I had an original list of '10 games that influenced my life' that had games originating from 1992-2004ish that influenced me going forward. I would have played most of them between 1998 and 2004 and beyond.
But a modern top 10? 2007-2017 ?
In no particular order:
Civilization 4
I'm playing it right now!
Fallout: New Vegas (fnv>3>4 complete order)
I played 3 briefly on the Xbox after James lent it to me in 2007 or so idk. I got stuck in a rock near the Pentagon. My last save was hours before that. I couldn't escape as I counted as 'flying'.
So anyway I left Fallout for a bit but happened to acquire it in 2010 on my short-lived blue laptop that was randomly amazing at running games. I cleared it for Yes Man fairly painlessly, no DLC or anything. And I LOVED it.
So much so I went and got Fallout 3 with DLC and cleared that soon after, that was that magical 2010 summer. I made a Major Kusangi like character with the Shishkebab and Chinese Stealth Suit and murdered my way to the launcher at the end of Broken Steel, I still remember that day.
So yeah an appreciation for New Vegas which I played multiple times on the Xbox 360 after that laptop died. I got used to the game crashing/saving constantly beforehand. I had long been desensitised to that as I had grown up playing Age of Wonders 1. It's so much better now on my gigantic curved monitor and gaming PC. Plus mods and patches to stop it from crashing so much.
New Vegas got me into 3 and thus 4; which I have a huge soft spot for even if the writing is bad/non-existent, the gamplay is good. New Vegas is the opposite, the gameplay is aged but the writing is excellent. Hoping for the remake soon.
Final Fantasy 7,8,9,10,12
On the previous list there was no Final Fantasy, because I hadn't played it. I MAY have played 8 first briefly on the PSX my brother had here sometime between 2000-2004 but I don't count that. I bought 7,8 and 9 on Ebay using a 3V card (remember those) for the PSX and ran them on my mini PS2. My brother would play 7 on the PSX due to the lack of Dualshock so I did the same thing when possible.
Resident Evil 4 (OG)
This goes here because it got me into 1. And all of them reall when I find time. I played it for the first time on GameCube in the late 2000's and was hooked since.
Borderlands 1
t
Gears of War 1
t
Fable
t
LA Noire
t
Call of Duty World At War
t
Honourable mentions/sub in as appropriate
Minecraft
Fortnite
