A PlayStation 5 console at the Tokyo Game Show in September.
Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images
November 2016 was the first time I was officially treated for anxiety. So when I say I understand election cycles can be stressful, I am speaking from experience. While many nervous Americans can channel that energy into getting out the vote in their communities, sometimes you just need to take a break. For me, that’s where my PS5 comes in.
I can’t guarantee that any of my current go-to games are right for you. But you know that feeling that says, “I just want to go to sleep and wake up in two weeks”? These are the video games that are currently giving me that checked-out feeling that sometimes hits the spot.
A simulator game: Farming Simulator 22
A week after Election Day, they’re going to release Farming Simulator 25, which perhaps makes it a little funny that I just started playing Farming Simulator 22. But fortunately, because it’s a little older, there are vast quantities of user-made content about Farming Simulator 22, making it easier for me to get by. And I need the help.
When I play House Flipper 2, I may have never flipped a house, but I have painted and bought furniture and thrown away trash. I have never, however, grown a field of canola. In FS22, you have a farm, and you are responsible for growing crops, raising animals (if you want), and, most importantly, owning tractors that you drive around with various things attached to them. I do not know anything about farm equipment, and the in-game help is very limited. That’s how I wound up in the parking lot of the machine shop with my tractor, surrounded by purchases: a front loader, two pallet forks, a “universal bucket,” two bale wrappers, and two trailers, all of which were related to a single task I was trying to perform and ultimately didn’t. (By the way, you have to get your tractor fitted at the shop with a front loader attacher before you can attach your front loader. Live and learn.)
Other options: Planet Zoo, Planet Coaster, Power Wash Simulator (it’s real and it’s spectacular), Two Point Campus
A scary-story game: Alan Wake 2
Horror games might not sound relaxing, but there’s something about being able to put them down at any time that makes them slightly less scary than the actual world. Alan Wake 2 is a murder story where you are an FBI agent named Saga running around in the world’s creepiest woods, trying to do things like find a heart that was removed from its owner and left in a refrigerator. (Yuck!)
I’m not going to lie: I’m not great at this one, and because I don’t play a lot of shooting games, I sometimes do better with following clues than I do with combat — meaning I find all the information I need and then get devoured by an undead thing and have to start over. But it’s very atmospheric, and it’s great-looking, so if genuinely scary horror is your thing, I do recommend it.
Other options: A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, The Last Of Us [heard of it?].
A sports game: The Show
My beloved Philadelphia Phillies might have had a short postseason, but on the PS5, they live forever. Unlike the NBA 2K basketball series, which I played for about ten minutes once and felt like it was several levels of difficulty above flying the space shuttle, MLB: The Show has the same simplicity as baseball itself. You pitch; you hit. (You can make it a lot more complicated than that, but I don’t.) It still takes some getting used to; I originally got confused and thought I was swinging too late when I was actually swinging too early, which resulted in my swings getting worse and worse, much like the actual Phillies for a period after the All-Star break (hiyo!).
Other options: NBA 2K, EA Sports FC [formerly FIFA]
This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
