What game do you feel had the most impact on you?

[Wolf Kanno]

It doesn't matter if it simply introduced you to a new genre or had a profound impact on your personal life, what video game probably had the biggest impact on your life?

[Uchu]

Two games actually. First, Sonic The Hedgehog for introducing me to gaming and essentially initiating an interest that would grow to be more than just a past time, it has become a passion.
Second (while it might seem cliche), FINAL FANTASY VII. Playing this while growing up left such an impact that I can remember the feeling I felt when playing it even to this day. Even just listening to the soundtrack makes me remember parts of my life. Like where I was, who I was with, what was going on at the time, etc.

Sure, other games made big differences and left fun memories, but those two games were the reason I got into those other things to begin with.

[Bolivar]

Probably Super Mario Bros. 1 or 3 for having unique sounds and visuals alongisde great gameplay, none of which could be found anywhere else. Those were the games that cemented this as my hobby.

Similar to Uchu above, Final Fantasy VII has to come up as a later title that refined that passion. FFVII showed what the video game medium could achieve and also was a big escape for me at the time.

[Mo-Nercy]

It's probably gotta be Final Fantasy VII for me too. It's the game that made me a gamer. I had been happy to go along with my parents' rule of no PlayStation on school nights before, but there was no way I could do that with FFVII. I would come back home each afternoon with a new idea on setting up the characters, or with a plan to investigate something my friends had said they'd come across. I had never been so immersed or invested in a game before.

Final Fantasy VIII was huge for me too. Unlike, VII, which I got into late, I got VIII pretty much as a new release and my desire to be 'that guy' at school that was further ahead than everyone and that knew where to find everything was all the incentive I needed to keep playing.

Soulcalibur 2 was what got me into the more social and competitive aspects of gaming. I used to play it in the arcades after high school almost every day. I took a lot of pride out of being able to compete with the regulars, who were really friendly and inclusive with us school kids who came in randomly one day as button-mashers and would eventually play in the mini-tournaments the two arcades (which were across the road from each other) would set up semi-regularly. Arcade gaming was expensive though, particularly for a student, so when negotiations with my parents to raise my allowance stalled, I got an after-school job and with my first paycheque I bought Soulcalibur 2 for PS2. xD

[Ayen]

Resident Evil. I started drawing up comic books based on this game. I couldn't draw worth crap, but the stories were what always kept people coming back for more. It was through this game that I discovered I could pull a story out of my ass and keep it going until I got bored. It led to me trying my hand at other comic books like Spawn, Buffy, Metroid, and Spider-Man. I dabbled with these until Harry Potter inspired me to go full text and I wrote three fanfics from start to finish. Resident Evil helped me find my passion for writing.

[Karifean]

Either FF VII or FF X. Without FF VII I wouldn't have gotten into FF and therefore ever played FF X, and FF X showed me just how much I really loved a certain type of story, and a lot of Japanese storytelling in general. I would probably be quite a different person today had I not discovered that.

[Pumpkin]

Two games:

FFIX because it introduced me to the FF series (which led to this forum and my new boyfriend and new home) and also to the RPG genre, which was a great escape for me during an abusive childhood

Majora's Mask because it introduced me to the concept of a story that is bigger than itself. If that makes sense. People might not know what I'm talking about there though, sorry

[Dat Matt]

Link's Awakening - it was the first game I played buy myself to completion. Set me on the path of Zelda fanboy to the day.
Kirby's Epic Yarn - In amongst the midst of shooters, RPGs and space that was generation 7, there was a game about being turned into a ball of yarn and saving the world from a evil wizard that used yarn to knit evil. It was fantastic.

[The Man]

One of the following:

Super Mario Bros.
The Legend of Zelda
Final Fantasy VI

The first two of these were mostly responsible for my early interest in games and the last significantly altered my taste in games for years to come.

[Colonel Angus]

Super Mario Bros. made me fall in love w/ video games.

Final Fantasy introduced me to RPGs.

Street Fighter II did the same for Fighting games.

[Del Murder]

Agreed with the Col. on Super Mario Bros. It sparked a pasttime that would last a lifetime.

Final Fantasy Legend introduced me to RPGs and to the FF series (even if it isn't a real FF).

Finally, Tetris taught me how to pack a car for a vacation.

[Loony BoB]

Can't pick out which game really gripped me into gaming in the first place (probably one of: Chuck Yeager Air Combat, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem).

As for the most notable impact on me and my life, FFVII without any doubt. It brought me to EoFF, and the rest is history.

[black orb]

>>> FF1 introduced me to RPGs, brought me to EoFF, etc..

[arenzi]

Super Mario because it was the first game I ever played. And Final Fantasy VII and VIII. VIII because introduced me to RPGs and got me interested in gaming again, VII because it inspired me to learn to play piano. Literally woke up one morning and thought "I wanna play Cosmo Canyon on the piano" and went from there.

[escobert]

I can think of four games, FFVII, Diablo 2, Guild Wars and finally DayZ.