Decidedly not playing Pandemic, Inc.

Games getting us through COVID-19—blocks, roguelites, whatever Death Stranding is

We're all stuck at home, but no one's gone stir crazy enough to try Dwarf Fortress (yet).

Ars Staff – Apr 25, 2020 10:00 am | 106

Many of the game's menu options now appear in a smartphone interface. Most importantly, this is where you'll access your Nook Miles account.

Like much of the world, we took have a love/hate relationship with Tom Nook at this point..

While it's hard to see much upside in our current COVID-19 pandemic, there's at least one group for whom maybe quarantine life isn't all that bad—gamers. Maybe you finally have the time (and nothing else to do) to work your way through some 100-hour plus campaign or to retrieve every star in Mario 64. Or, as someone with a partner/roommate/kid, maybe you suddenly never get a chance to game by yourself and have newly been embracing the joys of co-op and multiplayer more than you ever imagined. (Alternatively, maybe you're sticking to whatever handheld isolation you can find instead under such circumstance.) Heck, maybe you're just so bored you decided to finally torture yourself through Dwarf Fortress' initial learning curve.

No matter how you slice it, video games have been one of the most reliable forms of at-home entertainment in both the best of times and the worst of times. So although sheltering-in-place has altered many aspects of life in unquestionably negative ways, around Ars we've stumbled into some gaming silver linings over the last month-plus. Here's what's been keeping our thumbs active in these quartan-times when the work keyboards have retired for the day.

Srsly, how can you say no?

Transporting back to 1994

My name is Nathan, I'm one of the fools who waffled on acquiring a Switch and now lacks any modern gaming device mid-quarantine. I've forever been a console player, and over the years as consoles gained connectivity they've become one of the easiest ways to regularly connect with my younger siblings. But here we are. I guess we'll have to... talk? Scattergories works over video chat, at least.

As for my gaming fix, I'm not entirely without console-access luckily. The first gaming system I ever had was the SNES, a 1992 Christmas gift that my parents still discuss due to the new heights my seven-year-old vocal pitch reached out of excitement. So last year for my birthday, my sister sent the modern incarnation, the Super NES Classic.

Life right now has undoubtedly been hard, and I'm no masochist—Super Ghouls n' Ghosts and Contra 3 remain untouched. I'm also not a gaming historian (sorry, Star Fox 2) and will never understand why Secret of Mana (a third RPG behind Earthbound and Super Mario RPG) had to be included over a big popular mid-90s port like NBA Jam or Mortal Kombat or even Dr. Mario.

Instead, I've spent my limited solo-TV time playing through a familiar side-scroller that's fun with juuuust a touch of challenge: the original Donkey Kong Country.

The positives here probably don't even need naming after 25-plus years, but here we go: The soundtrack remains filled with sneaky bangers. The game prominently features the perennially underrated DK (and his expanded universe) as opposed to the milquetoast Mario. The game's animal mechanics felt revolutionary at the time and remain downright charming today (try smacking some gophers as a rhino right now and see if you feel better, I'll wait). And the overall game play has the exact blend of ease and challenge I'm looking for—maybe I can breeze through the first eight levels without stopping to sip my coffee, but then "Mine Cart Carnage" hits and suddenly my accumulated extra lives are teetering on single digits and my right thumb is in pain from trying to time jumps over abandoned mine carts juuuuusssst right (I'm not the only who can't handle this level effortlessly as an adult, thank you Kotaku). If the Switch Lite (I want that and not the docked version, right?) ever comes back in stock, rest assured this never-owned-a-Wii gamer will be Tropical Freeze-ing the worries away soon after.
—Nathan Mattise, Features Editor

A video game of sorts that everyone can enjoy

Zoom gaming hour

I stay on top of the latest and greatest games, indie to AAA, for a living. But as shelter-at-home orders have kept me separate from friends and family, I've found the various Jackbox Party Packs have provided the perfect way to stay connected. These collections of casual party games run the gamut from trivia to word games to secret-information investigations to straight-up popularity contests, all with the slightly off-kilter humor you might expect from the team behind You Don't Know Jack.

