• bratz: rock angelz - pc & playstation 2 & gameboy advance
  • pretty much all of the bratz games defined mine and my sister's childhood but I think rock angelz was the most predominant. I still own all three copies of this game (it's a slightly different game on each device, that in itself interests me). I play the pc game so often I could complete the entire thing in half an hour. every couple of years, my sister and i revisit the playstation games for the nostalgia and guilty pleasures of it. bratz in itself defined so much of my childhood!
• animal crossing - nintendo: ds, wii, 3ds, switch
  • i've been playing animal crossing since i was around seven years old with wild world and i've followed the games ever since. i adore them and getting to know all my favourite villagers (... and hating all the ones i've hated since being seven and have carried those feelings with me forever - looking at you, truffles!). it's a game that brought me closer to my sister but also helped bring me closer to friends when growing up, as it used to be so rare to find others who played!
• the sims - pc, playstation 2
  • the sims 2 was my first proper venture into the sims and i loved it, even if i didn't always understand it. i still have a soft spot in my heart for: the pleasants, the goths, don luthario and the entire shakespearean world of veronaville. since then, i've progressed to 3 and 4 and i also played several sims spin-offs: busting out and the urbz.
• the urbz - xbox
  • however, the urbz has its own space in my heart. literally nobody knows about this gem of a game and i love it. it's a game that literally allowed you to befriend sim versions of the black eyed peas and immerse yourself in such a wide variety of suburbs! you could go from the bright, happy-go-lucky, anime vomit of one district to the world of the posh and pretentious in a second. if you ever get a chance to, have a look at the wonderfully brilliant clusterfuck (in the best way) that is this game!
• build-a-bearville - pc
• toontown online - pc
• club penguin - pc
• pixie hollow - pc
  • i was a sucker for all the online disney games, what can i say?
• virtual magical kingdom - pc
  • however, of all the disney games, virtual magical kingdom (vmk) was my absolute favourite. i remember my sister and i fighting over who got to play as soon as the kingdom opened because it closed at certain times and because we're english and the servers were american, it meant we had to wait so long! i also remember rushing home from school and being so overjoyed when i finally got my scuba suit pin. i'm still honestly heartbroken that they shut the game down and no other game has ever been able to replicate the charm that vmk had.
• gosupermodel - pc
• stardoll - pc
• barbie girls - pc
  • i spent a lot of my time on fashion games, as you can see, haha.
• dead or alive - xbox
  • a weird one, yes. i loved fighting games and this happened to be the one in our house, i think it was mainly the third one? but i could be wrong. eventually my family stopped playing with me because i beat them every time haha. comes in handy now, though, for playing tekken against my boyfriend.
• call of duty: black ops 1 & 2 - xbox
  • these were much later, into my mid teens. every time i played these, i played them with my dad on 2 player. it originally started because he needed help on modern warfare 2 to complete a mission and eventually, we started playing multiplayer on the newer games of the time. i really treasure those friday/saturday nights when my dad and i got to bond and understand each other just that little bit more. i also loved being able to whoop people's arses with a bright pink & purple leopard print gun. brought me great joy. sadly, we've never been able to connect with newer versions of the game since - we liked the much simpler ones.
• mario kart wii - nintendo wii
  • i've played many versions of mario kart but the wii version will always have a special place in my heart. i was obsessed with it. i used to be so obsessed that i would use the wheel and drive with one hand whilst eating my tea (dinner) with the other. i drove everybody crazy with it, honestly. i also used to watch youtube videos with all the shortcuts and whatnots. i still love playing, especially with my friends and boyfriend, but nothing hits quite the same as the wii version.
• kingdom hearts - playstation
  • this is the big story franchise game that i keep up with. i adore it. my sister and i were introduced to the games by an ex of hers. they left but the games stayed and have grown with us. the cast, the music, the characters, the worlds. i adore it all. it is one of the big stories that really challenged and inspired my imagination as a young writer, too. sora is always close to me, honestly.

other honourable mentions: binweevils, habbo hotel, tony hawk's american wasteland, myscene online games, bejewelled, cake mania, diner dash, wizard101, disney princess gameboy game, nicktoons attack of the toybots, guitar hero