RetroGaming

• Sonic the hedgehog
• Golden axe
• Streets of rage
• Micro machines
• Super Mario Bros 3
• Super Mario world
• Cool boarders
• SSX tricky
• Speed freaks
• Crash bandicoot
• Soul Reaver
• Tony hawk
• Tomb raider 3
• Abes oddesy
• Crazy taxi
• Duke nukem 3D

C64: Elite. the game is my personal number one as I played only Elite constantly for a long time, despite all other games available for C64.

Amiga: Chaos Engine, Transarctica.

486: Elite Frontier, Descent, Descent II.

My mom got us this “Kids Cube” game collection in CompUSA when I was a kid and there were some gems in there. I’ve been looking for years to try and find the list of games but it’s one of those cheap dollar bin software collections. Anywho, some of the games I loved from that included:

Battle Bugs Jetpack Mice Movers Loader Larry

Non Kids Cube games: Doom (duh) Hero’s of might and Magic 3 Kings Quest VI Return to Zork Raptor: Call of the Shadows Battle Chess Jazz Jackrabbit Prince of Persia (the classic DOS 2D) Duke Nukem 2D

Did a quick search and thank you Archive! Found the Kids Cube! There’s a lot of weird stuff on there but I would spend hours just trying stuff out. https://archive.org/details/aztech_kids_cube

Terranigma. Still my favorite RPG to this day and one of my favorite games to this day, but it's hard to gush about this game without any spoilers and its written in a way that requires a bit of attention from the player. You do need to either have an EU / PAL SNES or emulate it though, because it never released in the Americas due to publisher drama.

Secret of Mana is great too, or if you already played that, Seiken Densetsu 3, which is the sequel title that never got released in the West, but got fan translated roms out there. Seiken Densetsu 2 being SoM, and the original Seiken Densetsu 1 was released as Final Fantasy Adventures and sort of a side story to the Final Fantasy franchise, which got dropped and became its own franchise with the second game. SD3 (or "Secret of Mana 2") is a significant step up to the first game in many aspects and even has multiple characters & branching endings based on your character selections.

On the PC definitely the Command & Conquer's Tiberian series, starting with the first game and a GDI campaign run, followed by a NOD campaign run. It got those cheesy but amazingly entertaining little clips between the missions that actually get you immersed into the story and it has a killer soundtrack too. It's one of the many great franchises ruined by EA, but I heard the remastered version is actually decent (I still won't buy because I still boycott them). The already suggested Red Alert is a spin-off series with some references to the Tiberian series, so I would not start with that one until you played the Tiberian one.

Gex

Mario Teaches Typing

All of the ‘Blaster Learning System’ games like Math Blasters: In Search of Spot

I was pretty young still so those educational ones were hella fun and my parents would let me play as much as I wanted

Homeworld

Starcraft!

Oh what a wonderful chance to share.

Princess Maker 2. Great life sim game where you raise a girl and try to make her into a princess. (Includes optional final fantasy combat and exploration)

SimCity. If you don't know what that is you need to experience it.

Tank Wars, great turn based shooter.

You might wanna consider getting qbasic going on it. There's a large collection of homebrew games for it. http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/topten/topten.shtml

Die Hard Trilogy

Lode Runner for Apple II. Still remarkably playable. You could also go for The Legend Returns on PlayStation / Saturn.

The descent games someone else already mentioned were fantastic. Starcraft was outstanding. Also, it just barely made the cut but I even still play it, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is phenomenal.

Carmageddon is a game that I loved at the time, and am very hesitant to revisit... I suspect it hasn't aged well!

Jagged Alliance 1 and 2

Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain (1997 on Windows, 1998 on Mac), a real time 4X game set in space.

This game is one of my all-time favourite.

Little Fighter 2

My family’s first PC was hand-me-down Amiga 2000; so these games helped shape me growing up:

Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis T-Rex Warrior* Cannon Fodder Sensible Soccer** The Settlers After the War

• Funny anecdote, if memory serves - it took my child brain over a year to figure out that holding down both mouse buttons made you move forward..

** Namely, the demo disk version which was set in 1945 and replaced the ball with a bomb that would periodically explode, killing nearby players and removing them from the match.

Xwing, day of the tentacle, Sam and Max hit the road, terminal velocity, half-life, journeyman project, Myst, that weird Encarta cdrom trivia game, counterstrike, EverQuest, you don't know Jack, Spiderman cartoon maker, master of Orion, monkey Island, Commander keen, and DOOM

Starquest v

Oregon trail II

Widget workshop

That drawing program with the programmable turtle

I don't know how popular it was since none of my friends remember it but I loved Phantasmagoria. Its a point and click horror mystery game with video captured graphics.

Blue Byte's "Albion" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion_(video_game)

Wolfenstein and Hover.

I loved the Harpoon series of naval warfare simulation games. I haven’t played since the late 90s but they were a lot of fun.

Might and might 3 F19 stealth jet Doom Wolfenstein Red alert Warcraft 3

• Turrican 1-3 [Amiga]
• Command and Conquer
• Monkey Island 1 [Amiga]
• Sim City 2000 (Network edition)
• Unreal Tournament
• Super Metroid [Super Nintendo]
• Metal Slug [Neo Geo/Arcade]
• Pinball Dreams/Illusions (made by DICE before they renamed themselves)

I'm old so a lot but I always mention SSI DnD games like Pool of Radiance. I think the games would be a bit of slog for most people today. All the Ultimas besides 9.

I always go back to the original Age of Empires as a classic.

Star Control 2

All challengers can GTFO 🧐

Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe and Cannon Fodder are must try (there are both Amiga and dos versions for both).

Lemmings is really good. Original Worms. Lost Vikings. Syndicate.