In 2016, I made an effort to play more games. Battlefront and Firewatch were must-plays. This year, the PS4 has been relegated almost entirely to “expensive BluRay player” status. This spring I got my hands on a Nintendo Switch and that took up a LOT of my time. Over 100 hours in Zelda alone (and I still haven’t beaten Gannon yet). I’ve also started playing Dungeons and Dragons with some real life friends over the Internet about once a week.1 I’ve really enjoyed that. The following list is comprised of games for my Switch or my iMac (more on this in a moment). Some are new, some are just new to me.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch, Nintendo)
- Mario Kart (Nintendo Switch, Nintendo)
- Sonic Adventures (Nintendo Switch, SEGA)
- Civilization V
- Stardew Valley
Zelda really is spectacular and one of the most immersive experiences I’ve ever had. Mario Kart is great for groups of friends or online play and has me eager for a Mario Party for the Switch. Sonic was a nostalgia buy that serves its purpose in spades. To chill, I generally pop on Stardew Valley where I have essentially zero crops, but complete access to the mines.
Civ5 was on sale through Steam recently and I picked it up. This plunged me into a week-long binge of RTS campaigns that led me to pick up Civ6 when the Mac port dropped late this fall. I’m reminded of the days I’d spend in Age of Empires, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, and related titles in the 2000s.
Civ5 was the first game I installed on my 2017 27” 5K iMac. It may not be a surprise to those who might think about these things ahead of time, but the max resolution for the game does not stand up to the capabilities of this machine. For this reason, I played windowed—which provides room for distraction. I haven’t booted Civ6 yet, but I hope I can at least get 4K there.
Oh yea, and we played a bunch of Slenderman games at Regan parties this year. Good call, Tara.
I played fewer story-based games this year, but would love your recommendations on more in line with Firewatch, Gone Home, Limbo, etc. If you have any recommendations for games I should play this year, send me a tweet.
Read More:
- 2017: A Year In Review
- My Favorite Things 2017: Music
- My Favorite Things 2017: Movies
- My Favorite Things 2017: Television
- I’m a lightfoot halfling rogue with attitude named Mike Rotch, in case you were wondering. ↩︎