What Are Your Top Five 'Comfort' Games?

Via GameSetWatch, an article at The New Gamer talking about comfort games. These reliable, fun titles are the old favorites you consistently look to for amusement and solace after a bad gaming session, a bad day, a bad week. From the article, with the author's comfort games: "Mega Man 2 - This Capcom classic has been with me since I was a kid, and I know it like the back of my hand. I'm sure that, if blindfolded, I'd somehow intuitively be able to maneuver through the levels, but I'd much rather be able to view it in all of its 8-bit goodness and remind myself of the good times." My current top five would have to be Super Mario World, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, God of War, and Civilization IV. What are yours?

Comments

Nethack

[arivanov]

It is the best comfort game after a really bad day.

You sit down, play and lose. You get up and you are full with that warm fuzzy feeling inside which wispers into your ears that the world is not so perversely against you, because the game has proven that things can be much, much worse.

Adventure for the Atari 2600

[buckhead_buddy]

I didn't realize how relaxing this game was until I played Adventure again on a friend's "retro 2600 game consoles built into a joystick" machines. I knew exactly where to grab the sword, defeat even the red dragon, and find the micro-dot/easter egg without having played it (or even thinking about it) in years. I suspect other games like the Superman game, or Yar's Revengewould trigger the same response, but it's very strange (and perhaps a little scary) how comforting it is for those built in motor memories to kick in again.

Maybe I can see now why my mom is nostalgic over some mundane useless activity like shucking vegetables. Or my dad recalls how great it was to kill wasps. Weird activities from when we were young and not concerned about politics, relationships, or investment portfolios. Maybe I should have learned something else besides how to beat Adventure though. :-/

Re:My Top 5 Games

[Lazerf4rt]

Mine are:

• Guitar Hero
• Super Mario Bros.
• Bubble Bobble
• Tetris
• Deathmatch Quake

I like games where you actually develop a motor skill by virtue of playing it. Those are the most satisfying. In each of those 5 games, I remember starting the game as an inept clod, then gradually having my fingers learn what to do, and finally becoming good at it.

I suppose that's what a lot of gamers mean when they say they play games for 'gameplay', as opposed to some of the other commonly cited reasons, like graphics or story.

StarCraft!!!

[XMilkProject]

Can't believe I didn't see this one listed for anyone! Was always one of my favorites, every 6 or 8 months I end up digging up a copy of StarCraft (and some of the addons) and get stuck playing for hours.

In my opinion it must be one of the most balanced games ever made. I always found it much more playable than Warcraft or Ages of Empires... Perhaps becuase of the simple graphics or lack of 'hero' characters, which always seem to just make battles harder to orchestrate.