If you are reading this you might know me, or you might not. I’ve been playing the stupid hobby of video games for my whole life. I’ve been thinking and talking about them even more than I’ve played them.
We’ve reached an interesting point in the technology where it is flattened. On a laptop, or a computer, or a Mac, or a Steam Deck, or a Switch, or Playstation 4/5, or an Xbox whatever you can play the same games. It’s possible you have not followed this stupid hobby as much as I have. I figured I should finally have something on hand to show for what should you play and why. I don’t even have the newest video game playing devices. Most of this list is going to be playable on a Playstation 4, which was released 10 years ago. When I say Playstation I mean Playstation 4 or 5. When I say Xbox well, I mean the two most recent Xboxes One and Series.
I’m keeping off this list, the super freak stuff that I personally love, except where noted. This going to be a list of games a reasonable intelligent adult should play for 90 minutes before sleep. I’ve thought about this a lot. I think everything on this list is very good; that’s why I am telling you to play it.
Outer Wilds (2019)
Platforms: Windows/Playstation/Xbox
Developer: Mobius Digital
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
This is one of the best video games ever made. It’s Myst: The Video Game. You have a full solar system to explore, complete with weather and gravity. In 22 minutes, the sun will go supernova and destroy everything. You need to solve the mystery of navigating each planet and how to stop the supernova. Eventually you will be ready to “beat” the game in 22 minutes. The only puzzle in the game is information. Once you know how to do something, you can do it every time.
Outer Wilds set my brain on fire. I didn’t think I liked it when I first played it, but every night I was ecstatic to work at the puzzle of this world a little more. They eventually released a DLC that reminded me how incredible the game was. The game has an world mission chart to track what you know and what you don’t know. You can stare at it and think and wonder. Decide which planet to explore this time loop.
Note: do not get this confused with Outer Worlds which was also released in 2019 and is also about space but is a big giant Modern Video Game that will destroy your life as you put 14 Carbon Filters in your inventory to get Thought Experience (I have not play this game.)
The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa (2018)
Platforms: Windows/Switch/Xbox
Developer: yeo
Publisher: yeo
Ringo Ishikawa opens with you, Ringo Ishikawa, getting beaten in a street fight. You will lose. You wake up in your apartment. You can intuit you are a high school student. There is a hunger system.
You assume, maybe I should go to school. I should maybe eat. I should find those guys that beat me up and beat them up. I should find out who my friends are.
Here is a video game laid open, immediately reminding a True Hardcore Game Player of River City Ransom. There are no hard goals, outside of wanting to see more of the story. You can decide what kind of student Ringo is. You can decide if he is diligent enough to keep a part time job to pay for that food. Or will he just try to beat it out other delinquents.
The story unfolds as you play. Eventually, with effort, the credits will play. Ringo is an aimless teen with depression and problems, and you exist with and as Ringo until that happens.
The follow up to Ringo was Arrest of the Stone Buddha. That game is for absolute sickos. Ringo can be played by a normal person. Stone Buddha requires you be a sadistic gamer to see it to the end. Don’t worry where-ever you stop in SB is the ending.
Bernband (2014)
Platforms: Windows
Available Here
I apologize this one is only on Windows. It is free, and it only takes about 20 minutes. It is just about walking around a strange alien city. There is no combat, barely a puzzle. It is so cool to just look around in. I am so excited to show it to a new person. Every time they enjoy it. Do you like Blade Runner? Then you are about to have a good time with Bernband.
Yakuza Zero (2015)
Platforms: Windows/Playstation/Xbox
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Without hesitation this is the Yakuza game to play. This is suppose to be an onboarding game and it is, a lot of people played this first and then felt like playing 5-10 more games of the stuff. I’ve been playing this series as it has come out every year since the original PS2 US release in 2005.
So this is what I call Modern Video Game. It’s slightly better than most of them because of it’s much smaller scope. You are just navigating two fairly small city-scapes on foot, over and over. Then there are dozens of side-quests and games with in the game to enjoy at your leisure. Some of them have their own story-line that flows independent of the main story. That main story can be stopped at any time to just futz and push at Urban Japan for the hours and hours of side-content.
I like walking around a facsimile of 80s Japan, and take it from me: I walked around 80s Japan. The Yakuza series at its best is poignant, over-the-top, and sincere. This game is about all the powerful socio-political forces of Japan trying to take control of a back-alley lot in central Tokyo and all the lives these forces will destroy to make it happen. It’s also a character study on the two protagonists who you could be meeting here, but existed in a dozen of games before this. Here they are younger and more well rounded than in a low-budget quickly made game 10 years prior.
It is a all-season pass to the video game buffet about punching dudes to solve all problems including finding love and if there is still honor among the yakuza (unlikely!)
Myst (1994)
Platforms: Windows/Switch/Xbox/Your Phone
Developer: Cyan
Publisher: Broderbund
Yes just Myst. The best selling CD-Rom game. It just received a new port and you can play it most places. My Dad played through this. Your parents maybe played through Myst. My child’s father played this (that’s me.)
It requires no dexterity. You just click on things and solve puzzles in vaguely threatening worlds. I played through it again recently and the atmosphere is still incredible.
It is puzzles at it’s best in that you are supposed to put the game down and play it while you are not playing it. It is a pretty short game, all told, but could still take you a month of messing and thinking. Beating it feels like an accomplishment. You need to take physical notes!
Hinge Problems 
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