10. Doctor Mario
Does anyone remember the original Dr Mario commercials? They were horrible. Released on the coat-tails of Tetris’ success the two kids playing the split-screen made you want to puke on your TV. The biggest problem with the commercial was that the brats looked so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! If this ultra-addictive 2 player was properly marketed, the two kids would be swearing and bloodshot, and one of them would have to throw their controller on the ground before the commercial ended. This game broke up friendships. This game continues to almost break up my marriage. This game is awesome. If you’ve forgotten about Dr Mario, plug in the NES and get a friend to play you. Be warned, you may not be talking when the game is done.
9. Ms. Pac-man
It’s very rare to find arcades around these days, but when I do, I immediately go to the Ms. Pac-Man machine. In the Arcade there are the skee ball machines, street fighter machines, claw machines and the like, but the Ms. Pac-Man machine in all its simplicity is what first strikes me. What is it about chomping dots and being chased around by ghosts that’s so fun? It’s simple, straightforward and difficult at the same time. I rarely get past level 8, but somehow I’m always impressed when I pass the first two levels. I don’t know if this is because when I see most people play, they can’t get by the first level, or I feel that after all these years I still have a decent grasp of the game. Whatever it is, it always calls for me when I enter the arcade.
8. Civilization 2
Civilization 2 was addictive because of the sheer scope of the game. The patience and time involved with trying to watch the world evolve was immense. Starting off as an indigenous tribe trying to eventually build a space craft wouldn’t take a couple hours or days, or even months. You would have to play this game for a year before you were able to accomplish this technological feat. Everything along the way would keep you gripped to the game as if you had complete control of the world. Building alliances, putting your resources into weaponry, having to fend off barbaric Germanic tribes, all this would keep you glued to your computer in hopes your civilization was the most superlative in the world. Call it ego or social Darwinism, whatever it was, your whole being was invested in what was as stake.
7. Tetris
When I first played Tetris, I played it for a year straight, getting irritable because I couldn’t get past level 50. I put down the controller for a year and stopped playing it. Two years after I would pick back up the controller and play for another year and get to level 60. Just last week, I asked Sage where I could find a place on the internet to play Tetris for free. I couldn’t get past level 10 this time around! Am I just getting old? No, it was just that the online version I was playing could only play up to level 10 and made it about as fast as level 100 on the traditional Tetris for the NES. Who would of thought that fitting blocks together would have been this entertaining? The Russians had great literature and a decent space program, but no one should forget that they created the most addicting video game of all time.
6. Diablo
This game was scary. Late at night, sitting at my computer, fighting off hordes of demons, goat men, skeletons, and other baddies often led to a night of bizarre dreams and nightmares. Even the way the lights shone out of the church’s windows was creepy. Blizzard basically has three universes that it works in, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. Each is unique, detailed and story driven, and no story line is scarier than this one. The dark lord himself, Diablo, has returned and he has brought back some friends.
The principle of the game was simple; a church in a small town has been invaded by the denizens of hell and you are sent in to take care of the problem. Sort of makes you wonder why you became an exterminator in the first place. In an even more interesting twist it turns out the church was built on top of catacombs, which were built on top of caves, which were built on top of the entrance to hell. If I were the owners I would have sued not only the construction company but also the land developer, architect, and surveyor. I would imagine such a unique area would be hard to miss, but then again it might have been a union job so… Anyway I digress. Like most Blizzard games Diablo was also addicting. Every time you find the stairs to the next level you don’t want to wait till the morning to start hacking your way through. Eventually you kill the dark lord and for some reason plunge some sort of crystal into your head and then wander off. I guess that makes for a good sequel. I never actually finished playing Diablo 2. I can’t remember why.
5. Sim City
Sim City for SNES was addicting in its own way. You would keep the game on for long periods of time letting your towns build on their own while cash would slowly come in from taxes. The infrastructure in the game was colorful and much bigger than the computer version. The soundtrack to Sim City for SNES was amazing. This really came out of nowhere. Usually the Sim City games for the computer had elevator music which was fine enough for municipality engineering, but Sim City for the SNES had music that made you want to play the game just to listen to the music. Like the computer version though, I still needed to code of infinity money to play the game with any sense of evolving. I didn’t have the patience to wait yearly for tax income even with the game on a speed setting. Regardless of the code though, I would be building and building till the end hours of the night.
