You may argue that a management game doesn't belong here, but the Championship Manager series - and later, Football Manager - brings out that gut-wrenching, edge-of-your-seat football feeling unlike any other, even though you're not actively involved with the on-pitch action. Anyone who has spent real-time weeks trying to keep a lower-tier team from being relegated as the end of the season draws near will know the feeling. Football Manager is packed with an array of emotive elements, and will drag you all the way from screaming and shouting with elation to utter despair, and back again, all in one sitting. Remember that time you scouted a no-name youngster and gave him a first-team spot on a hunch, and he turned out to be the top goal scorer of the league, worth millions of pounds? And that time your star keeper started to lose faith in you and refused to renew his contract? What about that time you had a promising cup run going and wouldn't leave your computer besides to eat and use the bathroom, and your girlfriend left you, and you didn't even care? This is a game unlike any other, capable of generating some kind of manic depressive rollercoaster, one of few games which can both break your heart and fill you with untold joy. And all of this with what many consider to be just a glorified spreadsheet. The addition of a full 3D match engine hasn't changed the impact - it was just as thrilling and tense when we were watching each game unfold with only flashing text to tell the story.
Game-obsessed since the moment I could twiddle both thumbs independently. Equally enthralled by all the genres of music that your parents warned you about.
