Video Games
XBOX 360
 Nintendo Wii
 Sony PS3
 Sony PSP
 Nintendo Game Cube
 Nintendo DS
 PC

Background

When I was younger (Universtity days and a bit before) I got pretty hooked on video games. Back then they were still fairly basic (PacMan, Galaga and Defender were pretty much the state of the art). I also remember playing a lot of Space Invaders on my local school's Commodore Pet computer. During my university days I had a BBC Microcomputer at home which had a pretty good selection of games given the constraints of the machine by today's standards and I spent a lot of time playing games on that. As I started work and found myself with a lot less time on my hands I managed to kick the habbit without even trying!  Looking back that was actually a pretty good thing as I was spending way too much time playing games most likely. During the mid to late nineties I bought a new home PC and played games from time to time on the PC (mostly Real Time Strategy games like Command and Conquer and Star Craft) but I was still only playing periodically. Recently, as my kids have got a bit older, and have discovered video games, I too have found myself sucked back in to my former habbit! For a while, all my kids had to play on was an old Sega Genesis unit that my wife had from before we were even married and a cheap PC that we put in the playroom which could only play older games. For quite a while this kept the kids happy. We managed to find a lot of cheap games for the old Sega machine on eBay and we had a few games for the PC (initially mostly learning games). However, and I am not exactly sure how this happened, over the Christmas 2005 period the number of video game devices in our house mushroomed beyond belief and has continued to grow. As well as the PC which we still play some games on, we now have an XBOX 360 (my 2005 birthday present), a Nintendo Wii (my Wife's 2007 Valentine's Day present to herself!), a GameCube, four Nintendo DS handhelds (my wife is hooked on Animal Crossing) and a PSP that I bought myself to take with me when I travel. Over the last several months we have accumulated quite a library of games (see below).

I have slowly increaesed my XBOX 360 game library ,  primarily as the average new game price in the USA of $59.99 a game seems a bit steep to me. I tend to buy games when they are reduced (often when the next version of the game has just come out) and I also buy a lot of used games. I have been really impressed with the Game Cube. Primarily for two reasons. Firstly the large selection of age appropriate games for my kids and secondly because the majority of the games seem reasonably priced.  I am also very impressed with the Nintendo Wii (our latest addition to the family). Not just for its unique motion sensing controllers but also because it seems to play every single GameCube game flawlessly which is not a claim my XBOX 360 can make in terms of playing older XBOX games.

Given that the price had dropped and also because we finally bought ourselves a new TV (we got the previous one in 1993) and wanted to add a BluRay player, for Christmas 2009 we added a Sony Playstation 3 to our collection as well! Yes we are game geeks, it's true!!

Games we are currently playing the most

Here is a list of the games currently being played the most in our family. The kids tend to chop and change more quickly than my wife and I do. We tend to get locked into a game whereas the kids like to hop back and forth. However even they have a few they seem to keep coming back to.

Game
 Platform
Lego Indiana Jones
 Wii
Sonic Unleased
 Wii
BioShock
 360
Halo 3 ODST
 360
Gears of War
 360
Little Big Planet
 PS3
Chessmaster PSP
Pokémon Diamond
 DS
Lego Indiana Jones
 DS
Age of Empires - Mythologies
 DS
Command and Conquer Generals PC
Wizard 101
 PC

Current Game Library (older games not listed)

We have gradually collected a fairly diverse game library for our various gaming devices. The lists below summarise the games that we currently have. I have not listed many of the older games we have (such as those that worked on older 486 based PCs and the SEGA Genesis games). Not surprisingly we seem to have acquired the most titles for the Game Cube and the Nintendo DS's as that is where the kids play the most!

At present, these lists are simply sorted in alphabetical order and the numbers do not imply any sort of preference or order of priority. I may add a ranking scheme similar to the one I use on the Books and Magazines page at some point in the future.

NOTE: Games whose names are struck out are either ones that we traded in for other games or in some cases we lost when my son left his case full of games somewhere and we have never seen it since!

