4. The Construction Simulator
Imagination is something that, sadly, a lot of people seem to be lacking these days. Some might argue that games are partially responsible for this, as most children now become accustomed to consoles at an early age and some do not experience 'traditional' pastimes such as the construction of Airfix models, train sets and Lego creations as a result. The latter does remain extremely popular, but it seems to be 'sets' which encourage the building of a specific thing that sell the most as opposed to the bricks with which anything can be built. There's nothing to say that games cannot be imaginative, however, as the nineties gave gamers the opportunity to build things such as medical facilities (Theme Hospital) and theme parks (Rollercoaster Tycoon) to their heart's content. It's already been ten years since the release of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, however, though a new Zoo Tycoon title was released last year (albeit without much in the way of fanfare). Regardless of this, the number of titles within the genre is dwindling, and developers may have been turned off by the calamity that was EA's most recent SimCity title (which should be a lesson to any other company that is thinking of adding DRM to their games) and may continue to let it dwindle further as a result.