I thought I would make my own list of what I think are the ten (technically twelve) most addictive video games of all-time. These aren't necessarily just the games that I personally found most addictive because then the list would have to include games like Monster Rancher, Suikoden, Double Dragon, Pirates! and others. These are games that I think are generally addictive to everybody. I'm sure some of you will have different opinions though.
Of course MSNBC.com made their list as a warning to parents that those games might be too addictive for their children to play. As a video game fan though I say these are the games you should be playing, although I agree that the amount of time you play should be limited.
10. Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter
When going to the arcade was still a hip thing to do there were no two games that got the amount of play time as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Every time I would visit the arcade not only would there be people playing Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter but there would also be at least two, sometimes as many as ten, people waiting to play. I preferred Mortal Kombat but it's hard to put one on the list without including the other because they were both so popular.
Honorable Mention: Pac-Man. Pac-Man is ultra popular, but I'm not sure it quite fits under the addictive category, just really popular.
9. Solitaire
It's a typical day at work. You're on your lunch break or you're just doing anything at the moment. You look for something to do on the computer and decide to play Solitaire. Next thing you know it's four hours later and you now have a stack of work to do. We've all been there before. Whenever you lose track of time playing a game it's a good sign that the game is very addictive.
Honorable Mention: DX Ball (or other games like it.) I'm not sure if you've played DX Ball but you've probably played something similar. Basically you have a paddle like in pong and a ball come towards you. The player must then bounce the ball of the paddle and break a series of blocks.
8. Madden/NCAA Football
Like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter it's hard to separate Madden and NCAA Football because they have their own group of fans. If you like the NFL you're probably going to side with Madden. If you like college football you're probably going to side with NCAA Football. But one thing is for sure Madden is the cream of the crop when it comes to pro sports games and NCAA Football is the top dog when it comes to college sports games. These football games were addictive enough when all you could do was play games or a season but now that you can play franchise mode it's easy to get lost in these games for a few months.
Honorable Mention: NBA Jam. Back in the arcade days (when Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were popular) the number one sports video game at arcades was NBA Jam.
7. Final Fantasy
It's easy to see why Final Fantasy fans are so addicted to these games. The gameplay lasts for hours and hours. The stories are in-depth. The Final Fantasy games have more character development than any other games. It's basically like watching a movie but you get to control the main characters. The MMORPGs as a whole are becoming more addictive due to the ability to roam anywhere and the multitude of choices you can make but Final Fantasy series will always be addictive to their large fanbase.
Honorable Mention: Dragon Quest. The Dragon Quest series is also a great series and for all I know might actually be more popular in Japan, but I'd say Final Fantasy is the more popular series in the United States.
6. Super Mario Brothers
Super Mario Brothers is a different type of addiction. If a Super Mario Brothers fan buys the latest Super Mario game are they going to play that game for several hours every day for a few months? Probably not. But Super Mario Brothers' fans will buy every single Super Mario game, which tells me they are very addicted to the franchise.
Honorable Mention: Zelda/Metroid or any of the other Zelda classics for the same reasons as Super Mario Brothers.
5. Sim Anything
Anything with the word Sim in it seems to be pretty addictive. I remember when my friend first got Sim City for his computer. We played that game for hours at a time. Although we actually spent as much time destroying our cities with natural disasters than actually building our city so I'm not sure what that says about us. There were other Sims games too but none of them would prepare us for The Sims. The Sims was so addictive that most of the time I remembered to make sure my character ate, did their chores, worked out and took a shower but I usually forgot to do those things myself.
Honorable Mention: Civilization. The Sims has to be the all-time number one addictive game when it comes to creating your own town/city/world but the Civilization series is the current number one.
4. Grand Theft Auto
A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon when Grand Theft Auto hit the shelves but the original Grand Theft Auto games were actually just as addictive. Of course the newer versions did allow you to roam the entire city, had larger cities, better stories and had a lot more side quests so as the game got even larger it got even more addictive.
3. Doom
This was a hard one to decide. I think that my top two are pretty solid and that a first person shooter should probably fall in the three spot because of how popular they are. This spot easily could've gone to the current number one Halo but I decided to go old school with Doom. As popular as Halo is right now I actually knew more people who played Doom. That could be just because I was in high school when Doom came out and not as many people play video games now as adults. I also think that you could argue that Doom was the first addictive first person shooter and because of that video game companies kept on making more first person shooters and made them like Doom.
Honorable Mention: Halo.
2. World of Warcraft
There have been two pretty insane news stories due to World of Warcraft. In one instance somebody actually died playing World of Warcraft. After playing 50 hours straight a man died of heart failure due to dehydration and starvation. In another instance a couple played World of Warcraft for so long that they neglected their child and it died. I think it's pretty clear to see that this is awfully addictive game.
1. Tetris
Everything about Tetris is addictive. First of all it's just a fun game. But Tetris some how mesmerizes you. The pace at which the blocks fall hypnotizes you. At night you dream about L-shaped figures spinning and falling from the sky. And that music! That music sticks in your head for days!
As far as I know nobody has ever died from playing Tetris so maybe to some World of Warcraft is more addicting. But I'm putting Tetris number one because it is a good kind of addiction. You can sit down and play Tetris and have fun for hours at a time, but you also will never get so engulfed that you'll kill yourself because it is such a simple and fun game to play.
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