3 choices makes it a tough one since there are many exceptional games...

If I had to erase every experience of all games, the ones I'd keep are (in no particular order): Cyberpunk 2077 Fallout: New Vegas Sunset Overdrive

Factorio Minecraft And 3rd is split between rimworld and baldur's gate 3

Factorio, Anno 1602, Civ 3

Easy choices for me, but I don’t know how to order them.

Anno 1800 gets an honourable mention for feeling like a great spiritual successor to 1602, but I have a ton of nostalgia for the first game.

Betrayal at Krondor. A huge world for exploring, at a time when that didn't exist.

Chrono Trigger. The replay value is so high.

Wolf 3D or Doom or Doom 2 or Quake 3, for similar reasons.

StarCraft, at a time when BattleNet was small and the ladder rankings and fights were all global.

Descent for the movement.

Unreal tournament for getting ten PC's on a token ring for PvP lan.

Warcraft 2 because it's rad and a pirated copy got me a job at the trading card shop.

Control, the horizon games and stardew valley.

The Last Of Us part 1 and 2 and the Witcher 3

1. rock band 3, spent multiple summers playing this all day long

2. skyrim, still play it every year for like 3 months straight. its insane

3. borderlands the pre sequel. i honestly prefer this one over any other borderlands game

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Kingdom Hearts 2, Jak 3

Did you play RDR1? I thought that one was much better than 2, story wise. Not that 2 was bad. Rockstar games are always good imo.

Baldur's gate 3 is also in my top 3, story wise and how well it was made and time spent playing it. I finished the campaign 6 times now, 4 of which with friends playing couch coop.

Also Age of Empires 2 because when I was young I played that game for over at least 3000 hours (if not double) and I still play it sometimes. Just well balanced and lots of good memories from back then, having LAN parties with my friends and playing it for days.

Grammar. ~~You're~~ -> Your*

• Halo 2
• TLoZ:OoT
• Half Life

I can't deny that nostalgia has to do with the first two fossils in the list, though I still maintain that I like them more than their latest counterparts in their franchises.
Not Half Life though: it was ~15 years old when I first played it, no nostalgia there.

Still, between the many games I would gladly build a monument to, those are games that I can play beginning to end without getting bored, annoyed or burnt out (as long as you allow me to use the Ship Of Harkinian randomizer for Z:OoT, otherwise replace that game with Perfect Dark ig).

• UFO/X-COM
• Ultima VII
• Starsiege: Tribes

Morrowind - the first game that let me leave the path. It completely changed RPGs for me, and I loved it.

Solasta - this game captured the D&D feeling like no other game has. My wife and I have spent hundreds of hours playing this together.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - this game touched me emotionally, more than any game before it. The whole 3rd act is an emotional rollercoaster. Plus it has one of my favorite action sequences ever, in The Siege of Weisshaupt.

3 is really tough, but I'll say:

1. Hollow Knight
2. Noita
3. Super Metroid

Other GOATs of mine are already mentioned by others. Y'all have impeccable taste

• Starcraft II
• Mount & Blade: Warband
• Heroes of Might & Magic III

Honorable mentions

• Anno 1404
• Far Cry 2
• Witcher 3
• Tropico 4
• Factorio

1. Jump Ultimate Stars, this is the dream game for any Otaku, the fact that we can still play it in 2025 thanks to custom servers is a blessing.

2. God Of War 2018, I was having a bad streak gaming related due to personal and work life, but when this game was released I got it immediately, something that I rarely do (patient gamer gang), anyway, this game kept me awake late nights, I know this is not something that one should brag about, but I was enjoying it completely thus the nights felt that happened too quickly.

3. Toy Story 2, this game will never age for me, I honestly don't know if it should deserve this spot, but if there is a game that I have replayed the most in my life, this would be it, the platform mechanics and graphics are top notch for me (and hey, PS1 graphics are making a comeback, so no shame at all with that style).

Maybe another game deserves that last spot, but those 3 games were the 1st ones that came to my mind.

Honorable mentions:

Mario Kart DS

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy

Hotel Dusk & The Last Window (can you guess my favorite console by this point?)

Pokémon Soul Silver

TWEWY

Time Hollow

All the other God of War games (even Ascension)

Batman Arkham saga (even Origins)

The Witcher 3

Xenoblade

And a bunch others that would make this list absurdly big, which is not the main point of this post.

Gonna show my age a bit here.

1. Chromehounds. Nothing since has filled that 20 story tall mecha hole in my heart. The way you could build your hound into the role you wanted to play really hasn't been done well in any game since

2. MAG (massive action game). Ps3/ps4 128vs128 matches online? It was such a clusterfuck and I loved it.

3. Binding of Isaac and all its expansions. Game has been a solid and consistent time sink in my life for more than 10 years. Quirky and infinitely replayable.

• STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl
• EuroTruck Simulator 2
• Battlefield 2

Honorable mentions: EvE Online, Mount and Blade Warband, XCOM Enemy Unknown, Helldivers 2, Disco Elysium, Mini Metro, Tactical Breach Wizards

Riven, Shadow of the Colossus, and Guilty Gear Strive.

(in no particular order)

Street Fighter II for getting me into fighting games. While I don't play that version anymore it is a favorite because of how much I did play it and later fighting games.

Valheim - hundreds of hours of enjoyment from the first moment I was dropped into the world by a giant crow. So much fun time with friends, building stuff, and just exploring. Such a well done game with fantastic lighting, sound, and things to do. Only long tine gripe is fighting on slopes!

Helldivers 2 - yeah, another more recent game but it is also just the exact thing I am looking for in a mutiplayer game with friends. Nearly everything is viable in most difficulties, the game has mechanics for accidental team kills, the setting evolves, but in a way that encourages participation in scheduled events without forcing it, and the devs have listened when the player base pushes back on changes that don't mesh with the tone of the game.

Enjoyed a lot of other games too, but those are ones that hit specific things that I love and enjoyable to replay over and over and over and over...

Metal Gear Solid 3, Subnautica, Papers Please.

I love the Metal Gear series but the Cold War setting of 3 works so well with the theme of the game. It also features crab battles and the ladder boss.

Subnautica really captures the feeling of being lost in some alien world and slowly making it your new home. The electronic voice assistant manages to send chills up your spine with lines like "oxygen."

Papers, Please explores complex moral decisions in such a simple way. I wish to live my life more like Jorji.

Really hard to have any real favorite. But the games I've played the most in my life:

Super Mario Bros (NES)

Diablo Franchise

Destiny 2

Dragon quest monsters Final fantasy tactics Terraria

All legendary

Master of Orion 2
Lords of the Realm 2
Caesar 3