>>725509261
For me it was playing Mario 64 for the first time. It blew my fucking mind, even though the actual characters were 2D sprites. 3D movement through a world like that was crazy after having mostly played 2D side scrollers and the like. Mario 64 also was fucking insane, as were games like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro too. Never got into Banjo but I imagine that was pretty magical at the time.
And playing GTA 3 for the first time blew my fucking mind. There just werent many sandbox games like that with that much freedom on how you want to play. I'd just restart the opening mission and never finish it, driving around like crazy and going on killing sprees. There was really nothing else like it before that.