Playing Older Video Games In My Spare Time

With a lot of free time to spare, I have found myself playing older games. Usually, I play games that are intensely optimized for graphics and have enormous open worlds. The games I have taken up again are games that were released prior in 2012 and some from 2005. I would have tried to play some even older games but sadly they don't work on my current computer system. However, in recent months I have played several games I haven't touched in years, in some cases more than a decade. I suppose it was a way to stave off my boredom.

Playing video games is a great way to relieve stress and anxiety, it certainly helps me in that regard, especially when my mood is low from feelings of loneliness. Many of the games I play are mostly open-world but with storylines to keep my brain engaged. 

Listed below are the older PC video games that you can play in your spare time.

1. Sims 3

One such game is Sims 3. It is not too old of a game as it only stopped releasing expansion packs in 2013. The Sims 3 has a lot more features that I enjoy over the newest Sims games. Sims 3 had a large open world for your sims to be a part of and to explore hidden rabbit holes. It had a lot more choices for employment and hobbies. It's also a smaller game Gb-wise to install if you need to install it digitally.

2. Simcity Societies

Another game I have been playing a lot of is SimCity Societies, which is a literal combination of The Sims games and SimCity games. In these games, a focus on build style is important as well as what point types the buildings give. It is meant to focus more on the 'fun' side of creating a city. I only recently got the game to reinstall to my modern PC after last getting it to work five years ago.

3. State of Decay

Another game I have been playing a lot recently that isn't a Sim-style game is State of Decay (the first one). It was a game originally intended to be a multiplayer online game, but the developers decided it would make a better single-player game, and the storyteller in me agrees. It was also designed for the original Xbox but works just fine on the PC. There is an amazing story taking place during this zombie apocalypse survival game.

4. Black and White 2

This game I hadn't played since I was in middle school and I barely got it to work on Windows 10 since it came out in 2005, and still has several graphical glitches but it is playable. This is a game that I played a lot of as a kid, especially when it first came out. Playing as a Greek God with control over how good and bad you are, building up impressive cities, taking over enemy cities by impressiveness or force. It was all quite fun. Reinstalling recently, even with the graphical glitches, I found it so much fun to go through the game back and fight for the people I was a God for.

5. Age of Empires (1, 2 & 3)

The first age of empires was one I played because it was something my mother could teach me how to play. I played the second one very little and I absolutely played age of Empires 3 over and over because I love the indigenous and Metis storyline. 

The reason I am able to play these games with very few issues on my modern PC is that all three games recently got a remaster to be able to be playable. The first Age of Empires games was released in 1997, 2 was released in 1999 and 3 was released in 2005. The remasters of each game, labeled as Definitive Editions were released in October of 2020. 

The first one, I've taken to playing the most because I find it a lot more challenging than when I played it as a child with my mother. The new modernized UI helps with the playability of the game twenty years after its initial release. The game covers the events between the Stone Age and the Classical period, in Europe and Asia.

The second age of empires I have played the least. I didn't play it very much growing up. I have tried to play the definitive edition and enjoyed it more than I did as a kid. It is set in the middle ages; the age of kings and it just never interested me as much it did my siblings. 

The third game I loved, especially the campaign which I preferred to the sandbox games in this series. The game portrays the European colonization of the Americas, between approximately 1492 and 1876 AD. I especially appreciated that the developers returned the Indigenous storyline and redid the voice acting with legitimate Indigenous voices. It helps to the history of the founding of North America with accurate voices and portrayals.

There are so many older games, even ones more than a decade old that can be quite fun to revisit or even to play for the first time. They may seem dated, and some certainly are with outdated graphics and some aspects of improper political correctness. 

However, I do try to expand my repertoire of games, even if that means going back. I find that just playing them because of the memories they can bring up for me and the fact that I find them fun are reasons enough for me to play them. Everyone has their preferences, and I certainly have mine. One thing to remember is that they were made in a different cultural norm but that they are video games. They are fiction and they are meant to be played for fun.