Gaming Comforts

[Kryton]

Rain in any RPG with good sound design is the best thing. Skyrim was quite good for this.

[ImmaculateClump]

Rayman Legends has been my go to. It's warmed my heart in a way I haven't had a game do since I was 11

I loved origins, have you played that one too?
It came out around the time my nephew was getting more confident with that type of old school style platform game and that one was a lot more forgiving than most so we played that so much.
We weren't quite as sold on legends but it might just have been because we'd had our fill on the previous game and we bought it first on the wii-u and all that touchscreen bollocks, even he wasn't sold. I can remember being way more open minded, lapping up gimmicks and being totally blind to their failings when I was a nipper, but he was like "nope".

I'm finding shmups are whipping me up a bit too much. I'm coming round to Abnormal Palms thinking that they might be best left alone during lockdown.

I like getting my heart rate up and thinking fast but I don't really need my nervous system to be firing on all four cylinders at the minute.
Once you're up there, it takes a good while to come down and it can spill over. Probably not the best time to be testing yourself.

Maybe just half an hour a day or something would be OK.
It's too easy to get a bit obsessed and feel like you're gonna 1cc something on the next run, I need to get out of that because it's pretty much always diminished returns. Leave it for tomorrow.

Spelunky is still my evergreen comfort game. I've gotten to the stage where I can play that on autopilot and listen to a podcast and use it to wind down.

[Clownbaby]

I loved origins, have you played that one too?
It came out around the time my nephew was getting more confident with that type of old school style platform game and that one was a lot more forgiving than most so we played that so much.
We weren't quite as sold on legends but it might just have been because we'd had our fill on the previous game and we bought it first on the wii-u and all that touchscreen bollocks, even he wasn't sold. I can remember being way more open minded, lapping up gimmicks and being totally blind to their failings when I was a nipper, but he was like "nope".

I love Rayman Origins. I played Rayman Legends on PS4 so I can't comment on the touchscreen, I've never been a fan of touchscreen and buttons combined together in a game. On the PS4 everything that would have been touchscreen and a bit fussy maybe was nice and fit in with the rhythm of the game without feeling gimmicky

Aside from the actual playing of it though I adore the soundtrack of both games. It's a real art doing music for a game that never gets irritating no matter how many times you might die, love it. Sometimes I just go back and play a level in Origins or Legends because I like the music

[ImmaculateClump]

I love the character of those games. I know what you mean about them transporting you back to your childhood heart.
Everything is so consistent. You can only view those games as the sum of their parts, you can't not see the thing as a whole. It feels like such a fully realised world. You're inside a cartoon.

I loved those guys with the long noses, when you held up and they'd go "aaaaaaah". There was like an elvis one and a pink one, just pallet swaps, slightly different outfits, but they all felt so unique and different.

[peanutbutter]

I'm expecting Wandersong to be a very pleasant evening filler whenever I get around to it.

About half way in and it's very very pleasant. Feel like it could be described as a pretty straight mix of Kirby's Epic Yarn and Steven Universe (both of which I feel like I need to revisit now) but it's being so fucking charming about it all that I'm stunned it hasn't gotten more attention.

[QDRPHNC]

For something a bit relaxing, some of the "open world"[nb]It's not really open world, but it's 40+km of recreated public roads when the game was originally designed for closed circuits[/nb] mods on Assetto Corsa are hitting the spot for me lately. Take your super serious racing sim and just go for a nice relaxed drive in it, where caning it is completely optional:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqkIpm3Wcds

Then there's always old Championship Manager games.

I used to do this kind of stuff in GTAV all the time. Would cheat myself a helicopter and cruise around, drive down country roads in the rain.

[The Culture Bunker]

I used to do this kind of stuff in GTAV all the time. Would cheat myself a helicopter and cruise around, drive down country roads in the rain.

The GTA games also had good reasons for doing that too, like listening to the talk radio stations or the daft adverts. The line "the only Engels you'll be reading from now on is Laura Ingalls Wilder!" has stayed with me for 15 years from one night I just cruised around Vice City.

[Barry Admin]

I couldn't even look at my Xbox when all this covid bollocks kicked off, not for weeks. Back into it now, but still can't be fucked with any single player narrative driven stuff.

So it's back to Apex, which has made great strides in lore and such this season. Also, it's just so full of stimulation that everything else feels a bit bland and boring. I had a game this week where I got matched with two high ranked guys, and I was slow and lagging behind a lot at the start - my OCD is killer and often makes me spend far too much time looting EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. But I picked my game up and had an insanely intense and brilliant match where we all hit nearly 2000 damage. It was just non-stop firefights and third parties, a good 15 minute stretch of non-stop fighting for our lives.

