Are you stressed? Maybe you are and you just don’t know it? Maybe your not and your blissful existence needs some to snap you out of your charmed existence? Maybe you should stop stressing and read on?
Mario – Any of the 2D ones
Nothing provokes a sense of stress like missing a platform just by the tiniest of margins and either restarting the level or the area. To get the maximum effect be sure to try to collect every coin/Moon/Star/sprite item. One slip up and you’ll have a good measure of what your stress levels are.
Hero’s of the storm – any mode
Manage your expectations, learn a new system, get to grips with people and or the AI. All on a timer and with multiple things going on at once. Similar to dota but if you don’t get it then it’s a big bucket of stress for you chum! It should be a good test of multitasking stress!
Street Fighter 5 – online
Enjoy losing, then losing to lag, then losing just by the skin of your teeth, then losing due to a lack of skill and then finally coming close to a win… and the opponent drops out. Stress Causer 5.
Spelunky – Daily Challenge
Damn I love some Spelunky and like Mario I’m sure you do to! That being said, try playing the Daily Challenge and doing well in it. Slipping up, falling onto spikes, being hit by a monster or accidentally messing up and hitting the storekeeper only to be butchered later on. Nothing causes rage stress like losing a lot of luck.
Final Fantasy X-2 – the dub of doom
Listen to those voices, just take a moment and think about the lines of dialogue they speak. A happy, silly Jrpg game that’s great too look at and ok to play but the voices. It’s like a terrible anime dub that you try to endure only to realise what are you doing with your life?
Parappa the Rapper – Cheap Cheap Cheap
Kick punch block, Left right, drive drive drive, funky flow, it’s just so good. Then put the cake in the oven for a while. FAIL. The stress slowly rises as the ingredients cook, the shift in hidden mechanics causes a slow build of pure rage until the stress causes you to squawk like an angry chicken.
Sonic The Hedgehog 06 – Such a classic buried in broken glass
Ok I’m an obvious sonic fan but “Sonic 06” is just a stress maker in a videogame. Loading times that take days, dying in cutscenes and just a really big broken game. What makes matters worse is if you stop and look at the engine and moments it looks and sounds fantastic, then it moves and breaks. It’s just no use.
Minecraft – Relax, take a break, build stuff…. BOOM!
With it’s left hand it goes calm, quiet, peaceful and bliss. So your stress goes, you feel better, everything is nice and you decide, “yeah that tree needs a house there”. All it takes is a creeper and BOOM your stress is back and then some. Like finding out your house is unfortunately next to the new Motorway.
If you however would like to chill out? I highly recommend looking at the best indie games as there are lots of brilliant quietly warming games. Almost every top 5 has some cracking ones; Fugl, Zen Sand, Flow, Journey and any Scumm game.
ElderlyGoose 