Top 5 Console Video Games

Students at Mount Vernon High School have many activities that they enjoy doing after school. One of the most common activities for students is playing video games. Some even use video games to communicate with friends whether it be in the game, or just talking to each other online. People play all sorts of video games, ranging from first-person shooting, survival, strategy, and sporting games. With hundreds of different video games out there, what game should you play? An email survey was sent to MVHS students in April in search of the top console games students play with about 100 responses.

#5 Call of Duty

Finishing in fifth place, is the first-person shooter game franchise, Call of Duty. It was first produced by Activision in 2003 when they created the first game, Call of Duty. When it was first made, it focused on games based on the Cold War, but over time, the game modes are being played in modern times, futuristic worlds, outer space, and the midst of the Cold War. “I’ve always enjoyed playing the Call of Duty games ever since I first played. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll buy the new version soon after it comes out for PlayStation,” said senior Jayden Rasmussen. The Call of Duty games also come with many different game modes to keep players hooked. Every game comes with a campaign that you can complete, but there are multiplayer game modes like team death match where there are two teams that battle to a certain amount of kills, and demolition where one team aims to destroy bomb sites and the other looks to defend them.

#4 Apex Legends

Apex Legends is a newer battle royale game that was developed by Respawn Entertainment and was released February 4, 2019. About 60 other live players are taken to an island from an aircraft above in groups of three with one player deciding where to land. The squad lands with nothing and has to find their own weapons and other resources to prepare to fight other squads. Soon after the game is started, the size of the map will decrease leaving one squad left giving them the victory. Also, after a certain amount of time, players on the same team will have the ability to revive one of their players. “It’s fun because different characters have different abilities so it isn’t the same as all the other battle royal games,” said senior Ike Appleton. When the game first came out, many students at Mount Vernon High School tried and really liked the game mode because it was different. The game surpassed 25 million players during the first week it was available, and 50 million players after the first month.

#3 Minecraft

Minecraft first came out in May 2009 after being created by Marcus Persson. The game gives the players opportunities to be creative and build their own world and designs with a variety of different blocks. Other things to do in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, and combat. There are also many different game modes in Minecraft with one being a survival mode where resources have to be found to build a world while maintaining health. Another game mode available is creative where there are unlimited resources, you can play with friends, and players can fly. “You can literally do anything you want in this game. You can play with friends and it brings back memories from when I played it as a kid,” said sophomore Connor Klinkhamer. The game has been given many awards including game of the year by a few different people. It was also used in educational resources such as the computing systems where computers and software devices have been built in it. With being an older game, in 2018 Minecraft still had around 91 million active players monthly.

#2 Fortnite

Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Games and was introduced in 2017. Fortnite: Save the World, has to be purchased and is a shooting game to try to defend off zombie-like creatures and objects. However, Fortnite battle royale is a free game to play very similar to Apex Legends. Instead of 60 players and groups of three, Fortnite has 100 players in which they can play alone all the way up to squads of four. The same format is the same where there is a storm causing the circle of players to lessen, and the last one or team standing wins. Fortnite also gives the players the opportunity to play several different game modes with their friends. Some players like it better than the other victory royale games because there is building involved to hide from other players, get an advantage over other players, and protecting people from any sort of damage. “The game is fun for everyone and you can communicate with friends when you’re playing. It is also a very competitive game to play and is easy to pick up on,” said Senior Gabe Randall. Another thing Fortnite has that Mount Vernon students love about it is the skins that are available in the item shop each day for the characters. Skins are available in the battle pass which is a season pass with 100 tiers that come with challenges and other cool items for your character.

#1 NBA 2K

The NBA 2K games started out in 1999 and was published first by Sega, but was then taken over by 2K sports. It is a simulationgame where the player picks a franchise (team) to start a player from and will start at a lower rating. The more the person plays, and better he gets, the players rating will get better to the point where he is an all-star. The game allows the players to play against the current NBA players and teams, and even against some of the greats that played a while ago in certain game modes. “I enjoy this game because of the graphics, game play styles, and opportunities to customize your player, said senior Kale Merrill. I generally buy 2K to play my career, which is the most fun for me because you can progress your player throughout lower levels to the NBA, but when I don’t play my career I play just a regular game with my friends, which usually winds up being very competitive and fun.” NBA 2K got a rating of 9.2 out of 10 from IGN, and roughly 90 million sales as of December 2018.