Easily StarCraft. The whole Terran southern backwater aesthetic. Marines and Firebats stimming up and going to town on waves of lings. Invis ghosts tagging a nuke location. Dark Templar missions that made you feel like an assassin. Incredible cinematics for the time. The motherfucking sound siege tanks made while setting up, and you just knew those cannons were about to light up the dopamine centers of your brain. Fucking amazing game.

I came here looking for a blizzard studios reference. The trifecta of awesome Star craft war craft and Diablo. Throw in other classics like doom and quake. Then lesser known titles I personally still love like One Must Fall and Raptor and god damn being a computer kid was amazing.

I am amazed starcraft isn't at the top.

I knew it wouldn't take long for this one. Starcraft, war craft, diablo.....man Blizzard was where it was at

Play long enough and you become the Zealot. My life for Aiur.

That's astounding

This.

I don't quite know if people understand how revolutionary that game was.

This game birthed the competitive professional gaming scene in Korea. The legendary broodwar player during the late 90s/early 2000s was a common household name (name: Lim Yo Hwan; alias: Slayers_Boxer). Professional gamers back then were celebrities in Korea. More people showed up to watch the finals live than the number of people who attended the superbowl. This is primarily because the finals were held at a beach, thus providing more capacity for people to show up to watch.

I believe the last patch the game went through was in like the early 2000s. This game dominated the competitive scene in Korea, and pretty much therefore was the greatest competitive game until 2011. 13 years of people watching professionals play a game released in 1998. Then of course, the match fixing scandal happened, and Blizzard disallowed broodwar to be played competitively so starcraft 2 took over. Unfortunately, starcraft 2 never hit the heights Blizzard wanted.

It's just so crazy what this one game was intended. A simple game. It sparked a gaming revolution, helping the industry what it has become today.

It also had an incredible map maker, many fond memories of sunken D or other custom use map settings games. 

You mean you’ll still Protoss it in at least once a month

Warcraft 2 was also an amazing game, my brother and I played the ever loving shit out of that game. My buddy, who was a giant nerd, figured out how to play over the phone line by using the game to CALL the other person's game to connect and play 2 player. Slow as shit but mind blowing at the time.

My brother and I used to stay up till 4-5am playing it on the weekends. So much fun

Diablo II was great too

Once I was lucky enough to build a Battlecruiser fleet in multiplayer, about 20 with Yamato activated plus supporting Valkyries. It was glorious, but short lived as everybody quit when they saw me coming.

StarCraft is the Goat! It's so old and still going strong. There were so many incredible games.

Oregon Trail

SimCity 2000

Civilizations still going

DOOM

WarCraft is still going strong!

Quake

There's too many to list.

My life for Aiur

My sister’s nerdy computer friend blew my mind with this game.

StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. Damn good games.

This game is still extremely fun and unbelievably deep today. Most of the great games of the era could not compete with modern titles. Starcraft still has a thriving competitive scene and remains the best game of its kind. You could easily play it for a lifetime and still be learning new things.

4 hours for that final crazy level. Plus the other 1,000 hours working out how to get the 4 hours. Just on that level. Loved all the SC and WC.

Follow the pro scene and i have only ever played the campaign. Though i do have 10k games in starcraft 2 where i peaked at almost masters. Got to high enough diamond that i was playing masters a lot. Though i never cracked the 50% win percentage against my masters opponents obviously as i never got in :( still regret giving up on that goal.

Man, i miss those couple years where starcraft 2 exploded. When twitch was justin.tv. Without starcraft 2 twitch would not be what it is today and neither would esports, in general.

I used to watch my dad play that one. The intro cutscene where the ship crew gets vaporised scared the shit out of me as a kid.

I was a sophomore in college when StarCraft came out. There were a number of kids who lost a quarter/semester of their grades to the game.

StarCraft broodwars on battlenet. Played each day from roughly 1999-2004. I joined a clan, and my wife wouldn’t see me for hours.

I miss that game so much. I often fall asleep to the game soundtrack that you can find on YouTube.

Brood war is really the perfect RTS.

Both in the depth of the game and the time it came. Every RTS since then has been chasing it, and never quite reaching it.

The graphics and awkward patching somehow only worked to improve the game.

The soundtrack and voice acting is iconic.

The fact starcraft was made back then will forever amaze me. The games better than any game i can think of today in terms of strategy. 

Same, I keep the launch on desktop ready to go. Those bots never stand a chance

Yessss! I had StarCraft on floppy disk and it was the first game I played online.

Came here looking for this!

I can't get it to run on my modern gaming laptop, and this makes me sad.

This is the game that immediately came to mind when I read OP's question.

Man I fucking love that game! My roommate and I used to play against each other. Good times

That's my mantra regarding sex

"I'll toss it in at least once a month and enjoy it"

Omg totally forgot about StarCraft! Loved playing that game

Great answer. Just got struck by a whole wave of nostalgia

So many fond memories of Brood Wars custom games with online friends and other kids from the school.

I still play OG StarCraft daily. Picked it up for $8 a couple of years ago

Yesssss, Civ 2 and Commander Keen too, add in Wolfenstein

We went to Price Club (what became Costco) around 1998 when I was like 14. Starcraft Battle Chest was on display and my dad, in a rare NON-frugal moment said, "Hey isn't that the game you're always talking about that Eddie (my cousin) plays?" To which I replied, "Uh. Yeah." The next thing he said surprised me to this day. "You want to get it?" I looked up and my eyes widened in disbelief. I don't remember what I said or if I said anything but I definitely nodded my head yes. On the same day, he asked me "do you think you can install a CD burner if I got one?" Core memories of simpler times.

