These aren't the pirates you're looking for...

A while back, Dr Heimlich beat me to posting about this cool video game reviewer (damn you!!!). While it's a cool site, one of the reviews is about Psychonauts, a little known X-Box game from Doublefine Productions. Doublefine is staffed by the best game developers that Lucasarts let go a number of years ago. They were the one's that created such masterpieces as Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle. These were, arguably, the best games Lucasarts ever developed (OK, there are a few Star Wars games - but more often than not, Lucas arts released pure crap hoping it would do well because it was a Star Wars game. Super Bombad Racing anyone?).

Anyway, it made me think about a list of my Top 10 favorite video games of all time. So here we go:

• 10) Galaga - It wouldn't be a complete list if there wasn't at least one arcade game - and this one is easily my favorite.
• 9) Doom - Not that great now, but it helped start the FPS genre. To clarify I'm talking about the original, not Doom 3.
• 8) Zork I - Some of my best gaming memories are of sitting in front of our AT&T computer playing this text based adventure - Good times, good times.
  
• 7) Wing Commander - Actually I loved this whole series. We were blown away when you could get the Speech Pack for WC II - No more reading while flying!! Total crap movie, but great game series, Mark Hamill in full motion video and all!
• 6) Half-Life - This game took FPS gaming to the next level. Impressive graphics, intelligent enemies and a spiffy new physics engine (I know Drheimlich, I know), made this an amazing experience.
• 5) Sam & Max: Hit the Road - One of the most amusing games I've played. The twisted humor made this a winner for me. It even made me play it multiple times - even though I knew the solutions to everything.
• 4) X-wing - This was the first time you could actually fly an X-wing (plus all the other fighters from the movies). The story of the game covered stealing the Death Star Plans to the all out assault of it. I almost peed myself the first time I flew against Darth Vader.
• 3) Psychonauts - This quirky game has the same humor as Sam & Max and Monkey Island, but in a platforming game. The gameplay was fun, but it was the characters, storyline and setting that truly makes this game a favorite.
• 2) Starcraft - One of the few RTS games that I can still sit and play with friends for hours. Plus, I'm not the only one - the game has sold over 10 million copies, not bad for a game that's almost 9 years old.
• 1) The Monkey Island Series - I know that this is actually 4 games, but it's my list dammit. These games are the best games that Lucasarts had to offer. Good old Guybrush Threepwood and his nemesis Le Chuck kept me up many a night. Pirates, interesting puzzles, pirates and some of the funniest moments I've ever had while gaming easily make this number one. Insult Sword fighting anyone?
  

Runners Up:
Myst, Full Throttle, Counter Strike and Okami.

So there you have it, not that anyone really cares. Still, it was fun going back down memory lane. I have to wonder how many cumulative hours I've wasted sitting in front of a monitor or TV.

On second thought I don't think I want to know...