Top 10 geekiest games

Gaming has now moved out of the dimly lit bedroom and into the mainstream, but there are still some titles flying the flag for the good old fashioned geek. Here’s a round up of 10 of the geekiest games around.

Bus Simulator 2010

You drive busses… for fun. Enough said really, but there’s more to it than simply cruising around town in your 64-seater. Bus Simulator 2010 includes features such as virtual paying customers, an operational disabled ramp and fully 3D bus interiors.

Crane Simulator

You might have spotted a simulator theme running through this list, and that’s because the genre is home to some geeky games of truly epic proportions. This one perhaps takes the crown, as its target audience is so niche you have to question if it exists at all.

SimCity

Put your hand up if you played SimCity when you were younger. Lots of us did it, but it doesn’t make it any less geeky. The game essentially boiled down to planning and managing a living, breathing city. Not exactly what ‘normal’ kids were doing in their spare time, is it?

EVE Online

We commonly refer to EVE Online as Spreadsheet: The Game, which should already make it clear how extensively geeky this space-faring MMO can be. It’s an intense, hostile world of space pirates, bandits and violent corporations, and it’s chock full of some of the most hardcore inhabitants of any online game world. You need to book a weekend off work before you can even begin to understand what’s going on.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X

We’ve seen people play this with other people online and it’s about the geekiest thing you could imagine. Not only can you spend countless hours flying from one virtual location to another, but you have to be in communication with the person pretending to be the Air Traffic Controller. Geek heaven.

Baldur’s Gate

Do you know what your THAC0 is? Baldur’s Gate might be one of the finest RPGs of all time, but you practically need a dishevelled beard and a degree in computer science just to get past the character creation screen. It’s even powered by the Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition ruleset. We rest our case.

Diablo II

Diablo II is 10 years old, and people still love playing it online. No harm in that, of course, but venturing onto Blizzard’s Battle.net servers is an invitation to douse yourself in unfettered geekery. You even have to learn to make sense of all the technical jargon: what’s GG Baal Glitch Rush No Noobz even supposed to mean?

Uplink

Computer hacking might sound cool, but it’s incredibly hard and definitely the domain of the super geeks. They might wear long black coats and trendy glasses, but they’re still geeks. A video game in which you play a computer hacker is like geek nectar.

Rail Simulator 2: RailWorks

Maybe we’re being a bit closed minded, but can driving a virtual train (the vehicle that can only move along fixed paths) really be good fun? Judging by the sheer number of simulators and add-on packs available, a good number of people must think it is.

Europa Universalis Collection

Dabbling with RTS like Command & Conquer is one thing, but compared to Europa Universalis C&C’s strategy is positively pre-school level. This long-running series is so hardcore the uninitiated get headaches just from reading the back of the box.