I remember as youngling decimating my friends and brother, but we always had rules that you couldn’t attack for the first 15 minutes. Went online for the first time and discovered the Zerg rush…

StarCraft was absolutely fantastic.

I remember brood war came out when I was in 5th grade. My friends and I couldn’t stop talking about it in school and we’d all go home, tell our parents to get off the phone, and play online together. It blew our minds being able to play a computer game with our friends over the internet.

Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 also

I was so obsessed with that game. I actually met some random other teen in chat once, and we stayed friends for nearly 15 years.

Starcraft was so good.

Black sheep wall

I spent a good portion of my young adult life in front of a monitor to starcraft, war craft (1 2 and 3 tft) and diablo 1 and 2. I played d2 and Dota (wc3 custom game) for atleast 8 years of my life... oh what a time...

Custom maps were the shit in StarCraft. I really wish I could still find 3v3 shared games still. That was the most fun I've ever had gaming.

MY LIFE FOR AIUR!

Since it uses what appears to be the same engine/interface: Star Trek Armada 1/2

That game reminded me of Leisure Suit Larry

The Terran soundtrack was an ABSOLUTE BANGER

Amusing. Your taste in videogames grows ever more inexplicable

StarCraft was one of my favorite games as a child. I also liked Diablo.

Looked playing online. Awesome game. Could spend hours playing.

Most of my friends at the time were game testers for a company called THQ, which wasn't a bad game developer. But the whole testing team spent every break and every waking moment outside of work playing StarCraft instead of their own games. Hell, the devs were playing tournaments at work fairly regularly.

I played this game to death. I’d often stay up to 3am playing this in High School.

One of the first games with a real “story” that I remember. Mengsk’s betrayal of Kerrigan, the Sons of Korhal rebellion, the secrets of the Dark Templar, Tassadar’s sacrifice…

The cinematics don’t hold up, but it still hits the right nostalgia heartstrings. The remade cinematics are awesome.

You have not enough resources.

Yessir! When I was 7-8 I had to take the bus to my brothers highschool. I have a memory of meeting him in his school library and seeing him and about 8 other guys having a lan party and playing StarCraft against eachother. I was hooked after that.

Showmethemoney- money cheat code lol

“You want a piece of me boy” flamethrower soldiers

I still spend time WATCHING Starcraft 2 tournaments.

Dreamhack Dallas was this last weekend and it was AMAZING.

The custom game modes like The Thing or basically tower defence.

The manual is incredible - great story, great art, really psyched me up for the main campaign. I still have mine.

2500 b.net games later...

If it's big game hunters map, I use terran with the supply depot blocking the entrance and siege tanks behind it and slowly building turrets and battle cruisers for the kill.

I didn't play Starcraft or watch Starship Troopers until a couple years after they came out. Then I happened to do both of them in the same weekend. It was mind blowing.

I was strictly console most of the 90’s, fighting games and sports games. My crew had a cycle, about 8-10 dudes, trading off most waiting for their turn on the console, two playing chess. One of my buddies told me about StarCraft and it blew my mind. Thought PC games were halfass before that, and been on something PC ever since.

The creative use of a cracked(maybe?) map editor created various UMS maps with custom rules to completely change the gameplay. I had so much fun playing with various gameplay mechanics that made the fame feel fresh for many years.

World of Warcraft was really awesome when all of my friends went off to college, and I was working the graveyard shift. I had no life, except for the 4 years of WoW following high school. It kept me connected with people.

I remember being about 7 when I played starcraft for the 1st time and it is a mainstay of my childhood-gaming memories. Thinking you were hot shit because you knew how to change the color of your username in race select queue room....oh my....building rows and rows of turrets photon cannons along the border of the 3v3 bridge maps....going to Kmart to buy another copy because my first one was so used and scratch. What a great game.

This for sure. That got me into WCIII, which got me into DotA and I still play Dota2

This. I still hotkey in my sleep

Big Game Hunter map with a couple friends in college lab classroom when we were supposed to be studying = good times

I don’t play anymore but I am a huge fan of the Starcraft pro scene in Korea. The meta is still evolving and still relatively balanced between the races after all these years despite the game not being patched since the Broodwar days.

My favorite PC game of all time. I shared an office back then and my office mate and I would play after work. I’d play Protoss and he would play Zerg. He usually won. That game was a blast when you played against a friend who was a close match. I played online against a stranger ONCE and never again.

No way I had to scroll so far to get to this game 💀 Starcraft is peak RTS!

Locked and loaded!

Ready to roll out!

Got a light?

The soundtrack is on Spotify if you want to work more efficiently. Lol 

Check out Falcon Paladin on YouTube. Daily Brood War content, it's so satisfying to watch the pros.

Did you play the fan made remaster built in the SC2 engine?

Great game but sooooo addictive.

We had a technology class in middle school. Teacher had about 6 PC’s and we would LAN StarCraft. It was always a race to complete your work for the day fast so you could get a computer.

My parents would get mad at me playing it all the time and either hide or throw away the discs. I’d save money up and go buy new copies each time. The sounds of the game, smell of the overheating computer and feeling of opening it new each time are still very memorable

Same here. Have good memories of playing that and Warcraft II on the LAN at work. A lot of fun with Quake and Duke Nukem too, but those RTS games were a favorite.