I'd give it to Doom, simply because it has a lot of soul, mastered sound design, and loads of monsters to fight. It wasn't until Resident Evil 4 (about 11 years later!!) that a game could make me feel badass one level and nearly wet myself the next. One can't forget all that it did for the genre and in some cases, gaming in general, such as interactivity with the environment, non-orthogonal corners, lighting effects, deathmatch and co-op over ethernet, multiple heights. Its use of sprites allowed it to pack dozens and dozens of enemies onscreen (one .wad file had 702 Cyberdemons in the same room, and even when they were all walking and attacking, with the sound effects echoing, and rockets flying, leaving smoke and debris behind, it still didn't have a noticeable framerate drop). By itself, the engine behind Doom's been surpassed, but thanks to updates (source ports, mods, and levels), Doom's moved into the 21st century with features like jumping, freelook, and chasecam. One of my personal favorite source ports is Skulltag, with loads of modes and stages, along with freelook, jumping, and the ability to summon up to 32 bots for multiplayer or co-op. Not to mention that you can use mods like The Simpsons, Pokemon, or Ghostbusters and many more. You all know Doom was the first game with a huge mod community, right?
Doom's my favorite, because as this post proves, I can't ever stop talking about it. There's always a memorable moment.
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