May 15, 2001
klamkilla

Most Addicting Games of All Time

OK today I am going to do a little reminiscing and go through some of my favorite and most addictive games of all time. These are the games that would make you stay up till 3 in the morning on a Friday night, these are the games that would make you fake sick so you could stay home and play them, hell these are the games that made you miss holiday dinners with family and friends *cough* Thanksgiving 98 *end cough*. Well enough of this pointless banter, let's get into the top 10 most addicting games ever.

10 Gran Tourismo

"The ultimate driving experience" as it was dubbed by Sony. This, one of the best racing games of all time featured unlimited customization for over 200 real life cars. At the time no other game featured this many cars and this many options. Truly one of the essential racing games that no gear head should go without.

What made this game one of my most addicting games ever  was not the game itself though, it was the setup around my cousins' TV that made this game  as great as  it was. We had the Mad Catz steering wheel and pedals hooked up. "What's so odd about that?" you ask. Well nothing until you hear about what else we  had. His TV has two positionable speakers that we moved to the rear of our set up to get that real life effect. Also we were to poor for  a real surround sound setup. Our faces' were  no more  than 6 inches away from the screen to simulate driving. The game would have to be in  first person mode naturally. We had two chairs set up in front of the TV, one for the driver and one for the passenger. We built doors out of  cardboard. We had a friggin fan to blow wind in our faces. In short we made a ghetto race car. Pathetic yes, fun as hell HELL YES. The reason we played so much is because if we got up we would ruin the whole setup so we played for like 5 hours straight without bathroom breaks.

9 Poy Poy

This is one of the most under appreciated games ever released on the PlayStation. Mix four funny little Japanese guys, rocks, missiles, magic powers, tornados, dinosaurs, a retarded announcer, and a circle of death and what do you get? A refreshingly fun and original party game that will keep you and your friends busy for the whole night. The game was cool because each guy had a different glove and by  winning matches you earned money to buy better  gloves. Each glove had a power. Some  bounced things, some shot missiles, some even struck down opponents with lightning.

I guess there isn't a really funny story to associate with this game. Me and my friend Patrick would walk an hour to the local Blockbuster just to rent this game. This was back when we had no money so we  would spend forty five minutes scraping up $5.25 in change just to rent this.

8 Mega Man 3

This was the crowned glory of the Mega Man franchise. The third installment had the blue bomber fighting his arch enemy Dr. Wiley and some of the most treacherous robots ever. Among their ranks were Snake Man, Top Man, Shadow Man, and Hard Man. This  was an extremely challenging game and half the fun was trying to figure  out what weapons to use on each guy.

The only thing I can think of about this game to accompany it's description is the ending where Proto Man kills himself to save his brother Mega Man. I remember my cousin crying at this part because it was so sad (keep in mind we were 7).

7 GoldenEye

What more is there to say about Rarewares' phenomenal first person shooter that hasn't already been said. While the single player mode was great the thing that kept gamers hooked was the excellent multiplayer mode. You got to choose from all sorts of classic Bond characters and weapons, then duke it out in several ingenious levels. There were many many different modes of gameplay including Flag Tag, Man with the golden gun, You only live  twice, and classic death match.

What I remember most about this game is before I got my N64 I would go to Toys R' Us and play this game at the display for like hours. It was annoying though because the game would reset every twenty minutes or so.

6 Mario 3

This was the epitome of platformers on the NES 8 HUGE worlds to explore, many many weapons and items to find, hard bosses, and hidden treasures made this in my opinion the best Mario to date.

This was one of the games that you would play from the minute you got home from school, till your mom told you to do your homework or until dinner was ready.

5 NHL '94

EA SPORTS, IT'S IN THE GAME. This was the immortal phrase uttered every time you turned on  the greatest hockey game ever. This is hockey done right and all attempts afterwards pale in comparison. Also the multiplayer made this game. Four players would go at it head to head or cooperatively via the SNES multiplayer adapter.

This is THE game that made me go out and spend the sixty dollars on two extra controllers and a multitap. Me and my cousins would play this one every Wednesday night. Each week we would have a mini tournament with four teams of two going at it. One of the most fun times I had playing a game ever.

4 Final Fantasy 7

Classic Squaresoft. I think I got this game with my PlayStation in the fall of my freshman year. I don't think I stopped playing this one till the fall of my Junior year. That should tell you something. I had spent nights trying to level up my materia to make the ultimate materia combo which went like this:

• Preemptive Attack
• First Strike
• Eight Physical Hits
• Eight steal attempts
• Eight flares
• Nights of the round

3 Final Fantasy 3

Best final Fantasy ever. This game had it all. Classic gameplay. Compelling characters and story. A fun battle system. Plus mini quests mini quests mini quests. Getting all of the dragons. Finding all of the party members after the world collapses. There was just so much to do in  this game.

I got this game in the sixth grade. I beat it in 75 hours. I played an additional 100+ hours looking for all of the relics, espers, weapons, armor, and items in the game. I had a 700 page guide I got near the end of this games' life cycle just to keep things fresh and to find anything I might have missed. I loved this game.

2 Worms Armageddon

Having done a review for this game I won't get in to it You can look for the review for more info on this gem.

This game rates so high on the charts because of all the laughter it brought to me and my friends late at night. There is nothing funnier than seeing a super sheep go hurtling at a  worm and explode sending worm bits all over the place.

1 Harvest Moon

Pretty boring concept: Play as a farmer and turn around a gross farm in two years. The execution however was fantastic. It was fun planting all sorts of crops, having to water them, having to pick them, and having to get them to town to sell. Also this game was  a dating sim because you had to court one of the lovely ladies from the town in hopes of getting a wife.

All I can say about this game is that over Thanksgiving vacation of 1998 I don't remember leaving my room unless it was to pee. Me and my cousin had our food in my room. We played it all night. It controlled us. Funny thing is we never bought it. We rented it for two weeks straight. Now that's addicting.

Well I hope you enjoyed the list. I'm off to play some Worms.....

     ~Klamkilla~