read between the runs

i’ve been a big fan of video games since 2005 when i got a gameboy advance sp for christmas from my parents. i don’t know that i would fully consider myself a gamer, but i’ve been a heavy player of games for a very long time. it’s not my personality or anything, and i wouldn’t say that i spend an inordinate amount of time playing, especially at age 28, but in college that was all different.

now, when i say i am naming my favorite game on each console, i am taking a very loose definition of what a console is. i’m even going to be talking about consoles i didn’t own myself but played at friends’ houses just so i can name more games that i like. more or less, this is just an exercise in retrospection for me. i’m excited to dust off the memories and remember enjoyable games of yore!

one interesting trend i noticed while compiling this list was a love for several game franchises that persisted over generations of consoles. like logically i knew that there have been some games that have continually drawn my attention, love, and money over the years, but that wasn’t immediately as obvious as i would have anticipated. these include, in order of appearance below, pokemon, animal crossing, call of duty, minecraft, super mario bros, and mariokart. the original that i played is not often the first version introduced or that i played, but just the one i think i played the most. it was really fun to think about which edition of some of these games i had the most fun playing.

piggybacking off that, i was also interested to uncover that pretty much all of my favorite games listed below are very mainstream. few come from indie developers, but rather are IP of either the company designing the console itself (nintendo) or a major name in the gaming sphere (call of duty). perhaps this is because the games i preferred to play individually were just more popular because of who developed them and therefore marketed more heavily which meant more influential to undiscerning customers, whereas the games i played with others, though engrossing, i just couldn’t put the same love and hours into since their solo play was lacking or absent. my thoughts immediately stem towards couch co-op games in this vein, which it seems will need to be its own post in the not distant future!

but here is the list!

ps2- star wars battlefront ii

probably the first game that i had an obsession with, and one of those “cheat” responses where i didn’t actually own the console myself, but rather played over at the neighbor’s house. before playing this game, i had zero interest in star wars and thought it to be utterly stupid. however, in no small part to this game, i am a devout fan of star wars and love everything they do. i’d only play this game over at the neighbors, and we could literally play all day. the gameplay is pretty simple, but for some reason i was enamored with the worlds and got such a thrill from eliminating all 180 troopers on the other side, whether i turned into a hero or not. thinking about it now, there probably really wasn’t anything special about the game, but the nostalgia of one summer in the mid 2000’s can be quite strong i suppose.

gameboy advance sp- pokemon fire red

though i was later than most to the world of pokemon on gameboy, i was nonetheless one of the fans. and i really only got fire red because i don’t think i could find a copy of leaf green easily. honestly i think i may have first played this one on an emulator years after its release and loved it so much that i sought out a physical copy i could use since the emulator was being shut down. the love of this pokemon game spurred a love for several future pokemon purchases, each just as enjoyable as the last, but there really isn’t anything as special as your first!

gamecube- animal crossing

this is another where i didn’t actually own the console myself, but play thrived under friendship. and even then, i really probably didn’t play this version of the game much at all. i absolutely played it’s ds, wii, and switch successors far more, but this is where the love of the game developed. animal crossing is such a small, unassuming game that can soak up your time relatively effortlessly. before you know it, your quick trip to catch bugs and fish turns into three hours and 50,000 bells. one reason i think i was drawn to animal crossing was how it matched the seasons and time of day of the region you were in. that ensured that there were seasonal objectives to complete, transient fauna to chase, and special events on holidays. oh how i wish i could go back to the days where i had so little to complete aside from filling my museum and impressing my fellow residents with my home decorating acumen.

nintendo ds- mariokart ds

this is where i would say that my true love for mario games incepted. obviously i had the gameboy, but i didn’t play any mario games on it. heck, i may not have even known who mario was at the time. but as soon as i picked up mariokart, i was hooked! i played solo, getting all of the golden trophies and unlocking all the playable characters, and i played with friends. cue the frantic rush to try to get into the eight player race on the morning bus ride. what a freaking thrill those days were! every time i picked up mariokart, whether it was the ds edition or subsequent installments, i was hooked for weeks on end and it’s all i wanted to play. with the release of the switch two recently, the real only reason i would consider picking it up is so that i could play mariokart, which shows the depth of my love for the game.

xbox 360- call of duty: black ops 2

i don’t know how much of the online multiplayer i put into this version of call of duty, probably zero if i had to guess. that’s completely unlike each other iteration of cod that i played both before and after. however, this version was spent playing deep into the depths of night alongside good friends playing zombies. we were never good, we never got far, but boy did we have fun all sitting on the same couch together. i already had an affinity for cod, but this really solidified it all. future and past call of duty games caught my favor more, but i guess i really just didn’t play anything else on xbox 360 since i didn’t own it, and this was a convenient answer lol.

nintendo wii- new super mario bros

i had a lot of different options that came to mind for the wii since it was the first actual console that i had ever had. it could have been madden or 2k, but those were also just weird experiences on the wii. instead, i decided to go with something more classic, and a game that is another i have played across many nintendo systems: new super mario bros. i have loved each version of this game and have played almost each once since the ds version dropped. i went HARD on this game and completed almost every challenge aspect there was. i love how each world has different themes, the boo houses scattered throughout, varying powerups, and the absolute unit of a bowser required to defeat in order to beat the game in this version. probably one of the most difficult boss battles i have experienced in a game, and that does sound a little sad knowing that i’m talking about a mario game, but they really balled out on this one. always a great choice for playing with friends or alone, i think this was the pinnacle of mario bros to me. (unless they’re going to bring back the turtle shell powerup!)

