Working Title 4.03.08: Working Relaxation

Posted by Jordan Williams on 04.03.2008

Some people sit down with a good book or a loved one to relax. I sit down with video games. Man, that sounds pathetic.

Welcome back to the #1 Column to go on Spring Break next week, WORKING TITLE. That glorious time where I get to sit around and do nothing for a week is finally upon us. I am sad to say that there will be no WT that week, but it's a vacation and all. Don't miss me too much, the last thing I need is to comeback to an inbox full of weepy fanboys who didn't get their fix of grammatically incorrect ranting.

Anyway, while in the spirit of Spring Break. I've decided to drop in a list of the most relaxing video games I've ever played. Well, the most relaxing things I've done IN video games. I mean not every single moment in a video game has to be about maiming and kill everything in sight...right?

Well, okay. Sometimes it does. But other times you can just relax and smell the non-existent roses before you commit digital murder.


Working Relaxation

What do you do to relax? Take a walk? A warm shower? Eat some food? I personally pop in a video game and let my brains just go to mush. Ignorance is bliss. Over the years I have always found that certain games tend to relax me and certain THINGS in games relax me as well. How about I share a few of them and see if you feel the same way?


Pilotwings 64



I don't know how many of you actually had a chance to play this game because I remember it being fairly rare back when I owned it. But it was a very gun and relaxing game. For those of you who have never played Pilotwings64 or the original, I'll explain to you what it was.

Pilotwings was flight-sim in the sense of a contest rather than combat. You could control any manner of real (or fictional) vehicles to achieve a goal on a level. Vehicles ranged from normal things like hang gliders and stunt planes to a few more over the top choices like jet packs and a super boots that let you jump crazy high.

The game itself, when played right, is VERY relaxing. There are a few times where it can get a bit tense, such as having to navigate a long cave in a jetpack while rocks and water fall on you. But then there's other times when the game is an absolute joy to play and the next thing you know you have spent about three hours just flying around Little States( a level based off of the 48 contiguous states) doing nothing.

Relaxation Technique

For me, the way I relaxed playing this game was to simply strap on the birdman suit and just fly around. The birdman suit was a special 'free run' mode that would turn give your selected character wings. Allowing them to just fly around and do whatever they wanted. There was no real point to the mode other than to just explore and take pictures of the surroundings. Although it was an early N64 Game (a launch title, no less) for it's time it did have some pretty nice environments and landscapes. The aforementioned Little States is the stand out here. As there are land marks from every major city represented and you could fly around them and check them out in now horribly outdated 3D glory. Places like the Golden Gate Bridge, the sorely missed World Trade Center, Statue of Liberty and even Mt. Rushmore with Mario's face on it.

Of course, if this mode was a bit too slow for you, there was always a more action oriented way of relaxing.

That's where the cannon came in.

You would stuff your poor little 3D buddy into giant cannon and just shoot them across the map. The point of the game was of course to hit the target on the other side of the map, but really? Why bother with that when you can attempt to lodge the poor sucker into Liberty's nose? Or try to jam him into Mario's eye?


Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup



My Harry Potter fandom has long since waned, but there was a part of my life when I ate these books and shat magic. During this time I was dumb enough to play any Harry Potter game that came out. The thing is, I actually LIKED this one and still own it to this day.

Quidditch World Cup is pretty obvious, it was a Harry Potter game completely built around the fictional sport of Quidditch. The thing I liked about this game is that it wasn't some game for another sport that they just passed off as Quidditch. This was a real (and to the day, only) representation of Quidditch. The gameplay was actually very fun and involved and that was even if you had never read a Harry Potter book.

All of the House Teams were playable as well as nine international teams (thus the game being World Cup). And it did have the over-the-top action that EA is known for. It's always hilarious activating a special move only to see a whole punch of preteens on brooms start kicking the magical shit out of each other.


Relaxation Technique

This game was relaxing to me in a different kind of way. Kind of how watching a game of football might seem relaxing to others. It wasn't slow or calming, but on the other hand it was so mindlessly fun that I really didn't have to worry about anything while I was playing it. I would just pop in the game and pick my team (Ravenclaw and Australia) and just go to work. It would be easy to just play a long game and not even realize it.

It's a damn shame they never thought about making a sequel to this game. But me complaining about games that should have a sequel is something I am only allowed to do 5 times a year according to Ashish.

Working Title is being silenced by THE MAN.



Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas



No, this isn't a mistake. This game is actually relaxing to some people and I happen to be one of them. The reason why I chose this one over its other prequels/sequels was because of the expansive amount of back country and desert it had. A lot of people saw this as a bit of a detriment to the game because there was nothing ever going on out there. But I actually liked just driving around in it.

