Gaming

The original Quake. I was really at a low point in my life. My roommate got a copy from his girlfriend and he let me play it on his computer for hours at at time. I had never really played PC games or used computers much before that. I ended up learning all about computers and started a career in IT. I still play PC games today.

Cyberpunk 2077.

It's one thing to read a cyberpunk novel or watch a cyberpunk movie and "get" the moral of the story, which is usually "misuse of technology is bad".

But it's another thing to actually spend time in that world; to feel the effects of corporate corruption on your community, to experience the addiction to mind- and body-altering technologies, to watch loved ones - who you've spent hours looking directly in the eye and having conversations with - have their lives taken from them unfairly so that the richest person in the world can get 0.0001% richer.

I'd always been wary of techno-corpo bullshit. But that game instilled an all-new level of hatred in me; a hatred toward billionaires and megacorporations, toward oligarchs and aristocrats, toward those with the resources to change things for the better but too apathetic to stick their necks out.

Johnny Silverhand was right.

Outer Wilds. A game that genuinely made me reflect on my place in the universe.

Outer Wilds. Unfortunately I can't elaborate without spoiling it.

Outer wilds hit that spot for me

Undertale. That was the game that really changed my life. I never did complete the bad ending route because that game is my comfort game, and it made me want to be friends with the world. I was kind of a jerk in middle school and highschool, but Undertale, which I played in my Junior year made me feel so guilty about who I was being. I think it also saved me from going down the rightwing extremist pipeline because of how much it touched me. I thank Undertale for making my life better.

Deltarune also means so much to me.

dark souls 1. wife passed in that year and i just rolled through it completely distracting myself from reality and it helped a ton.

It was segmented so it wasn't really at the ending for battlefield one but the beginning that has fucked me up for a long time. The game opens to a black screen, utter silence, and a description prints out of how wide and brutal the first world world war was. The last text that appears on the screen was, "What you are about to experience is front line combat. You are not expected to survive."

What they were describing was that they didn't expect you to play one character and that you should be dying to respawn in a new section of the map with new features. This was the most accurate depiction of the war possible, even if it was just meant to describe the mechanics of the level. It went further! Every time you died they showed a real name of a real soldier that lost their life in the war and their birth and death date. Most of these ages are under the age of 24.

After the final death, it plays a cut scene where two soldiers are pointing rifles at each other and they both break down and chose not to kill each other....I believe all of this gameplay and the cut scene are being played off as a PTSD nightmare he's having while recovering in a hospital.....one of those 'stare at a blank wall and rethink how fucking good our lives are' moments. Also a deviation to the standard which is having a good guy-winner/bad guy-loser. They instead opted for the "we're all losing because of this" realization...I don't think we'll ever see anything like it again.

Recently beat Portal (first one), for the first time. Please play if you haven't!!!

I actually found Lemmings to be a game that changed my life. I played it just before I became a professional programmer. Solving Lemmings puzzles is not exactly like programming, but it does teach you that there is a solution and if you just keep persistently trying different shit, you will eventually solve the problem. Also, it actually helps to be high as a kite all the time.

RDR2

Kerbal Space Program changed how I understand space flight.

Factorio changed how I approach programming

Modding original Doom and GTA vice city taught me 2d and 3d graphics as well as hacking and programming.

World of Warcraft. I was really addicted to it for a few years but it really helped me get over a lot of the social anxiety issues that I had. I went from being really shy and barely interacting with other people in that game to being elected to take over a 60+ person guild by the time I was done with it. That confidence carried over into real life when I went back to school and began my career.

Bastion made me feel like that. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days.

Braid.

The game itself is brilliant. The story and message within is heartfelt, heartbreaking, and un-apologetically autobiographical. Up until that point, I knew gaming was a good storytelling medium, but not for something this moving.

The Last of Us

It was 2013 and Zombie hype was peak. All my roommates gathered around the TV to watch me play a level each night. We would discuss what happened and our theories in between each play session. When those credits rolled we kept talking about it for weeks. Unforgettable.

Spec Ops: The Line. Probably kinda dated now but there were multiple moments in that game where I had to cool down after some heavy shit happens.

Dance Dance Revolution 3rd mix. It sounds stupid, I know, but hear me out. I really sucked at this game at first. My friends use to play every weekends at the arcade, so I really wanted to get better. So I really trained hard and became the best player in our group. People gattered around the arcade when I was playing. I was good enough for tournaments.

Now when I face something difficult, I'm confident I can overcome it if I really want to. I wasn't like that before. Thanks Konami.

Clair obscur had me feeling like this at the end of every Act.

Disco Elysium

Life is Strange - at multiple parts in fairness, but the ending in particular.

