12 Addicting Video Games of Days Gone By (Part 1)

I was a bit of a late-comer to the video game scene, because my parents had this inkling (as most parents do) that these virtual realities might, in fact, be soul-binding death traps of entertainment with addictive properties on par with a cake made of heroin.

Blow out your candles, honey!

They were (as most parents are) pretty spot on, but just to be sure, I insisted on doing some hands-on research. And, once I started earning an allowance and eventually got a job of my own, I was free to spend money on frivolous things like food and clothes or on necessities like video games. And so, throughout the years, I waxed and waned with the tide of different genres and series. Naturally, as with any relationship, there were good times and bad - Marios and Waluigis - but these are the esteemed titles that hold the fondest memories of sleepless nights glued to a screen.

12. NFL Blitz 2000 (N64): Now, I was never a big fan of sports games, though I indulged myself in the occasional title, but NFL Blitz 2000 wiped away all the boring trifles of Madden games like "team management", "roster building", and "rules" and replaced them with absurdly beefy players, lewd and irrational announcers, and the ability to set yourself ablaze to enhance your football magic.

"Steve, what about this could children possibly imitate?"

While serious football games were geared toward people well-versed in the sport's lingo and rules, and who followed the teams and players, Blitz was aimed more at people who generally sucked at such coordinated outdoor activities and to young boys whose only outlet for their rage was toward crudely animated polygonal shapes.

Throw my Fruit Roll-Up into the urinal, will you? DIE! DIE! DIE!

The real joy of this game was illegally body-slamming your opponents after crippling them from the waist down with your ruthless tackles, while the announcer chimes "That was uncalled for... but a lot of fun to watch!"

11. Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (PC): I can hear the salesmen now... "Fight all your favorite battles from the Star Wars movies with graphics so realistic and immersing, you'll feel the Force surging through your veins!"

"Quick! Destroy that... paper plane... thing."

It's really no secret as to the appeal of these games. You got to fly X-Wings and TIE Fighters among a whole host of other useless spacecraft (Hello, A-Wing) through the visually stimulating frontiers of empty space. You got to fire lasers, ion cannons, and missiles at hulking, massive Star Destroyers and totally decimate slightly-less-imposing Nebulon-B Frigates with photon torpedoes all in a day's work. And that was the true beauty of the game: you got to play as both the Rebellion and the Galactic Empire. You would crush the puny "rebel scum" under the weight of your planet-eviscerating firepower all morning, ease your conscience by escorting a few transport ships in the afternoon, then back to pixel-based genocide in the evening.

10. Deer Hunter 4 (PC) : Now I know what you're probably thinking. Frickin' Deer Hunter?! But hear me out. It was actually a wonderful alternative for those of us who were too young and poor to afford a real gun, and who were too lazy to get up at 4am to go hunt real deer. And at least it's not a fishing simulator. 

The only fishing this man does is for deer. With bullets.

While the game did a relatively decent job of exhibiting the often leisurely pace of tracking, baiting, outwitting, and shamelessly murdering a woodland creature, it did try to liven things up a bit with a wide variety of choices on how to go about exacting such forest fatalities. And to be fair, every deer I killed in the game was a deer that got to live in the real world.

Henceforth the best argument for video games. Period.

There were a whole slew of different bows, pistols, shotguns and rifles you could opt to pack on your never-ending quest for trophies, and you could even bring along a pick-up truck or ATV/snowmobile for quickly traveling between tree stands or for just running the deer over. Outside of that, I'm not really sure why I was so hooked on this game, other than my inherent desire as a young male to shoot things. Sadly, I lost this game years ago and decided to upgrade to Deer Hunter 2005, which I have since lost, as well. I can only surmise that I am being very selectively haunted by the ghost of Bambi's mother. Or Christopher Walken.

"I'm not dead yet, prick."

9. LEGO Island (PC): Pretty much my entire childhood was grounded in LEGOs. I lived and breathed the little plastic bricks (not literally) for years, and even well into my teens before they were finally overtaken by video games, comic books, human friends, and the occasional responsibility like work or school. So naturally, when making the transition from one form of fake reality to another, the numerous LEGO computer games were a solid fit for me. And, they were parent-approved, too!