XBOX 360

  1. Battlestations Midway
  2. BioShock
  3. Blazing Angels
  4. Call of Duty 2
  5. Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2
  6. Cars
  7. Command & Conquer - Tiberium Wars
  8. Gears of War
  9. Halo 3
  10. Halo 3 - ODST
  11. Kameo
  12. Lord of the Rings - Battle For Middle Earth II
  13. Madden NFL Football 2006
  14. Madden NFL Football 2007
  15. Major League Baseball 2K6
  16. Mass Effect
  17. NBA Live '06
  18. NHL 2K6
  19. Over G Fighters
  20. Perfect Dark Zero
  21. Project Gotham Racing (PGR) 3
  22. Project Gotham Racing (PGR) 4
  23. Ridge Racer 6
  24. Rockstar Table Tennis
  25. Sonic the hedgehog
  26. Star Trek Legacy
  27. The Outfit
  28. Top Spin 2
  29. Tomb Raider Anniversary
  30. Tomb Raider - Legend
  31. Viva Piňata
  32. Viva Piňata Party Animals
  33. Viva Piňata - Trouble in Paradise
  34. XBOX 360 Arcade

Playstation 3

  1. Assassin's Creed
  2. Dante's Inferno
  3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
  4. Lego Batman
  5. Little Big Planet

Nintendo Wii

  1. Animal Crossing - City Folk
  2. Carnival Games
  3. Disney Sing It
  4. Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock
  5. Jillian Michaels - Fitness Ultimatum 2009
  6. Mario Kart Wii
  7. My Sims
  8. Lego Indiana Jones
  9. New Super Mario Brothers Wii
  10. Rayman Raving Rabbids
  11. Puppy Luv
  12. Sim Animals
  13. Sonic and the Black Knight
  14. Sonic and the Secret Rings
  15. Sonic Riders - Zero Gravity
  16. Sonic Unleashed
  17. Speed Racer
  18. Super Mario Galaxy
  19. Super Smash Brothers Brawl
  20. The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess
  21. Wario Ware - Smooth Moves
  22. Wii Fit
  23. Wii Play
  24. Wii Ski
  25. Wii Sports
  26. Wii Sports Resort
  27. Zack & Wiki - Search for Barbaro's Treasure

Sony Play Station Portable (PSP)

  1. Ape Escape
  2. Field Commander
  3. Blokus
  4. Chessmaster - The Art of Learning
  5. Frantix
  6. Go! Sudoku
  7. Grand Theft Auto - Liberty city stories
  8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  9. Hot Shots Golf - Open Tee
  10. Hot Shots Golf - Open Tee 2
  11. KAO Challengers
  12. Syphon Filter - Logan's Shadow
  13. Major League Baseball 2K6
  14. Mercury Meltdown 2
  15. Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops
  16. Pinball Hall of Fame
  17. Platypus
  18. Ridge Racer
  19. SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals - Fireteam Bravo
  20. Star Wars Battlefront II
  21. Wipeout Pure
  22. World Championship Poker - All In

Nintendo Game Cube

  1. 007 Night Fire
  2. Animal Crossing
  3. Bomberman
  4. Crash Nitro Kart
  5. Chibi-Robo Plug into adventure
  6. Chicken Little
  7. Dora the Explorer - Journey to the Purple Planet
  8. Finding Nemo
  9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  10. Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown
  11. Kirby Air Ride
  12. Lego Star Wars
  13. Lego Star Wars II
  14. Luigi's Mansion
  15. Madagascar
  16. Mario Kart - Double Dash
  17. Mario Party 7
  18. Monsters, INC.
  19. Muppets Party Cruise
  20. Paper Mario - The 30 Year Door
  21. Piglet's Big Game
  22. Shrek 2
  23. Sims 2 : Pets
  24. Shadow the Hedgehog
  25. Sonic Adventure DX - Director's cut
  26. Sonic Heroes
  27. Sonic Gems Collection
  28. Sonic Adventure Battle 2
  29. Sonic Riders
  30. SpongeBob Squarepants - Revenge of the Flying Dutchman
  31. Spyro - Enter the Dragonfly
  32. Super Mario Strikers
  33. Super Mario Sunshine
  34. Super Monkey Ball
  35. Super Smash Brothers Melee
  36. Tak - The Great Juju Challenge
  37. The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron - attack of the Twonkies
  38. The Hobbit
  39. The Incredibles
  40. The Polar Express
  41. Wario World
  42. Winnie the Pooh's Rumbly Tumbly Adventure

