If we had to choose only 5 games to play until we are all inevitably stung to death by killer bees, what would we choose? These are not our favorite games, but ones we would enjoy playing over and over again – though there is likely to be some overlap. More importantly, this is not a desert island list. It’s completely different so stop thinking it isn’t.
Jay
With the news Capcom will be using GenAI for game development, I’ve realized the idea that games I don’t want to play may eventually be all that come out. This fact combined with hearing an episode of The Legacy Music Hour that featured a brief discussion of how one of the hosts could basically exist just replaying about 20 games got me thinking about what I would choose for such an exercise. Only with five games because no one wants to read or write a list of 20 games from multiple people.
X-Com – Not the new one for losers who like well made, easy to play games – the original PC game. Even without the patch that fixes the difficulty setting, which apparently always changes back to easy regardless of where you set it (I am bad so easy is still hard), this would probably be enough for me forever without the other 4. Recently, someone I recommended X-Com to complained that there’s a large stretch in the beginning that allows you to completely screw yourself over, but the solution is simple – buy it for PS1 and use the manual, which includes a long tutorial, to get through initial basebuilding, resource assignments, and UFO interception. Once you know the ropes, you can enjoy things not found in remakes, such as fully destructible environments and the overall ambiance of a horror game.
Culdcept – The 360 version has more cards but the art style sucks so I probably would choose the PS2 (not) original of this turn based board game that plays like Monopoly meets Magic. I’ve probably already spent a thousand hours playing and could likely do another. At two hours a day that would give me over a year of video games, which is fine because I plan on dying last Thursday.
Shenmue ½ – That’s actually Shenmue 1 and 2 but my document app autocorrected it to a fraction and who am I to assert my own will on a machine? Speaking of machines, series protagonist Ryo Suzuki may not be popular like Mario, or cool like Sonic, or extant like Master Chief, but he does speak as if he may have brain damage – which is exactly what you want from a fully voice-acted character pursuing revenge on an emotional journey across Asia. Still speaking of machines and natural segways, obviously I would play these games on a Dreamcast because new things are bad and history should have stopped when I was 20.
This site (read: Pat and I) has discussed Shenmue and its excellent qualities and complete lack of bad ones many times before, but the titles’ scale and scope make them particularly replayable. Large, highly detailed areas with changing weather patterns, dozens of NPCs following their own schedules, and endless fork lift races await. How about a game of Lucky Hit? And then there is the secret cheat of games within games – Arcade ports of Hang On, Space Harrier, Outrun, and Afterburner are all playable across the two Shenmue games. I don’t care what’s in Yakuza, shut up.
Slay the Spire – Another card game because I like them, but unlike Culdcept, I barely know how to play Slay the Spire. I can finish it about once every 20 tries on the easiest level and haven’t ever finished it with one of the classes. She changes stances and sucks, you know who I mean. If I imagine I slowly unravel the hidden synergies and get better at the game, it would provide some million hours of entertainment. It was a hard choice between this and Monster Train 2, which I think is slightly worse but has an assload of different player classes to choose from and thus maybe more variety, but I never considered Balatro and I would prefer it if you put it out of your mind.
Sin and Punishment 2 – I figure some cool action game would be good after all the slower paced stuff I’ve selected so far, and Treasure makes cool action games. It was sort of a toss up between a few of their games but S&P(500) is one I have never finished so it will be the only game on the list that has new content for me to experience. It’s also really fun and will provide me with the needed aerobic workouts to keep me playing for decades to come via Wii pointer controls. Really just trying to decipher what the fuck the game is about could take me the rest of my natural life.
Honorable mentions:
Shining Force III 1/2/3 – I left this off the list because it’s clearly three games and thus cheating. Shenmue 1 and 2 were released as one product at some point, but the Shining Force 3 trilogy was never released on one disc, nor would it fit because it’s too amazing (and also large (in quality, not actual data size)). And don’t even get me started on the Premium Disc.
Ikaruga – Maybe this is the choice I should have made and not Sin and Crime and Misdemeanors and Punishment 2, but I have played a lot of Ikaruga already and got mildly good at it. Not good enough to play on hard, which has enemies bleeding bullets upon death and they’re almost always the color of bullet that will kill you if you are playing correctly and killing enemies with their opposite color, but put me on easy with infinite continues and I can eventually finish this game. My serious accomplishment was beating the spinning boss without dying, though I can’t remember if it was the spinning boss of stage 3 or 4.
