![]() One fellow cited Dark Souls, a game so overwhelmingly intimidating that just looking at the box in my cupboard of games (that I'll never finish) makes me nervous. Something that did surprise me, looking at those replies on Twitter and Facebook, was the number of violent games used as a fun-time-forget-about-everything-else comfort blanket slash good-times-rolling step-pepper. 'Super Mario Galaxy 2' is just one of the most gloriously fun video games you'll ever play I count Mario Kart 8 as amongst the best remedies for a downer: three laps of Dolphin Shoals and I am brimming with positive vibes, stirred into a hypnotizing swirl by that circuit's phenomenal music. Nintendo's Super Mario series-inspired of level design, bold of palette, boisterous of sound, and immediate of control-is a favorite of many, based on the responses I get when asking for other people's go-to games when they need a pick-me-up after a right shitter of a day, or just to slip away from very real horrors for a half-hour. It's perfect, supremely silly, yet taxing enough (not that I don't know all the puzzles inside out) that the player's brain doesn't turn to mulch. ![]() An early one for me was The Secret of Monkey Island, something that I can play today (it's great on iOS, if that version is still available, and we published a love letter to the game, here) and feel that same delight I did when I wasn't yet a teenager. I've had these happy places ever since I began playing games. But not at the very second that notification pops up on your screen, there's not. Is there a better feeling than full combo-ing Wolf Alice's "Moaning Lisa Smile"? Obviously. And in doing so categorically shuts away the outside world, constantly streaming new songs to strum along to via its TV service, an endless, all-you-can-eat buffet of escapism. Other shows have happened since, but you get my point: GHL manages to make the ordinary, and even the turgid, into moments. It's simply somewhere that, for 20 minutes at a time (unless the one-more-match bug really bites), I can just forget about everything else.Īnother 2015 game, Guitar Hero Live, is an effective portal to glee for me, so excellently engineered to engender good times that even numbers by Evanescence and Calvin Harris feel like the most inspirational songs to have flowed through my veins since that all-smiles-everywhere circle pit at The Movielife in 2002. It's one of my very favorite games of 2015, and not because it offers anything radical. I worry a house fire wouldn't snap my attention from the screen. It's fast, completely hilarious and incredibly competitive, and my retinas remain absolutely fixed on the action. Matches last five minutes, unless the scores are tied, in which case golden-goal extra time is played. I wrote about it at some length in July 2015, but really, that's all you need to know in order to realize it's amazing: rocket cars and (roughly) soccer rules. It's an online multiplayer arcade sports game where you play soccer-like, most-goals-wins matches inside an enclosed arena, in which the ball is massive and every player is a jet-powered car or truck. Right now, that usually means Rocket League. And every day I think about disappearing from it all, for a heartbeat in time. I've my share-just regular stuff, pressures and responsibilities that any of us can have, nothing special but they're there, every single day. I've been thinking about my own video gaming happy places over the past 48 hours or so, the titles I turn to when I just want an hour to myself, to sit and smile at a screen and not worry about the weighty things. Most people do: that smartphone in your pocket, it's one of the best gaming devices ever created. ![]() There really is a video game for everyone-anyone claiming that they "don't like video games" simply hasn't been looking-and everyone should have an interactive happy place to call their own, assuming they've access to the essential hardware in the first place. ![]() See, while video gaming is a maturing medium, today open to tackling themes like terminal illness, depression, suicide, and gender dysphoria, it's also where the participant (that's you) can have a whole ton of fun for just a while, temporarily shutting out any and all chaos consuming the news media.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |