10

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

• WiiU, Nintendo Switch
• 2017

• Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

The greatest game in quite a while couldn't really be anything other than a Zelda game. It should go without saying that The Legend of Zelda is my favourite video game series, and really I go where Zelda goes, so that means I'll always buy a Nintendo system eventually no matter what they come out with.

Being a blind fanboy of the series however, doesn't mean I'll take just about everything. I mean, I'll buy anything, but it could be that I won't happy in doing so. Like with Triforce Heroes, also known as the stain on the Zelda name, which I bought not on release day; but two days after. That'll teach Nintendo.

With that out of the way, Breath of the Wild had something to prove to my difficult-to-please person. Really, doing away with the traditional dungeon format, my favourite part of most Zelda games, and making the iconic green merely an in game reward instead of standard attire given to you by woodsmen, that's a tricky move.

9

SimCity 4

• Windows PC
• 2003

• Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

There are three games that should have kept time. Surely this is one of my three most played games. Would it be the winner? Probably not, at least not first place, second place could be. Those other two are still to come in the list though. I like to think the time I spent on this game approaches ten thousand hours. Surely it does.

Of course, I already played all the earlier SimCities before the release of this game, even the Super Nintendo one, and I liked them all. SimCity 3000 was my go-to game in the genre at this point, as I already described earlier in the list. SimCity 4 however, blew that away. It was superior in every way imaginable, and is still is superior to every city builder out there. There aren't many that tried though, and one almost succeeded; Cities Skylines. Great in it's own right, but it doesn't have "it". We won't talk about what came after SimCity 4 in its own series; SimCity 4 was the final game.

8

Mario Kart 64

• Nintendo 64
• 1997

• Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

Okay, so I get that objectively, the game is probably no longer the best Mario Kart game, and best racing game, ever made. I'll admit for this one game, that nostalgia, the cursed word, has a lot to do with the placement this ridiculously high on the list.

However, in this game's defence, it is great. The tracks are great and the game relied a little less on luck that more modern games in the series. Red and Blue Shells were avoidable for example, if you had the skill. The Blue Shell did run across the ground though instead of fly so it did also took out others before crashing into first place.

Anyway, who am I kidding really. This game symbolises family to me. Not casual friends and more distant relations, no, closest of family. Because this is what we played on those rare instances we were actually together. Drama was already happening at the time, but at some point, after a day where we were together and played Mario Kart 64, I never saw one part of family again, and other members have since passed away.

7

Anno 1602 (1602 AD.)

• Windows PC
• 1998

• Unguessed

Maybe this is the game I played most. I'm still assuming this one wouldn't be it, but it's probably at second place. I played this a ridiculous amount of hours. Most of it, was actually in multiplayer. As one of the few games a friend and I both want to play. As I talked about earlier, nowadays we're mostly into Anno 1800 and before that Anno 1404, a game which I took off the list this year.

However, as is the case with so many things, simpler is better. And this game, due to its age obviously, is quite simple for the genre. There's only a handful of goods and resources to manage and buildings to build, only one map to manage, so you keep a certain overview of things. And the way you can build and decorate your city isn't even that much more limited as it I in the newer games.

As a Dutchman, there's one more thing that draws you to a game like this. Anno 1602, though created by a German developer, is obviously based on the Dutch trading Empire of the 17th century. From the theme of spice trade, the building of trading posts, to the architecture of the buildings themselves, and to the the actual year '1602'; the year the Dutch East India Company was formed.

6

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2

• Windows PC
• 2002

• Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

This is probably the game I played most. Definitely over ten thousand hours. I made countless theme parks over the years, one bigger and more elaborate than the one before. I started shortly after it had released, having played the first in the series before, and while I probably haven't played in a good year, one can say I play it to this day.

The good thing is I even have every park I ever made somewhere. They're scattered across different hard-drives of different computers and backups in different houses and even a zip file on my Dropbox account, but if I want to, I can get to any park I ever made. Which is impressive if I say so myself.

Of course, playing something so much means at some point you actually get good. And I can say I got good. The game's isometric and is tile based with each tile being a whopping 3x3 meters in-game and with just 256 scenery pieces available in a map, there are limitations for sure, but still, in some way I was able to create anything I wanted. Not in the least in a believable, recognisable and aesthetically pleasing way. And that's the game's strength, a strength not many games have.