I’ve been called out.

Well, not really "called out" -- I should say that I’ve been challenged by @modernzorker to contribute to a gaming challenge, where we talk about 4 games that defined our lives.

The challenge is narrowing it down to just 4. This list could change day to day as I think about all the games that influenced me since I was a six-year-old hunkered down in the living room with my very first Atari. With that being said, here we go:

City of Heroes

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City of Heroes was the first MMO that I ever played. I was introduced to the game by my friends who said “you have to play this game, you're going to love it!” The idea of playing an online game with my close friends was definitely intriguing, so I went to Circuit City, bought a copy of the game, installed it and spent the next few months completely consumed by City of Heroes

It wasn't that different in its mechanics, but the theme is what made this game shine. You were your own unique superhero in a city full of superheroes and villains you had a tremendous amount of custom character creation options. Seeing two characters in the game that looked the same was an anomaly simply because you could tweak every aspect of your hero from their costume (piece-by-piece) to their physique, height, etc. Though me and my friends coordinated our costumes so that when we travelled together, we looked nearly identical which made characters throughout the game stop and gawk at us. We made a team that looked like anime characters, one that looked like us in real life. It was as fun to make characters as it was to play.

Being able to play a game like that online with friends was something I've never experienced before and when the game finally went offline, it felt like someone close to us died.

Asteroids

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Asteroids is about as simple as arcade games can get. You control a little spaceship on a black space field and all you do is move your ship to avoid the asteroids and use your little pea shooter gun to break the asteroids up from big asteroids into smaller sizes and once they're really small you can destroy them for good. There's not a lot to say about Asteroids, it was one of the first arcade games that really grabbed me. I was obsessed with playing this game any time I ever came across it as a kid. To this day, it's my most desired and elusive arcade game that I need to have in my game room.

Bioshock

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Bioshock was the reason I wanted to get an Xbox 360. I always leans towards Nintendo systems, but the Art Deco aesthetic of this game was something I was instantly drawn to. The more I learned about the game the more I wanted to play it so that year I decided to get an Xbox 360 and a copy of BioShock, which to this day remains the game that left the biggest emotional impact on me.

The underwater world of Rapture is hauntingly beautiful and grotesque at the same time. You can see the amazing world that was thriving before you arrived, and you see the aftermath of a society without rules coming to its logical conclusion. As if the story and themes weren't cool enough, gameplay was amazing via the addition of the plasmids and some of the weapons you acquire that open up so many options as to how to approach a battle. You can go in guns blazing, you can set up traps, you can manipulate enemies to have them take each other out for you. It's just a modern masterpiece.

Resident Evil 4

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The game that pushed me into getting a PlayStation 1 was Resident Evil. We weren't used to seeing horror games like this consoles, but the game was just way too interesting to pass on so when I was in college me and some friends chipped in to buy a PlayStation and the first game I played was Resident Evil.

Fast forward a few years to after college and Resident Evil 4 starts to show up. The GameCube exclusive game looked amazing from the screenshots, but I was skeptical that they could live up to my expectations. From the first few minutes into that game I was blown away. The atmosphere was amazing, the graphics were fantastic and the gameplay was refined. A lot of people blame Resident Evil 4 for killing off the survival horror game genre, but what it did for the Resident Evil series fixed the tank controls of the first four games. Simply shifting the camera to behind the player made all the difference in the world

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So there’s my list. Like I said, it could change day to day as there were a ton of games that were impactful in my life. Another day I might have swapped in Pac Man, Fallout 3 or Starcraft. What about Zelda? I used it in my cover photo after all. Isn't that false advertising? No, it just didn't make my list today and I didn't want to show my hand in the thumbnail.

So I guess its time for me to burden some other poor souls with this challenge, so I’m going to toss a bunch of darts at the board and call out:

• @oregonpop
• @sequentialvibe
• @gabox
• @lesateliersphv
• @thegamechasers
• @rgt-85
• @retroboy

Let’s see what you’ve got!

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!

_{^{Cover Image Source: Polygon}}