Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers. Always.

The Longest Journey, just played it again and the story is still amazing.

DMing PnP RPG. Legendary 42 hour sessions where I took a quick nap while the others fixed breakfast... a those memories.

That was of course before regular job, family, children. Miss it a lot.

LOL I was going to say 'Hide the Sausage' - I guess I'm more a fan of co-op than solo play!

I like to play bury the bologna myself.

Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

I played it all the time on my uncle's computer but have yet to actually buy it myself. Anyway, I swear I've clocked in a good 400+ hours on this game and I was barely able to read back then.

I think I would have to go with Minecraft.

A coder in Sweden was bored
Wishing sandbox games weren't ignored
So he coded a game
And the graphics were lame
But his bank account grew to a hoard

Oh boy, I killed the thread. Do people not like limericks? :-/

What? You didn't say anything about- Oh. Well. Shoot sorry I some how missed this. Guess I can say some words for that.

Final Fantasy VIII (8)
Well, good first-
1- Somehow this game hits all my soft spots with loving rays, relatable characters, graphics that while dated serve it better than any other Final Fantasy game with some nostalgia goggles to soften those jagged PS1 models.

2-The story is the one thing that I feel breaks it for most and makes it for me (For the most part...That bit from LP and on is dicey)

3- The mechanics for the draw system was interesting, adding effects to your attacks and being able to absorb others just feels cool to me.

4- Guardian Forces were interesting since they leveled with you by use, I always thought that added a sort of sense of companionship to them, plus the abilities you get from them can range from super strong to tons of fun (I can't stop eating monsters please help)

5- Having the special attacks be interactive and some even memory and skill based was awesome, made you feel like you really had an impact on the battle outcome.

6- The music, dear goodness the music. The normal town fare is fine and good for what it is but the Laguna scene music and the music during all the sorceress scenes can change my mood wildly. Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec has always given me chills, I feel like I'll be struck down right then and there every time I hear it.

7- There's a lot of great things I could say about it, but to consolidate some in to one small line- Card game is fun but an acquired taste; upgrading weapons is cool and makes it feel more realistic to how you get better weapons (Instead of finding a megaphone in a chest inside an ancient temple); Cars.

And the not so good-
1- Drawing Guardian Forces from bosses mid-fight with no chance to get them again. WHY? Dear goodness this is so stupid. Fighting a boss you can beat but can't draw from him and win at the same time? Too bad. Just beat a giant boss and got hit by another that actually has a GF in it and just want to save? Too bad. Only two of them can be gotten again later and by then you've outgrown them pretty hard.

2- Saving on missions with timers. Yes the game has multiple parts where you have to finish the entire section on a timer, but you can save so that's no big deal right? Oh sure, unless you end up needing to get levels or get called away and can't pause and think you still have enough time then save only to find you're stuck at that time and need exactly 20 more seconds to finish the section, ruining that entire game and forcing you to start over entirely.
This can be corrected by knowing the missions in advance or just having separate saves but it would have been nice to have it so the timer runs out and you start back earlier maybe even with your items and levels in-tact since I don't expect it to remember your old items and levels.

3- Exploits like maaad. If you leave Squall low level and get everyone else boosted you can steam roll the game, I haven't done this personally but I know people who did and it strongly cheapens the experience. Maybe it's the player's fault for not having the nerve to stick it out and do it legit? This is minor really, all games got glitches yo.

4- This is for us who played it back in the day on PS1, Pocket Station Chocobo World. Having that left in the game with no way to use it was infuriating and just served to make me want something I couldn't ever have. Maybe if I get it on Steam I can finally experience it haha.

Sweet cheesus that's a wall, sorry I'll stop now. If I go on much more I'll most likely write a whole book.

So many games!!! How do you choose?

I've spent huge swaths of time on a few, although I don't know if I'd call them my favorites.

Might and Magic 2 ate up a lot of my childhood in the middle-ish-school era.

Naughty Dog's Rings of Power did, too. But that was a lot quicker to beat. I loved that it was super-open-world. You could go anywhere on the whole globe.

Civilization 1-4 has taken a lot of my time, too. I've yet to play 5. And I have the first board game. I've spent many a night playing that.

But the grand-daddy is DnD and Neverwinter NIghts. 1000's of DnD + Neverwinter Nights hours. It's rather ridiculous. But I love social gaming. And I love fantasy. And I love the complex simplicity that is DnD.

Arcanum is my absolute all time favorite game. I have beaten it about ten times, and it never stops to interest me. The lore is phenomenal and will pull anyone into it, whether they enjoy lore or not. The magick system is amazing, and the character building possibilities are astronomical. Not only that, but it has the best soundtrack in all of gaming. That claim is near impossible to dispute.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines
Killing Floor
and
Mass Effect 1 (which I am really wanting to play again but am to broke to buy it on steam)

Those are my favorite that I can bring to mind right now
oh and as well as Zelda OoT

Unreal Tournament! (I don't care which version of the game)

KitN is pretty awesome, I gotta say.

Well, Sting / Dept Heaven is.

My Pick

Grandia (Saturn ver) - It's technically gorgeous, character-focused, and the gameplay is genuinely fun and innovative. It's semi-realtime battles handled very very well.

I think I spent the last three posts writing the same name... I'm starting to become boring! ;)

The answer is... Thief. Both the first and the second, even score.