Great Computer Games (by genre)

Until quite recently, I was a computer gamer. Hardcore. Sure, it was 1994, and I was ten, but it still counts. It makes me sad that many of my old games won't work on Windows XP. That is, it made me sad until I figured out how to make them run anyway...

Great Adventure Games

Oh man, adventure games. I am a HUGE lover of the adventure game, even though no one else in the world is and the genre is now as good as dead (sigh). Why did people give up on the adventure game? Was it Myst? Was it? Because Myst was not the only adventure game ever, my friends. Nor the King's Quest franchise. No, there were good ones, too...

• Eco Quest: The Search for Cetus: It's an adventure game that teaches kids not to litter in the ocean! What's not to like? There was also a puzzle that forced me to learn how a toilet works, which has proved useful.
  

• The Monkey Island games, especially number 3, The Curse of Monkey Island: Who knew Lucas Arts could be funny? Actually, I did, because of these games. These hilarious adventure stories follow Guybrush Threepwood, wannabe pirate, as he quests to defeat the zombie/ghost/demon pirate LeChuck and save the beautiful governor, Elaine...or be saved by her, more likely. Famous for their insult swordfighting minigames, this series is full of all that I find funny: meta jokes, obscure cultural references, and lighthearted sexual innuendo. And puzzles! If you ever randomly want to play an adventure game, make it MI3.

• The Neverhood: This game is so weird, and I'm pretty sure you can't even find it anywhere anymore. It's done all in claymation and has one of the best most bizarre soundtracks I've ever heard. Deerhoof's got nothing on these guys. The puzzles are pretty standard, nothing special, but the slapstick humor and weird-ass style of the game made it well worth while. Lots of fun.

• Toonstruck: I can't for the life of me get this game to play! But I think I found a mod online that'll get it to work again... Anyway, this cartoony adventure game stars Christopher Lloyd (wha?) as a cartoonist sucked into a cartoon world. I remember it being pretty damn funny. Except for one or two annoying puzzles, the rest were logical--well, logical for a cartoon world. Suffice it to say, more than one puzzle was solved with a pun.

ps I've heard The Longest Journey is great, and I have it now. It's on my "To Play" list for sure. But I have console games to beat first! (The ten-year-old PC gamer is sobbing now, a little.)

Great Old-School Educational Games

• The Dr. Brain games: Thinking about these again reminds me of when science was fun. In elementary school I learned about genetics by breeding aliens into bizarre inbred freak aliens. Life was good.

• The Oregon Trail: Was this educational? We did play it in school. In conclusion, I was addicted to Oregon Trail last summer. ps It's best to play as a teacher!

• Almost any SuperSolvers game: You know. Gizmos & Gadgets, Treasure Mountain/Cove, the not as easy as you'd think Operation: Neptune (especially when you turn the math difficulty to its highest). They mixed learning with shooting things. What more could you ask for?

• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?: 'Nuff said.

Great Strategy and Sim Computer Games

I'll admit, this list is going to be missing your favorites, because I never played very much Civilization or Sim-whatever. I did play them, but not enough for me to judge them. Sorry.

• Europa Universalis: Take over the world, one province at a time! Real Time Strategy never felt so good... until...

• Hearts of Iron II: James, Carlos, and I were VERY addicted to this game for a time. It's a lot of fun. Start in the 1930s, play as any country as you want, and play the war. We got some bizarre scenarios to go down (like the one where the US took over the entire western hemisphere except for Brazil).

• The Sims 2: I loved The Sims in its time, but the sequel is just much better planned. The characters now have life goals and age, making it much more purposeful. Especially fun is the Romance life goal, which demands that you get your character to bone three people a day or something ridiculous to get special items.

• Tropico: James, Carlos, and I were also addicted to this one. All right, I'm still kind of addicted, but I haven't played it in a month now so maybe I'm off the stuff. But playing a third world Caribbean dictator is so much fun! Playing it straight it great, and playing it evil is just as fun (if much harder). The happy happy background music and humorous and vaguely offensive narrator also make it quite worthwhile.

Great Puzzle and Board Computer Games

• Lemmings (and also Lemmings 2: The Tribes): Best puzzle game ever. Also quite good music. Very nostalgic. Let's go!
  

• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee: This game is a weird mix of puzzle and action. The puzzle part is fun, if sometimes frustrating. The action part made me very nervous; I can never play it for long without jumping out of my skin every time I hear a sound and think it's a slig with a machine gun... Anyway, you play this enslaved cute alien guy named Abe who has special powers to control bad guys. Use the powers and good old-fashioned puzzle-solving to free your people (without getting shot or eaten or exploded).

• Magic: The Gathering: Yeah, it's nerdy, but it's better to play on a computer so you don't have to deal with other people. Wait, does that make it more nerdy?
  

• Risk: The fun part of playing Risk on the computer is that the computer does the moves in five seconds, so you can play a whole game in about twenty minutes.

And...


Gotta shout out for World of Warcraft here. I've only played two MMORPGs in earnest, and I've played one or two more for a couple of hours, but it's easy to see that WoW is the tops. I think it has a lot to do with the user-friendly interface, actually.

Okay, video games next.