Just like many other guys my age, I have had gaming consoles since I can remember. Videogames were a huge part of our generation’s lives, including mine. I had every gaming console known to man. From the PS3 all the way to Wii. You name it, I had it. However, one console in particular stuck out to me and ended up being the defining console of most of my childhood. That being the Xbox. I’m not sure what it was but there was something so cool about it to me. Maybe it was the sleek design that felt way smoother than the PS3, or the sociability that came with it with most of my friends having one. I obviously had my Xbox for a very long time and have played my fair share of games. In this article I will be listing out my top 5 games I have played throughout my time on Xbox and giving detailed descriptions of them. 

Honorable Mention: A few honorable mentions that I have throw in there because how could I not are a couple of games. It’s not that they were bad games, or even not good enough, but they just weren’t better than the games I listed because those games are hard to beat. The honorable mentions are, GTA, Uno, any Forza game, and probably like Red Dead or something idk. 

5. Sea of Thieves: Definitely a less popular choice than the rest of the choices on this list, but absolutely a personal favorite for me. Sea of Thieves is a pirate game where the goal is to sail around the map doing quests in order to level up your ranks with the desired faction. There’s also like some ship combat which is always cool but I suck at. The game may sound a bit basic and boring on paper, but what really sells the game for me is the consistently impressive graphics of the game. It has a cartoon like style but feels so real when you’re in it, it’s like watching a movie almost. Definitely the best scenery for any game I have ever played. The game itself does get boring at times and becomes kind of a grind at higher ranks, but I feel like that’s the case with most games. The only bad thing about this game is the lack of single player ability. You can queue up solo, but driving a ship, following a map, and fighting off other crews all at once is pretty challenging. But when playing with a lot of your friends, this game can be some of the most fun you’ll ever have.

4. Call of Duty (most if not all): We all knew it was coming. Every boy’s game growing up whether it was BO2 or Ghosts, COD was the game to play. The ungodly amount of time and effort I put into these games was honestly ridiculous. Grinding out camos and hearing the early morning birds chirping because you accidentally stayed up way too late had to be a top 1 experience in life. Maybe not top 1 but you get what I’m saying. I feel like I don’t really need to explain what Call of Duty is because everyone knows it’s just like any shooter game with a bunch of different modes to play. One of my favoirte games of all time for sure, I think my favorite one was Infinite Warfare (I know that is possibly the hottest take ever typed out but the memories are honestly just unmatched for me). Zombies is also a really fun game mode that is a part of this franchise and a lot of other games don’t really have.

3. Siege: Rainbow 6 Siege is a game I both love and hate. It’s so hard to get good at and took years to learn, but when playing with a full squad of people who know what they’re doing can be some of the best times. This game has been in and out of my life for awhile now but takes the number 3 spot because of the time I spent on it during quarantine. It was always right after the zoom classes ended,  a few buddies and I would hop on and get lost in the game until like 3am or something like that. The constant grind was something I once loved as well, but am fairly sick of now. However, I’ll never forget the time I put into this game and all the fun it brought me during quarantine. Regardless of my rank being terrible, Rainbow Siege will always be a game I come back to. 

2. Minecraft: There isn’t really much explaining to do here. Could make a serious option for the top 1 game if I hadn’t played it mostly on a computer or an iPad. With Minecraft, the possibilities were endless, you could do anything with any of your friends and build whatever you wanted. Any child with half a brain’s dream game, really. Also, I probably don’t even need to mention this part just because everyone and their mother agree with this, but the soundtrack to this game is probably the best in the history of all video games. The crazy amount of flashbulb memories I have of listening to that soundtrack during my younger days is more than anyone would expect, which goes to show just how much that game impacted my childhood. 

1. Fortnite: We all knew it was coming. The hype, the competitiveness, the social aspect, Fortnite was everything. Literally, in every corner of my life, I was obsessed with it and you probably were too. Late nights and early mornings, whether it was trying to complete challenges for battle stars or being the first to see the new update before school started that day. Fortnite was unlike any other game the world had ever seen because of how interconnected it was with every part of our social lives. It was also popularized during a coming-of-age time for kids my age, so this game may have stuck around longer with us due to more recent and important memories being associated with it. It was definitely a close pick between this and Minecraft, but when I think of Xbox games Fortnite is the one that comes to my mind, and probably millions of others so it barely takes 1st place.