What are the games you played in your youth that you still play today?

Yoshis island
Super mario world
DKC 1, 2 & 3 Pokemon gen 1&2
Banjo kazooie & tooiee TLoZ A link to the Past, Ocarina of time & Majoras mask
Warcraft 3 + frozen throne
Command & conquer 2 + yuris revenge

I've still got my Nintendo 64, and I sometimes boot up Goldeneye for old time's sake.

Half-Life 1 (and expansions)

SimCity 3000, SimCity 4

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

Deus Ex

Zoo Tycoon

Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail

Morrowind

Industry Giant 2

Fallout 1/2

Arcanum

SimTower

Great list. I think I will replay about half your list at some point over the coming years. And might first time play Love For Sail as well.

I still love all of the 90s FPS games like Doom and Quake.

Same. The rise of the boomer shooter was fun but you can't beat OG.
- Have you tried playing on a lower difficulty level?
Half-Life 1 was the peak of this genre for me

I still play through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at least a couple times a year though it's usually with the randomizer these days. It is objectively the best video game ever made, which helps.

What do you think of the other Zeldas in the same style, like Link’s Awakening, the Oracle games or Minnish Cap?
- All good to great games that build on the foundation set by ALttP. I'd gladly play any of them if you put it in front of me but nostalgia demands that I push the one I played when I was like 9 years old or whatever.

Guild wars 1. I don't play it often but every once in a while I get the itch. It's honestly still really compelling.

Wasn't that all online? How is that still going? Ya, I spent a lot of time in guild wars back in the day. Running people to the next stop.
- Because they have ai controlled party members (and have since the beginning), it's actually completely playable solo to this day.
  You might be surprised how many people still play though.
Fired it back up recently and went to one of the main hubs. There was a few other people running around, but it was pretty dead.
But yeah, the pre-cataclysm area was gorgeous at the time. The soundtrack is AMAZING. One of my favorite gaming experiences.

I'll still crack open any one of the Age of Empires series from time to time.

You just reminded me I have the first version of that game around somewhere, I might dig it back out one of these days soon.
- The original and Rise of Rome are great. If you don't have Rise of Rome it's almost mandatory, it runs a lot better and has a lot of quality of life improvements, like a higher population cap.

Half-Life 1

One mod specifically (Sven-Coop). Been playing almost daily since 1999.

I still fire up Duke 3d and Quake mods from time to time as well. There are lifetimes of user-made content in some of these older games.

Tales of Maj'Eyal; all the old scumm games, daggerfall, toejam & earl.

Ayyy ToME oldhead gang represent. Been playing since about 2014 myself.
The modding community is what really kept breathing life into that game for me for so long. I'm hoping once we finally see the next (final?) DLC expansion that the modders will pick the game back up again. It's been very stagnant for a couple of years now, presumably waiting for DG to release his expansion like a sudden kraken as is tradition. But it's been 2 years now since the last update (which was primarily a scaffolding update for the Lost Lands content to come) and I imagine everyone who would be otherwise interested is now hanging in a limbo of not wanting to start work on a project when DG might drop a major update at literally any time and invalidate a bunch of your work.
Even just the regular base game kept me playing for years and years though. Solid 10/10 freeware game. I used to bounce between ToME and DCSS (also freeware, also recommend, this one actually gets regular updates) pretty regularly and that kept me covered on dungeon crawling roguelikes for the better part of a decade. I still keep coming back to them on occasion though, I've played a bit of both of those games within the last 2 weeks.

The Pokemon games on all of Nintendo's handheld consoles emulate really cleanly on a smartphone.

I'm a sucker for the Gen 1 nostalgia every now and then.

Final Fantasy 6 but, back in my day, it was called Final Fantasy 3.

DOOM.
The old game got way better when they open sourced it and Quake 3d code was backported to make zDOOM. Its one of the largest modding communities that has ever existed. If you want to see what it can do, try Brutal Doom. That same engine is behind a new release called Selaco.

Serious Sam.
The first one. The demo is fine. Start off with a pistol. Its pretty easy to die at first, even if you know the game. I think that's why I keep opening it, I know it really well, and it still catches me.

