Humping virtual dogs, public assassination and agressive feathered-warriors... how did these games do so well?

10. Nintendogs

A game where you can pet, train, walk, brush and wash a dog.  But not just any dog, one of three different dogs!  If you train it well enough you may even gain the prestige of becoming a “championship” trainer - come on, who would seriously turn their game console into a chore? Well, on March 23, 2006, Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata announced that international sales of Nintendogs had reached 6 million.  Imagine how many have been sold by now?  Bone-chilling, I know, but Nintendogs has succeeding in bringing in an audience much wider than the typical gamer.  Maybe it’s my fear of dogs that makes this seem unexpected; either that or it’s just a weird concept for a video game, you can decide.

9. Grand Theft Auto 3

I had the first two releases of this franchise for the Playstation and, if I'm being honest, they weren’t exactly outstanding. So thank heavens for the revolutionary Playstation 2 and the release of Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001, bringing the game to life by changing to compelling 3D gameplay with intriguing storylines, great characters and a mini-map - a simple inclusion which meant that you could locate your character, instead of having to wander round aimlessly for hours. Before the release of GTA 3, the franchise looked certain to follow the path of so many other average titles before it, evaporating into the unknown and becoming just another distant memory of gaming-folklore. However, when Rockstar development were brought on board back in 2000 the franchise was reborn - shedding itself of its two-dimensional past for the glitz and glamour of the PlayStation 2 - before establishing itself as the must-have game of 2001. Since 2001, the franchise has welcomed a host of sequels - including GTA Vice City and GTA IV - the sales of which have taken the total sales of the games to well over 100 million... not bad for a once 'doomed' title.

8. Solitaire

I know what you’re thinking: why is Solitaire in a list about video games?  But in reality the solitaire game, which comes as standard with any windows computer, has at some point or other sucked anyone who has owned a P.C. into addiction.  What inevitably started as simply another add-on to the Windows accessory bar, has now been cited by a Windows employee as being the "most used application in the entire operating system".  Fair enough, Windows have jazzed up the gaming options in recent times - now offering us the likes of 3D Pinball and Bejeweled - but given the choice you know which game you will commonly turned to when you’re bored. It's funny really, I doubt anyone at Windows would have predicted the game's popularity or the nuisance it would cause employers around the globe.

7. Mortal Kombat

The success of Mortal Kombat - which began life in the arcade room - was made tougher with the presence of Street Fighter, already a mainstream success.  Throw in Virtua Fighter and Tekken, which would follow soon after and then it suddenly seems like a very tough market to win over.  At the time, Virtua Fighter was considered a revolution upon its release with 3D graphics that had not yet been used in the genre, so you could understand if people expected Mortal Kombat to fade into the background.  However, after 28 years and a dozen different releases, Mortal Kombat has clearly shown its might (see what I did there?).  The series even produced two films and a number of television programs and, with another game due for release in April, it is clear Mortal Kombat is now the king of the fighting genre.

6. Football Manager

Now for a game series that seems to have the ability to usurp people's brains.  The Football Manager series died out in 1993 and over the next 12 years it would be Championship Manager that was to become the most recognised game of the genre. So, imagine the surprise when the aforementioned revived after a dispute of naming rights for “champ man”.  Ironically, Football Manager 2005 was a major success and has dwarfed its rival since.  I can vouch for this as my writing of this article has been heavily slowed down trying to take Exeter City to glory in the 2011 edition of the series.  The game has become so popular that it was even the subject of an article on the CNN website, which discussed Football Manager's role in destroying exam results, general hygiene and even marriages. In hindsight, I’m sure ‘Sports Interactive’ are somewhat pleased they lost the rights for Championship Manager as they have left it for dead in terms of popularity and cult following.

5. Angry Birds

Mobile phone gaming has started to come into its own in the past couple of years, and no game makes this more evident than Angry Birds.  My original understanding of mobile phone gaming was low quality versions of console games, along with arcade games that don’t require a lot of power in terms of graphics and gameplay.  In essence, Angry Birds isn’t a ground-breaking concept - using a slingshot to fire birds at pigs (not exactly an intellectual parallel to Tetris) - but mind-blowing sales from Apple’s App store have led to the game being adapted for consoles and personal computers; leading to an estimated 50 million downloads across them all.

4. Goldeneye

Released on the Nintendo 64, the game followed in the first-person shooting footsteps of games like Doom and Quake. As a precedent, games born out of television series and films often result in poorly-made adaptations with questionable gameplay (if you don’t agree with me, play the ‘Lost’ game), but Goldeneye was certainly not a victim of this, with revolutionary introductions to the genre that have become regular features in most shooting games since. Goldeneye was the first game to introduce the split-screen multiplayer mode, and has also been credited with the zooming sniper shot, a move which could have resulted in the game being poorly received by gamers who otherwise had seemed content with their older formats.  However, the game is now renowned as a classic and constantly finds itself a member of shortlists for being one of the greatest games of all time.

3. Lego

You could be forgiven for completely overlooking the concept of Lego the video game; such is the long-standing popularity of Lego building blocks.  But you may also be surprised (I certainly was) to know that since the release of Lego Island in 1997, Lego games have sold at least 50 million copies!  Do you know anyone that owns a Lego video game?  I don’t.  That figure is definitely helped by the fact that many of the franchised Lego releases - titles such as Lego Harry Potter, Lego Soccer Mania and Lego Indiana Jones - have somehow been successful in a market that already contains official releases from these series.  Maybe there is just a Lego game equivalent for everything.

2. Tetris

Versions of Tetris were sold throughout the 1980s, but it was not until Nintendo got their hands on it that it began to establish itself as one of the most popular games ever created. The game itself is built around the use of tetrominoes - four special cased elements of polyominoes (eh?) - but thankfully a profound understanding of the intricate workings of Tetris is not required to enjoy it (but give yourself a pat on the back if you noticed Tetris and tetrominoes sound similar). Tetris has been cited as having a positive effect on a person’s brain activity while being played, and is a timeless classic that is sure to be released on many platforms for years to come. Not bad for a game created in a Russian science lab.

1. Pong

Such a quaint and simple game in comparison to the mammoth scale of modern equivalents, Pong began life as one of the world's earliest arcade games, and was the first of its kind to gain mainstream popularity, effectively spawning the video game industry.  Although it arguably would have happened eventually with another game, it is Pong that can claim to have got the ball rolling.  Atari developed a home version of the game, which attached to the television, sparking a wave of copying companies with their own versions (including a certain Nintendo).   If it wasn’t for the development of Home Pong, there is a good chance the home games console would not be such a common concept today.  So well done Pong!  So for going from an arcade favourite to the catalyst of a global revolution, Pong is more than worthy of its place at number one in this list.

See also:

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Review

Goldeneye: Tanks for the memories

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE HELP SUPPORT OUR SITE, AT NO COST WITH ONE CLICK ON THE FACEBOOK 'LIKE' BUTTON BELOW: