Asklemmy

Dwarf Fortress

Factorio

CS 1.6

Dunno after that - probably one of the civilizations, I'm partial to Test of Time personally.

Half-life.

Sim city.

Smb3.

• Worms Armageddon

Elder Scroll series. Skyrim for the modding and eyecandy potential, Oblivion for the madness that is spellcrafting (also Shivering Isles is the best ES DLC), Morrowind for the true alien fantasy.

Thief II is the quintessential first-person sneaker.
Independence War II still has one of the best flight models and a great story.

X3: Terran Conflict is the best first-person strategy game.

Half-Life 1 and 2.

Il-2: Great Battles is the best WWII combat flight sim.
DCS is the best jet combat sim.

Elite: Dangerous is the only space sim with actual 1:1 scale galaxy, including many real-life stars and is the best life-in-space simulator with flight model as good as I-War 2 and decent enough on-foot parts (even though there is some jank and glitches).

• Suikoden 2
• Final Fantasy 7 (original)
• Dark Souls
• Resident Evil 1
• Castlevania SOTN
• D&D Warriors of the Eternal Sun
• Resident Evil 1 Remake (GC)
• Gran Turismo 4
• Road Rash 2
• Oblivion

Big shout out to SFA2, FFT:A/2, BOF series, Roadwarden.

10 feels too little to condense 40 years of games.

Rimworld

Mount and Blade Warband (/Bannerlord)

Crusader Kings 2/3

Slay The Spire

Stellaris

Darkest Dungeon

Civilization V

Fallout New Vegas

Borderlands 2

Kerbal Space Program

No order in particular:

• Elder Scrolls 3-5
• KOTOR 1 & 2
• Dota 2
• Mass Effect
• Grim Dawn
• Kerbal Space Program
• Warframe
• Age Of Empires II
• Battle for Middle Earth 2
• Counter Strike

Not in order: Dark Souls 1 Dark Souls 3 Elden Ring Witcher 3 Undertale Baldurs Gate 3 NieR: Automata Skyrim Hollow Knight Minecraft

Metal Gear Solid 1

Cyberpunk 2077

Civilization V

Gods Will Be Watching

Portal

Splinter Cell Blacklist

Dead Cells

Sniper Elite 3

Dirt Rally

Ghost of Tsushima

In no particular order:

• Hero's Quest (from Sierra On-line)
• Valheim
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Skyrim
• No Man's Sky
• City of Heroes (can you believe it's legally back?!?)
• Red Dead Redemption II
• Planescape: Torment
• Stardew Valley
• Starfield

(I'm sure that last one will raise some eyebrows, but I've already got over 1k hours in it since launch. For all its faults, it scratches some itch of mine just right.)

Outer Wilds

and

Inscryption

• Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Arcade)
• Chrono Trigger (SNES)
• Contra (NES)
• Dark Souls
• Warcrat 3 TFT (non remaster)
• OpenXCom with X-COM data
• XCom
• Slay the Spire
• OlliOlli
• Mark of the Ninja
• Yakuza0
• Horizon Chase Turbo

(No order, might be not exactly 10 :-P)

Half life 2 (especially episode 2), HL: Alyx, Mario 3, Sonic 3 (with Sonic and Knuckles attached), Sonic 2, space station 13, dead by daylight, portal 2, guitar hero 3, I dunno, one of the metal gear solids or Garry's mod

Obligatory "No particular order and this was really fucking difficult to distill into just 10 games":

• The Witcher 3
• BioShock
• Minecraft
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Monster Hunter: World
• Dying Light
• Transistor
• Borderlands 2
• Elden Ring
• ARK: Survival Evolved

• Neverwinter Nights
• Kingdom of Amalur
• Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
• Battle for Middle Earth
• Deux Ex
• KOTOR I
• Morrowind - Oblivion
• Red Alert 2
• XCOM2
• WH: Total War II

1. Gothic 2
2. Gothic
3. The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker
4. Age of Empires 2
5. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
6. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
7. Guild Wars
8. Minesweeper
9. Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord
10. Football Manager 2024 (or one of the old EA ones?)

Not in order:

• Farcry 5
• civilization VI
• cyberpunk 2077
• portal 2
• Minecraft
• Hitman 2
• Hearts of Iron IV
• watchdogs
• oxygen not included
• The binding of Isaac

• Portal 2
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Gothic 2
• Mass Effect 2
• Uncharted 2
• Dragon Age Origins
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines
• The Last of Us
• Max Payne 2

• Nethack : old school roguelike

• Tale of Maj Eyal : removing of tediousness in old school roguelike

• Baldur Gate 2 : D&D implementation

• Civilization 2 : just one more turn

• Fallout 2 : narrative based on character build

• XCom : tactical combat with base building

• Jagged alliance: tactical combat with squad building

• Knight of Legend : best original turnbased combat system never done again

• Slay the Spire: For deck building

• Quake: playing with friend

In Order with contender from the same gameline between brackets.

1. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
2. Valkyrie Profile Lenneth
3. Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones (Path of Radiance & Awakening)
4. Monster Hunter Worlds (Hunter 4 Ultimate & Rise)
5. Need for Speed Underground 2
6. World of Warcraft
7. Final Fantasy IV (IX)
8. League of Legends
9. Dwarf Fortress
10. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (& Echoes of Times)

Honorable Mentions

• Midnight Club 2
• Sid Meier's Civilization VI
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
• Tekken 3

No particular order, but it seems I hit quite a few different genres.

• Starcraft
• Stardew Valley
• Subnautica
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Infamous
• Hades
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
• Halo 2
• Super Smash Brothers Melee
• Rome: Total War

• Ultima VII
• Baldur's Gate 1
• Daggerfall
• Morrowind
• Oblivion
• Deus Ex
• Thief
• Ultima Underworld
• Kerbal Space Programme
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Honourable mentions for Baldur's Gate 3, Crusader Kings 2, and Tears of the Kingdom.

Just the ones I know, of course. In the order I fell in love with them:

• Combat
• Duke Nukem
• Herzog Zwei
• Streets of Rage 2
• Mario Kart
• Outpost
• Sim City 2000
• Warcraft 2
• Unreal Tournament 2004
• Halo

Darn that’s ten and it only gets me up to two decades ago, when I was ending college.

My ten from after college:

• FarCry 2
• EVE Online
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Minecraft
• Grand Theft Auto V online mode
• Factorio
• Battlefield 5
• Sea of Thieves
• Space Engineers
• Overwatch 2

In no particular order:

• kenchi
• ghost recon wild lands
• s.t.a.l.k.e.r
• ready or not
• arma 3
• dayz
• mag
• cities skylines
• red dead redemption
• skate 3

Elden ring

Borderlands 2

Pokemon emerald

Fallout 4

Monster Hunter world

Chivalry II

Gears of war 2

PUBG

Escape from Tarkov

Call of duty: World at war

Roughly in that order

Ranking is tough but I'll give it a go. The ranking is based on the impact and enjoyment I got out of them regardless of playtime.

1. What Remains of Edith Finch & Kentucky Route Zero (shared 1st place)

2. Life is Strange

3. Stray

4. GRIS

5. Cyberpunk 2077

6. SOMA

7. Heaven's Vault

8. The Town of Light

9. FAR: Lone Sails

10. Portal 2

That last one is a bit of an outlier but I have laughed so much while playing it, it deserves a place at the table.

Satisfactory RDR2 Cyberpunk2077 Mass Effect trilogy Cities Skylines, GTA 5 Halo series then probably a bunch of simulators

Tekken 3
Raiden rtype
Diablo
Unreal Tournament
Blakestone
Alien vs predator
Ultimate Doom
Team fortress 2
Overwatch 1 R.I.P
Battlefront 2

Bard's Tale
Ultima IV
Neuromancer
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star Online
Super Street Fighter II: Championship Edition
Destiny
Impossible Mission
Halo
Gain Ground

Alphabetical Order

1. TBOI Rebirth
2. BTD6
3. DOOM Eternal
4. GMod
5. Pizza Tower
6. Post Void
7. Super Meat Boy
8. SUPERHOT
9. TF2
10. Titanfall 2

Halo 3
Viva Pinata
Fallout 3
Kingdom for Keflings
Red Alert 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Warframe
RuneScape 2 (pre eoc)
Minecraft
Borderlands 2

In no particular order:

• Wing Commander: Privateer
• Rim World
• Kotor + Kotor 2
• Any first person Elder Scrolls Game
• Europa Universalis games
• Portal + Portal 2
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Elite Dangerous
• Eve Online
• Dwarf Fortress

dragon age origins
mass effect 2 red dead 2 baldurs gate 3 witcher 3 cyberpunk 2077 tetris horizon zero dawn dragon age inquisition resident evil 4

In some sort of order

• Sim City 2000, City Skylines
• Halo 1, 2, 3 , Modern Warfare 2, 3
• Civilization 4,5,6
• Kerbal Space Program
• Minecraft
• BioShock
• Final fantasy 7
• Game Dev Story
• FTL
• BG3

Once again in no particular order: Ultimata IV - Quest of the Avatar

Sim City 2000

The Last of Us

Breath of the Wild

Trade Wars

Kingdom Hearts

Knights of the Old Republic

Civ 6

Omega - a dos game where you programmed Tanks and set them loose

And right now: Balatro

I'm probably a little biased but... (I'll also include my fave music track from each game as a little bonus!)

Pikmin 3

Pikmin 4

Pikmin 2

Pikmin

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Super Mario Sunshine

Super Mario Galaxy

Final Fantasy X

Super Paper Mario

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

My top 10 in decreasing order (the first series' games I listed individually to give due credit to these masterpieces):

• Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos (Gothic universe)
• Gothic 2 + Night of the Raven
• Gothic 1
• Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 2, Fallout 1
• Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 3
• UFO Enemy Unknown (OpenXcom variant)
• Warcraft III + The Frozen Throne
• StarCraft, StarCraft II
• Unreal Tournament 2000 G.O.T.Y.
• No Man's Sky or Minecraft (contenders for 10th place)

sly 3

mirror’s edge

also portal 2 somewhere in there

Gnome Mahjongg

Ltris

Bejeweled

Gnome Tetravex

Frozen Bubble

Xye