Imagine yourself stranded on a tiny salty island of the Pacific with nobody to talk to, no access to the Internet, no way to communicate with the rest of mankind, no pizza delivery, nothing but a super-computer-console emulator thingy that could play each and every game ever. Now, imagine you weren’t an anti-social sociopath. Wouldn’t that be dreadful? Of course it would. You’d hate the place.

Anyway. Having established the setting, would you now be so kind and imagine you were foresighted enough to have brought ten of your dearest games with you so as to, you know, sort of ease the pain of boredom? Great! What would them games be? Too shy to speak, huh? Well, suit yourself dear reader, but here are my Desert Island Disks (CDs/DVDs too), all selected for their endurance.

Sid Meier’s Civilization IV

Not as groundbreaking as its esteemed grandfather, I’ll give you that, but definitely the pinnacle of the ever-evolving Civ series and a game I believe I could play forever. Well, almost. Still, trying to beat it at the toughest setting, experimenting with a variety of tactics, playing the tons of available scenarios (random or not), reflecting on human progress and living out megalomaniac fantasies should be both highly enjoyable and appropriately time consuming. Even in solitude and without multiplayer. Then, should the rescuers really take their time, there’s the excellent editor/modding tools to get creative with.

Elite Plus

Elite was huge, brilliant and a smash hit that all but dominated the home computing scene. It sported gazillions of planets to visit and/or exploit, the option to play anything from a space-pirate to a bounty hounter to a lawful trader and more importantly provided with some rare opportunities at daydreaming. Shockingly, this amazing space-sim-opera of a game hasn’t aged a day. Well, ok, a day. Elite Plus updated the graphics to glorious 16-bit quality and is thus the marginally better game.

Day of the Tentacle

Adventures, most probably my favorite genre, are unfortunately ill-suited for the desert island environment, what with their total lack of replayability. A shame, for Monkey Island would have been so appropriate. Thankfully, though, it’s been over 10 years since I last touched Day of the Tentacle and I’m bound to have forgotten most of the puzzles. Besides, there’s the full version of Maniac Mansion -one of the few Lucasarts games I have never finished- included as a game within a game. Oh, and as far as adventure games go, this is one of the best. Tim Schafer designed it you know.

Football Manager (any version)

Unless you have actually played Football Manager (or Championship Manager as they used to call it before them corporate people got it all mixed up) you just can’t understand the sheer brilliance of this coach/manager sim. It’s the only game that, while being as utterly realistic as it is, can keep you up till 6 o’ clock in the morning chain-smoking yourself to the next division. Or the Championship League finals. If you love football, you’ll love FM. I for one definitely do.

TES IV: Oblivion

This massive first person CRPG that might be slightly shorter than its predecessor, but also manages to offer a more focused story, better graphics, improved AI, more elaborate side-quests and a way more believable world, would be my RPG of choice for the island. Not that it’s so much better than KOTOR or Fallout 2, mind you. It’s just that I’m such a lover of huge fully 3D worlds I can’t resist it. Besides, I usually treat it as a virtual DM and feel like doing some proper role-playing.

…… Stay tuned for Part Two …… Well, here it is!

Posted on January 11th, 2008 by konstantinos