All my favorites are PS2 games, these five were pretty much my childhood
1. SSX Tricky
My first ever game. I saw my parents' friends' kids play it and wanted a PS2 just so I could play it. I did not understand English and held the x-button all the way doing the slope. That is the jump button and if you hold it your turning capabilities decrease a lot. Still I won my first race -> instant happiness and hooked ever since
2. Tekken Tag Tournament
Great characters + great fighting + great bowling = so fun and it was also my 2nd game I owned. Like Tricky I discovered it at the same place... Their son really opened many new worlds to me... Playstation, PC gaming, banned stuff I was way too young to see and torrenting. He was both a good and bad influence.
3. SSX 3
Bigger, bloder and an experience. Every single part of the game had been improved, open world, money customization, challenges, fantastic soundtrack and a different feeling compared to Tricky. It was also the "biggest" game I had growing up, the size of it and the hours you could spend with it were insane.
4. Tekken 4
No tagging involved so only one character to fight with at the time. My favorite character was on a hiatus but Xiaoyu was good enough. The Tekken Force mode was supreme... even if I only ever managed to reach level 3.
5. Soul Calibur 2
An intresting different fighter compared to what I was used to. It had a character similar to my favorite Tekken Tag fighter and the Weapon Master mode was great.
Honorable mentions to:
Watching that family friends' son Play Postal 2 in 2003. I was 8 and it is probably a good thing I did not understand much of what was going on... but what I did understand was horrifying!
Sims 2 I loved being able to simulate life, design rooms and pretty sims. I also loved the way the sims looked in the sims 2. Lastly Amnesia The Dark Descent... Years of nightmares from this game, it is incredible and I don't think I have ever been so scared. Horror movies alone at midnight, walking in the woods in darkness, going to Japan on my own for a trip... None of it scares/scared me. Amnesia on the other hand did and the fact that they were made by Swedish people from the south in a city that I love and hearing their developer commentary in with their accents... Well it is creepy, it made my mind explode and I never knew video games could be scary until that point. And now I am off to have nightmares!
To (hopefully) avoid nightmares I will share two happy memories of young gaming:
I don't think it was FIFA but it was a football game. I did not understand "how to be good at it," so I changed the rules! Me and my friend tried winning by being on the best team vs the worst team and then tackle every one we could find. I did a similar thing with Gradn Turismo "bump in to every car because I can't win by playing fair."