I got back into doom in the last few years and there's a huge number of amazing maps people have made over the years you can play for free. I had no idea about the total conversion wads, where it doesn't even feel like doom because everything has been changed.
If anyone's looking for a good place to start you can check out the yearly cacoward winners
https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Cacowards
- Cool!
- My_House.wad has been making the rounds on YouTube semi-recently as an example of the sort of fuckery that has been made possible by the progression of doom modding.
  If you're not familiar with it, do yourself a favor and go in blind for an hour or so and then only look up a video when you're stuck.

Master of Orion.

MOO2

Here goes:

pc:

duke nukem 3d pc version
blood
redneck rampage (so funny!)
cannon fodder
day of the tentacle

megadrive:

streets of rage 2
road rash 2
ea hockey 2

Wow Cannon Fodder. I felt so bad for the guys that got wounded and just stayed there suffering.
- I actually felt real sadness when I'd been progressing with a name for several levels and then they get blown up by my own doing. When their name appears in the roll of honour!
  Wow Cannon Fodder. I felt so bad for the guys that got wounded and just stayed there suffering.
  You can shoot them, and shoot them, and shoot them and their body bounces around!
What's special about EA hockey 2?

Quake. Still hold up, modding community makes tons of maps to play so it stays fresh.

Dungeon Keeper - keeperfx is a modern update of the engine / bug fix that makes it easy to play on a modern system.

I sunk hours into NetHack, and I still occasionally dive into the dungeons. I also have a NES emulator on my phone, but it's just not the same. I'll play Zelda or Metroid for the nostalgia, but it's not the same as sitting on the couch with friends.

not the same as sitting on the couch with friends.
That's the biggie that the young kids of today just will never experience!

If I could I'd still be playing wow but it's just not the same without the plentiful free time for it.

Private servers with boosted rates can scratch that itch while severely reducing the grind. Every couple years I'll poke my head into one, level to endgame in like a week, do some raids, do some PVP, then completely forget it exists. Couple years later, rinse and repeat.
- I tried retail again last year in a similar way, they've actually built so much mechanics now to catch up. But it still felt like a massive task to catch up to actual active players. Private server is a good shout, I'll take a look next time I get the itch.
Ascension is the best. Look it up. Free to play and offers a better classic experience with a cool twist
- My DnD DM talked about this constantly for like a year straight, so I haven't played it but I can vouch for it being a good time for old wowheads.

Best way to play this these days? I have a disk from the early 2000s, but iirc the last time I tried to use it, it just prompted an update that led to a blizzard launcher... idr if it wanted me to buy a new digital copy or what, but I ultimately decided it was more work than it's worth and gave up.
...these days I don't think I even have a CD drive lol.
- Apparently the original game and Brood War expansion are free to install through the Battle.Net launcher these days.
  If you have the original discs, the later official patches added the ability to copy the "mpq" files from the CD into the game's directory, so you no longer need the disc in the drive. Of course, you're still going to need a drive for the initial installation. That should work for single player (it's been a few years since I last did it) but I don't know about online multiplayer.
- All their games launch through their "Battle.net Launcher" now. It's not the same as Battle.net was back then. I play on Linux via Lutris (add Battle.net launcher to Lutris).
  I think if you have your cdkey on there you can sync up for a digital copy on their website. Same account needed for the launcher. It's all annoying, but that's how it works now. Plays flawlessly though.

Super Nintendo:

Megaman X. I was never a fan of classic Megaman, but the faster, more action-oriented sequel/spinoff X series rates amongst my favorites. It has tight controls, good music, varied stages, and memorable bosses and combat encounters. I must have beaten the first game dozens of times over the years.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It and Link's Awakening on the Game Boy were so close to perfect that decades later they're still the basis of comparison for any new 2D Zelda-like.

PC:

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. it was the game that introduced Bioware's trademark party banter and focus on interesting and likeable characters. The systems are a little rough but it still mostly holds up. Though it's been a while since my last playthrough, and I usually stop once I hit the Underdark and the open world structure constricts for a few hours.

The music in the SNES Megaman X series is magic.
There are a lot of great mods for BG2 as well to keep the game feeling fresh. Even moreso if you don't mind adding some fanfiction material, though I typically don't.

Syndicate Wars. I honestly haven't seen anyone emulate that gameplay as well as SW did it since then.

I've been on a Doom kick for a bit, although it's modified to retain some more current gen flair. Just finished Going Down Turbo with Project Brutality. Is it faithful to the OG? Not quite, but it's truly amazing how far the the engine has come despite being heavily modified in its own right.

Major mix of eras and platforms, but here is my list.

