So there’s been a bit of a thing floating around the Internet in the last couple of days where people choose a favourite game from each year they’ve been alive. Some years were tough, but I’m reasonably happy with my choices – for now.

My first gaming experiences were on an Atari with wood sides, and then an old TRS-80. We later had a PC (a 286 with EGA card!) when I was gasping at my friends’ Amigas. Other than the Atari, we never had consoles, so I was very much a PC gamer from almost the outset.

When I moved back from the UK, I ended up buying my first grown-up console, a PS2. Since then I’ve had a couple of variants, though I’ve been a relatively late adopter in each case, ensuring that games were cheap when it came time to fill holes in my library. I built a PC for myself a couple of years ago in order to get to grips with my Steam library backlog – something that is probably unlikely to occur but hey, I can but try.

I have pretty broad tastes when it comes to gaming, with the only real solid decision being that I’m not a fan of online multiplayer, or of monthly-sub games. I played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator when I was younger, and I’ve a soft spot for that geeky shit largely because I believed I would never learn to fly after I found that asthma precludes you from training. (It doesn’t, not really, so thanks, careers advisor.)

I am not so hot on twitch shooters, preferring stuff with a bit of narrative bite – my background is Sierra and Lucasfilm titles which valued story over graphics, largely out of necessity. I like survival horror and anything with a reasonable story, and actively feel guilty that there’s so many great games out there I haven’t played yet.

Click the links for more information. Some are links to trailers, some to emulated versions, and some PC games link to digital stores where you can still buy the game.

1976: Colossal Cave Adventure
1977: Combat
1978: Space Invaders
1979: Asteroids
1980: Missile Command
1981: Frogger
1982: Pitfall!
1983: Lode Runner
1984: Kung-Fu Master
1985: Ghosts ‘n Goblins
1986: Rygar
1987: Maniac Mansion
1988: Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.0
1989: The Colonel’s Bequest
1990: The Secret of Monkey Island
1991: Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
1992: Alone in the Dark
1993: Myst
1994: Daytona USA
1995: Tekken 2
1996: Civilization II
1997: GoldenEye 007
1998: Half-Life
1999: Silent Hill
2000: The Sims
2001: Silent Hill 2
2002: Fatal Frame
2003: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
2004: Forbidden Siren
2005: Yakuza
2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
2007: Portal
2008: Dead Space
2009: Uncharted II: Among Thieves
2010: Red Dead Redemption
2011: L.A. Noire
2012: Borderlands 2
2013: BioShock Infinite
2014: Alien: Isolation
2015: Bloodborne
2016: The Witness
2017: ?