Games & High Scores

It seems as though the older I get the more I appreciate games where the main objective is to achieve a high score. There's something about trying to out perform your previous attempts that can make a fun game highly addictive.

My first experience with shooting for a high score comes from the days of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). The days when whole groups of socially inept gamers would learn how to interact with one another on Friday and Saturday nights at their local arcade. While it may not have been the golden age of arcade gaming like the 90's was with Street Fighter 2. We did have Soul Caliber, NFL Blitz, and DDR. In those days, waiting for your turn on the stage could take between ten and thirty minutes, you didn't really have a choice, but to socialize. And it wasn't difficult to find things in common with your DDR colleagues because we all had Poke'mon in our Game Boys and those Game Boys in your pocket.

Since the arcade scene has died and continues to decline, Xbox Live and the Playstation Network definitely pick up the slack with online leader boards. My recent score shooting addictions have traveled from the Geometry Wars titles to Pac-Man Championship Edition Deluxe and now the Crazy Taxi Dreamcast port.