AoE2

NFSU2

Halo MCC

Sim City 2000

Streets of Sim City

Roller Coaster Tycoon

Mario Kart 64

Perfect Dark

Goldeneye

Battlefield 3

Super Mario Bros Deluxe

Mario 64

Overwatch

Half Life 2 +eps

Gary's Mod

Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour

Fallout New Vegas

I forgot simcity 2000 - that is one hell of a classic! hl2 is good until you get to the part where you have to set the turrets up and you just die and die and die. I got it when it was free on the steam weekender a few months back but totally forgot about that part. I've just given up now as the fun has gone from it.

I have replayed Baldur's Gate 2 more than any other narrative game, and will probably do another playthrough in the coming years. So it's most likely that. Oh, and Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven multiplayer on the PS2 whenever I am over at one specific friend's place. That was our go-to couch game growing up and it's still nostalgic.

I didn't have video games in my youth, so I'm just catching up now.

Heroes of Might and Magic III

Worms Armageddon

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

HOMM3 is like a warm blanket when you're sick and tired.
Worms Armageddon was a classic

Fallout 1 & 2, Final Fantasy 9, Elite

Age of Empires

Age of Mythology too <3

Every time Final Fantasy Tactics comes out again, I’m all over it.

Solitaire.

The original Legend of Zelda. I still have it on cartridge and every once in a while I'll just steamroll the entire game and whoop Ganon's ass. I can usually do it in about 4 hours.

I don't use any glitches or speedrun optimizations, I just know where everything is and what order to do things in.

I started recently. I'm keen to finish it.
I have been considering a second quest play lately. All these years I have never played the second quest.
I had a small binder full of hand drawn maps of both overworlds and all the dungeons. I wish i still had that. It got pretty ragged from many friends borrowing it. What a great unlocked memory from my childhood.

I still find Civil War Generals 2 to be a really fun and challenging game. The visuals are still perfectly readable and charming.

Rayman's saga Especially Rayman 3 and Rayman 2, I am so excited for the upcomming fan-remake Rayman 2: Redreamed

Quest for Glory series! Betrayal at Krondor

Yeeeeah! I haven’t played these in forever but Hero’s Quest was my first Sierra adventure and holy shit was it magic. And Krondor - Raymond freakin Feist writing games!!
Both absolutely epic! Although in my case we’d be playing fast and loose with the term “youth” this was stuff I played after college but still.
- Love to hear it! I read and reread Feist’s whole series as a kid, I remember always being so excited when a new book came out. I cut my teeth learning to read novels on Magician in 3rd grade!
  You’ll be interested to learn that Feist didn’t write anything for the game, he just licensed the world and the characters. Neal Hallford wrote the story and dialogue which were brilliant, and Feist later adapted the story into a novel.
  I just replayed QfG 1-3 last week on a family vacation and the magic is still strong. Something about these games ignite mythic perspectives in me that nothing else seems to.

I bloody loved Harry The Handsome Executive. It was an Ambrosia Software shareware game from the 90s and was surprisingly underrated. Will probably run on Infinite Mac but it never got an OS X port or anything

I have an old iBook which it still runs great on

shareware gave rise to some truly original and awe-inspiring games, some like this: https://mattyongames.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/grandad-quest/
- Yes! And that’s amazingly similar to Harry (but also completely different) - Harry goes around the various offices on his swivel chair (backwards, because kicking off things is of course easier) and fires staples at malfunctioning robots

Nfs hot pursuit 2 holds up insanely well. Ahead of its time. Gt2, ff12, musashi, crash bandicoot. Lot of ps2. Still play all my 2600 and nes and n64 games too

Squarez Deluxe

https://lemmy.world/comment/17807115

I'm midway through Oblivion Remastered and holy shit is inner 20s me ever happy about this raytracing thing

Morrowind, Shenmue, Earthbound, all the the Mega Mans, Starcraft

I'm interested in trying Shenmue after it was (to me rather surprisingly) awarded the "Most Influential Game of All Time" award by BAFTA.
How do you play it there's days? Physical Dreamcast? Can you play it on PC? Emulator?
- I have my Dreamcast still so I could theoretically boot it up any time and get the "authentic" experience. However they released it digitally for playstation and I think Xbox, along with the sequel.
  I will say, it might be less accessible if you haven't played anything like it previously. Game design sensibilities were different back then and it was the first real attempt at an open world game, to say nothing of the awkward English voice acting. But the narrative is still fantastic and I can't think of many games that have ever been so ambitious in their scope. It's part Virtua Fighter, part RPG, and part narrative walking simulator. I discovered it by chance at a formative time in my life and those first awkward steps into it with no idea what I was about to experience are still a core memory from my teenage years.
  Thanks for coming to my TED talk, I guess haha

