Welcome to Party Chat, the weekly Q&A where the Girls on Games team answer the pressing (and not so pressing) how, why and what-if’s of the gaming universe.
This week’s question: What is your guilty pleasure game?
Alicia Alexandra:
“At least once a year I make the pilgrimage back to the game that turned 14 year-old Alicia into an MMO addict. Runescape. Do I blush with shame each time I hear someone say “Runescape? More like RUN, ESCAPE.”? Maybe, but then I look at my cape collection, whisper “Worth it.” and go back to making bank on the Grand Exchange.”
Leah:
“To tell you the truth, I don’t really have a guilty pleasure game. Or no real game that I feel counts as a guilty pleasure. Maybe it’s because I have no shame for playing what I want to play, hah. Right now I am playing through Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Another Story, which would probably seem like a guilty pleasure game to some. I love pretty girly games just as much as zombie horror games and gritty action platformers.”
Simon:
“It’s hard for me to choose a game that is a guilty pleasure. In all honesty, I usually assume 100% the games I play and I don’t usually feel bad. However, one thing I remember doing a LOT, like a LOT, as a kid, was play those “Date Simulators” on Newgrounds. I was spending an unhealthy amount of time chasing virtual booty, thinking that it would actually help me in real life. Worst part is I used to wonder why all my “techniques” didn’t work on girls. Even now, I sometimes go back to the site and see what’s being made on that front. Keep in mind I’m a 27 year old married man, so I guess SOME of the techniques I learned actually worked!
*grumble* I can’t believe I just wrote that…”
Devin:
“It took me a good while to wrack this one over in my head. I don’t consider a game I enjoy to be a “guilty” anything, and so I had to go back through my games library and see what it contained that fit the bill.
I think I finally found a winner: Viscera Cleanup Detail.
Every gone through a shooter spreading gore along the walls while wondering “Who the hell is the poor man who has to clean all this up tomorrow?”. In Viscera, it’s you!
You play a janitor on a space station, and you clean up sections of the statement after horrifying accidents. Sure, it’s one of the most basic games and requires no actual thought process, but by God is it satisfying to see the end result of your hard work.
Now if only I was as enthusiastic about cleaning my apartment…”
Catherine Ashley:
“Okay so, first things first. I don’t know how I feel about calling games “guilty pleasures”. More often then not, as a student, every time I fire up a game, I have wee voices in my head telling me to either go study, go read or go work on your thesis. So, for about 6-7 months a year, gaming is a guilty pleasure. HOWEVER. If I were to pick a game that fits that colloquial criteria, it would be the Sims, a game that I’ve been booping around in since I was 11-12 years old. That includes all the Sims, except for the fourth. I still have the Sims 3 on my iMac which I fire up from time to time and get busy playing black widow with the town folks. You know, marry a well-established citizen, entice them to take a dip in the pool and BAM! Take out the ladder and watch them slowly exhaust themselves to death. So yeah, as far as guilty pleasures go, the Sims would be my choice.”
Catherine Smith-Desbiens:
“I play a lot of games that would be considered “guilty pleasures” but I don’t consider them to be. I’m really open and unapologetic about what I love. I played the shit out of Sims 3 which is the video game version of playing house. I’ve also watched all of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic at least thrice. I must admit though I have been curious to try Kim Kardashian Hollywood for a while now… I think that would definitely fall in the “guilty pleasure” category.”
So, do you have a guilty pleasure game? Let us know in the comment section below or on Facebook or Twitter.