4. Super Off Road
Super Off Road is one of the greatest games of all time, which we list in our top 100 games of all time along with our top 5 racing games of all time lists. Beyond being a great game though, this game was addicting as hell. One summer we became so addicted to it that we were planning on getting a generator to keep the SNES version on in case there was a power outage and we lost our place. You could play this game forever because there was never an end to the game and all the tracks were as fun as trying to make a friend slip on a banana peel. You had to create your own ending, and for us, this was getting “9’s” straight across the money board which we estimated would take 1000 hours. Obviously if were spending 500 hours on the game and couldn’t save, a generator would make sense. We never went ahead with this idea but it’s never too late to be the ultimate Super Off Road player by accomplishing this seemingly impenetrable feat.
3. Mario Kart Double Dash
We knew a Mario Kart had to be in this list, but which one? We considered all the games and choose the one we collectively spent most hours on which was Double Dash for the Gamecube. This game not only defined 75% of the time I spent at college, but about 90% of the time I spent after college. After my lifetime has past, I will have spent anywhere from 3-6% of it playing this game. Not only was this game addicting, but it could make people pissed beyond your wildest dreams. Thinking back to playing this with some of my roommates, I remember one of them being beaten by the other in the star cup and at the end the beaten roommate saying “You want to take this outside to really see who’s better” with no sense of humor in the statement. This game warped people into it for hours and hours at a time and made people define themselves as people by this game alone. Talk about hypnotic.
2. Starcraft
This is the game that got us talking about this list. It’s incredible on every level. An epic battle between the mindless overlords of the Zerg, the superior technology of the Protoss, and the corrupt government of the Terrans. We here at OW must have played this game for years of our lives. In fact DM and I used to play in high school during our CAD class. This game was also incredibly addicting many a night I said one more level, five or six times before passing out face down on my keyboard. Only to find that my base was leveled and I need to start again.
We all have fond memories of waiting for the dial up to connect so we could duke it out on battle net. At the time I was a master of the zergling rush. They were definitely my favorites. I’ve always been a huge fan of the borg or mindless species with genius overlords so the zerg were perfect. Plus the whole plot twist with Kerrigan becoming the queen of blades and overthrowing the overmind was even more awesome. Here at OW we are all very excited about Starcraft 2. In our opinion this is the Blizzard’s best universe.
1. World of Warcraft
It has recently been shown that World of Warcraft (WoW) is equivalent to crack cocaine (coke, yayo, the C-O,…). Seriously a team of the top chemists, biologists, psychologists, and doctors have found that there are no differences between the two. Addicts of both will sit in dark rooms for hours on end often soiling themselves and staring at screens. They can’t separate themselves from their drug for more than a few hours or they physically start to hurt and have to get a fix. They often speak an incomprehensible language of gibberish that only other addicts can understand. All of their earnings, which is usually meager to begin with, are spent on sating their devilish addictions. More often then not they become social outcasts interestingly, however, it is possible to distinguish the users of by their weight. Oddly WoW users are prone to obesity and acne, while coke heads tend to loose weight rapidly, but can have worse skin problems. Scientists are working hard to understand this disparity.Either way this game is amazing and possibly one of the most addicting games of all time. From a marketing stand point its also pure genius, think of it an addicting game that never ends. I have personally been battling my addiction for many years. Just when I think it’s been beat I’m back at my computer trying to get a group to raid Kara. It’s one hell of a monkey on my back. My family has been supportive and I have been able to hang on to my job, though I haven’t been able to re-establish lasting relationships. With time and consoling I believe that I will be able to make a full recovery. Until then my druid still needs his epic gear, and now there is the expansion to master. Its going to be a tough few months.
Source: http://old-wizard.com/top-10-most-addicting-games
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