Special Edition: Games to Play When You're Bored Part 2
Top 10 Games to Play When You’re Bored - Part 2
Editor’s Note - Part One
In part one there certainly was not a lack of shooters. Part 2 branches out and includes some stalwarts of their respective genres - be it the award-winning MMO World of Warcraft to Burnout Paradise, the latest in the acclaimed Burnout series.
World of Warcraft
There’s a reason everyone has heard of World of Warcraft - there are nine million people missing from their daily lives. WoW is one of those games that you start enjoying within 10 minutes, and it starts to consume your every waking hour. Being a MMO, character creation is an important facet of the game and choices are fairly robust. You can choose to be anything from a Night Elf Rogue to an Orc Warrior. After you select a character you’re dropped into Azeroth: a land filled with other players vying to reach that next level. You move from one area to the next completing quests for local citizens in need of small favors such as clearing a pack of bandits from a vineyard. As you progress toward the end of the game, players can choose to take part in everything from twenty-man raids, to massive dungeon runs, or epic PVP battles.
In recent years WoW has emerged as ruler of the MMORPG genre thanks to its accessibility to new players and a deft marketing strategy. All it takes is some determination mixed with a truckload of time and you’ll find yourself deep into the game trudging through the toughest dungeons and battling the biggest bosses - but it doesn’t end there. Blizzard adds new content to the game free of charge periodically through patches, so technically the game never ends. Blizzard has released two major expansion packs - The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King - which are among the best-selling and most critically-acclaimed expansions of all time. For the hardcore WoW fan, both are worth a look.
Gears of War 2
Chainsaw bayonets. Brutal headshots. Meat flags. Pretty much sums up a quality game experience. When we played the original Gears of War for the first time we were taken aback by its perfect combination of beautiful graphics, unique gameplay, and the overall epic atmosphere. In Gears of War 2, Epic Games opted to keep the same essential gameplay design of the original and added another layer of badassness.
The new campaign takes the fight to the Locusts in expansive locations that take you from Jacinto to deep into the Locust lair. As the game goes underground you’ll find yourself facing tougher enemies in unending chasms, both on foot and in vehicles. You can choose to play through the campaign with a friend either online or offline via split-screen.
New features to the Gears universe include weapons, vehicles, and multiplayer gametypes. One of the highlights of Gears 2 is the Horde multiplayer gametype. In Horde, a team of up to five human players will work together to fight off wave after wave of Locust attackers. Each wave becomes progressively more difficult to defeat making it a challenge for even the hardcore fans. Gears of War 2 still retains all of the classic gametypes such as Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and King of the Hill, making Gears 2 a must have for the shooter enthusiast.
Fallout 3
Sure, we’ve all done post-apocalyptic before. In fact, Left 4 Dead, which was noted earlier in part one, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. However, Fallout 3 is definitely worth a look for the hardcore RPG fan. A marked departure from the previous two instalments, Fallout 3 asserts itself as one of the most critically acclaimed games in recent years.
Beginning the game as a toddler in an underground Washington D.C. vault, Fallout 3 uses this opportunity to acquaint you with your character and your general skillset. The early years of your life move by quickly, and along the way you learn about your father. A series of events leads to your father’s disappearance and you following his trail into the Wasteland.
While there are primary objectives to complete, it’s largely up to you to explore where you want and play the game the way you want. If you want to be friendly and helpful you can - conversely you can be evil and sadistic. The actions you take in the game ripple throughout and serve well to immerse you in the game.
When you enter combat you can fight from either a first or third person perspective, or you can use the game’s much hyped feature; the V.A.T.S. system. This displays critical areas of the target’s body and the likelihood that you can actually hit that body part with your weapon. After choosing where to fire the game goes into slow motion and you get to watch yourself riddle your enemy with bullets. Land the shots just right and you can even dismember approaching enemies. With multiple endings coupled with the wide open expanse of the Wasteland, seeing everything on the first play through is practically impossible.
Warhawk
One of the first AAA titles for the PS3, Warhawk showcases the power of the PS3 architecture. Warhawk had a built-in fanbase throughout the development cycle and on its release it proved to be one of the most consistently played PS3 titles.
Graphically the game has a unique look that trends towards a more arcade look and feel. Fans of the original know that focus is on aerial combat, though the developers did add in a robust ground component. The game is balanced in such a way that whether you prefer to be on the ground or in the air you have plenty of ways to defeat your enemies. Ground combat is characterized by a decent selection of guns and vehicles, while planes have differing power-ups.
Multiplayer servers can have up to 32 people in a single room - if you consider that each of these players can man an aircraft in dogfight mode you can find yourself with some pretty chaotic skies. Warhawk successfully integrates the Sixaxis controls into the flying vehicles - but there’s always the option to control the vehicles using the joysticks if you’d rather play the game that way. With its addictive and perfectly balanced multiplayer, Warhawk should be a staple for every PS3 owner.
Burnout Paradise
Criterion Games could have just brought us a repackaged Burnout: Takedown and we all would have been cool with that. Instead they took the series in an entirely new direction with Burnout Paradise with grand effect. Taking everything you loved from previous Burnout games and placing it into the open world of Paradise City, Criterion Games has successfully moved the series from a linear racer to a sandbox style of play.
Basically you drive around the city searching out challenges to take on. Once you enter a challenge you’ll find the game behaves much like the older Burnout games, but it feels a lot more open as you essentially create your own paths to victory. There are hidden shortcuts and ramps all over the place to get you to the finish line in style. With numerous challenges all over the map, Burnout Paradise offers hours of replay value.
Crash mode, now called “Showtime,” has been redesigned so that you can do it anywhere at any time. Once you’ve activated Showtime mode you can string together the ultimate, never-ending crash. Multiplayer has also been redesigned to accommodate the new free-ranging style of Burnout Paradise. Online play merges your world with others and you can work in a coop fashion to complete challenges. With additional DLC, Burnout Paradise is a solid game for the racing enthusiasts and fans of the previous games in the series.
That’s our top 10. With this list you should never fall into a state of boredom again wondering what game to play. Be sure in the comments or on twitter to list the games you play and we will create a user-generated list in the coming weeks.
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April 14th, 2009
[...] Read the original post: Top 10 Games to Play When You’re Bored - Part 2 - Gamer Discord [...]
November 5th, 2009
its so cool to adopt a monster and take care of it!!!
November 27th, 2009
you stink!
December 29th, 2009
this is games you get bored of, not games you play when you actually are bored.. i was looking for games to play… when im bored i want to play games that has no point.. like elasto mania or track mania… i want something similar to those games.. also i have a mini pc, so i also want a game i actually will be able to play on it, when im bored in class and such….. any suggestions?
March 6th, 2010
go to google and type falling sand game
March 24th, 2010
Really? This list has no taste; it’s just a bunch of first person shooters from x-box. I personally think first person shooters are boring.