I get asked a lot if I play video games and what they are, and my answers are never quite satisfying for people. I have very specific tastes in video games which I think reveal a lot about me as a person.

First, A Few Preferences:

1) I Do Not Play Console Games

I haven't played a console game since I had my Nintendo 64--which, to be clear, was the absolute pinnacle of gaming. It has never gotten better than all night binges of Goldeneye and Mountain Dew when you're 20 years old.

I don't have anything against console games, I just can't figure out how to use the controllers. And I know this makes me an old man. But I got rid of my N64 around 2005 and went at least six or seven years before ever picking up a console controller--and I could just never figure it out again. I can't use the two joysticks at the same time. It's miserable, and I don't enjoy it enough to want to continue to learn.

2) I Do Not Play Multiplayer Games

I play games that are relaxed and that I can pause and walk away from, and that doesn't jive well with multiplayer games. I don't want to inconvenience the other players if it's turn-based, and I obviously can't leave a battle in the middle if it's something action oriented. So I don't ever play multiplayer.

3) I Do Not Play Mobile Games

With the exception of the New York Times games, I have always avoided mobile games, and it's not because I don't think they're good, but it's because I think they could be very easily addictive, and I spend a lot of time on my phone--I don't want having a little addictive poison pill sitting in my pocket all the time.

4) I Just Don't Play Video Games Very Much?

Don't get me wrong, as you see when I talk about the games below, I love me some video games. They're just a tertiary hobby after other more dominant hobbies like writing and miniature wargaming. Video games only get played if 1) I'm very stressed, or 2) I need to kill a day. The most common time I play video games is when my wife is gone somewhere--away at her sister's or on a vacation--and it's not because "good, the old Ball And Chain is gone and I can finally play games", it's "ack, I'm uncomfortable and I need to turn my brain off for the next two days".

5) I Play Video Games on (Relatively) Easy Mode

I'm not trying to be an esports gamer. I want to play for escapism and I want the ability to successfully win. I mean, I still like to challenge myself, but I can't imagine a world where I would want to play a game on Nightmare Mode, or whatever.

My Favorite Video Games

For starters, these are not my favorite Of All Time, because if we were talking about All Time then I'd be including old stuff like Original Nintendo Mega Man, and I haven't played that in 35 years. These are my favorite that I still go back to. Some of them are quite old, but I still love them.

Empire: Total War

The Total War series is one of my favorite of all time. The basic idea is that you have a large map on which you move armies, build cities, develop industries, and research tech. Kinda Civilizationish, but not exactly. But then the cool thing is that when you get into a battle, it zooms in and you control your army's tactics: so if your army is full of 10 infantry and 5 cavalry units and 2 cannons, then you control each one of those individually. So Total War gives you the strategic AND tactical aspects of war, and they just do it really well.

I've played a ton of the Total War games, with some of my favorites being Warhammer 2 and 3, Shogun II, and Napoleon, but my favorite hands down is Empire: Total War, which takes place all around the globe from the time period of 1700 to 1800. It is just so rich with options. You can play something like 18 different nations, from the powerful British to the very not powerful United Provinces, or the Mughal Empire.

And I've sunk, no kidding, over 3000 hours into this game. (Before you get too worried, it came out 15 years ago and I've been playing it this whole time.) I don't think there's a single strategy I haven't tried, a single empire I haven't led to global domination. It's just fun.

Civilization VI

I have been playing Civilization since the original DOS version, and I've always loved it, but it was perfected in Civ 6, which is probably why once they reached 6 they kinda hung around there and didn't push it further but just released DLC after DLC for years and years.

But the game is so fun, for a lot of the same reasons that I liked Empire Total War. I like the options of being able to play as a wide variety of nations, with a wide variety of strategies. I like challenge myself when I go into the game to say "Okay, this time I'm going to play very aggressive and get a domination win" and sometimes I say "I'm going to build a ton of churches and get a religion win" or culture or technology, or whatever.

It's just a great game.

BattleTech

Maybe this is a niche game, but I'm a niche gamer. BattleTech is a wargame that I have been aware of/played since the 7th grade. You basically fight in teams of four big mechs. The problem with the pencil and paper wargame is that it is extremely "crunchy" which basically means that it gets very very detailed and can get tedious when you're having to do all the math by hand. For example, when you target an enemy, you can hit them in any number of locations. from the leg to the torso to the head and so on--and when you do, you damage the systems that are contained within that location. So, if I shoot you in the torso and that torso has a rocket launcher, some autocannon ammo, and a heat sink, then my shot to that torso could damage all (or none) of those things, which would render them either harder to use or completely unusable.

All of this makes it hard to play with pencil and paper. But when you put it into a video game where the computer does all the math? It's awesome.

I have sunk many hundreds of hours into this game, too, and this I think is my current comfort game.

(I admit that I hacked the files--"hacked" is a strong word for something pretty simple--and made it easier for myself to get money so I could access the bigger and better mechs. But that's how it goes.)

Silent Storm

I bet you haven't heard of this one, and it's because it's a terrible game. But it has so much potential!

This is a turn-based strategy game that follows your team of six commandos in World War Two--you can play as the Axis or the Allies. And all of that is great. You play, your grenadier throws grenades, your engineer fires bazookas, and your sniper snipes. It's a ton of fun and exactly what I want in a turn based strategy game.

The problem is that you reach a certain level and the game says "Wait a minute--now this is a sci-fi game, and all the skills that you've honed, like stealth, are useless." It puts you in dieselpunk mech suits and they're slow and clunky and there's never enough ammunition to use them and they're overpowered, and the game is just super dumb.

But that first fifteen missions before the mechs show up? Pure gold.

Did I mention this game came out 20 years ago? Yes, it and I are old.

My Top Five Favorite Video Games