Sim City 4 – I put a lot of time into this and it’s exactly the style of game that would make sense on a list of this sort. Too bad I no longer abide by its sensibilities, but not in any reasonable and predictable way. I actually dislike cars, the joint venture between car corporations and the government of my country, cars effects on the world which are more than pollution, and the suburbs and the white flight behind their creation after desegregation. And, unfortunately, as much fun as it is, Sim City is not a game where you make walkable cities, friendly communities, and mixed use zoning – it’s a game spawned from a libertarian brain and as such is effectively American City Builder 4. Which reminds me, I also really enjoy American Accumulation and Urination Simulator, specifically the third one.
Civilization Something – I have played Civ 3, 4, 5, and 6 and barely remember what separates them, though I do recall Alpha Centauri does not take place on earth and the pirated copy I had in college was missing music files (don’t worry about me, Sid and Jesus will both forgive me and I’ve they’re pretty tight according to Soren). They are all great games to play infinitely, but I always go for cultural victory (introduced in 4 I will guess) and despise the military stuff. Not because I am a some wimp pacifist but because it’s clunky and tedious until later games and distracts from the more fun stuff like building and expanding. Honestly, Civ 6 and Sim City 4 would probably be enough to play forever, but our nonexistent readership demands content (actually, we have only received emails asking us to stop making content).
Crusader Kings III – I am beginning to realize my list is bad and I am missing all the large, endlessly playable things I like but unfortunately this is all being typed in real time as you read it so it’s too late to go back and change anything. Also, I always play as the same Irishman, which is ironic because I hate the Irish because Cunzy keeps telling me how inferior they are to the English and I innately trust anyone who won’t tell me their real name.
Chris
I occasionally find myself between story-driven games without something new on-deck. It was fairly easy for me to pick out games I’ve kept returning to, so it might be unsurprising to see that many of these games are a decade or so old. Even though by volume I play more story-driven games, grand strategy is a genre I keep coming back to – and many of these games are ones in which I can at least come up with my own story even if they offer little of their own.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX – An “ultimate” version of Risk, in my favorite setting. This is a character-focused grand strategy game with hands-off combat, where you choose formations and generals and they go off and do their thing. The variety of scenarios and ability to edit/add forces makes for the ability to ramp up challenge or do weird experiments.
Faster Than Light – Not only is there a lot to discover in this game, it doesn’t have sellout “metaprogression” – it’s all unlock-only. If I have forever to play it, maybe I can actually beat the non-easy difficulty levels.
Stellaris – I considered Europa Universalis IV for this one, but I feel Stellaris has a wider variety of scenarios and includes some light city-building mechanics, so it slots in better (while ROTKIX has the asymmetric starts I enjoyed in EUIV). I’m also worse at Stellaris so I’m sure I could get an extra 200 hours out of just learning the game.
Mount & Blade: Bannerlord – While I considered the more cohesive, better-balanced Warband, for this particular scenario I think Bannerlord wins out with more styles of play, multi-generational characters, and overall polish. Bannerlord is a great action/simulation/strategy. In particular it wins out over Wartales and Sailing Era (which I’ve played more) because its combat is less tedious than either, there are fewer barriers to the activities I actually want to do, and it simulates a more dynamic/active world that will stand up better to replay.
Stardew Valley – I expect in between the time playing frantic or systems-heavy games, I’ll want something lighter and more relaxing. I’ve returned to Stardew Valley at least four times since its original release. Each playthrough has been slightly different, even un-modded, and I haven’t even messed with the built-in randomization settings. Stardew wins over other farming/adventure sims like Rune Factory partly because of its deliberate pace and starting configurability, but it’s also a grounded game despite having combat and fantasy elements.
Honorable Mentions:
Suikoden II/III/V – I love their stories and the large cast lends itself fairly well for replays as RPGs go, but playing them over and over will likely sour me on them.
RollerCoaster Tycoon – I appreciate this one in short bursts and it has some depth but I fear it would get tedious on a desert island in a killer bee anticipation situation.
Dark Souls – Part of the appeal of a soulslike is in exploring and finding unexpected things. While I’m sure it would keep me entertained for a few weeks and would be a good recharge game between the strategy entries, I don’t think it would have the longevity I would need.
Civilization V or VI – I can finally say after a few hundred hours of Civilization V that I think I’ve seen what it has to offer. While VI is okay, I feel like the district system pigeonholes you into a strategy based on the terrain you’re offered. The expansions are decent but don’t feel as game-changing as V’s were. I haven’t played VII so it seems premature to add that to my list or as an honorable mention except as a footnote to V/VI like in this sentence.
