Games that absolutely blew you away when you first played them?

[Bluebook]

Elite
Aces of the deep
X-com
Gunship
Silent service II
Defender of the crown
Their finest hour
Kampfgruppe
Empire
Baldurs gate

[MadImmortalMan]

Privateer
Star Control 2
Daggerfall

I didn't realize that I was experiencing about the best feeling I could get from games at the time.

[Razgovory]

Hey Syt, this was a good thread idea.

[Duque de Bragança]

At least the following:

Fallout 1 & 2
Secret of Mana
Ogre Battle
Civilization
Panzer General
Target Renegade
Arkanoid (got me into videogames and discovered at school as part of discovering IT; more interesting than LOGO)
Europa Universalis II
Close Combat II

more coming later

[Eddie Teach]

I think I saw a Sask sighting 

You only think you think that.

[saskganesh]

Indeed. It's a myth.

I said Ultima II because it was state of the art for what, 1982? Computer games were forbidden at school so we had to find the sneaky ways of playing it, which added to the allure.

Liked IV of course as well. I don't think I played III.

In other news, I'm OK. That's all I got.

[Jacob]

In more or less chronological order:

Wizardry
Leisure Suit Larry
Football Manager
Defender of the Crown
Civ 2, later Civ 4
Dune II
Privateer
EU 1
Neverwinter Nights
World of Warcraft

[Eddie Teach]

In more or less chronological order:

World of Warcraft

Didn't you quit after like a week?

[frunk]

Civ
M.U.L.E.
Masters of Orion and MOO II
Neverwinter Nights
Panzer General and PG II
EU II

[mongers]

'Nox'

Holy shit, I loved that game. I especially loved playing Ogreball online.

Yeah, still have the cd somewhere, it plays on under XP too. 

Never tried the ogreball.

[jimmy olsen]

Wing Commander I & II

But I was also younger and more impressionable then.

Me too.

Then next game that did that was Halflife.

Graphically both World in Conflict and Crysis were stunningly good looking for their time and genres. WiC was really fun too.

[Jacob]

Didn't you quit after like a week?

Playing with you guys, yeah.

I was playing on a PvP server with my GF at the time (she was the one who got me into the game to begin with). In the days before the Battlegrounds the open world slaughterfests at Tauren Mills where pretty entertaining. The first year or so of battlegrounds were good too, back when you could twink properly. I got a good two or three years of 20-40 hrs/week play in before we broke up

[Habbaku]

X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter was an eye-opener for me.  Combined with Diablo and Warcraft I/II, I lost most of a summer to the PC.

[Syt]

Hey Syt, this was a good thread idea.

Thanks.

[Syt]

World of Warcraft

My first MMO was Star Wars Galaxies; its system really impressed me - player driven economy, freeform class systems etc. Unfortunately the balancing was crap, and they "fixed" it by turning the game into action junk. The huge planets were amazing (the lifeless suburban sprawl of player houses around cities less so).

I played WoW in 2005 for a couple of months with the Paradox clan at the time (Mithril Guard) on the EU servers. I was amazed by this huge, detailed world, the smooth gameplay and fun cartoony visuals. I got to around level 40, but then the game turned into a massive grind for me and I stopped playing. My initial reaction (coming off SWG) was that the game system would be great for a Star Wars MMO. Well, we have The Old Republic now which does pretty much that . . . only a couple years late, when other MMOs have advanced the "classic" formula a fair bit (Age of Conan's more action oriented combat, Guild Wars 2's removal of time sinks etc.).

Another MMO that recently impressed me was EVE Online. Considering that the whole game is player driven (except the missions you can pick up), it's amazing what they've done there. 10 years running, constantly evolving, this is by now easily one of the most complex games I've encountered, and the fact that the economy runs completely on player interaction is one hell of an achievement. I would have kept playing, but with limited time there's only so much you can do - the game is slow paced, so doing anything that requires you leaving the station you're docked at can take a while.