Top 5 Best Back-to-School Video Games

The New Year heralds a new beginning,a new set of resolutions,a new...school term.Yup,it's time to dust off that stationery and knapsack,you're going to be in their company again for a whole another 12 months.I,for one,sincerely feel sorry for my peers stuck in the exact same rut as I.Therefore,here are the top 5 best video games to get you back in the mood for studying...or not.

#5. The Sims 2:University

Admit it,all that supposed freedom and independence ain't so fun when you've realised that spoonfeeding no longer applies in college.From hence forth,you're stuck on your own means,and that missed class maybe the segue to a repeated semester.Thankfully,the people at EA Maxis know how to make light of serious stuff and keep your mind off that overdue assignment with new game features like the ability to reincarnate your dead buddies as zombies and hacking into the school system to change your grades.Much like real life actually.

#4. River City Ransom

A localization of hit Japanese game Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari,RCR didn't do well during its moment of release in The States.But a large cult following saved it from being lost in the rapid seas of short consumer attention span.Plans to revitalize the series for the new generation took a backseat earilier this year,but a fan can still hope.Still,there's nothing like emu sites to remind you of the days when the story of two high schoolkids fighting their way across the city against gangs of violent teens to save the hero's girlfriend was a viable plot.



#3. Rival Schools

There's just so much themes to make fighting games of before the well runs dry.Luckily,Capcom dug deeper than street fighting to bring to the world a bunch of teenage Ryus and Kens.With fighters ranging from a baseball player to a cheerleader,Rival Schools enjoyed a succesful run at the arcades thanks to its unique fighting system and humorous character backgrounds.Not to mention the appearance of a certain Sakura Kasugano.



#2. Shin Megami Tensei:Persona 3

It's hard for sequels to top an extremely solid title.It's even harder for sequels to a spin-off that top an extremely solid series.But that was exactly what Persona 3 did,leaving everything that made Persona 2 great alone,and improving everything that Persona 2 did wrong.Backed by an engrossing story involving shooting your head with a gun to summon your beast,you could literally spent tens of hours on the side quests alone.Taking time off from the main mission to attend classes has never been this much fun.

#1. Bully

As you might have noticed from past Top 5s,Bully is a favourite of mine,and with good reason too.Bully basically is like a Grand Theft Auto with a school setting,replacing guns and drive-bys with slingshots and...yeah,the drive-bys were still there.But the setting made the game feel familiar and easy to relate to,as well as fun to recognise all the school stereotypes and cliques.Attending classes actually bring some pretty awesome goodies,and are worth completing in order to aid you later in the game.The voice-acting also deserves mention,as it is probably one of the best I've ever heard out of a video game(besides TF2).


So,there you have it.The best 5 video games to cure your school sickness.Just don't expect to actually learn anything related to the subjects you got in school.