What's Your Gaming Happy Place?
Well, it's been a rough week. Sure, it wasn't all bad, but it's hard not to feel a little slighted. With that in mind, I think we could all use something to cheer us up, and no doubt a few of us turn to videogames. What do you pick up when you need some gaming comfort food? You know, not necessarily your favorite game, or a game that you're particularly proud to love, but one that always puts a smile on your face and you can play until your hands get sore? Is there a particular genre of game that takes you to your gaming happy place, away from your worldly problems for a few hours?
For me, I always get sucked into Space Channel 5 until the end, and go through the whole thing with a smile on my face. In addition, a good collect-a-thon platformer plays to my OCD tendencies, and is like a hug for my thumbs. Lastly, I was going to say Half Life 2, but figured playing as one of a small group of people fighting against a totalitarian state that's removed the rights of its citizens seemed a little on the nose. But, you know, I'll always love controlling giant bugs with pheromone pods.
What games take you away from all this, even if it's only for a few hours?
Dawdle
Posted to Miscellany, Video Games on 9 November 2008
· Comments (24)
Other stuff like this: cheer up folks, comfort gaming, happy place, question
Similar to Dawdle's SC5 tendencies, Rez has been and forever will be that game for me. Once I play a little bit of it, I can't help playing through the rest of the game. For "comfort food" purposes it works brilliantly by ending on such an incredible and positive moment, if you're good enough. ;)
For nostalgia alone, I'm forced to add Megaman 2.
Hmm. I'd have to say Sonic Adventure for dreamcast, even though I haven't played that in soo long.
I think I will go play it for a bit right now :D
p.s. Also, Ocarina of Time... nostalgia is great for video game nirvana :)
Any of the Mizuguchi games, really... Every Extend Extra Extreme and Lumines are the ones that leave me astonished I had been playing for over two hours at a stretch. It's funny with those since they're such simple games.
One that really does it to me is Endless Ocean on the Wii. The shimmering blue, fish gently swimming past, the Hayley Westenra soundtrack... It's video Valium, I tell ya.
Well... i usually go to that cat cheezburger website but for video games, i always play something cute just to cheer me up, seeing people smile always makes me happy!
Games like katamari or viva pinata on the top on my mind. But as a kid, when i had rough time in school, i would go to the arcade and play Rampage world tour (hey, the 90's man!) good time, good time...
Yeah i was a weird kid back then
Beatmania, all the way.
It's amazing how music really sweeps people away, me especially. And having that music within my hands, literally - that's a feeling I can't put into words well enough.
...Guitar Hero doesn't cut it for me, sadly. The music simply sucks. :# I prefer my Japanese happyhardcore and trance and crazy music over boring rock and metal any day.
When bemani isn't quite available I'll go for the epic nostalgia bomb, usually in the form of obscure SNES/PSX RPGs.
Hummm... Crafting my armor on NWN or rushing COD4 mp levels with a shotgun? :)
When i need to relax i usually play an old rpg. It's like re-watching a good movie. Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger are my comfort games.
If i want something different I'll play Okami. That game just makes me happy.
And if all else fails it's Super Mario World =3
I would have said Galaga up until a year or two ago, since I could play it almost indefinitely when I was in practice, but somehow I find myself without a copy of Galaga on any of my current systems. (The Virtual Console version isn't Galaga, it's the NES toy-Galaga.)
Any 3D Zelda game, or Super Mario Sunshine, is probably the closest thing for me at this point. On my final vacation with my partner, sitting in a Vermont hotel room with him bedbound and in and out of consciousness last summer, Super Mario Sunshine proved invaluable as a mental and emotional escape, though using it that way may have ruined Mario games for me for a while. Nonetheless, it was literally my happy place that weekend. It was my favorite game before then, but now it's something more and less than that.
Katamari was really close to being my "pick up and play anytime I need it" game, but the PS2 just hasn't been hooked up much since getting the Wii. de Blob stood a good chance of being that game too, thanks to its irrepressibly joyful and sunny feel, except all the levels are a bit samey.
For me, I would guess that it's every game in my personal collection; they each have their own ways of sucking me in and keeping my attention for hours. Whether it be "classics" like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, or "last generation" games like Final Fantasy IX or Parasite Eve, or even "current generation" games like LittleBigPlanet or Valkyria Chronicles, they're all able to take me to a place where I don't have to worry about real life issues - and I am very appreciative of that fact.
I think my new happy place could be Sully's Bar in the PS3 Home beta...I popped in there a while ago, and made a silly comment to the room "So, um, this is a gay bar, right?" Immediately I got a handful of "ohmigod, you are too?" responses. Very cool, at least until the hatin' started.
