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What Are Your Top Five 'Comfort' Games?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the don't-try-to-eat-them dept.

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?

3 of 588 comments (clear)

  1. My Top 5 Games by celardore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comfort games? Not that I would usually 'comfort' myself with video games, more often I comfort myself with indulgence :p Anyway, mine would be:

    San Andreas. Sometimes I have a bad day and want to shoot stuff, beat some hookers, blow up some cars etc. Quite often I will load the game, and not do any missions. Just blow shit up for as long as possible. For fun.

    C&C Generals. It's so fun to play against friends on a LAN, and it's so warming to hear a Scottish pal yell obscenities after a carefully planned assult on his base. It's also fun on skirmish mode, solo. I'll do battle against the CPU, and win. That makes me feel a little better.

    Settlers. I loved this game, played it as a young teen. I played the first one to death. So did my younger sister, and occasionally I'd tell her the level password so she could try and beat it. That was fun. I remember enjoying the little swordfights.

    Transport Tycoon. Sorry, I love this game. It was and is great. Tried to get Locomotion working today, but XP is crashing on it for some reason (must me some driver error, I'll work it out). Anyway, what a classic game. So much fun.

    The Sims. Fine, it is basically a virtual doll house, but its mindless and easy to lose yourself in. I remember many years back, a friend and I tried 'hash cake' - my friend stared at the ceiling for hours and I played (the first) Sims. For about ten hours solid. All of the people in my house had top level jobs, not that it matters now though.

    While games are engrossing and fun to play, and it is so easy to spend that many hours on them, they're not the hours you're going to remember in ten years time. The comparison with 'comfort foods' is apt though, I don't remember what food I comforted myself with two years ago either. Labelling something a 'comfort' doesn't really say anything though. We're all different, and what comforts me may completely unsettle another. For instance, I might smoke in a tense situation and in doing that I make someone uncomfortable.

    Different strokes for different folks. This is just a poll rather than an article though.

    1. Re:My Top 5 Games by Chosen+Reject · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My top 5 in no particular order are

      1. UT 2004 - nothing like a fast paced shoot to kill with no goals. I especially like to play Capture the Flag or Bombing Run in the CarPark map with as many bots as possible. Nothing but fragging there.

      2. Minesweeper - If I have just a few minutes, this is my standby.

      3. Warcraft III - I can do single player, against bots, or online and all of them are just fun. Plus, my wife loves this game. The DotA allstars mod is really fun as well.

      4. Half-Life 2 - If I just want a good shooter with a good story this is where I go.

      5. Jedi Outcast - This game is my favorite. This game alone caused me to switch from Bio-Chem to Computer Science in College. Sometimes, it's good to get back to your roots.

      Another fun game I love is the Trackmania series. I still think the original is better than Sunrise or Nations. Unfortunately, it has Star Force copy protection and after a year my DVD drive went nearly useless. I loved playing it, but I'm not too sure I ever will again. Do you hear that Nadeo? It was your DRM that made me not play the game. You had a big fan, and when I found out what was happening, you lost me.

      --
      Stop Global Warming!
      Just say no to irreversible processes!
  2. Cloud by DyslexicLegume · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/

    One of the most relaxing games ever.