What game has left an lasting impression on you guys?

Chrono Trigger, FF3, and FFVII.
Silent Hill, Half-Life, Shadow Gate, Star Tropics, Blade Runner, Day of the Tentacle, The Dig, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Super Metroid, FF Legend 2, Super Mario World.

To name a few.

I can't believe I forgot to mention Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo.
Also, Dune 2 and Doom 2.

To pick one and only one? I say Gabriel Knight 3: Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned. I'd played adventures for years, but until I played GK3 I never knew that, like a book that you can't put down and you keep on paging in it, like a film that you can watch many times and quote every line from... a game could have the same effect. I fell in love with the theme music, built a large information site spanning 5 pages at bonny.ploeg.ws, spent weeks browsing impressionist books trying to identify every single painting, re-built the Gabriel Knight 3 script, discovered an enormous lot of files on the disk that aren't used (this includes the original moustache puzzle, and a lot of lines that were too risque) and uploaded those to YouTube. Gabriel sleeping on the couch is my laptop wallpaper.

@BBP : If you liked Gabriel Knight 3 that much, I recommand you "judgment day" and "dante's equation", two books written by Jane jensen (and two of my favorite books). She also wrote two Gabriel Knight books, but the one i've read (sins of fathers) was pretty bad.

Believe it or not, Police Quest aided me with English as a native language.

Police Quest 1 and 2 seriously boosted my English skills as a second language. My best friend was the "look around" command. That's the first thing I'd type in every new room!

If forced to pick just one title, I'd go with Deus Ex. It was the start of something new in gaming, a profound understanding of the true nature of interactivity. A game which did not try to play like a movie, but rather involve you like a book. The only game, in fact, which ever felt somewhat like an interactive novel. This game inspired my entire concept of "playing a story".

It was not, by any means, perfect, but it provided future devs with a blueprint, a direction games could take once the technology would be available. Sadly nothing ever came out of this design, and no one truly followed in its footsteps.

I haven't played very many games and, aside from Tex, the rest had definite impacts on my psyche, just not to the same degree. That being said, I would have to choose The Longest Journey. An incredible story line coupled with unique characters and a nice twist at the end, made it worth every moment. Also, I like it so much that, like Tex, I will play it from time to time.

Additionally, I really love both Syberia games. I know many of you do not care for them, but I find them very interesting. Recently I downloaded and played two Broken Sword games and found them quite delightful as well.

Jim. Have you tried Grim Fandango yet? As one noir buff to another, if you have not - do so. You will not regret it. You have my word on that.

-Fred

Starting from the earliest that I can remember: Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island, and The 7th Guest from the pc, then Battletoads(NES), Batman Returns(NES) Aladdin(Sega), Sonic 1-3 Knuckles(Sega), The Legend of Zelda series, but above all is The Pandora Directive and the other Tex games. I was about 3 or 4 when I was introduced to Tex Murphy games and loved it so much I named my childhood teddy bear Tex. Definately made a lasting impression on me.

Maniac Mansion. It's what got me into the adventure genre in the first place.

OH YES!!!!

I mentioned Day of the Tentacle, but I guess Maniac Mansion on the regular nintendo is what did it!!!