13 Responses to “Top 10 Most Played Video Games”

  1. jonathan 19 March 2008 at 7:22 am #

    I have good memories of coming over to the old house on Hiatt to play Roller Coaster Tycoon…or to just watch you play Wolfenstein. Still not as fun as back yard (er, side yard) football though.

  2. Jesse 19 March 2008 at 8:24 am #

    Should have known…

  3. Christopher McCulloh 19 March 2008 at 9:31 am #

    No. Just… No… I was onboard until you placed H3 in number 1. That game would *barely* make it in my top 100 list (and it probably wouldn’t even show up there).

    And yes, you should have played Metroid, and yes, you can borrow Metroid for the wii from me and be utterly amazed and addicted, and then borrow every other Metroid from me.

    This reminded me of another very obscure precursor to WoW… Might and Magic. I believe… 5? I spent hours playing that game. I know you hated it, but I loved it. A weird fps rpg with endless limitless worlds and leveling up and drops and all that good stuff. That would probably be in my top 50. Oh, and I can’t believe you didn’t even mention Portal. I think Portal is my “If you had to take one game with you on a desert island to play for the rest of your life…” game. Maybe.

  4. The Gimcracker 19 March 2008 at 10:44 am #

    Ouch on HOMM3 LOL. I completely understand if you don’t like this game – I know Jesse never got into it and he’s twice the gamer I am. In my defense, I wrote this post over a four day period and had all that time to think it over, so at least it wasn’t an off-the-cuff decision. It truly is my favorite game (Austin, if you’re out there, I know you’ll agree). BTW – PC Gamer ranked it 25th on their best games of all time list, and their list probably contained 10x the scope of my list, since combined I’m sure they’ve played and rated almost every PC game ever created (it’s their job).

    I couldn’t remember which Might & Magic game was the one you played a lot, so I just listed the whole series. It couldn’t hurt to play them all. I think a better way to explain my views on those games is not “hatred”, but rather “hadn’t discovered the joy of RPGs yet.” It was all FPS and strategy games for me through middle and high school – I was definitely a late bloomer in the RPG market.

    Portal. You know how much I love this game. I kept almost putting it on the list, but then I thought about it and realized it would not be prudent to include on the list because, honestly, I have only spent a fraction of the amount of time playing it than most games on the list. It may be too new of a game for me to have slept on long enough to decide that I love it more than a game like Descent. Of course, using that logic, how did Wii Tennis get on there?

    The reason Wii Tennis is on there is because, along with Mario 3 and Donkey Kong Country, it’s one of the few games that I have spent countless hours on weekday evenings playing and enjoying with my wife, which really boosts the play time. However, since it wasn’t in the top 10, I didn’t get much a chance to explain why it was on there, and consequently, why a game like Portal was not. That’s what the comments are for I guess.

    And I know this comment is waaaaaaaaay too long, but one last thing. You would choose Portal as your desert island game? OMG there is not nearly enough content to make it last a lifetime. Maybe if it was 200 levels instead of 20, all of which increased in difficulty at the same rate as the difficulty increase in 1 – 20. And I still don’t know if I’d choose it.

    A desert island game definitely needs to be a lot more open ended. I would say either an MMORPG like WoW or a god game like Stronghold or Age of Empires II. However, beating all of the advanced and bonus levels of Portal alone could take several years.

  5. Christopher McCulloh 20 March 2008 at 6:24 am #

    Yeah, see, it all depends on how you view the desert island game.

    If you are on a desert island, you obviously can’t communicate with the outside world, so WoW is out immediately. You have some sort of coconut powered generator that runs your computer, and that’s it. Let’s just pretend that you don’t have to log into Steam to play half life games, and that you automagically get the level editor included in any game you choose even if it doesn’t really come as part of the game.

    So, do I want the game that is really addictive and time-consuming? Probably not, because then I’m not going to want to go catch fish, or pick and pop-open coconuts to refill the generator.

    I could pick Warcraft 2, but even though I can edit the levels, and probably play that forever, it does get old after a while, and there’s only so much you can do and then you get bored.

    Sim-city 2000 is really high in the runnings. You can leave your city a-buildin while you go get some fish and coconuts.

    Perfect Dark is really high on the list, because I know it can last forever. I sat in a dark bedroom for about 6 hours a day for 3 months when I was 16 playing this game. I know I could spend at least three years if not more getting all of the time challenges and stuff beaten. Then another 3 perfecting my multiplayer game against the bots. Problem being that the music is no good (when I played, I turned off the music and let old winamp play me some tunes), the graphics are now horrible as well to the point where it makes my brain hurt to play it. So it’s out, despite being number 1 on my “most time spent playing” list.

