There are so many amazing games I remember from my childhood.
Super Mario Bros. gets first place as it is the earliest memory of gaming I can remember. I didn't much often get longer than to maybe stage 1-3, but those two first stages are so ingrained in my gaming memories. In the first stage you have of course the Goombas, but most importantly the Koopas that were amazing with their shell defense. I remember kicking them away and just having so much fun. Not to mention the fireball and star power.Then as a contrast you enter the dark underground with the abundance of blocks to break.
Donkey Kong Country is my most deeply ingrained game. It just had so much atmosphere, amazing graphics and great music. It was also the game(together with the sequel) that I played a lot with my childhood friends. I remember thinking how I loved that the first stage changes to night and storm as you come to the end. The vast variety of enemies and ways to play it with Donkey and Diddy and the rhinoceros and the palm trees up high just made for an amazing experience. I can't express enough how much I loved DKC 1 & 2 as a kid.
Mario Kart 64 was chosen as one of the most formative racing games. I liked the normal racing, but my most emotional memories come from Battle Mode. It was just this mishmash of bitter defeat and glorious glee when you shot away a red shell and awaited your friend to fly high loosing his last balloon. No Battle Mode has come close except for Crash Team Racing's, which I played much later and actually prefered as it had a much higher tempo. But MK64 still comes on first place as it had beautiful stages.
Commander Keen is the sole PC game on my list. For some time in my adult years when I talked gaming with a friend I came across as a console only kind of guy. But then I remembered that I actually didn't have a console of my own until PS2. Until then I had played games at my friends' places. The only thing I had at home, if I remember correctly, was a not so powerful Dell with Windows 98. But for me it opened up so many games I wouldn't have experiences otherwise as you could(at that time atleast) download them legally for free. Especially DOS games were highly appreciated. Enter Commander Keen. I actually don't remember which ones I played as there were quite a lot in the series and I liked them all. Blasting away on my raygun on different planets and space stations made for great adventures for my childhood self. I remember liking the map design as it felt varied, but I never got lost.
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Some games that I feel deserve an honorable mention:
Toca 2: Touring Cars - Despite not winning many races, I did have a blast going the other way and crashing into my competitors until their engines started smoking.
Spyro: My cousin had a demo disc which included the purple dragon. The first stage was quite good and you're just launched into it to learn your flying and firebreathing skills. I've since revisited it and was astounded by the amazing gameplay.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3: This gave me and my friends(brothers who owned the DKC games) so many hours of fun. Trying to solve the puzzles or what you'd call them was quite a challenge for our preadolescent brains.
Supaplex: My sister's friend had this on a floppy drive. I loved trying to figure out how to get through every stage and racking my brain even harder when a sphere blocked me or dropped on my head. Sucking up the Infotrons like spaghetti by standing next to it and pressing Space+Arrow treated me to a nice little animation.
NHL98: Memories tied to waking up in the morning, starting the computer hearing the W98 logo theme and then choosing between different NHL teams I knew nothing about as a Swede except for their logos. My sister taught me to close it by ctrl+alt+del:ing it until a friend remarked that hey, it's better to just press "quit".
Ski or Die: Is there a funnier game to play as a kid? You have downhill skiing, snowball fights and half pipe snowboarding. All accompanied by your computer desperately making whatever sounds it's forced to make.
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This became one of my longest posts, but that's what you get asking me such a question on a Saturday night when I've had a little to drink and get kicked down memory lane.