Hmmmm, I would have thought it impossible to answer such a question, but since I'm at 35,000 feet with nothing better to do, I might as well take a swag. Deep breath...ok....nothing's coming to mind...heck, I can't even pick what era or generation to focus on.
OK, while the early years on my Magnavox Odyssey 2 were cool, I was not really old enough or wise enough to know or understand the design mechanics of what I was playing or why it was fun, so I'll skip forward a bit. I guess that I have to spread the wealth, too, and give props to as many of the sectors of gaming that I have dabbled in; as much as I can with only three choices to make. It also just occurred to me that being at 30,000 feet also makes this a far more honest assessment. If I was on the ground, I know I'd be using the internet to pull up game titles that were not actually occurring to me simply from memory.
Ok, first props to the PC. 8 years of gaming on that platform. I've probably forgotten about more PC games that I've owned than some PC Gamers have even played. But my favorite title has to have been
Max Payne (ok, is it fair to say Max Payne and Max Payne 2 and call it one choice?)
This is one of the few games that I fell in love with when I played the demo, and then tracked it through completion of development.
Next I have to give props to portable gaming (vice mobile gaming, which I reckon is where place pc gaming on a laptop). It was not until I bought a PSP that I really bought into the concept of gaming on the go on a portable console. I'd owned a GameBoy back when I was in college, but it was more a distraction while I was on summer break one year; I really was not a gamer at the time. I eventually got rid of the PSP that I bought at launch and bought a Nintendo DS Lite. If you listened to last week's HotSpot, you heard mention of one of the guys who has friends who had PSP's, got rid of them, and are buying them again...I'm one of those guys. The first game that got me to stretch beyond the 30 minute spell that I was originally only willing to spend gaming on a portable was:
NFL Street, Volume 2
The final choice is tough. I really want to say Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, because it was the only game that I wanted to keep (or that I want to find a used copy of since I traded mine in) when I got rid of my PS2 and bought my PS3. But...I feel like I have to show Microsoft some love since I've spent sooooo many hours of my life over the last few years on XBox Live. In truth, it is the first truly acceptable multiplayer experience other than having people over to my place to play on my PC LAN. That leads me to consider which 360 game I have spent the most time in. Without being connected to my 360 and going through games to view their total playtime stats, I want to say Chromehounds. My fellow friends and I made a clan (or squad) and played for four months straight. Other than Halo, I have seen no other game amongst my friends retain such a long service life. And I mean we were playing every day, for three of four hours at a time. But, while CH had a great multiplayer experience, it was about useless for its single-player tour of duty. So, my final and third choice is:
Project Gotham Racing 3
....which I still play, both online and off. I think this game ranks as my third because it is what really convinced me on the viability of online gaming. Much like Chromehounds, I found a core group to play online with, most of whom still form the core of my Friends List to this day. This is where I found truly great players. Guys who believed in driving clean, playing the game for the spirit of competition, while also not taking it so seriously that they felt the need to shout expletives at fellow racers when they lost. You know, when people don't cheat, you don't have to take the game seriously.
So that's my top three. It was not easy; I've easily played over 100 titles on the PC alone that I still own. So I have to list some honorable mentions; games that popped into my head and were briefly considered, but eventually dispensed with:
Aztec Adventure (Sega Master System)
Afterburner (Sega Master System)
VectorMan (Sega Genesis)
Panzer Dragoon (Sega Saturn)
Sega Rally Championship (Sega Saturn)
Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega Saturn)
Gran Turismo (Playstation)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Playstation 2)
Tekken 3 (PlayStation)
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (Playstation 2)
Madden NFL 2001 (Playstation 2)
Halo (XBox)
Halo 2 (XBox title, but I played it on my 360)
Soul Caliber (Dreamcast)
Quake III (Dreamcast)
Formula One Racing (Dreamcast)
Le Mans Racing (Dreamcast)
Project Gotham Racing (XBox)
MechAssault (XBox)
Chromehounds (XBox 360)
Rainbow Six Vegas (XBox 360)
Final Fantasy III (NintendoDS)
I won't go into my PC game honorable mentions; that would take entirely too long.
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