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[OneSadCookie]

ICO and Beyond Good and Evil.  ICO because the hand-holding mechanic actually made me feel ... something... for the girl, and BG&E is the only game I've played where I really felt attached to the characters and sad when bad things happened to them.

Honorable mention for doing it with pixels: Cave Story, over Curly.

[X3N]

The original Earthbound Zero / Mother. So much emotion expressed through the atmosphere, and the strangeness of warping into alien planets as a kid.. I played it when I was young, so that certainly helped. Wonderful adventure.

Fallout 2 was pretty impactful for me, too. Very gritty, bleak. I liked it.

Shadow of the Collosus. Intense.

[Wren]

The final fantasy series, particularly 3 and 7, have a special nostolgia for me. 

Blizzard, despite their somewhat mercenary bent over the last few years, really does know now to create a dramatic cutscene.  Tassadar's sacrifice was probably the most moving/dramatic scene I can recall.  Some of the WC3 cutscenes were pretty emotional as well.

However, the one I really want to point out is Homeworld, strangely enough.  No charcter's faces are ever shown in this game, but I nonetheless connected deeply to the drama of the first mission.  They do an excellent job of setting up the story in the handbook that comes with the game, giving you lots of details about the history and culture of the people involved.  You are just getting ready to set off into the stars for the first time when you attacked and have to watch helplessly as billions of people are wiped out.

The dramatic timing and cadence of the narration is perfect. The biggest factor, though, was the music.  A choral version of Barbar's Adagio runs throughout the game and gives it a weight not matched by any other game soundtrack I've encountered.

[Wren]

The original Earthbound Zero / Mother. So much emotion expressed through the atmosphere, and the strangeness of warping into alien planets as a kid.. I played it when I was young, so that certainly helped. Wonderful adventure.

Fallout 2 was pretty impactful for me, too. Very gritty, bleak. I liked it.

Shadow of the Collosus. Intense.

Yeah fallout was great for this.  I love the opening scene where it starts on the hokey 50's music and scrolls back from the TV to show the devastated landscape.  Fantastic cinematography.

[J. R. Hill]

Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

Best vidcon I ever played...

[tzachs]

Must be the lemmings for me... Those poor creatures falling to death one by one, and it's all my fault 

[fraxcell]

Just about any Zelda game, but mostly Ocarina of Time and Windwaker. Also, Okami, and Metal Gear Solid 3 (best ending ever?).

[baconman]

ChronoTrigger. Before that was Ninja Gaiden trilogy, and Final Fantasy Adventure.

[LeFishy]

I have a huge personal attachment to FFIX

I actually find Canabalt really moving, no idea why. I think it's that it has such a sense of atmosphere to it.

Wind Waker and Link's Awakening too for sure. They're beautiful games.

I also got really attached to Midna in Twilight Princess so her character development and story resolution was pretty moving for me.

Mass Effect 2 has one moment. Every time I play the game it brings me to real tears.

[hareball]

For classic games, I'd have to say Elite on the C64... gribbles (I think that's what they were called) were just so damn cute.

Modern games I think it's a toss up between Braid and World of Goo... The awesome music from both of these games goes no small way to making them quite touching.

[Glyph]

I have to say Mother 3, because I did cry during it (but not at the end like you'd think... okay, a little) even though I named my characters such things as Soupman and McRinds. Also, some points in the Ace Attorney games were pretty moving.
Spelunky and Nethack also made me cry sometimes... but those were only tears of extreme despair.

[Hempuli‽]

Braid moved me a lot, mostly because of the graphics coupled with the music.

The game that has moved me the most is definitely Shadow of the Colossus. It's the only game ever to make me want to return just in the desperate hope of finding something more to it, like secret places.

[J. R. Hill]

Braid moved me a lot, mostly because of the graphics coupled with the music.

The game that has moved me the most is definitely Shadow of the Colossus. It's the only game ever to make me want to return just in the desperate hope of finding something more to it, like secret places.

Climb the tower, climb forever.

[dspencer]

Mother 3. Only game that I've played where I finished and thought that the game was made to tell a story, rather than the story was told to fill the game. holycrapitwassogood.

[G-Factor]

Although I don't play JRPG's anymore, they were the only games that truly made me feel like I was in another world. Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger and Lufia in particular. Lufia's intro still ranks highly amongst my most memorable game intros, if not the most memorable.