7. Prince of Persia (PS2, Xbox, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS)

I almost ranked this series higher, but the top of the list is going to be crowded with great, great franchises, so it was just about impossible to bump it any higher. All the free medical travel in the world isn’t worth as much to me as one good Prince of Persia title.

Now, I’m a bit of a late-comer to the franchise. When the PS2/Xbox trilogy was being published, I was not big on action-adventure-platformers and viewed the the Sands of Time, Warrior Within and The Two Thrones with some suspicion; I figured it was a “me-too” title in the Tomb Raider mode.

How wrong I was, but I didn’t discover that until I picked up the game on a whim in its first PS3 appearance. A franchise reboot, the PS3/360-era Prince of Persia, which came out in 2008 originally, was full of cell-shaded beauty and HD eye candy. Plus, it was addictively fun to play! It’s one of the first games I had played all the way through in years, and boy was it worth it; I’ve almost completed my second go-round on it, and even coughed up for the add-on adventure through the PSN Store.

With a major motion picture on the way and the first PS3/360-era sequel coming this spring, namely Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, it’s a great time to like this franchise. But the series makes my list because I’ve gone back and purchased all three of the PS2 Prince of Persia titles and found them quite good for the era in which they were made, but also they are evidence of how dramatically the franchise has grown and matured over the past decade.

Of course, the game goes back quite a bit longer than the last decade, with roots in many 1989-era home PCs, Macs, Commodores and home videogame systems. It is a concept that has weathered… the sands of time!