Video Game Power Rankings #18

I’m back at it after a week off, so this week’s rankings will encompass news from the past two weeks.

1. (3) Halo: Reach – We have to start off here because Halo: Reach is everywhere. It’s on the TV, it’s all over the major sites and of course this little Halo fanboy here has it on the brain, too. It also sold rather well.

2. (-) Minecraft – I don’t know where I heard about it first (I believe it was the Gamers with Jobs podcast, but I could be mistaken) but this game has rocketed to the forefront of the gamer zeitgeist. My interest level has saturated, and after seeing it was offered on the Mac, I will be giving it a try this week. Check out RPS excellent “Mine the Gap” realt-time review of the game.

3. (-) Zombies – You’re semi-weekly new Zombie Game, Dead Meets Lead. This addresses an under represented era in the Zombie genre — the 18th century.

4. (4) Dead Rising: Case 0 – Nat mentioned it earlier, but this game brought me back into the “excited about Dead Rising 2” fold. Also: it sold a lot of copies, which has spurred the announcement of a epilogue XBLA title, as well.

5. (-) Lord of the Rings Online – LOTRO is the latest MMORPG to go Free to Play. I think it’s safe to say that we’re at the point where any non-Blizzard MMO is going to be F2P. I would still pay for World of Diablo or World of Starcraft.

6. (-) PSP 2 – Is there a PSP2 in the wild? Does it have two analog sticks?

7. (-) Civilization V – I’m not a Civ guy myself, as I just played it for the first time a couple weeks ago (Civ IV) but I know many people are Civ junkies, so with its release this week, I’m sure people were clamoring for any review of any kind. Of course, no surprise, the game is really good.

8. (-) Gamers are smart – “Study suggests that video games could be training tool for quicker reactions.” Of course, you already knew gamers were smart.

9. (-) APB – APB will be known as the shortest-lived MMO.