Cunzy
I have the kind of brain that thinks that this would actually be a balm to the options paralysis that modern gaming (on a moderate income) provides. Of course, I could only decide on my five games if I could overcome the crushing thought that I’d not made the best choices. A lot of games these days are TOO BIG. Way too big. But that issue goes out of the window when 1) there’s only five of them to play and 2) I presume part of the premise is there’s nothing else to do [Editor – that is not part of the premise]. Maybe we’re selected by aliens as part of some lifelong study on human cognition or something. Here are my five:
Fire Emblem Warriors – Dynasty warriors with rainbow pastel hair colours and anime tropes? Count me in. Seriously, this game had so many extra maps, modes, collectibles, mechanics and skill trees for a massive roster of characters that I think you have to be somewhat psychotic or incredibly single minded to have done it all. I have a clarifying question though, does this thought experiment come with an unlimited supply of new controllers? Because musou games are hell on them. I reserve the right to switch this game out should that not be the case.
Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp – As with Fire Emblem Warriors, there is a gluttony of content to play through here, which, to be honest, is all a bit academic because I am so bad at these games that even in early levels in the campaign mode, before we even consider the gazillion extra maps and modes to play through, I end up in some infinite timespan war of brutal stalemate. Thousands of lives wasted on a turn by turn infinitesimally shifting front line. Who knows, with a lot of time at the war table, I might actually develop a decent strategy rather than wasting my character’s ultra moves every ten turns to take over a crucial stronghold city to then immediately lose it next turn.
Fuser – Fuser blows my mind. I don’t understand music enough to understand how it even works. It is magic to me and I am a bit scared of it like the chimps and the black monolith in 2001. A somewhat overlooked music game, I feel, which allows you to take the role of a DJ at some horrible alt festival, where the drugged up revellers smell worse than the toilets, that gives you the tools to quickly make some brain pleasing bangers but with an anxiety inducing level of deeper tools that you need an advanced audio engineering degree to really make the most out of. Again, with infinite time in the ALIEN TEST FACILITY, I might have the time and attention to use all the tools in the box rather than just mash everything together with a sick drop into Starships. Actually, I’d probably be okay with just mashing everything together with sick drops into Starships. Question, are the aliens happy to pay for all the DLC tracks? Or at least some of them? [Editor – there are no aliens.]
Alien Resurrection – I distinctly remember a review of Alien Resurrection at the time comparing the difficulty to getting a GCSE (English ‘high school’ qualification you normally get at aged 16) and I firmly disagree. Tens of thousands of teenagers get GCSEs every year. I don’t know anyone who has beaten Alien Resurrection. Until all the PlayStations and PlayStation 2s I owned gave up the ghost, I used to have an annual crack at nudging forward my progress, often failing. If you see an Alien, you’re dead. If an Alien sees you, you’re dead. You find weapons but they’re a placebo at best, a Dumbo feather, a comfort inventory item. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were also soldiers stoating about who also wanted to kill you on sight and they were well qualified to do so. I’d love to have this on my five game rotation to try to see it through to the end one room-by-room slog at a time. I think Alien Isolation is in every way the better Alien themed game but not finishing this one has always been a blemish on my otherwise perfect 100% completion gaming record (bar all the other games in this list and most of the other ones beyond that).
Call of Cthulhu – Look, I feel I need some more information about this Alien testing hypothetical. Will we have an internet connection? Can I link it to my gaming profiles? I promise I won’t try to earn achievements in a specific order to send out the message that I’d been kidnapped and experimented on. In any case, 2018-2019’s Call of Cthulhu was a decent Lovecraft game with one glaring exception. At the conclusion of the game there were alternate endings, one of which remains opaque as to precisely what you have to do to trigger it. I blasted through the game the first time around, then did a few playthroughs hoovering up the loose achievements and now only have the alternate ending achievement outstanding. I eventually gave up trying to follow the folklorish suggestions of the game’s fanbase as to the precise combination of things you needed to do to get it (stare at the porn mag/talk to the dog/never look down/carry the gnome to the rocket/etc.) as every attempt after playing through the whole game again, came down to seeing if I had the option to pick the other ending at the climax of the game.
In the end, I couldn’t take the heartbreak of not seeing the option after another full run. With time on my hands, I’d run a series of controlled experiments to conclusively work out the precise hidden parameters of the game that result in getting the other ending. For science. I’d then plead with my captors and/or offer interspecies sexual favours for them to upload the results to the relevant obsolete GameFAQs boards and Reddit posts for the Call of Cthulhu so no mortal would suffer again trying to get the platinum trophy for this game.
Mentions:
Now that I’ve put my five games together, I feel like it’s a bad selection. I can see myself getting bored by Fire Emblem, beaten by Advance Wars, lazy with Fuser, nowhere with Alien Resurrection, and frustrated with Call of Cthulhu. What a shit list. I think the aliens would put me back. So I guess just give me all the Pokémon Switch games and a Pokémon Home subscription and I’ll fill my boots endlessly cycling between them as I currently already do with seemingly no end in sight.