ipod touch- clash of clans

obsessed. by the definition. for years. i had probably three distinct stints playing clash and each one was equally amazing. in high school at the tables for lunch we would strategize about clan wars and talk everything coc. to college where we were clan leaders and gallantly lead our members into battle and give freely to the poor. i spent so much money on gems i’m ashamed, but that game had me by the balls. it’s becoming redundant, but hours and hours and hours of playtime went into building out my base and strengthening our clan. and i wouldn’t trade a single hour of it to have been doing anything else. it brought me so close to friends despite distance and pandemics. we had endless amounts of information to share and receive when we had coc in our hands.

ipad- minecraft

this is where i request the most leniency. i absolutely played both clash of clans and minecraft on all my various iOS systems over the years, but i couldn’t choose just one! given just the pure volume of time i spent on both, it was inconceivable to leave one of these personality-defining behemoths off the list. as for minecraft, my play with david shimek in my basement on finite worlds was transformative and led to hours upon hours of gameplay across multiple consoles over the years. minecraft is easily the game that i have spent the most time playing in my life, and i would be a bit scared to try to quantify just how many hours i put into it. i love the balls out of minecraft. everything about the game was just pure joy for me, and i recall waiting for updates to drop so i could experience the game with newly added mobs and features. life was simple then, just as minecraft continues to be.

xbox one- wwe2k16

i could have gone with another call of duty game here, but in order to give more love to a wider array of games, i had to go with wwe 2k16. perhaps the weakest link here, i still really enjoyed playing wwe. all the match types and characters made for a full game with seemingly endless amounts of fun to be had. just jumping in as kofi kingston and trying to drop the boom on everyone i could stands out as a core memory of college, particularly asking diamond diggity dave if taylor and i could borrow his xbox.

nintendo switch-

though breath of the wild may have been the best game i played on the switch, i don’t think it was my favorite. of course there’s mariokart and pokemon and super mario bros and animal crossing entries, but i mentioned each of those already and in keeping a variety, i won’t restate them here once more. so instead, i think i’ll have to say that my favorite switch game is rocket league, which is a bit of a tough call. it’s easily the game i put the most time into, switch-wise, but hard to say that i would call it a plain favorite just based on gameplay. i did really love it, but i don’t feel the same joy and excitement from rocket league as i do with every other game on the list when i think about them now. it occupied lots of hours for me and i enjoyed them all, so it makes sense that i would choose rocket league here. every now and then i get a nice hankering to pick up the sticks and play, so maybe next time i have that inclination i’ll give in and remind myself of the joy i got from rocket league.

oculus- swarm

when i first played this, i was taken by surprise. i hadn’t really understood the hype behind VR gaming and immediately when i placed the headset over my eyes, i was engulfed. i truly felt so immersed that i actually felt like i was in the game. forgive the poor graphics and whatnot. i was in deep. within a week i had bought my own oculus and was playing swarm at my apartment alone, but it was glorious. of all consoles on this list, it is easily the one i have played the least, but as soon as we have more space, i’m going back to being a VR king. the style of gaming is so unique and i have enjoyed each game that i’ve played, especially swarm. there just isn’t a better feeling than flying around a world, linking to platforms and feeling like spiderman. just unreal stuff.

xbox series s- baldur’s gate 3

as the penultimate entry on the list, it makes sense to be my most recent obsession. before even getting 1/3 through my first playthrough, i began another one so i could realize more of the world a second time. i’m obviously still playing this game at this point, and just put in my first 100 hours. i wonder how that compares to each of the other games. but anyway, the reason for concurrent gameplays is because i’m doing one with my best friend, taylor, and another solo. despite it being the same game, the two playthroughs actually have a good bit of divergence which has kept things fun for me. the world is literally so open that i can do whatever i want, and the combat is not instant, but turn-based due to the game’s basis on dungeons and dragons, a game i had (somewhat) recently become obsessed with listening to podcasts of. an absolutely worthy successor of game obsessions if you ask me.

desktop- sims four

i wasn’t super sure where to place this within the bounds of the list because desktop games have been around the longest, but also it wasn’t the first game that i played. it’s not the most recent game i have played either, but i wouldn’t know where to place it relative to the other games on the list so it felt easy to just make it last. for this position, i considered some of the first games i would have ever seen/played at daycare or things i played at my grandparents like club penguin. however, i ended up going with the game that i have had multiple addictions to across my time on computers, and that is none other than sims four. to me, the sims is a game best experienced sitting in a room with friends all day where each of you are all playing your own version of the sims separately but are narrating all the major events that happen to you so it’s like everyone is in the same world. i love the versatility of the sims, and i do genuinely think about it in day to day life somewhat often. heck, it was one of the first reddit communities that i joined when i made an account. all this to say, sims four rocks!

honorable mentions

-lego star wars (in all forms)

-nba 2k

-random old desktop games: chicken invaders, brick breaker, raft wars, exit path, gutterball, youda camper, whizzball, mightguy, paradise paintball and just miniclip/funbrain in general

through all the games i have played in the past, i am sure that my “heavy” gaming days are over, but i am excited for whatever new games are put on my path. i am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to play so many great games and live in a time when games are being developed with a speed that means i will literally never not have anything to play. both having friends with and owning consoles to play games on has been such a great experience and will continue to be.

do great; be happy