I played lightbike a variation of armagetron (that imo was honestly superior, it had jumping, boosting, maps that took advantage of that, skins back when they were cheap) but I still play armagettron on ocassion, agains the ai for the most part. Loved that ipod game. I wish it was still popular, think they got scared of licensing disputes with disney and a bit greedy with the microtransactions towards the end, started to effect gameplay through boosts.

I wish some of the changes like jumping and maps that were more than just one grid made it over to armagettron or another pc version but those stayed simple sadly.

I would eat up a modern cross platform tron lightbike game with maps like the ipodgame, jumping, boosts, etc. and cosmetics like rocketleague as long as they don't give you a leg up. It would be all I play.

Does chess count?

Probably Sims and SimCity, I go back to them fairly often.

Rogue, Hack, Nethack. Basically nethack, but it built on those before it. Occaisonally Larn. Amiga Larn.

Angband was my jam for a while, and of course that parlayed directly into Dwarf Fortress

They're all well-known: Pac-Man (first game I ever played), Super Mario games, Metroid games. Anything past SNES I feel like I was too old to consider it my "youth."

HL2 still holds up after 10+ playthroughs.

Last time I played it was when the commentary track was added. Played 80% of the game in one sitting because I was so hooked.

Quite a few, but the one that I've played the most is Super Metroid. I do like to play through the different Mega Man games too and a few others, but they are almost all well known games.

I have rediscovered other games that I totally overlooked because I thought they were too kiddy or too hard like The NewZealand Story, Gimmick and so many shmups.

I still play some of my old school Pokemon games from time-to-time such as Red, Silver, Ruby, and Platinum.

Thunder force 4 or lightning force in my youth was a really fun game. Played it to death on the Genesis. It still holds up. I still play it from time to time.

I'm so happy to see this mentioned. It also has an incredible OST.
- The fan stuff is excellent as well: Heavy Instrumental Metal:
  Into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnLAC5AJPuM
  End: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvCs12UqWvU
  Im looking forward to Eartheon !!

Less Pokémon here than I thought there would be, though it does make a showing. I do gen 2 and 3 now and again. Gen 1, I think I've wrung out completely, and gen 4+ (DS and onward) just doesn't emulate as cleanly in my experience.

And I guess I'm approaching my 2nd decade of still playing certain MUDs: Achaea/Aetolia, Discworld, Lost Souls.

I don't really game much these days, though; certainly not like I used to.

Most of them! Well, not regularly. But I love going back to the games and consoles of my earlier days.

My favourites are the 16-bit and early 32-bit eras

Crash Bandicoot 2: Wrath of Cortex. Original hardware, Muscle memory from childhood. Still a banger 27 years after my first time.

Hat-Trick Hockey, World Games etc.

Still playing Call of Duty: United Offensive multiplayer on PC nearly every day

Quite a bunch, but the ones I come more often to my mind (and that are not DS titles, if not it would be Jump Ultimate Stars, Metroid Prime Hunters or Mario Kart DS) are:

Jackie Chan Stutmaster and Toy Story 2, both PS1 games (among other PS1 titles).

Dungeon master and Dungeon master chaos strikes back

• Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Hate it or love it, I still think it's an amazing game.

• Chuzzle Deluxe. Recently got back into it after purchasing it a few months ago.

• Zuma Deluxe. Same thing applies.

• Sonic Unleashed. Went from playing on PS2 to 360 to now Steam Deck. The 360/PS3 version is absolutely superior, though.

Any others I can think of are all things I started playing closer to when I was a teen, so I'm not counting them.

Every so often I will fire up my copy of Mega Man 2 and run through it.

Mega man is SO hard. I struggle to get anywhere. But, that music. I LOVE it.
- Yes the music in the Mega Man games is legendary

Every final fantasy game i seem to play over and over again on loop, bunch of different iterations. Played the nes ff1, then the ps1 remake, then the GBA remake, and then the pixel remaster. Currently playing thr pixel remaster of 2. GBA was the only other version I played of that.

Currently replaying the Sly Cooper series, it will always be a favorite of mine