Nintendo DS

  1. 101 in 1 - Explosive Megamix
  2. Age of Empires - Mythology
  3. Animal Crossing (3 copies)
  4. Animal Planet - Emergency Vets
  5. Aquarium
  6. Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
  7. Assassin's Creed - Altair's Chronicles
  8. Ben 10 - Alien Force
  9. Big Brain Academy
  10. Brain Age
  11. Brain Busters
  12. Call of Duty Modern Warfare - Mobilized
  13. Cars
  14. Club Penguin  - Elite Penguin Force
  15. Cooking Mama - Shop & Chop
  16. Cradle of Rome
  17. Deal or no deal
  18. Digout - Digging Strike
  19. Eco Creatures - save the forest
  20. Fish Tycoon
  21. Ford Racing 3
  22. Frogger
  23. Godzilla Unleashed - Double Smash
  24. Golden Nugget Casino
  25. Hannah Montana - Music Jam
  26. Ice Age 2
  27. JoJo's Fashion Show
  28. King Kong
  29. Kirby - Super Star (Ultra)
  30. Kirby - Squeak Squad
  31. Lego Batman
  32. Lego Indiana Jones - The Original Adventure
  33. Lego Star Wars II - The Original Trilogy
  34. Lego Star Wars II - The Original Trilogy
  35. Littlest Petshop - Jungle
  36. Luxor
  37. Madagascar
  38. Magician's Quest - Mysterious Times
  39. March of the Penguins
  40. Mario Kart DS (2 copies)
  41. Mario vs Donkey Kong (Gameboy)
  42. Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 - March of the Minis
  43. Mario & Luigi - Bowser's Inside Story (2 copies)
  44. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
  45. Mario Party DS
  46. M & M's Break'Em
  47. Mr Driller - Drill Spirits
  48. My baby girl
  49. My Sims
  50. My Sims - Kingdom
  51. Namco Museum DS (2 copies)
  52. Narnia
  53. New Super Mario Bros.
  54. Nintendogs
  55. Petz - Catz
  56. Petz - Dogz
  57. Petz Dogz Fashion
  58. Petz - Bunnyz
  59. Petz - Monkeyz House
  60. Polarium
  61. Pokémon - Diamond (2 copies)
  62. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon - Explorers of Sky
  63. Pokémon - Platinum (2 copies)
  64. Pokémon - Ranger
  65. Pokémon - Soul Silver
  66. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
  67. Professor Layton and the Mysterious Box
  68. Robots
  69. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution
  70. Snood 2
  71. Sudokuro
  72. Platinum Sudoku
  73. Polarium
  74. Sonic Advanced 3 (Gameboy)
  75. Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood
  76. Space Invaders Revolution
  77. Spyro Superpack (Gameboy)
  78. Star Fox Command
  79. Sudoku Ball Detective
  80. Super Mario 64 DS
  81. Super Monkey Ball - Touch and Roll
  82. Super Princess Peach DS
  83. Tetris DS
  84. The Bible (Gameboy)
  85. The Legendary Starfy
  86. The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass
  87. The Sims 2
  88. Tony Hawk's American Skate Land
  89. Tony Hawk - Proving Ground
  90. Sonic Rush
  91. Trauma Center - Under The Knife
  92. Viva Piňata - Pocket Paradise
  93. Whac-A-Mole
  94. World Championship Poker
  95. Yoshi's Island DS (2 copies)
  96. Yoshi - Touch and Go
  97. Zoey 101 (Gameboy)
  98. Zoo Tycoon
  99. Zoo Tycoon 2 (2 copies)

PC

  1. Command & Conquer - Generals
  2. Empire Earth
  3. Harry Potter - Prisoner of Azkaban
  4. Jet Fighter (IV and V)
  5. Lego Star Wars
  6. Lord of the Rings - Battle for Middle Earth
  7. Sims 2 - Bon Voyage
  8. Sims 2 Deluxe
  9. Sims 2 - Freetime
  10. Sims 2 Pets
  11. Star Craft
  12. The Incredibles

Contact me. Last updated March 15th 2010