The Jackbox Party Packs satisfy all the requirements necessary for a successful online multiplayer experience with pretty much any group:

* The instructions are simple enough to explain quickly for newcomers.
* It's not reflex-based, so no worries about Internet lag affecting player performance.
* It works on pretty much any platform; all you need is a videoconference that can "share your screen" and a smartphone web browser for each player.
* It encourages creativity and laughter in a mostly non-confrontational way.

We started with a weekly Friday night Jackbox meetup with a group of college friends but have since expanded to post-Seder games with the extended family just as easily. Even my five-year-old has gotten in on the act, laughing her way through a family-friendly edition of the Pictionary-like Drawful just before bedtime.

D tend to get self-conscious just looking at my reflection during video conference calls, and I think the idea of drinking alone together at a "Zoom Happy Hour" sounds excruciating. But a Jackbox game provides the perfect focal point and excuse to catch up with far-flung friends and family while doing something fun together.
—Kyle Orland, Gaming Editor

Free time is now game time

Two weeks before the lockdowns began, my wife and I moved from LA to Chicago to be closer to friends and family. Sadly, all this means we’re even more socially isolated now than we were in LA.

Or, are we? Through games, we’ve been more social than we have been in years. Our more gamer-lite friends who used to not have much time to play games online are now suddenly all-in. We started a Discord server with everybody and have been playing Minecraft, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or Animal Crossing: New Horizons multiple nights per week. It’s been a blast.

On my own, I’m in the final chapters of the Final Fantasy VII Remake. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but I’ve been surprised and delighted.

I’ve been a Fallout 76 player since launch, and between the new folks coming in with the just-launched free Wastelanders expansion and old 76 friends playing more because they have more time at home now, the most positive game community I’ve ever been a part of has been hopping like never before. Haters can hate all they want, but Fallout 76 has its fans and we’re having a great time.

Also, I collect PlayStation games—all generations, to the tune of more than 1,000 games—and I’ve been casually poking around in some classics I never got around to playing before. For example: it turns out Dino Crisis is a roaring good time, if you’re into all the tropes and trappings of cheesy survival horror games from the late 90s—which I absolutely am.

On top of all that, I’ve been competing in the Kusogrande bad games speedrunning competition on Twitch, and I’ve made good progress on a text-based game development project I’ve been working on for the past year.

All this is to say that I have spent most of my free time with games since the shelter-in-place order came down. Everyone has their own way of staying sane amidst all this, and this is mine. It’s working well for me.
—Samuel Axon, Senior Reviews Editor

When play is for work...

I've been fortunate to write about some very big, time-sucking video games for you, dear readers, over the past few months. Some of the resulting reviews have already gone live at Ars Technica: Final Fantasy VII Remake, Resident Evil III Remake, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Half-Life: Alyx, and Valorant. If that's not enough, I have a few other game reviews in the works for this coming week.

So that changes the conversation on my end. What do I play to "wind down" when I'm not playing games for work? Nothing, really. Animal Crossing is a brainless exception when I partake in my state's variety of legal inebriants. But mostly, during my downtime, I watch other people play games.

Twitch streams are my sweet relief. Within these feeds of familiar games, conversations between streamers and their chat rooms remain beautiful, shiny, and crystallized, like they were frozen in resin before the rest of the world joined their "stay home in front of a screen" party. Because, really, these folks were already prepared. They already set up immaculate green-screen rigs, paid for quality microphones and webcams, and erected secondary and tertiary monitors for things like monitoring chat rooms and managing their friends lists.

Twitch is a simpler place for me. It's where I go when I want to hear people talk about something other than... *gestures around mildly*. (If you're wondering about my favorites, they include the Apex Legends battles of NiceWigg, the Super Mario Maker 2 explorations of GrandPooBear, the fighting-game ruminations of Maximilian_DOOD, and the caffeinated exaltations of Viking_Blonde.)
—Sam Machkovech, Culture Editor

Going rogue

Like just about everyone who plays video games, my drug of choice for the past month has been the anesthetizing concoction that is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. But during this period of endless anxiety, I’ve also returned time and again to my video game comfort food: the humble roguelike (or, if you please, “roguelite”). The genre’s demanding gameplay and “just one more run” compulsiveness let me escape my worries and become wholly absorbed into a game world.

