I think the thing or element rather that got me into gaming as a kid was actually going to arcades. They were everywhere. One big dark room with glowing monitors, retro sounds of explosions and other sound effects, hearing quarters clank into machines, seeing people celebrate their wins and raging at their losses. It was the videogame boom of the last century and eventually Atari made it all available in the home. Then the gaming market crashed and although I don't consider myself a fan anymore, I'll always be thankful Nintendo completely revitalized it with the NES and it's grown ever since. I guess I'll list a few of the games that just completely engulfed my time and for those of you not around during the days of arcades I'll post a great article I found that discussed what they were like back then. Pretty cool.
Atari- Pitfall 1 and 2, Berserk, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Joust
NES- Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Rygar, Excitebike, Super Mario, Blaster Master, Double Dribble, RC Pro Am!
Super NES- I really only liked Street Fighter 2 and Star Fox for this system
Genesis- Altered Beast, Herzog Zwei (the first RTS ever created), Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe
Playstation- Ridge Racer, Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil 1 and 2, Parasite Eve, Metal Gear Solid (favorite game on this platform and favorite gaming franchise ever), Final Fantasy 7 and 8, the original grand theft auto with the aerial view lol, Tekken 2
PS2- Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (probably my favorite in the series), Black, Twisted Metal Black, Gran Turismo 4, Silent Hill 2
Xbox- Halo for reinventing how multiplayer was played on console
Xbox 360- The vast majority of this generation was spent playing the gears of war franchise. I just never got sick of multiplayer regardless of how angry I got lol.
PC-Gunship and then Starcraft/Warcraft
And here's the article about the rise and fall of the arcades. Something we don't see anymore and if we do, is rarely if ever duplicated appropriately:
http://tinyurl.com/aawzxev