[Shaffer]

Replying without reading any of the rest of the thread.

5) Betrayal at Krondor (PC). Fascinating RPG set in the universe of Raymond E. Feist's books. Groundbreaking in a lot of ways. Not the best graphics in the world, but a very strong story. I spent an insane amount of time on this game.

4) Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (PC). The original was great, but the sequel improved on every aspect of it. Some the best graphics ever to go into a 2D engine. Fluid interface. Deep gameplay. Great game.

3) Final Fantasy VI (SNES): AKA Final Fantasy III for its American release. Fantastic RPG. I haven't cared overmuch for the more recent incarnations of the Final Fantasy series, but this one got it right.

2) Counter-Strike (PC): Spent so much time on this game, it was ridiculous. Frustrating at first, when you were getting killed and not really contributing to your team, but after the first time I stepped onto a server, got 2x as many kills as deaths, and realized that I was a difference-maker as far as how the games were going, I was hooked.

1) Warcraft II (PC). Forget Starcraft (though it would make my top 10). Warcraft 2 was the definitive RTS that defined the genre, setting its center-of-gravity on Internet multiplayer (via the Kali service, which got hundreds of thousands of subscribers) and indeed paving the way for much of what was possible with Internet gaming. I spent about 3 years doing very little video gaming outside of this game, and as the communities evolved, so did the strategies, for years and years; with the possible exception of Starcraft, no game went through as much consistent change in its top-tier strategy, which helped to keep it very dynamic. In my mind the greatest computer game of all time.