The life of a roguelite addict is necessarily the life of someone intimately familiar with Steam’s Early Access program, the incubator where most of these games enter the world. In general, I try to hold off as long as possible before buying into an unfinished game—I don’t want to burn myself out before a game even hits 1.0—but I’m weak, and my resolve inevitably crumbles under the crush of certain games’ attendant hype and FOMO. Thankfully, not all Early Access roguelites are empty shells; some are even good.

Two games in this latter category are Supergiant’s Hades and Hopoo’s Risk of Rain 2. Both are unfinished and lack real endings, both still have development time ahead of them (they’ll be fully released at some point this year), and both are absolutely worth your time and money.

Let’s start with Hades. It’s by far the most polished Early Access game I’ve ever played—unsurprising given the developer’s well-deserved reputation for making impeccably crafted video games. Also unsurprising—though no less impressive—is how Supergiant has effortlessly genre-hopped its way into pro-level roguelite design.

You take on the role of Zagreus, son of Hades, who is doing his damndest to pull up stakes and bust out of his Underworld home to find new residence at Mount Olympus. Hades is not happy with your attempted nest-fleeing and makes sure you must face a gauntlet of baddies to earn your freedom. Thus sets up all the roguelike staples: fighting through rooms of enemies, earning upgrades (here, as “boons” from gods on Mount Olympus), and taking on a boss at the end of each of the game’s biomes.

Combat is fast, flashy, and engrossing, kept fresh throughout runs by your pre-run choice of six different weapons (each with unlockable variants) and the way your upgrades affect your attacks. When you die, and you will, you’re spit back into Hades’ throne room, and you’re free to talk to the denizens of hell, including Hades, before heading out again. This is where the game really shines, doling out lore and narrative that evolves as you play run after run. A roguelite with a story? I wasn’t sure it would work, but it does—and it sets it apart from its peers.

Risk of Rain 2, on the other hand, focuses entirely on the gameplay—and man is it addictive. The first Risk of Rain was one of my favorite games of 2013, and perhaps the best thing about its sequel is how much it feels like the original, even as the formula has made the jump from 2D platformer to 3rd-person shooter. You’re still a space adventurer marooned on a strange planet, forced to hunt (in solo play or co-op) for upgrades to your kit as you mow down endless waves of monsters in an attempt to find each level’s teleporter, which takes you one step closer to victory.

The classes, levels, enemies, bosses, and items are all essentially the same, and the sequel retains the first game’s central gimmick—the difficulty rises the longer you play. But the shift to 3D action-RPG makes the game feel more visceral and immediate. Instead of a zoomed-out view of a 2D world, you’re right up in the action—which is often overwhelming but always satisfying. Piecing together a build that shreds through the game’s high difficulty makes you feel like an unstoppable menace. Again, I didn’t think Risk of Rain would work as a 3D game, but I’m very happy to be wrong.
—Aaron Zimmerman, Copy Chief

Srsly, everyone is playing Animal Crossing

[Editor's note: You've read Ars Tech Policy Reporter Kate Cox's essay on playing everyone's new favorite Switch game with her daughter mid-quarantine, right? Peek at this excerpt then head over for the full thing...]

I always seek organization in my Animal Crossing existence. My homes are fastidious, tidy, and matched. I plant neat orchards, organized in predictable sections and constructed neatly in maximally beneficial, easy-to-harvest rows. I design my gardens carefully, arranging for flower aesthetics and cross-breeding. I carefully lay down paths where otherwise the grass might be trodden down. And I am not used to sharing my town.

She, on the other hand, is six ("almost six and two-thirds, mom"), and therefore by definition a force of chaos—a natural entropy accelerator in both her physical and digital life. She plants trees, flowers, and furniture wherever she happens to be. Why is there an elephant slide between the plaza and the museum? Because that's where she was standing when she discovered it in her inventory. Where did this microwave on the beach come from? She swapped it out for a fish, naturally. Why can't I find any damned oranges? Because she picked them all. And ate them, instead of selling them or leaving even one tree's worth for me.

All of which leads us back to the Great Coconut War.

Power Girl (she named her avatar after her not-so-secret superhero identity) is tired of her small house and wants to upgrade immediately, you see. The Nook real estate syndicate and I have explained to her that you get money to pay off your mortgage (and thus be eligible for an upgrade) by gathering items, especially foreign fruits. Therefore, naturally, she is of a mind to collect and sell every foreign fruit she sees.