I chose the Bay ending and I still can't listen to Spanish Sahara without feeling like I've been booted in the balls. Masterful.

SOMA

Night In The Woods. If you haven't played it, I'd recommend it. The characters are so well written, and some of the things they touch on hit me on a very, very personal level. And the music complements it all perfectly. It manages to have silly moments and serious moments with the same characters that all manage to fit and mesh together so well, and their relationships and lives all feel real and evolving throughout the story.

Half-Life 2. It brought me into PC gaming, as well as introducing me to Garry's Mod, a relatively simple sandbox tool for creativity, complete with a wide array of assets to use.

I also really appreciate its moody world design that doesn't often explain things directly to you.

Cyberpunk 2077. Only game that touched me that deep so far (though not many games I have played)

The pacifist route on Undertale is refreshingly wholesome and you just don't get that with many videos games.

Also, I loved Hi-fi Rush's music-based combat and fun characters.

I loved the world-building in Transistor. It felt like a more fleshed-out and artistic Tron setting.

clair obscur expedition 33 players after every cut scene

I'm getting old so there have been a few.

Super Mario World (SNES) - my first video game and the reason I eventually wanted to learn about computers

Final Fantasy VIII - my parents accidentally bought this for me instead of VII that I asked for. It was not a good impact, it was during formative years of my life and I looked up to the broody/loner main character and tried to emulate him, but in real life that just made me act an asshole and be lonely

World of Warcraft - this was probably an addiction and took too much of my college life. Haven't played an MMO since I quit. Still reminisce about it.

SimCity 4 - forced me to think about systems, which I think indirectly shaped my career path

Kerbal Space Program - made orbital mechanics intuitive and made me interested in all things space

System Shock 2 - The only game to have truly scared me. This was one of the first games that I played when I switched to PC gaming since my HP Pavillion at the time couldn't play a lot of the newer games. The rest was history

Deus Ex - This game still informs much of my world view

Thief 1 and 2 - While SS2 scared me in absolute terms, Thief gave me a sense of dread and isolation coupled with amazing stealth mechanics

Skyrim - My gateway to RPGs

GTA 4 - SA was my introduction to the series and, while I enjoyed very much, 4 was just blew me away.

Planescape: Torment - The most beautifully crafted RPG ever

Fallout 2 - I'll be honest: I only played and beat the first two Fallouts just this year but, man, do I wish I played them sooner. FO2 in particular change my relationship with the series.

The first one - Planescape: Torment.

The second one (accidentally): Baldur's Gate 3.

Accidentally, because I fell in love with the characters so much that I started watching the actors' streams on Twitch and learned that I probably have ADHD.

The Witcher 3! I never played 1 or 2. However 3 did a great job of story recap and finishing up said story. DLC was a must as well. All in all, I was engaged with the story.

And of course, RDR2.

Red Dead Redemption 2

I am an emotional person, and I regularly cry during movies, shows and books. But this is the first and only game to day, where I cried. I don't mean just teary-eyed, actually crying. And on more than one occasion.

It made me want to be a better person. Hopefully I am succeeding.

Cyberpunk 2077 is close second.

I didn't play Expedition 33 yet, but I saw the prologue and it was very emotional. There is a really good chance this game will be on my list too.

EverQuest. But it never ended, I just stopped playing (and paying).

Hacknet, Disco Elysium, Life Is Strange

Braid.

I won't ruin it, but -- it is not the usual ending.

Nothing has ever hit me harder than Disco Elysium, and I don't think anything else ever will. Everything from its themes of failure and depression and addiction and clinging to the past to its surprising message of hope in the face of unrelenting nihilism resonated with me on a molecular level. And the Final Dream is just the single most impactful, emotional and heart-rending moment I've had in any game ever. The culmination of the entire game distilled into one scene, and even the whole pathos of that one scene concentrated into three closing words:

Just some of them: Hollow Knight, Undertale, Ori and the Blind Forest, BioShock, Dead Space, Max Payne, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee.

Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou and Planescape Torment. I think both helped me think about death and reincarnation - what would it even mean to have a “soul”? Would it mean some sort of unbroken consciousness, or are we bits and pieces of different segmented ideas and thoughts loosely connected together?

I don't know if it changed my life, but my god it was cathartic - Celeste. I've cried while listening to the soundtrack and I've cried while playing it. Like, actual sobbing. Having a positively-represented trans character in media, especially in a game as popular and highly-rated as Celeste, means so much to me.

Mass Effect.

3’s ending didn’t quite stick the landing, on launch, but was fixed a few months down the line with the Extended Cut DLC.

1 and 2 were amazing. 1 especially had a great ending.