I am continuing with the rather futile task of playing all the video games.

Eight months ago when I started this blog some (including myself), doubted if I'd make it this far. Now that I've finished with all the games beginning with "0", I thought that I'd begin with a summary of the zeros.

There are fifteen games with wiki pages listed in the Giant Bomb website. Of these games, there were two which also had a different handheld game with the same name which I played - 007: Everything or Nothing and 007: The World is Not Enough for the Gameboy Advance and Gameboy Color respectively. There were three games listed which I didn't play.

005: An arcade game from the eighties by Sega which hasn't seen a re-release.

0 Story: A language heavy Japanese dating-sim for the PS2, which didn't see a launch outside of the region. I didn't fancy my chances of understanding what was going on!

0x10c, which I haven't played, because it hasn't been released yet.

My personal favourite game was 007: Everything or Nothing for the PS2 whereas 007: Racing for the original PlayStation takes last place. Are there any of these games that I'd actually recommend? To be honest, probably not. A couple of these games would probably have been good in their day - and I've been pleasantly surprised that not all Bond games are as terrible as I'd imagined. I would say that 0 A.D. (currently only in alpha), has an interesting back story and is worth keeping an eye out for in the future. I'd also add that 0D Beat Drop is the sort of game that I'd imagine some people could get really into - it just wasn't for me. A few people have expressed concern for my continued sanity, playing through so many potentially terrible games! Please don't worry, I'm also playing other games too! I'm only spending about 25% of my "gaming time" on this blog - including investing 100+ hours into at least two other games this year.

So while there were only 15 games beginning with a "0", there are 131 beginning with a "1". At my current rate it'll take me six years to play through all of those. Anybody reckon I'll do it? Well, there's only one way to find out!

Game 000016: 10,000,000

10,000,000 is the best game I've played so far... In fact I'd even go as far as saying "you should play this game." I played through 10,000,000 on the iPad, pretty much in one four hour sitting, (I actually slept for several hours half way through, but I didn't leave my bed from beginning to end!) There doesn't seem to be an Android port yet - which is a shame.

Reading through the forums, the name seems to be almost universally hated by fans of the game. However, I think that it's a brilliant name, succinctly describing the entire point of this Bejeweledesque match 3 puzzle game - to score 10,000,000 points. It really is that simple - keep playing until you can achieve this improbably high score and then the credits roll and you're done.

To help you on your way 10,000,000 is a puzzle game with an RPG twist, similar to Puzzle Quest but less epic.After each game you will earn various resources and XP, allowing you to upgrade various stats which will aid you on your quest to reach the high score.

Instead of having a game clock for each instance of the puzzle - a mini infinite one dimensional RPG dungeon is randomly generated for you to play through. If your avatar is faced with a monster match "Sword" or "Magic" tiles to damage it. If you have a locked door in your way match "Key" tiles - and meanwhile match "Chest" tiles to unlock power-ups, or "Resource" to spend in the shops. As you play, the screen is continuously scrolling at a fixed pace, so you have to overcome obstacles fast enough to not be knocked off the edge of the screen. Each level gets progressively harder, and you will eventually lose - and it is in between levels where you get to purchase your upgrades. With a mixture of in game achievements and upgrades to buy, I thought that this game seemed quite well balanced, making you work hard so that your upgrades feel well-earned, but not so hard that it becomes a slog.

It really is a very simple idea, and the mock retro graphics and music is a nice touch. To be honest, I think this game really stood out to me because it didn't out stay its welcome. There have been a few other similar games this year, such as Puzzle Craft, another puzzle game where you slowly upgrade your abilities in between round. The core game is just as good, but whereas Puzzle Craft really peddles the micro-transaction route hard... "Isn't playing this game tedious - spend some money so you can get it over with quicker" is a business model which I still don't really understand... 10,000,000 isn't continuously after more money from you and so doesn't feel the need to draw out the game indefinitely. You'll actually finish this game and gain a sense of completion!

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I've played through quite a few terrible games this year - but this game makes me glad that I started this process. Although the experience was rather short, this was up there with the best of the games I've played this year.

The next game in the database is 100,000 Games, a compilation package which isn't easily available in my region (and looks terrible), so I'm not going to jump through hoops to track it down. Therefore 10,000 Bullets for the PS2 is next on my list.