Contest is over! Thanks everyone for playing. It came down to these two answers:
[quote name='Blade']This may be a little obscure, but my absolute favorite game is The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. I know a lot of people were unhappy with the change, especially given the screens Nintendo revealed of the game a year before--I have a poster of it on my wall and they look more like Twilight Princess than Wind Waker--but I personally loved the visuals. It was a crisp, refreshing art style that hadn't been done much before, and it has been duplicated many times since. Not only was that great, but the feeling of such a continuous, open sea world only enhanced the experience. If only you were able to go underwater, the game would've been incredible; but it was only a GameCube game, so the lack of that much depth (heh) is understandable. The story and locations were also quality works, the likes of which you'd expect from a top-notch Nintendo title.
Finally, the ending to Wind Waker is amazing. It's one of the best endings I have ever seen to any game, movie, or show. It's just awesome.[/QUOTE]
[quote name='Vulgarism']Silent Hill 2. It marked the pinnacle of survival horror and it carries a heavy burden of not only being the best game of the series, but also one of the best games around. That's a lofty remark, but it's true. It was before the time of games giving you a huge open ended world to run around in which thus started a trend of "do anything" games. It was even before "cinematic" games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Heavy Rain. I feel that it is the closest to a film a game will ever come. The story is of a man desperately searching for his dead wife in a shell of a town. The characters he meets along the way are unlike any other character in a game ever since--they are selfish and despicable. People can complain about the controls, but that further encompasses you into the game... You're in a world that isn't real and you just want to get to your wife. You're being attacked by monsters and you aren't some military buff or ex-cop... You're just a regular guy who has lost everything. Couple that with Akira Yamaoka's pristine score and sound design..... It's just hard to top. It's beautiful and disgusting and welcoming and damning.[/QUOTE]
It was incredibly difficult to pick between the two of these answers, since they were both very well-written and truly explained to me WHY those games were your favorites. Since it's Christmas time and I'm having a hard time deciding who to pick, I've decided that you're both winners. PMs coming your way. Congrats!