Donkey Kong 64
The epic adventures of the Kong family were Nintendo's last trump card for the 16-bit generation. As such, it was pretty obvious they would eventually get a 64-bit outing. Rather than rest on its laurels, though, developer Rare decided to take the series into a bold new direction, and the result is probably the most hardcore 3D collect-a-thon game there ever was. Given that collecting stuff in video games is a passion first instilled in me by the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES, the prospect of an open-world, 3D, fully explorable DK Isle with collectibles galore sounds like heaven. A few significant flaws aside, that's exactly what it felt like throughout my adventure.
