Video Games
Video games are something pretty much every guy likes. As much as the industry has tried to get girls to buy games: guys have been an easy sell. The games I like tend toward military games weather it's First Person Shooters, Turn-Based Strategy, etc.. However, there are other games that have caught my interest from time to time. I will try to have a brief history of games I've played a lot during my life here... (there are some from my childhood could add, maybe I'll get to that later).
This. This along with the Yuri's Revenge expansion. This is my jam. If I hear the music from this game today...I am like a drug addict getting just a taste... I love the somewhat simple graphics, I love that I can play single player and set the difficulty, the map, the enemies. Build, turtle, build up, attack! Maybe my all time favorite game?
Counter-Strike. It's almost like someone came to me as asked me what I was into when this game was made: guns, special operations, squad tactics (when on a good team). When I was just starting my teaching career this game came out in beta. I bought Half-Life just to mod it to CS., and never played Half-Life. I played this so much my girlfriend was having to call me to get a hold of me, I left the water on once and flooded the bathroom cause I got lost in the game. This is the closet I ever got to having an addiction when I played a lot.
I love battlefield. I love having a class that can do some things well, but other times just has to hide in the chaos of war: planes flying overhead, bombs, shots, terrain, missions within the overall mission. There is so much going on, it's just such an immersive war experience. Like many, I love snipping...just sitting on a hill taking shots, but I also try to help my team and am ready to play with rockets and tanks when needed. One thing that's true with all my war games, I really like modern contemporary weapons. Near future is o.k. but I will almost never ever play WW2 games...to me it's just too played out. More recently been playing BF4.
The FarCry Series. I played the first one when it came out and had to load up all those DVDs. It was amazing, so much freedom to move around, so many ways to take out enemies (stealth, snipe, heavy weapons, vehicles, etc...), and it was beautiful to look at. However, I still don't care for some of the overly scripted story points and the limitations placed on those plot points. I played FarCry 3 during the first few month of summer 2020 and it was great, and I can see why it gets the best reviews. The bad guy on the cover is interesting and kind of cool, but I play more for the strategy in the open world, the weapons, and the scenery and immersion. FarCry 5 was good too. Somewhat silly and you get kidnapped WAY too many times and let go such that the bad guys seem idiotic. However, I do like the idea of killing cultist. Didn't care for the ending though, and some of the side quests were not my thing. At least there wasn't too many jump puzzles in 5, I really don't care for those.
It's probably pretty obvious by now I really like tactical things, military things, and games. XCOM does a good job at all of those as well as adding skill trees and different play styles some depending on what classes you play. When the original one came out it BLEW MY MIND. But alas, I just didn't have a computer to play it on. But I did play through Enemy Unknown: twice. Great game, definitely in my wheelhouse.
Star Realms. This game started as a deck-building table top game, but later was turned into a video game also. Since I rarely play two-player board games, it was great that it's a really good simple pass the time video game. Play it almost everyday and try to win 2 out of 3. It's almost a ritual by now.
Battle of Polytopia. Really liked this simple civ building game with cute units. Played everyday, then started playing too much and told myself when I finally beat the computer on the hardest difficulty with 9 enemies with a 95% rating or higher again (I had did it once already), I would stop playing. I've kept my word...so far.