1. Skyrim
2. Civilization (you pick the number, they just get better)
3. Deus Ex: Human Evolution

Halo, Pacman, Star Wars Battlefront, crash bandicoot racing, bioshock, super smash bros, duckhunt (had to add it in)

Those are in no particular order.

Chrono Trigger, Myst, Zelda: LttP, Super Metroid.

Halo, Star Wars battlefront, assassins creed... Final Fantasy X maybe.. Oh! And the Armored core series ( I like AC 3 a lot)

Hrm that's a hard one.. in no order and this is of late not necessarily of all time. My tastes change depending on my mood.

1) Zelda
2) Final Fantasy - I prefer the classic like 2 and 3 (america numbers) but I also liked 7,8, and 9 a bunch
3) Perfect Dark on the N64
4) Civ V
5) Chrono Trigger - Just got it for my DS not to long ago
6) I really like the Professor Layton games
7) LotRO is my MMO of choice atm..
8) League of Legends if I wanna do pvp
9) Rock Band/Guitar Hero
10) Xenogears series was amazing to play back in the day

I'll try to list only a single game from a subgenre so the same concepts don't get repeated (although what falls into which genre is definitely debatable):

1. Europa Universalis III (2007 grand strategy)
2. TES III: Morrowind (2002 action RPG)
3. League of Legends (2009 MOBA)
4. Pokémon Yellow (2000 "Pokémon" RPG?)
5. Albion (1995 party RPG)
6. Coraabia (hopefully 2012 RPCG)
7. Age of Empires II (1999 real-time strategy)
8. Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999 turn-based strategy)
9. GTA San Andreas (2004 action adventure)
10. Advance Wars II (2003 turn based tactics)
11. Super Mario 64 DS (2004 platform)
12. Rollercoaster Tycoon (1999 sim)
13. Golden Axe (1990 hack&slash)
14. Atomic Bomberman (1997 arcade)
15. Metroid Prime (2003 "FPS")
16. Jets'n'Guns (2004 shoot 'em up)
17. NHL 2003 (2002 sports)
18. Soulcalibur II (2003 fighting)
19. Machinarium (2009 point-and-click adventure)
20. Realm of the Mad God (2010 MMO)

The Top 10 with a huge lead though.

Oh I forgot Diablo 3 as well.

1. Dota2 (re playability is a really important part of this)
2. Skyrim (the graphics are awesome, customization is insane, storyline was meh at times)
3. World of Warcraft (no longer play but it was quite a bit of fun at the time)
4. Dishonored (stealth-action is always awesome right guys?)
5. Ratchet and Clank Series (one word: awesome)
6. Warcraft 3 (my favorite RTS game, the storyline was just awesome)
7. Realm of the Mad God (that shit is crazy fun, especially for the Pickup and play accessibility)

1. Civ V (2010) - what I play the most lately
2. Bust-A-Move aka Puzzle Bobble (1994) - the original bubble shooter game
3. Tetris (1986 USA) - the classic
4. Wizardry 7 (1992) - the best RPG game of the pre-MMORPG era in my opinion
5. Ultima IV (1985) - RPG game that was sooooo far ahead of the competition
6. Space Harrier (1985) - pseudo-3 third person rail shooter game
7. Killer Instinct (1994) - 3 fighting game that incorporated elements of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat
8. Command HQ (1990) - one of the earliest real time strategy games
9. Satan's Hollow (1982) - old school Galaga-style satanic shooter game
10. Age of Empires III (2005)

*c&c
*sc2
*gta2

1. Star Fleet Command II - Empires at War
2. Crysis/Crysis II (I can't believe that nobody's mentioned this yet!)
3. Halo/Halo II
4. Command and Conquer (many variants)
5. MechWarrior III
6. Populous
7. Elite (independent version for Windows here www.oolite.org)
8. Doom
9. Quake
10. Knight Lore

Hearts of Iron
Rome Total War
The Operational Art of War
Battle of Wesnoth (Freeware)
Football Manager
Civilization
Victoria
Crusader kings
Rise of Nations
Age of Mythology
Pro Evolution Soccer
Worms Armagedon
Europa Universalis
Age of Empires

1: Pro Wrestling (NES)
2: Sword of Vermillion (Sega Genesis)
3: Ice Hockey (NES)
4: Super Dodgeball (NES)
5: River City Ransom (NES)
6: Phantasy Star 3 (Sega Genesis)
7: Golden Axe (Sega Master)
8: Rocky (Sega Master)
9: Mike Tyson's Punchout (NES)
10: Contra (NES)

Early era...

Golden Axe (Sinclair Spectrum)
N.O.M.A.D. (Sinclair Spectrum)
Rolling Thunder (Sinclair Spectrum)
Bubble Bobble (Sinclair Spectrum)
Gauntlet II (Sinclair Spectrum)
Daley Thompson's Supertest (Sinclair Spectrum).
Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday (Sega Megadrive)
Road Rash (Sega Megadrive)
Micro Machines (Sega Megadrive)
Mortal Kombat (Sega Megadrive)
Worms (Sega Megadrive)

Late era...

Command and Conquer: Red Alert
GTA Four
Imperium Galactica II
Dragon Age: Origins
Final Fantasy VII
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Medieval II (Total War)

I get it that Octaviouses owned Spectrum and Megadrive :)

That's where you're wrong! The Spectrum was never mine ;)

Age of Empires 2, the conquerors PC, rts
SimCity 4 rush hour PC, simulation
Starcraft 2 PC, rts
Starcraft brood war PC, rts
Zelda - ocarina of time N64, rpg
Company of heroes PC, rts
Counterstrike GO PC, fps
Diddy Kong racing N64, racing

and

Imperium romanum
star wars battlefront
and minecraft :D

and the best online games are
webdiplomacy, ofc :P
supremacy 1914
travian
the old "Imperia online" the new version ruined it

I forgot about Gauntlet, that was a good game.