Of course, GTA:SA will always be known for other things such as cop killing, car stealing, drug trafficking, prostitution, evidence burning, remote controlled warfare, chop shop owning, gang banging, fire fighting, sky diving, bike racing, boat training, jet stealing, girlfriend hopping, police evading, police corruption, racketeering, heisting, hijacking, swimming, assassination, procrastination, glorification of street violence, music industry corruption, drive-by shooting, attempted suicides, turf wars, organized crime, crooked FBI agents, hilarious FBI agents, down right assholish FBI agents, potty humor, very annoying sexual humor, lots of great early 90's music, lots of bad early 90's music, even worse early 90's fashion and of course, hot coffee.

Relaxation Technique

As I mentioned above I was a big fan of the empty space in GTA: SA and I'm actually kind of sad that it's not going to be there in GTA4. I thought it was a bit more realistic to have some space that didn't contain anything rather than having wall-to-wall cityscape. But oh well. One of my favorite things to do was to simply just drive around out there on a dirt bike or in a dune buggy. Sure, it's sad and something I could (possibly) do in real life, but least I don't risk getting stranded.

Now, for you people that get relaxed by wanton violence, there was always the other way of relaxing; getting a five-star rating and seeing how long you could hold it.

For me, I always had a set plan on how I did this. I'd always start off small and get bigger. Maybe hitting someone in the street and then running to a bike and stealing that for a bit. Then maybe I'd off someone and take their car and run until that car about had it, then it's time to up the ante and go for bigger fish. It always culminated in my breaking into Easter Bay and stealing a Hydra and seeing how far I could get before I had to eject, and then I would land in the water, steal a boat and keep the chase going until I finally got killed. Sure, it sounds hectic and will probably be used in some court case to correlate GTA to criminal violence. But the shit is FUN and strangely relaxing at the same time. Wacko Jacko and the Uptight Parents Brigade should rest easy in knowing that I had enough sense not to do this in real life.


Kirby Superstar



Damn this game. Damn this game to hell.

Look at that smug little motherfucker on the cover. He knows he is on the front of one of the best 16-bit platformers ever. But I digress; this game is relaxing in a way that is different from the three above it. It's just plain damn fun.

A game doesn't have to be quiet and slow or needlessly violent to relax you. Sometimes the game itself can just be fun. KSS is just that, there are about nine games in here that are all chocked to the pink brim with fun. From standard sidescrolling adventures like Dyna Blade to the exploration based The Great Cave Offensive that had you searching for items rather than completing levels. There was a lot of stuff to do with the pink little bastard who adorned this game.

Relaxation Technique

There wasn't really much a technique I used rather than just a game I played over and over. I always liked The Great Cave Offensive because of its mix between Kirby and Metroid-like platforming and exploration. I was also THE SHIT at Samurai Kirby. Honestly, no one could touch me in that shit.

I guess this relaxation technique would just fall under the game being just plain fun. There is no special level that's quiet or anything like that. It's just a fun game. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen more Kirby games like this in the vein of platforming adventures. It seems all of his time is now taken up by kicking major amounts of ass in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

If I were to do a sequel to Kirby64 I would ha--

Fuck. They bossman just told me to cut it out with the sequels or else he will shove bamboo under my fingernails and dip them in lemon juice.

Moving on.


Working Feedback

From what I can tell, most people hated Adventures because it wasn't a Star Fox game; it was an action-adventure game with Star Fox characters. Hell, it wasn't even supposed to be a Star Fox game to begin with. I haven't played it myself so I don't know how it stands as a game but I guess you'd see the same reaction if they made Halo 4 an RPG with medieval weaponry. ~MC42

Stay tuned for this week's Working Question.

I'm still not understanding why you don't like FF7, it was a great game. ~Froze

It all started two years ago when I posted this column in which I called Final Fantasy VII an overrated game.

A lot of people mistook overrated for 'I hate this game'. The following week this happened. I got so much email that I had to devote a whole column to it. I don't hate Final Fantasy VII; you'll never see me say that. I just think it's a terribly overrated game. The FFVII-2 sequel was just a painless jab.

Working Question: Why do you LIKE me?

The general consensus was that people didn't like StarFox Adventures because it was too much of a departure from the Star Fox series with him out on foot and kicking ass.

Using that logic...



Well?

Sure, this game tied more into the Mario universe than SFAd did, but it was a departure nonetheless. I think people get so blinded by the fact that SFAd was DIFFERENT from its earlier versions that they forget that it still IS a good game. Thoughts?

Until the 16th, I'm Jordan Williams...and SPRING BREAK WHOO!