The Year's Best-Selling Games (cont'd)

Number 4. Rollercoaster Tycoon

Units sold: 749,749
Gross income: $20,328,953

After EA's Theme Park, who could have imagined that another game about building and running amusement parks could be this good? Chris Sawyer is Hasbro Interactive's answer to Will Wright. The only two criticisms we have of this game are the lack of a true sandbox mode, solved somewhat by the Loopy Landscapes add-on (76,058 copies sold for a gross income of $1,959,189), and the inability to pause the game and tinker with the rides. Rollercoaster Tycoon is real-time, but at a pace that allows a gamer to play it like it's a strategy game and not an RTS. If you wanted to pick a new game designer that might be the next Sid Meier, Chris Sawyer wouldn't be a bad bet. Let's hope that Hasbro Interactive, now a part of Infogrames, doesn't gear up the machinery and spit out dozens of unimaginative Tycoon variants.

Number 3. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, 1st and 2nd editions

Units sold: 1,313,164
Gross income: $23,791,334

This is one of those games that hardcore gamers sneer at, yet for what it sets out to do, it does quite well — namely, ape the TV show on which it's based. The problem is that it comes with a limited number of questions, so even at $20 a copy you don't get a lot of value for your money. Our first choice for quiz games would be the You Don't Know Jack series, but there's an undeniable appeal in trying to win that million dollars in this game.

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