I forgot about all the old Apple IIgs games, actually.

In no particular order

- Fallout 3 (2008 role playing shooter)

- Fallout: New Vegas (2010 role playing shooter)

- Red Dead Redemption (2010 open world action-adventure)

- Medal of Honor series (1999-present first person shooter) [especially Medal of Honor: Frontline (2002), Medal of Honor Airborne (2007) and Medal of Honor (2010)]

- Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (2008 first/third person tactical shooter)

- Battlefield 3 (2011 first person shooter)

- Splinter Cell series (2002-present third person stealth shooter) [especially Splinter Cell (2002), Splinter Cell Double Agent (2006), and Splinter Cell Conviction (2010)]

- L.A. Noire (2011 third person action-adventure)

- World of Tanks (2011 MMORPG-vehicle combat simulator)

- Flight Simulator series (1980-present flight simulator)

*this list is not exhaustive. I may add more later.

I'm suprised you have LA Noire here. For me, I classify it as a modern day point and click adventure. I got the rockstar pass for this game and I found it very good but I felt the ending could of been more investigation, a long interrgation as the final boss and Cole not dying.

@ airborne

To be honest I wasn't really serious about video games until recently, so it's not like I have any classics to compare that list to. And after Red Dead Redemption I totally anticipated Cole dying. I also liked that Cole wasn't some invincible protagonist with no character flaws. You also have to admit that the game was very well-made, especially with respect to graphics and historical accuracy. Many of the cases are based off of real-life cases of the 40s, and Los Angeles is so well-duplicated that you can use Google Maps to navigate in the game.

Metroid and the original Zelda game: Link's Adventure are both my favorites. Of course, all the Metroid games following, and every Zelda game except for the disappointing 'Skyward Sword' are pretty fantastic...

I haven't played Skyward Sword yet, I thought Twlight Princess was pretty good

Never got into Zelda myself. Too much puzzle/strategy for me.

But I did forget to mention that I loved Tom Clancy's EndWar. Best RTS out there in my opinion.

Oh, and Assassin's Creed III will probably be one of my favorite games. I have to go buy it this week.

While I think about it, Star Wars Supremacy deserves a mention. Crap, but stragely addictive.

Mmm... too many... so, knowing that I'm forgetting the most...

Neverwinter Nights II
Baldur's gate II
Simcity 4
Dragon Age: Origins
Medieval II Total War
Ultima VII
Duke Nukem 3
Age of Empires II
Street Fighters II / Mortal Kombat II
Red Alert
Toki
Pro Evolution Soccer (just pick one, I like football - erm, soccer :D - simulators)
Assassin's Creed II
Dungeon Keeper

Let's add Guild Wars, even if I don't usually mix online games with the others.

Sim City 4 is good. I like it, but it didn't make my top list.

Oh, it cracked my daily life just as the first did.
Thinking more about it, I'd add Sonic, Gain Ground, Shining in the Darkness, Worms II, Europa Universalis III.

What Dejan said. I'm a slave to Paradox I guess.

All the cool kids are.

I'll give Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Call of Duty World at War honorable mention. Modern Warfare had an interesting campaign and highly addictive multiplayer. World at War had an epic campaign and entertaining multiplayer.

I fucked people up with the M14 in Modern Warfare, and also with the old M1897 Trench Gun in World at War respectively.

Every Call of Duty game since World at War has sucked balls, unfortunately.

1 GTA San Andreas
2 Bioshock
3 Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex's revenge
4 Any Ratchet and Clank Game
5 Batman: Arkham City
6 Assasins Creed II
7 Dark Cloud 1& 2-----------------------probably never heard of it
8 Battlefield 3
9 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Black ops (Just the Zombie mode)
10 Dead Island

The Classics

Sonic - Sega
Goldeneye - N64 (How has this not been mentioned?!!!?)
Mario Kart - N64
Donkey Kong Country - Super Nintendo
Pokemon Yellow
Sid Meir's Gettysburg - PC
Risk - Windows 95 edition (randomization code for the dice is shit, but they offer maps of every continent to play and added tons of shit like forts, generals, what type of attack you could do [flank left, flank right, cavalry charge, etc] and random events that killed soldiers)

Modern

Medieval II: Total War
Star Wars Battlefront
Battlefield 3
Assassins Creed Brotherhood (haven't gotten around to any newer ones)
Red Alert
Europa Universalis 3
Ratchet and Clank (any)
Skyrim

I got Bioshock about a year ago. I didn't like it that much. I never fully learned (or finished) the game and the controls were confusing. As far as role-playing retro-futuristic shooters are concerned, Fallout is a much better series. I will say that Bioshock Infinite looks interesting.

Fallout 3 totally deserved Game of the Year for 2008, and I'm sure President Eden will agree with this.

@Goldfinger I thought about adding Goldeneye but I liked Perfect Dark for the N64 so much more.

I am a fan of 2 games so my list consists of old school games (all sega genesis, fuck nintendo):

1. F1 World Championship Edition - addicted
2. Sensible Soccer - best soccer game ever till now
3. Golden Axe
4. Starflight - incredible strategy game
5. Sonic
6. Streets of Rage
7. Ghouls n Ghosts
8. Castlenavia
9. Mega Turrican
10. Another World - oldschool adventure with great atmosphere

I find modern games so boring (storyline, tutorial, videos cutting the game's action) but still Civilization and Europa Universalis have made a difference for me indeed.
I have tried to like fifa and pro and failed. It's easier to score a goal in real life.