Assaulting motorists with scalding hot pizzas. Those are the skills Johnny's been lacking!

In the interest of this list not getting stale or out of hand, I've decided not to include similar titles or those of the same series. I very easily could have included LEGO Creator among these games, and it was definitely a hard choice between the two, but I think this game consumed more of my life than any other LEGO title. Anywho, in LEGO Island, you play as Pepper Roni (seriously), the town's much-loved, pizza-delivering skateboard enthusiast. Throughout the game, you'll meet other characters whom you can then control, as well, each with unique abilities or access to restricted areas of the Island.

The story was about as absurd as anything starring anthropomorphic plastic toys could be: The Brickster, the game's antagonist, tricks you into releasing him from prison so he can destroy the Island with his inexplicable powers. However, he has a (convenient) weakness: delicious pizza! So, you have to run around the open-world Island and do absolutely everything not relevant to stopping the Brickster, like jet-skiing, go-kart racing, pizza-delivering, cave-spelunking, and grand theft auto... ing. Yes, you could take pretty much any vehicle foolishly left out in the open - even ambulances - and joy ride around the Island.

"HAHA! That'll teach those retards to leave their helicopters unguarded!"

In the final "mission" of the game, you must take control of the town's police chopper and hunt down the Brickster as he tries to get somewhere (the Info Tower, maybe?) on his motorcycle in order to fulfill his evil plans. Now, your helicopter shoots doughnuts and whole pizzas.

Let that sink in...

Okay, so the objective is to slow the Brickster down with tasty pizzas while leading the completely incompetent police force toward him with a trail of doughnuts. Seriously. That's the climax of the game. And I loved every second of it.

8. MechWarrior 2 (PC): The MechWarrior series seemed to fulfill a need in gamers that the Japanese had known about for decades (and still won't let go of to this day): giant robots.

Or things vaguely shaped like giant robots.

To be fair, the series is actually based on an old D&D-style board game called BattleTech, but the MechWarrior games blew the whole phenomenon into mainstream popularity. I never played the first game, but from what I can tell having experienced 2 and 4, the gameplay doesn't change much at all from title to title. The story was really pretty irrelevant. Somebody invaded somewhere, blah blah blah, soldiers under attack, widowed women, yada yada, go jump in your giant robot and blow those suckers up!!

"I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am. Would this heat-seeking missile cheer you up?"

You had to worry about things like ammo levels or overheating your mech. Some came equipped with limited jump-jets so you could get stuck in the graphics like a piñata for everyone else to take potshots at. Strategies included getting the smallest, fastest mech and just running circles around the other guy plinking him with your wimpy machine guns and maybe a laser, or running up and bear-hugging the enemy while hitting the self-destruct button.

7. SimCity 3000 (PC): Who doesn't get excited by the thought of urban zoning ordinance or intercity trade agreements? Exactly. So, admittedly, I had some well-founded doubts when a friend recommended SimCity 3000, but as soon as I got into it, I had a helluva time pulling myself back out. Building sprawling cities (or, more likely, a few hundred acres of abandoned homes and stores); installing strategic infrastructure; monitoring the citizens' wants and needs; creating the perfect balance between commercial, industrial, and residential areas; making lucrative pacts with neighboring cities; building your small farming community into an urban empire - that was what SimCity was all about. The power over the well-being of millions of tiny people. Then you would save the game and start launching every disaster the options menu had to offer you: tornadoes, hurricanes, alien invasions, meteor showers, locusts, etc. Grab a bowl of popcorn and watch the horrendously understaffed police and fire departments scramble to every corner of the city in a desperate, yet futile attempt to salvage your once mighty kingdom of concrete and steel.

"Uhh, Mayor?"

Alrighty, well that wraps things up for Part 1 of this entry. Be sure to count down the top 6 and add your own favorites in Part 2!