Amazingly we just missed out on 1st place, but I wasn't mad at all; we fought like absolute fucking beasts the whole match and it was one of the most brilliantly intense gaming experiences I've ever had. Just constant stimulation.

[Abnormal Palm]

I just blacked out playing some bullet hell, think I need a break from a lot of stuff. I'm pretty tired out by death and sixty hour weeks, no respite during the lockdown at all, my life actually got significantly more stressful and less opportunity to rest, and situation is only getting more full on, to be honest. I'm finding I'm having to stop myself from being quite unkind on here at times, so I'm checking out for a bit instead. I don't want to upset anyone. See ya.

[ImmaculateClump]

Oh, wow! I hope that's not as serious as it sounds.
Must be your mind and body telling you it's on low battery.
Yeah man, sounds like a plan. Slow everything down as much and as often as you can, come home from work and just do absolutely nothing if that's an option.
Look after yourself.

[Utter Shit]

When I play Football Manager I always play as a club and an international team, and invariably the national team is England. Because of the pointless nature of modern tournament qualifiers, the majority of managing England is a welcome comfort from the stresses of pretending to manage a club. Out of ten games you might be unlucky and have two that are competitive, and even then you'll still qualify if you lose one of them, There's something quite relaxing about calling up a youngster you've been impressed by, knowing that it will make no difference to the outcome if he's shit and he might even do brilliantly. Rhian Brewster got hat tricks on his first three England caps, well done big man.

[Obel]

all of you guys that are bored of games should take a look at Lonely Mountains Downhill. It's a game where you ride a bike down mountain trails and is one of my favourite games lately. The theme of riding a bike doesn't generally appeal, but the skill based physics gameplay is so satisfying, instantly enjoyable and the kind of game where you can either have a nice relaxed ride down the mountain or take your time trying to find the optimal route. If you watch the trailer take note that the music is really misrepresentative. The game itself actually has no music at all, instead just has the sound of the wind, the bike scaping across the ground, running water. It's both exhilarating and super relaxing to play.
The graphics are stylized and simplified, which gives the advantage of helping you discern the route. It looks surprisingly gorgeous and I got much more gameplay than I expected for what is a £15-20 game.

Also the ragdoll physics when you crash are never not amusing.

Highly recommend it.

[Ferris]

The path from Riverwood to Whiterun in Skyrim is my happy place.

[samadriel]

How I love to crack open Commandos 2 and open a nice cruisy stage like The Giant in Haiphong, one of the ones that starts easy, just so I can start chipping away at the guards one by one and the level can snowball into a triumphant, ghostly sneak-fest. Take that, Tojo!

[Pink Gregory]

I really wish I could get on with Commandos. 

Think I spent ages on the first level of Desperadoes but i don't know of the real time clicks with me.

[samadriel]

The sequel is a lot friendlier and more polished than the first game and its expansion, so if you haven't played C2, give that a quick punt and see if it appeals. One of the things I like about the early Commandos games (and which they totally FUCKED with Commandos 3) is that, because of the repeating patterns of enemy behaviour and lack of time limits, it's a perfect blend of real-time and chess-like thinking; once you've made a plan, you'll probably still be able to wait and try it if you miss your shot. Might just not be your thing, but yeah, everyone should try C2 once, even if earlier RTStealth games have seemed impenetrable.

[Pink Gregory]

C2 is actually the only one I haven't played, so I might just so that.  I've dicked around in that early snowy level of C3, but not much beyond that.

[Sheffield Wednesday]

Oh, wow! I hope that's not as serious as it sounds.
Must be your mind and body telling you it's on low battery.
Yeah man, sounds like a plan. Slow everything down as much and as often as you can, come home from work and just do absolutely nothing if that's an option.
Look after yourself.

Thanks. I think just extreme tiredness and low blood sugar, to be honest. I've not had much time to eat proper lunch or breakfast recently so a bit out of the habit and just thought I'd blast some stuff for an hour, coincided with a total conk out. Probably never been quite so tired in my life! I can't blame the bullet hell but probably didn't help :) I appreciate the kind words, and yeah I'm the same guy.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, maybe just the straw that broke the camels back. Try burning the candle at one end for a little bit if possible.
I imagine you got a bit of a fright! I've only ever been that tired once, I kept resting my face in my dinner.