But to the question....my old happy place...PS2 Amplitude. New happy place? I think it's gonna be LBP.
1) Beyond Good & Evil. You laugh, you cry, you get to run around in the brill hovercraft and take pictures.
2)The first two Tak games: Power of Juju and Staff of Dreams. So fun. Lots of great art, innovative detailed game play and Patrick Warburton as Lok is hilarious. Flying around in a chicken suit? Come on.
3)Tons of time? Dr. Muto. Still haven't been able to finish the game.
Surprisingly I can zone out for hours on a good racing game, but it's got to be one with some quirks. Excite Truck and Mario Kart have been great for that, and I'm looking forward to trying out MotorStorm: Pacific Rift!
Whenever i need cheering up through a game i have to track down Ms Pac Man somewhere in town, they're fairly easy to find now. Something about playing that old school game reminds me of childhood trips to the arcade, and helps take my mind of things. Plus i can work out my frustrations by eating ghosts for a while.
My happy place is the NES. It's still hooked up downstairs with around 250-ish games to choose from.
When I need a cheering up, or just a trip back into "the simple days of old", I look towards 8-bit goodness.
Rez is definitely comfort gaming for me in terms of single-player, but for multiplayer, I turn to fighting games like MK2 for comfort since I can beat on random strangers online.
The two games I can zone out the world to are (1) Resident Evil 4 [on PS2, on Gamecube, and on the Wii]; and (2) Space Channel 5, Part 2. I LOVE the ending. Too bad you'll never see your copy of it ever again, Dawdle. [evil laugh]
Anything that makes me think, knowledge is a milk of human accomplishment, and games like Bioshock, Fallout 3, Deus Ex and so on make me happy.
The one that made my brain work the most is mgs4, I love that soooooooooooo much, I've played it through soooo many times
I'm with people who play old-school RPGs. I didn't play too much of them when I was younger, so I'm aquainting myself with them now.
Currently, I'm attempting to beat Shining Force on the VC. ^_^
Starfox 64 / Lylat Wars, nice 45 min moodlifter.
The Lion King on MegaDrive/Genesis OR Yoshi's Story on N64 - So infectiuosly happy you'd have to be dead to not have them lift your mood ^_^
I would say Space channel 5 part 2. One stage in particular... Mystery zone!
I just love the first song of that stage... Strobe action!
It makes me wanna dance and play that stage over and over again ( *o*)
my comfort games are:
Secret of Mana (SNES)
Super Mario RPG (SNES)
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (SNES)
Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
Ahhh... Happy place games.
1) Zelda games, as have already been mentioned. But I'm going to make a personal addendum: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. To be even MORE specific: The Ocarina of Time fishing hole. I have spent HOURS there, just casting at fish, and trying to catch me the Hylian Loach. Which is frustrating, yes, but it's a GOOD kind of frustration--especially if you've been having a bad day.
2) Diddy Kong Racing, oddly enough. I especially like to do the Cup Races in the snowy level. I don't know why, but there's something about the ice level in that game that just makes me feel all cozy. Also, I tend to race as Pipsy and Tiptip--two of the cutest characters known to mankind--so that helps.
3) On a similarly Rare note, anything Banjo. That bright, peppy, colorful world is the perfect place to vacation to. I love to just run around the enviroments, hanging around. I especially like Click Clock Wood, in the first game, and Terrydactyland in the second.
4) Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. I'm a bit surprised not to see a Kirby yet! C'mon, who's more cheerful than Kirby? I especially like Level 1-2, which has the most soothing music and autumnal backdrop ever, and level 5-3, which takes place inside a giant, Lego-esque SHOPPING MALL. It's all the fun of wandering around a mall doing nothing without the guilt of having accidentally bought something too expensive!
5) Yoshi's Story. There, I said it. Nostalgia is part of it. But level 3-2--the "Tinker toy tower" one--always makes me cheerful.
6) Beyond Good & Evil. Not just for chillin' in the hovercraft and taking pictures, but for the presence of Pey'j and Double H, who are pretty much laughter incarnate, the pair of 'em. If Pey'j's colloquailisms ("Just put the thingamajig back in the whatchamacallit!") and Double H's "advice" ("If you can't go through a door, go around it! Carlson and Peeters, opus 4!") don't make you smile, then your day is truly, irredeemably bad. :P
Like many other my happy place games are usually RPG's..specially classic ones like old Final fantasy's, fire emblems and shining forces...always make me smile!
I'm with T-Chan... I like an old Square RPG that I've beaten a hundred times; it's familiat, bu the good ones will always be challenging/customizable enough to hold my attention. FF6 and Tactics are definitely my big two.