10 Most Addicting Games

If you come home to hear obscenities, racial slurs, and sexist remarks being yelled from your basement, either you are in an abusive relationship or there’s a Call of Duty addict in your house. Each successive Call of Duty game has become more and more addictive, integrating more RPG elements into its shooter formula. Now, it is not strange to find people getting home from work or school and literally doing nothing but play this game before they go to bed. Whether they are just trying to get another level, a new gun, or a pro perk, it doesn’t matter. Call of Duty keeps you playing and that's why it's on this list of the 10 Most Addicting Games.

When you were young, you were likely introduced to these awesome things called “computers.” They were like gaming consoles except they could do all sorts of things, like let you draw with a mouse, talk with others over the internet, and most importantly play Solitaire. If you lived near a computer store you would head in and simply bask in the wonder that was virtual cards. If you were lucky enough to own a computer in the early days of computing, this was the biggest addiction your brand new rig with 24 MB of ram could offer. You can still find everyone from stay at home moms to bored cubicle workers playing Solitaire to this day.

Pac-Man is incredibly addicting. That’s where the term Pac-Man Fever came from! Any game that got a concept album named after it has to be hard to quit. Pac-Man was the original arcade smash, and kids from all over would pump quarter after quarter into the machine, just trying to beat their high score. The game was devious, because it never ended. It just challenged players to play more, and more, and more, and inch their way up the high score screen. From Ms. Pac-Man to Pac-Man Championship Edition, we can't enough of our dot-eating heroes.

Sim City was another one of those devious addicting games that never really had a goal. They simply gave you a sandbox and limited resources and asked you to go at it. Want to build your ultimate dream city? Go for it. Want to smash your city to bits with horrible monsters from outer space? You can do that too. Heck, Sim City was addicting before the game even started! The terrain editor alone could keep you at your PC for hours, crafting out the perfect plot for your soon to be growing metropolis.

Match 3 games are quite common, but no body does them better than Bejeweled. This simple franchise has managed to capture the hearts of everyone with a mobile phone or computer. It's something about the ability to see gems just destroy themselves in falling cascades. It's that feeling you get when you get a combo in Dr. Mario or Tetris Attack, except it happens far more often on a much bigger board. PopCap has managed to work in everything with this simple formula, from power-ups, to time trials, to high score play in Bejeweled Blitz.

If you were alive during the days of the NES, these were your game addictions of choice. The original Super Mario Bros. would provide hours of entertainment for gamers who routinely died on the first few levels. (Ironic that the game could be beaten in five minutes if you knew how.) Super Mario Bros 3 was equally as addicting, forcing gamers to slowly work their way through airships and other death traps. The tradition continued through Super Mario World, the Gameboy Super Mario Lands, and even the new Super Mario Bros U. If you pick up one of these games, it’s unlikely you put it down until you beat it. That's why Mario belongs on our list of the 10 Most Addicting Games.

Angry Birds is a fantastic example of a simple concept done well. All you have to do is pull back on the bird and destroy the structures housing the pigs. That's it. It's simple physics and damage equations put together with some cartoony soundbites. Once you started playing, whether you were a gaming veteran or new to games altogether, you couldn't put it down. And that's why the Angry Birds franchise is so successful. A simple formula + easy gameplay = a winning, and addictive, combination.

The addiction inherit in Pokemon is right in the game’s motto. “Gotta Catch Em’ All!” Yes. Yes you do have to catch them all. All 151, and that’s just in the original release. The dual version nature of this game forced you to hunt down others to trade with, and even then there were elusive Legendary Pokemon that forced you to constantly reload your game as you chucked Pokeball after Pokeball at them. Why did you use your Master Ball so early!

Tetris is so addicting, it’s still being sold today. You can find Tetris just about everywhere: on consoles, on handhelds, on mobile devices, on graphing calculators, even on digital watches! It’s the go-to-app for anyone who wants to waste some time. Whether you are simply trying to beat your high score, or clear a nearly impossible tower of junk, Tetris has given us sore bathroom butts since the early eighties.

You knew that World of Warcraft would be #1 on our list of the 10 Most Addicting Video Games. It had to be! It’s the world’s most popular MMO. When you add up all of the time that every gamer has spent playing World of Warcraft, it calculates to nearly six million years. That’s estimated to be the point in which the first human ancestors stood up. World of Warcraft has had more time devoted to it than human evolution, and that statistic was taken back in 2011. Imagine if we spent all the time we poured into WoW on creating new scientific advancements for a better tomorrow. WoW has caused fights, divorces, job losses and obesity. It's truly the most addicting game ever made. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got a raid to attend to.