Number 16
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
There was a period in 2002-2003 where I could have probably recited every spoken line in Eternal Darkness, possibly verbatim. This, this was a game that had been made for me, distilled from the Adventure games that its creators probably played in college, dressed in the raiment of Lovecraft and Howard and Frasier.
Eternal Darkness was the game that made me believe that games could have a story that was excellent and scary, which introduced me to the very genre of supernatural horror. I mastered this game, so enthralled by it that I ended up beating it nearly ten times. Ten is a big number!
Eternal Darkness was scary, well-written, well-acted, full of excellent environments (the environments were definitely more impressive than the character models) and great art, and had a soundtrack that was both ambient and memorable. A story that covered the span of two millenia and thirteen characters, where no one's fate was certain and few if any were ever pleasant. It was grand in scope, in potential, in aim, in execution. One of my favorite games of that entire generation, one of the best games ever. There isn't enough praise to heap on this game.
