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The Top Ten Best Boring Games

Posted by: Alex | From: February 22, 2005

For a while now, I've been obsessing over how a game can be both great and boring at the same time. I've compiled a list of what I consider to be the best boring games of the last few generations. Before anyone starts hollering at me about how awesome all these games are, let me offer up this disclaimer:

With one exception, I love every game on this list and consider them all (except one or maybe two) to be must-have games.

OKAY! Disclaimer over, here we go!

10. Harvest Moon -- Pretty much every console

Harvest Moon is a massively popular farming simulator from Japan that's enjoyed a modest level of success over here in the states. Each game's storyline is slightly different, but they mostly deal with your character (a city boy) inheriting a farm from a distant relative and moving to the country to start your new life as a hayseed.

Most of the game involves doing chores around your farm. You have to till, plant, water, clean, feed and pet your animals, ride your horse, harvest your crops, and sell them to the crop buyer. The rest of the game details your day-to-day relationships with local citizens and trying to woo the girls in town. Eventually, one or all of them will be smitten with you and you can have yourselves a nice little country weddin'.

Harvest Moon sounds a lot more tedious than it actually is, but it's just boring enough to warrant the number 10 spot.

9. The Sims -- PC/Mac, Consoles

If you're one of the three people alive who hasn't heard of this, the #1 top selling PC videogame of all time, I'll give you the cliff's notes version. In The Sims, you control an avatar of 'yourself' and dote on their every need. If your character has to eat, you make them eat. If they has to go to the bathroom, you send them to the toilet. You also have to manage their interpersonal relationships, job skills, and finances -- and then spend that money on weight benches, games, tv sets, hot tubs, and pool tables.

The Sims was insanely addicting for about two weeks and then suddenly turned into an enormous snore. Not only is it boring, but it's DEMANDING as well. My Sim would constantly whine and holler about how bored he was, when he was sitting in a house full of the toys I bought him. Maybe The Sims isn't really a game, but instead a clandestine plot to train people to be parents.

8. Animal Crossing -- Nintendo GameCube

Animal Crossing is basically Nintendo's answer to Harvest Moon. The first (and perhaps only) game in their 'Communication game genre', Animal Crossing has you arriving as the newest resident of a town full of animals. Most of the game has you meandering around town talking to all the animals, running errands for them, doing chores, sending them letters and the like. If you have up to three friends, roommates, or siblings, they can move into the town and interact with you and the animals as well. One of the best parts about this is the animals will gossip to you about your friends, proving that art really does imitate life.

The rest of the game involves making money from selling fruit, fish, and artifacts which enables you to upgrade your house and purchase furniture/items to collect. In true Nintendo style, there is a robust collection game packaged at the heart of Animal Crossing. You can even collect and play classic NES games (most of which you find buried in the ground, which would more than likely ruin a Super Mario Brothers cart, but whatever.)

Animal Crossing is acutely addicting, adorable, fun, and very, very boring!

7. Diablo -- PC/Mac

If you like plundering lots and lots and lots dungeons full of skeletons and treasure, then Diablo is your type of game!

Blizzard took the basic Diablo formula, applied it to the MMORPG genre, and spit out World of Warcraft -- which is very much NOT boring and is the best in the genre. But if you want a real snoozefest of a fun game, or you don't want to deal with a world full of hooligans, you can't go wrong with Diablo.

6. Sim City -- PC/Mac

You are the city planner of a burgeoning town, and you zone, build, and micromanage to your heart's content. Is it fun? Absolutely! is it boring? HOO NELLY YES. Granted, it takes a little while to reach critical mass of boring, but once that happens...
ENORMOUS SNORE, and no words of caution from your city advisors can remedy the situation. I think the game designers were fully aware of the boring nature of their game -- and for that reason and that reason only added the "disaster feature." Yes, you can unleash nature's fury (or Godzilla's fury, or Aliens' Fury) on your poor hapless city and exact some sweet revenge on the stolen hours of your gaming existence.

5. Every Resident Evil Game Until Resident Evil 4 -- Various Consoles

Until Capcom tore Resident Evil a new one and completely re-invented the series with RE4, Resident Evil was the best boring game series in game history.

Resident Evil is mostly a bunch of cat scares and cinematics amid fetching quests, backtracking, and horrible (hilarious!) voice acting. I don't understand how they were consistently able to pull the rabbit out of the hat each time and deliver a fantastic game, but Capcom did. There are a fair amount of exciting MOMENTS in Resident Evil, but they are drowned out by the fetching and the running and the finding.

Resident Evil 4, however, is not boring in the slightest and should be played right now.

4. Donkey Kong 64 -- Nintendo 64

Oh god, so many bananas. Not only do you have to collect them as Donkey Kong himself, this time you get to collect them with Diddy Kong, Tiny Kong, Lanky Kong, Chunky Kong, and Lorenzo Llamas. The sheer number of bananas that I had to collect for this game actually made me hate bananas for a period of time. It's also easily the most phoned-in Rare game in their history -- but since Rare is incapable of making a NON-FUN game, it is well deserving of the number four spot on this list.

3. Final Fantasy X -- Playstation 2

Why did I pick Final Fantasy X over any of the other final fantasy games? One word: BLITZBALL! Oh, the horrible, awful, no-good, very bad Blitzball. I nearly quit the game, shaking my fist, forever scarred by the travesty that is Blitzball. The extreme length of the maze quests and the cut-scenes contributed, but they absolutely pale in comparison to Blitzball. I really hate Blitzball.

For those of you who haven't played Final Fantasy X, Blitzball is a mini-game within the main game. One of the main characters of the game is a BLITZBALL CHAMPION, and you have to play a few games to progress in the storyline. Blitzball is a stadium sport that combines Water Polo, Soccer and a Root Canal together in a train-wreck of a mixture that brings Final Fantasy X to a screeching and abrupt halt. Once you're done with the mini-game, and Blitzball is nothing more than a distant memory, the game is suddenly fun once again.

2. Shenmue -- Sega Dreamcast, Xbox

Shenmue is the only game on this list that I actually don't like. However, its considerable scope and ambition make it far deserving of the number 2 spot on this list.

You are Ryu Hazaki, and you have to adventure your way across Japan and China on a quest to find the man who killed your father. You also have to have about three hundred thousand repetitive and banal conversations, dodge soccer-balls, fight (it uses the virtua-fighter engine, and there actually is a decent fighting game hiding within the boring adventure game), buy candy and cans of soda and coffee, decide if you "wanna wrestle", find out where you can find some sailors, and additionally find out that sailors, in fact, hang out in bars. You also learn to drive a fork-lift. Shenmue is the only game I've ever played that literally put me to sleep. No kidding. Fell asleep with the controller in my hand.

1. Metal Gear Solid II: Sons of Liberty -- Playstation 2

How can a four star, triple A, one-of-the-best-games-ever be so mind-blowingly boring? Only if it's called Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Hideo Kojima sure can make a fine game with some the most amazing cinematics in game history -- and he sure can BORE IT UP with hours of mind-numbing codec conversations between Solid Snake and his talk-talky-talky companions. I mean seriously, once you slag through nearly 30 minutes in one back-and-forth text conversation, you're ready to throw your PS2 out the nearest window -- especially when said 30 minute codec conversation immediately precedes the final boss in the game!

The rest of the game more than makes up for it though, as it is one of the best stealth action games ever made.

There you have it! If any of you have any favorite boring games, add them to the comments section.

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