What are Will Wright's Top Five Games?

by Justin McElroy { Sep 10th 2008 at 8:20AM }

Maybe it's the High Fidelity fan in us, but we love top five lists. They're easy to read, don't tax our brains with too much complexity and most importantly, don't require too much of our precious, precious time. And if you are going to take those moments out of your day, shouldn't it be on a worthwhile list? Say ... on the Top Five Favorite Games of World's Smartest Game Designer Will Wright? Behold!

5. The Civilization series
4. Grand Theft Auto series
3. Battlefield series
2. Advance Wars on the DS
1. The Flight Simulator series

So, are you surprised? Will Wright is, apparently, a total nerd. You know what just got left off at number six? Tri-Dimensional Chess. True story.

[Thanks, Pugnate]

Tags: maxis, spore, will-wright

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ayrkain @ Sep 10th 2008 8:28AM

Yay Advance Wars!

Dan @ Sep 10th 2008 10:06AM

He'll never look as cool as house... no matter how much he tries

Jack of No Trades 85 @ Sep 10th 2008 8:31AM

Im very suprised he didn't pick any of his own games.

aj @ Sep 10th 2008 9:09AM

Well, would YOU pick "SimAnt" as one of your top five games of all time?

FSK405K @ Sep 10th 2008 11:06AM

Cool, haven't even thought about it in awhile, but ya, loved me some SimAnt in the day. Top 5? Questionable. Top 10? It's a contender.

Robotochan @ Sep 10th 2008 8:41AM

Now all he has to do is make a game as good as any of them!

ExMcloud @ Sep 10th 2008 8:52AM

Flight simulator? Really?

FOXHOUND @ Sep 10th 2008 8:54AM

I should be surprised by GTA... but ehh.

SoloReX @ Sep 10th 2008 11:45AM

Yeah.. technically it's not even a game is it? It's more like a... well, a simulator.
Anyhow, yay for Advance Wars.

BigD145 @ Sep 10th 2008 1:54PM

Yes. Flight Sim games tend to be the best at getting a user to think in more than two dimensions.

Tez (PSN: Tezasaurus) @ Sep 10th 2008 9:03AM

Battlefield kicks ass, but I must say I wasn't expecting it to be in Wright's top 5. Interesting.

Superstar90 @ Sep 10th 2008 9:14AM

ADVANCE WARS! Best 2 DS games evar!

Veko @ Sep 10th 2008 9:21AM

Damn you Civilization, damn you for being so addictive and time consuming.

Besides the Flight Simulator series (never was able to get into it) I agree with his list.

SHAZAM! @ Sep 10th 2008 9:27AM

That's an odd mix of genres, rather surprising.

Sinister Rouge @ Sep 10th 2008 9:34AM

Flight Simulator? What the FUCK. If you swap FS for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, that's not a bad list at all

Fernando Rocker @ Sep 10th 2008 9:37AM

Advance Wars... very good series.

Anam @ Sep 10th 2008 9:39AM

Will Wright likes Grand Theft Auto? That is so fitting and yet odd at the same time. I guess it makes sense, given GTA's open world could appeal to him, but... this is Mr. E for Everyone himself!

Randy @ Sep 10th 2008 9:50AM

The man clearly has taste.

So kids: the next time you try to put down GTA, just remember that you're a dumbass.

Foetoid @ Sep 10th 2008 10:23AM

The man clearly has no taste. Until GTAIV, the 3d iterations of GTA were a snoozefest of epic proportions. They looked and played so poorly im suprised anyone has the patience to play it more than a few hours (yes i've finished them all, hoping they'd get better as the game went on, they didn't). It wasn't until Saints Row and GTAIV did i start to enjoy the genre. I'm not at all a graphics whore (Wii FTW!) but i found that the 'crime' genre of game becomes 10000x more playable in HD.

FSK405K @ Sep 10th 2008 11:08AM

Yes, but other than Oblivion and MUDs, in what game can you tool around and do whatevertheFyouwant? On a console....?

tmacairjordan87 @ Sep 10th 2008 3:14PM

Foetoid has it backwards. Until 4, the 3D GTA's were all FUN. They didn't comprise of only 2 different missions, and had lots of wacky shit to do in them. I know I know...watching TV and surfing the internet in a game is soooo fun (hint: sarcasm), but I'll take fighter jets and jetpacks and base jumping over those.

FailedNinja @ Sep 10th 2008 10:00AM

I'm actually a bit surprised by Advance Wars. The other 4 games have a huge amount of freedom and flexibility given to the player, which Will Wright has always tried to incorporate into his games.

juju187 @ Sep 10th 2008 10:41AM

i must be a nerd too, i like all of the list beside FS... Ace combat FTW

j.howlett @ Sep 10th 2008 10:44AM

gta series would be in my top 5 with san andreas leading. this is a perfect post for list but i don't want to fight my brain right now.

Haggard (Free Mr.ESC!) @ Sep 10th 2008 10:56AM

I guess from his comment about not wanting his games to be like Half-Life he's not a fan of Valve...

Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

FSK405K @ Sep 10th 2008 11:10AM

Compare this to Top 5 of EA CEO John Riccitiello:

5 Mass Effect (for the DRM)
4 Bioshock (for the DRM)
3 Sims series (it prints money)
2 Spore (for the DRM)
1 Madden series (stupid is as stupid does = print money)

In case you were an idiot, yes, I just made up this list.

stoik @ Sep 10th 2008 11:12AM

Wow. I expected to at least see Transport Tycoon or RollerCoaster Tycoon. He must hate Christ Sawyer.

FSK405K @ Sep 10th 2008 12:24PM

Ya, Chris's games suck. They're Wright-wannabes.

Roln @ Sep 10th 2008 1:16PM

No zelda? Lol he sucks.

Shagittarius @ Sep 10th 2008 1:41PM

Its really strange to see Advance Wars up there on his list since its simply a clone of a myriad of turn based strategy computer games, and the rest of his list is filled with PC games.

Weird, I wonder if he never got into the turn based strategy war games until advance wars?

Shagittarius @ Sep 10th 2008 1:45PM

For those of you who might ask what games is it a clone of check out Battle Isle 2200 (Battle Isle 2), which was released in 1994. Advance Wars is pratically a clone of this game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Isle

Then after that do yourself a favor and find a copy of Incubation as well. 2 very awesome older games.

Fernando Rocker @ Sep 10th 2008 2:23PM

1994?

Nintendo has been doing Wars series since 1988, with Famicom Wars. Is a turn bases militar game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Wars

Fernando Rocker @ Sep 10th 2008 2:25PM

Even some of the maps in the first Famicom Wars were included in Advance Wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_Wars

Shagittarius @ Sep 10th 2008 2:48PM

The original battle isles was out in '91. However even so that series was based on countless other TBS games from SSi and others long before Nintendo ever made a Wars game.

Those were all actually based on traditional Hex based table top games so none of them are innovators. I just thought since Will was such a PC guy he would have chosen an equally credible PC TBS game to mention.