Video Games
XBOX 360
 Nintendo Wii
 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.

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
Wii Fit
 Wii
My Sims
 Wii
BioShock
 360
Halo 3
 360
Viva Piňata - Trouble in Paradise 360
Field Commander
 PSP
Kirby Super Star Ultra
 DS
Yoshi's Island DS
 DS
My Sims
 DS
Command and Conquer Generals PC
The Sims 2 Deluxe
 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. Cars
  6. Command & Conquer - Tiberium Wars
  7. Halo 3
  8. Kameo
  9. Lord of the Rings - Battle For Middle Earth II
  10. Madden NFL Football 2006
  11. Madden NFL Football 2007
  12. Major League Baseball 2K6
  13. NBA Live '06
  14. NHL 2K6
  15. Ridge Racer 6
  16. Rockstar Table Tennis
  17. Perfect Dark Zero
  18. Project Gotham Racing 3
  19. Sonic the hedgehog
  20. Star Trek Legacy
  21. The Outfit
  22. Top Spin 2
  23. Tomb Raider Anniversary
  24. Tomb Raider - Legend
  25. Viva Piňata
  26. Viva Piňata Party Animals
  27. Viva Piňata - Trouble in Paradise
  28. XBOX 360 Arcade

Nintendo Wii

  1. Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock
  2. Mario Kart Wii
  3. My Sims
  4. Rayman Raving Rabbids
  5. Puppy Luv
  6. Sonic and the Secret Rings
  7. Sonic Riders - Zero Gravity
  8. Super Mario Galaxy
  9. Super Smash Brothers Brawl
  10. The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess
  11. Wario Ware - Smooth Moves
  12. Wii Fit
  13. Wii Play
  14. Wii Sports
  15. Zack & Wiki - Search for Barbaro's Treasure

Sony Play Station Portable (PSP)

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

Nintendo Game Cube

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

Nintendo DS

  1. Animal Crossing (3 copies)
  2. Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
  3. Assassin's Creed - Altair's Chronicles
  4. Big Brain Academy
  5. Brain Age
  6. Brain Busters
  7. Cars
  8. Catz
  9. Deal or no deal
  10. Digout - Digging Strike
  11. Dogz
  12. Eco-creatures - save the forest
  13. Ford Racing 3
  14. Frogger
  15. Golden Nugget Casino
  16. Ice Age 2
  17. King Kong
  18. Kirby - Super Star (Ultra)
  19. Kirby - Squeak Squad
  20. Lego Star Wars II
  21. Madagascar
  22. March of the Penguins
  23. Mario Kart DS (2 copies)
  24. Mario vs Donkey Kong (Gameboy)
  25. Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 - March of the Minis
  26. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
  27. Mario Party DS
  28. M & M's Break'Em
  29. Mr Driller - Drill Spirits
  30. My Sims
  31. Namco Museum DS (2 copies)
  32. Narnia
  33. New Super Mario Bros.
  34. Nintendogs
  35. Petz - Bunnyz
  36. Polarium
  37. Robots
  38. Snood 2
  39. Sudokuro
  40. Platinum Sudoku
  41. Polarium
  42. Sonic Advanced 3 (Gameboy)
  43. Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood
  44. Space Invaders Revolution
  45. Spyro Superpack (Gameboy)
  46. Star Fox Command
  47. Super Mario 64 DS
  48. Super Monkey Ball - Touch and Roll
  49. Super Princess Peach DS
  50. Tetris DS
  51. The Bible (Gameboy)
  52. The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass
  53. The Sims 2
  54. Sonic Rush
  55. Trauma Center - Under The Knife
  56. Viva Piňata - Pocket Paradise
  57. Whac-A-Mole
  58. World Championship Poker
  59. Yoshi's Island DS (2 copies)
  60. Yoshi - Touch and Go
  61. Zoey 101 (Gameboy)
  62. Zoo Tycoon
  63. 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 November 17th 2008