"Look," I said. "We only have a couple of coconut trees. If you leave the coconuts alone, I can plant more coconuts, and then we will have plenty for both of us."

"But I want a bigger house, Mommy!"

"Yes. I do too. If we plant more coconuts, and share them, we can each get more money in the long run and make bigger houses faster."

"No! Give me those coconuts! You're the meanest mommy in the world!"

And thus, our play time devolved into a fight that ended up with her being grounded from the Switch for 24 hours after she bludgeoned me mightily about the head with a small stuffed tiger.

Evidently, it's a great month to take to the digital skies.

Lost in the clouds

Two words: Danger zone.

For an average of at least one hour per night for more or less every day during lockdown, I've been slipping on my VR headset and strapping into the cockpit of an F-14B Tomcat, thanks to the incredible work of Heatblur Simulations and their F-14B Tomcat module for DCS World. (DCS World is a high-fidelity flight simulator that supports lots of different aircraft via plug-in modules.)

Listen, you guys, I'm not gonna lie: flying an F-14 in VR is like injecting an entire lifetime's worth of '80s wish fulfillment directly into my veins. For an '80s kid like me, who first watched Top Gun on grainy videocasette (preceded by this incredible Pepsi commercial) when I was in like 4th grade or something, Heatblur's developers and artists have created something that transcends a gaming experience and becomes almost...spiritual.

I know that sounds dumb, but in VR, surrounded by that gloriously unapologetically 70s cockpit with its chunky HUD symbology and Atari-esque displays, the cares of the world dissolve into nothing—there's just the whine of those ludicrous F110-GE-400s sitting on either side of you, the thump as you push the throttle past the stops into afterburner. You crack Mach 2.3 at 50,000 feet as the world yawns beneath you, and it's all gone, all the politics and the coronavirus and the whatever else is out there that's bothering you—it's finally gone, and it's just you and the airplane—carving your name into the sky in a sonic boom that stretches for miles.

Also, I might have just bought a VKB Gunfighter III with the authentic F-14 grip. Here's a picture. Don't judge me. Quarantine makes people do crazy things. [Editor's note: Only one Ars staffer once deposited $500 into the Polish bank account of some dude named Slaw for custom flight-sim pedals.]
—Lee Hutchinson, Senior Technology Editor

Real life in Death (Stranding)

I beat Death Stranding shortly after it launched, but I’ve been using some of my quarantine time to clean up the rest of the game’s achievement list just because I admire its world so much.

I know Ars' Gaming Editor Kyle Orland savaged the game in our review, and he wasn’t alone in doing that. Most of the criticisms directed at the game seem perfectly valid. It can feel like busywork at times, it does wear its symbolism on its face, and director-writer Hideo Kojima is in dire need of an editor (like always). It’s rare for an “art game” to be this big in scope, but it’s not doing a ton that’s altogether new.

And yet, it worked for me. This is an anti-action game: instead of hunting and killing, you avoid fighting and assist those in need. Instead of accumulating for yourself, you give and share with others. The wartime interludes where shooting feels like trash are literal representations of one guy’s personal hell. They’re a total drag, but given the game’s blatant anti-violence streak, shouldn’t they be?

While Death Stranding might as well explain itself with giant neon signs, its themes and setting are eerily prescient right now. (Kojima games have done this before.) The short version: In a time of fear and crisis, the only way out is working with, thinking of, and having faith in other people. Don’t be selfish. That sounds about right. Plus, there’s a meditating quality to traversing Death Stranding’s empty terrain that can help with stress relief.

Building on that last point, I’ve also spent a good amount of time playing sim racing games like Gran Turismo Sport, Assetto Corsa, and F1 2019. I’m a big motorsports guy and miss the real stuff terribly, but watching the many esports events the racing world has put together over the past month compelled me to dust off my old Logitech G29 wheel and put in some laps. These games require laser focus, which has the important side benefit of letting me zone out and forget about the nightmarish stuff happening outside (even if only for 10-20 minutes at a time). Playing Madden or FIFA can never replicate the sports they represent, but a good sim racer gets close enough to the real thing to provide some semblance of structure and normalcy. It's a sort of anti-escapism, in a way, but these days I appreciate that, too.
—Jeff Dunn, Commerce Editor

106 Comments