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