PC Gaming

Dungeon Keeper I would say. Possessing a fly for the first time what quite a surprise.

Unreal. At the time Quake II was the most popular FPS and the colors and atmosphere of Unreal really were a new experience. I remember the graphics card wars at the time too. Really fun times for computer tech.

DOS Doom! (I'm old). I remember we couldn't load it on Windows 3.1 and had to wait until Windows 95 to run it without exiting to DOS...those were the times.
Quake was spectacular back then. Discovering Strafe-jumping and using multiplayer was a whole new thing.

Probably Warcraft III

I did not grow up with a console. Pretty much just floppies with TLC games on them. My grandma introduced me to Sierra and Blizzard games, and they were exciting yeah but not mind blowing.

But then warcraft III (didn't play Starcraft much at this time, was young) introduced the concept of custom maps to me. Basically going from having one game to dozens. Tower Defenses, RPGs, genres that basically either didn't exist yet or don't exist anymore (rip Enfos...and RP maps seriously wth)

It pretty much shaped my childhood, friends, and all that stuff. Really sad that SCII never really became what Warcraft III was to me.

I’m in my 40’s so I grew up on all the classics like Wolfenstein, Doom, Apogee based games (Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nulsen, ROTT, etc) but the game to truly blow my mind came later when I first played Half-Life.

Playing a game which had such a compelling story had me hooked. I felt so invested in the plot and character development.

The original Kings Quest that came on TWO 3.5" floppy discs! This melted my brain at the time. Amazing game.

Day of the Tentacle! Going from Maniac Mansion on the NES to the graphics, voice work, and interactivity on this CD-ROM - I’m still in awe decades later.

For me, that would probably be Planescape:Torment.

Little Big Adventure 2: Twinsen’s Odyssey

Flashback - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(1992_video_game). Was playing Prince of Persia and hated how janky it felt, and Flashback just played so much better.

Wolfenstein back in '93 or so. My buddy down the street was the only one in the neighborhood with a PC that was able to run it and we spent weeks straight playing that thing. I must have pushed on every damn wall in that game looking for secret areas.

Next would be Homeworld in '99, the story and the music are still amazing. Just listen to this choral version of adagio for strings and tell me it's not fucking epic.

https://youtu.be/XyyL_TICbrU

SkiFree, I thought it was a serious simple sports game until the Yeti appeared!

Other than this, DOOM/DOOM2 for sure! They were the first games that made me feel like I was actually there and part of the action.

Total Annihilation. This game also got me into StarCraft, which got me into Diablo II, which got me into EverQuest, which got me into World of Warcraft. But the Total Annihilation was the RTS that started it all, and gave me a taste of competitive video games.

The first game that blew my mind was a pirated copy of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in my older brother's computer. Back then I was intimidated by big and "complex" games like that. I was only playing mainstream online multiplayer games, particularly shooters, that are trending in my country (Crossfire, CS 1.6, etc.). I was bored that time, don't know what to play and decided to try this game. It blew my mind that games could be like this, and it's not complex than I thought. That was the first time I've played a "modern" game and made me fell in love with gaming.

Has to be The Sims. I remember going into Toys R Us with my best friend and we each picked up copies of the base game with the Livin Large expansion (remember toy stores and when you had to go and pick up physical copies of games?!)

Say what you will about The Sims but it was my first real exposure to just how expansive, creative, and immersive games could be. The possibilities felt endless!

It was Lemmings. It's the first game that I saw on an Amiga computer. Adorable game, good music, fun gameplay.

If we're talking IBM PC, I can't pick between Diablo, Doom and Dune 2. I was so young and there were so many games created that would define genres to come.

I remember when DOOM came out. There was a little crowd of maybe 8-12 people at the computer huddled around a 486 demo running the shareware version of the game, I think it was at Fry's Electronics, everyone was entirely stunned by how good the graphics were.

The Secret World.

I loved the spooky Lovecraftian vibe and the stories.

The Siren Song is still stuck in my head.

Definitely not the first, but I took acid and turned on Mass Effect for the first time back when it came out and it (probably literally) blew my mind. I think I played for 8 hours straight and I think most of it was walking around talking to every single NPC I could lol.

Ooh the first game that really blew my mind on the PC was Homeworld Cataclysm. I spent so many hours as a kid just going back and forth in the tutorial section of the demo, making a huge space fleet with no pressure, just gawking at the beautiful space backgrounds, the cool spaceships and their visual effects of thrusters, lasers and beam cannons.
It's still one of my favorite strategy franchises and games of all time.

Quake. With a 3dfx card was the biggest bump for me in fidelity it blew me away.

Warcraft 3 probably. I played the demo at a friend's house and then saved up my pocket money to buy it. I would have been about 10 or 12 at the time. Absolutely loved the campaigns even though I sucked at them.

Still waiting for Warcraft 4.

Thief: The Dark Project is probably the first time I spent an entire game going "I didn't know games could be like this!"

STALKER. The A-Life AI system is something else, and the open-ended survival gameplay and atmosphere are really in a league of their own. Similarly, as a latter-day choice, INFRA. That's a Source engine total conversion that has a similar uncanny and immersive atmosphere where you are just blown away at the total package, map design, and the thought process that went into it. Those are easily the two most immersive games I've played.

Gonna date myself a bit, but the Original Descent and MechWarrior 2. The seemless use of a z-axis in a shooter was for some reason mind blowing, and the combination of resource balancing and evaluating pros/cons for how to approach a mission was amazing. TIMBERWOLF is the real Og.

Unreal. The graphics and the large open levels were jaw dropping when I played it as a kid.

Trite, but probably the original Wolfenstein, quickly followed by DOOM.

Probably Rome: Total War in 2006... After being used to normal RTSs, the scale and complexity of the battles in RTW blew my mind, I couldn't understand how it was technically possible.
Still a fan of the series so many years later, so great.

Road Rash was the first game that made me love games then it was Need for Speed II I could replay those games for hours. nowadays the only game that gave me good replayability was Hades and live-service games like Valorant.

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division by Monolith Production, before they made moved on to only making Middle-earth games they made some very interesting games, and Shogo was one that I fell in love with. The thing that really blew my mind, is that when you are in the mech parts of the game, which looks and feels like the same first person as on foot but with mech walking sounds and mech weapons, but then suddenly you see teeny tiny humans that shoot at you (sometimes with rocket launchers), literally shrunk down, you could even step on them lol. (and the blood effects on them were a bit comical considering how small they were)

Unreal Tournament.

Half Life 2.
Bought it, and ended up having to bypass steam to play it on my garbage machine at the time.

First time I played Skyrim I was blown away. The Xbox Kinect had just come out as well and you could shout the shouts. It’s was amazing.

The first two PC games I ever played - Blood 2: The Chosen and Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive

X-Wing Alliance. I loved playing around in skirmish mode and just acting like I was in the movies by flying through trenches in a super star destroyer. Shame about the meh campaign though. Definitely going to reinstall when I get enough physical space for a new flight stick.