    This brings me down to the Half-Life series. Would I really want to play the actual games for the rest of my life? I think I would end up digging myself a 12 foot hole in the sand and jumping in and waiting for the surf to fill it in because of the agony of not knowing the ending (since when they release Half-Life 15, I won’t have the mod-chip in my brain that allows me to play the fully immersive VR version where they finally tell you the ending, and even now when that happens I can’t play because I’m betting you kiss Alex and since it’s VR and fully immersive and photorealistic my wife will not approve, lol).

    This leaves me with CS:S and Portal. Since the internet is out, I’m sure I could play CS:S for about 20 years against bots, editing my own levels and other junk like that, but the sad fact is I would emmaciate and die of starvation because by the time I realized what was happening it would be too late to learn to fish.

    Which leaves us with Portal. It’s perfect. You get pissed off, walk away from the computer, clobber some fish, make a fire, cook the fish, and then realize how to beat level 12 by only taking 2 steps and run back to the computer and do it. Then after you have spent 3 years beating all of the challenges, you start making your own levels, and then you’re good for life, know how to fish, and are ultimately happy.

    Now, if you said “you can only play one video game for the rest of your life, which one is it?” that’s a different question all together, because I’m not stuck on a desert island. But the answer is, I have no clue. Probably still portal. I would say WoW, but then that would become the rest of my life, and that’s why I quit.

    Sorry for the book.

  6. The Gimcracker 20 March 2008 at 6:33 am #

    When people talk about the desert island scenario, I usually just assume they mean they can only do/have one activity/object for the rest of their lives. I didn’t think it had anything to do with coconuts or fish. Doesn’t that automatically make the playing field uneven for a game like WoW? If you can have a coconut-powered generator, why can’t you have a wireless Internet signal?

  7. Christopher McCulloh 20 March 2008 at 7:23 am #

    Well, if you had a wireless internet signal, why wouldn’t you just have someone come get you? Fine, it’s a wind/water/solar-powered generator that you have to spend 15 minutes a day cleaning/maintaining.

    If you pick a game that is addictive, and you are on a desert island with *nothing* else to do, then you are even more likely to just play that game all day, and more likely to just hate every other part of the island living. Which is why I wouldn’t choose WoW. I think that rather than make my island living more enjoyable, it would make me hate it all the more, because I would detest going fishing. I think it would replace rather than enhance my island existence. Portal would just enhance my island living, without taking away from it. It’s fun enough to give me several hours enjoyment a day, but un-addictive enough to allow me to enjoy the other 20 hours a day without being consumed by thoughts of it.

    But an interesting semi-off-topic-but-not-really question is, if you could only have (on a desert island for the rest of your life, which we will guesstimate at 60 years) one top of the line (I’m talking most expensive best retail computer available) computer with only one operating system and only one non pre-packaged thing installed (Game/program/etc), what would it be? For me, it would be Ubuntu with Java SE installed. Then I would have the ability to create any computer game/program that I want, and then play it.

  8. The Gimcracker 20 March 2008 at 7:34 am #

    I would choose a Mac because it would take me 10 years to learn how to use it.

    No seriously, I would choose a Dell with Windows Vista. The game would be World of Warcraft because since it’s an online game, and knowing the developer (Blizzard), there would be infinitely new content – plus you get to interact with computer AI and other live human beings.

    The combination of always new content and playing with other human players creates a limitless gaming experience.

  9. Arthur 20 March 2008 at 1:36 pm #

    Just wanted to totally back up your #1 as a great choice for favorite/most played. Awesome, awesome game. Although I can’t believe you never played Ocarina of Time. That’s gotta be on every top ten list, even if you’ve never played before. That’s the only video game that made me dream in-game. Dang, I miss playing video games.

  10. The Gimcracker 21 March 2008 at 2:18 pm #

    I’m glad someone else out there knows what I mean about the #1 pick. It’s funny you say that about about Ocarina of Time because I’ve heard so many people rave about it that I almost just put it in the list even though I’ve never played it. That’s one of the main reasons I put it in the ‘wish I had played’ list. I do have the Wii now, so maybe I’ll download it on the Virtual Console and give it a whirl :)

  11. The Gimcrack Miscellany » Blog Archive » Heroes III: In The Wake Of Gods (WoG)

    [...] shmancy Wees, Ecksbockses, World of WoWcrafts and such nowadays, but I can attest that HOMM3 is some of the best fun I’ve ever had playing a video game. Of course, that’s coming from a guy that has logged over 1000 hours of Mario 3 in the past 2 [...]

  12. furlonium 19 June 2011 at 4:32 pm #

    HOMAM3 FTMFW

    I've put thousands of hours into this game. I was actually searching Google for how to demolish a building in WoG, and came across your article.

    How about linking to some of those maps you made?

  13. Deandre Tolley 10 November 2011 at 2:43 am #

    JIj hebt echt mooi lippen! Die kleur is ook mooi zeg


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