Playing a video game should not only be something fun to do, but something you should look forward to doing.  Daydreaming aside, a lot of the fun involving gaming stems from the anticipation of holding the controller or waiting to pull the trigger and complete another headshot.  But every now and then, even in the wake of many new releases, we struggle to find a game that really charges us.  Try one or more of the games below to get yourself out of that rut.

Final Fantasy X (Playstation 2)

Turn-based RPG’s are falling by the wayside, but that’s primarily because with Final Fantasy X you could kick the shit out of every enemy encounter.  Seriously.  If I had a cartoon named Serious George, the three panels would look like this:

Serious George in panel #1: Did you know that you can beat every enemy in Final Fantasy X really, really easily?

Serious George in panel #2: *Blank stare from Serious George*

Serious George in panel #3: Seriously.

Why play a game where you can mow down the enemies so handily?  Because the fun of this game originates from how intelligently you can master the sphere grid (level-up system).  By the end of the game, if you take advantage of the enemy-capture ability and the dude that runs the weird breeding tent in the Calm Lands, you can even erase and re-write the level up system.  The developers actually let you progress any which way you want.  Want your caster to one-shot melee the final boss?  Done.  As long as you put the time into it.

Now Final Fantasy VII might have the better story.  I won’t argue that.  But with Final Fantasy X, you can plow through the game faster, and ultimately complete the story mode with much less resistance.  And even the fanfare music after the random and boss encounters is fairly similar.

Metal Gear Solid 1 (Playstation 1)

This was the game where Hideo Kojima broke onto the stage of gaming and said to the rest of the developers, “I can do this better than you.”  He was right.  Metal Gear Solid 1 was where the story began.  And this is where the generation of us late twenty-somethings realized that we can have fun without needing to murder absolutely every single enemy we come across.

It is here that boss fights were still boss fights, and your environment plays more of a role in the action than ever before.  The radar system is clean and does not carry layered subtext.  If the enemy spots you, the conical field of vision glows red.  If you’re in the clear, it’s green.  Hard to fuck that one up, but lots of games these days try to fix what isn’t broke.

You may pop this in the system tray to jostle your brain cells, but you may keep it in there for another playthrough or two.  Depending on how well you survive the torture scene, you emerge from the endgame with either a bandana, which, when equipped, awards you with unlimited ammunition, or a stealth pack, which deems you invisible.  We all like to massacre everything we can in every game we play.  What better way to do that than wearing a stealth suit in an espionage game.

Super Mario World (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

You all secretly love this game, so I don’t want any negatives in the comment section.  Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, but everybody who played this game for longer than ten minutes remembers all the fun in-and-outs of the levels.  It is a bright, colorful world, and it was constructed well before Zoloft became America’s national pharmaceutical drug.

From start to finish, you won’t have to dump in more than about 5-7 hours of play.  And that’s only if you want to replay some levels for the sheer fun of them.  You even get to ride your favorite little green dinosaur along the way: Yoshi.  Remember Star Road?  The secret levels that help you teleport to different zones within the game?  All pose a unique challenge to each level that may leave you respecting the game more now than you did as a child.

A healthy substitute for this game would be Super Mario 64, but that’s only if you can’t get your hands on an SNES.  Obtaining each and every star can be quite the challenge; especially if you hate the Magic Carpet area as much as I do.

Vagrant Story (Playstation 1)

Vagrant Story for the original Sony Playstation was a much better game than many people gave credit to.  The storyline was actually fairly involved, considering all of the Shakespearean references tossed around.  Not to mention that Yasumi Matsuno’s development team later went on to produce Final Fantasy XII.

The originality of Vagrant Story lies in how it took a very complex problem among video games and created a simple solution.  Vagrant Story wanted to build a game where you level up and enhance your abilities, but it wanted to do so away from the traditional settings.  Solution?  Get rid of item vendors and weapon shops.  Want better things?  Fight for them.  Then take what you loot, enter a smithing forge, and combine weapons until you are satisfied.

However, what makes Vagrant Story so appealing to the veteran gamer is how it treats its level of difficulty.  Instead of choosing a harder difficulty, where the game then poses a statically hard degree of challenge, just walk into a room with little to basically no health.  Suddenly, every mob has increased attributes and hits like a Mack truck.  So, if you want to breeze through, you can.  If you want to grind out the levels, you can.

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic (XBox)

Mass Effect 1 (and Mass Effect 2) would never have been possible had it not of been for KoTOR. Raffman even confesses to a “Twilight-level man-crush” when describing KoTOR.  Now, it’s no secret to the world that Bioware tickles the Glitchoris.  This game introduced itself to us, bought us a drink, and then danced with our best friend.  Leaving us to watch it from a distance and build the anticipation.  It worked.

You have two routes you can choose.  You can kill Carth Onasi, or you can let him live.  Just kidding.  You can be a good boy and join the light side.  You can help out your neighbors and strangers alike.  You will be the man everyone relies on to come through in the end.  Or, you can be the bad guy, and completely fuck up everyone’s universe.  You will never need to scrounge for cash, and people will do what you say because the repercussions would be too costly not to.

Back in 2003, this level of choice was unheard of for our industry.  Think of it: a game where even when you beat it, you only get half of what the game has to offer.  Does this sound familiar?  That is because this is today’s standard. If you are in the mood for a quick gameplay, but you still want an RPG feel, KoTOR is the game to play.

Whatever stimulates your neurons, play whatever game does this job the best.  There are plenty of other games out there that can do just the trick.  Just do not fall into the trap of thinking that every new game is the game to play.  Not only can this hurt your wallet, it can make you miss the forest for the trees.  Especially the tiny little green trees with smiley faces on them in Super Mario World.