In a World Without Vacays, Video Games Saved the Day – PCMag

I just returned from my first real vacation in two years, a big old-fashioned family trip to Disney World. It ruled. With all of us safely vaccinated and masked up when appropriate, I experienced theme park thrills and social bonding that felt like distant memories gloriously brought back to life. Even annoyances like rude guests and long lines delighted me because they were proof that, yes, I could interact with other people again. Remember that?

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Millions of people in America and abroad still need vaccination, dangerous variants need to be contained, and even vaccinated people must behave safely. Still, things feel more normal now than they have in months, which has led to some reflection. While looking back at the past year in quarantine, I realized just how much my favorite pastime kept me going even as the world fell apart. When real vacations became impossible, video games became the only escape I needed. 

Pyramid of Needs

I already wrote about how Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Ring Fit Adventure got me through the start of this nightmare. It’s unbelievable how perfectly timed those two Nintendo Switch game releases were for an event no one could have foreseen. With Animal Crossing, I left my apartment and built my own island home full of adorable animal neighbors and absolutely no deadly viruses. Playing the game in bed in handheld mode turned my mattress into a swaying hammock. 

After a full day of Animal Crossing, Ring Fit Adventure shook me out of my fake island laziness and pumped me up for a real-world workout. I couldn’t go to a gym, but when I felt guilty for sitting on a couch playing video games nonstop, I fired up Ring Fit Adventure and its RPG-take on exercise routines.

Those games addressed my immediate primal needs: stay sane, stay healthy. However, as the plague dragged on, my desires grew more complicated and numerous. Fortunately, the wide variety of games I played throughout the pandemic collectively addressed these issues in their own special ways.   

Summer’s End

The pandemic stole months of our lives, our precious limited time on Earth. While on vacation, I talked with younger cousins who were deprived of a real freshman year at college because of virtual learning, and I got angry on their behalf. I’m fortunate enough to not have had my job or my health significantly impacted. Still, hanging outside this summer drove home just how much I had missed that feeling last summer. These video games did the best they could filling in the summer vacation gap.

Miitopia let me create cute little virtual avatars of my friends and family. Together, we set off on casual RPG adventures about as action-packed as any random pre-pandemic weekend here in NYC. New Pokemon Snap had me taking pictures of pocket monsters in natural environments so tangible I could swear I was there. Pikmin 3’s lush tiny jungles looked equally lifelike. Super Mario 3D All-Stars gave HD facelifts to three classic Mario games, including Super Mario Sunshine. While far from a perfect game, the tropical island vibes provided a picturesque vicarious vacation. 

Speaking of Mario, without real sports to play or watch, I turned to video game sports like the chaotic Mario Golf: Super Rush as well as the brand-new dodgeball game Knockout City. Skateboarding games strike the right balance between arcade sport action and summertime chill sessions. The outstanding Tony Hawk Pro 1+2 launched during the game pandemic, and now that it’s on Nintendo Switch, I can play it at actual skate parks that are theoretically now open. As an extreme sports game, Wave Break isn’t nearly as good. Still, its blend of boat stunts, machine guns, teddy bears, and extremely neon 1980s energy certainly kept my attention. 

The Purge

It turns out a pandemic will piss you off, especially a pandemic made exponentially worse by criminal right-wing politicians and their selfish, idiot supporters. I spent so much of the pandemic so angry, but rationally I knew there was nothing I could do. I could only refresh vaccine websites so many times per hour. So, when I needed a place to safely vent that frustration, video games were there.

At first, Maneater seems like another good-time summer game. But you don’t play as the oblivious beachgoers; you play as the hungry shark eating them. Now available on Switch, nowhere is safe from your undersea carnage. Meanwhile, if I wanted to hunt monsters on my Switch instead of being one, Monster Hunter Rise finally made me see the light when it comes to this polarizing franchise.

Also available on Switch is the Destroy All Humans remake and the Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods DLC. When real life becomes hell, games all about slaughtering mindless masses standing in your way really hit the spot. Despite its AAA graphical overhaul, Destroy All Humans has some very 2005-era flaws like poor open-world mission rules and structure. But it’s also a game where your spaceship reigns death from above while your alien character does a Jack Nicholson impression. Doom Eternal is still too hard and complicated for its own good, especially in the DLC. But shooting, ripping, and tearing through demonic forces remain unmatched, and it’s an especially impressive AAA Switch port. 

Finally, Boomerang X is a shooter where you use your versatile faithful projectile to take down waves of foes from the ground and in the air. The fast-paced skirmishes recall classic Id Software games like Doom and Quake, but with high-flying verticality thanks to dizzyingly tall arenas and infinite air dashes.

Acceptance

We can’t pretend that the pandemic never happened. It’s still happening! Closing our eyes and refusing to learn anything from this would be a huge, huge mistake. It would guarantee a worse disaster in the future. We have to accept what happened, grapple with it, and determine the actions to take in response. How can we keep the world safe? How can we make it better? The video games that stuck with me most during quarantine are the ones that asked these forward-looking questions.

Sky: Children of Light was already a provocative, award-winning game on mobile devices a few years ago. Now on Switch, the latest art object from the makers of Flow and Journey feels even more prescient. As your softly glowing character soars through gorgeous floating landscapes you’ll leave behind messages for other real-world online players. You don’t even have to use words. Express how you feel with cute little gestures. With virtual life upending all our previous social patterns, this MMO imagines deeper, more spiritual forms of mass yet personal communication.

Down here in the real world, our surroundings are dirty and vandalized. Street art culture is the voice of powerless making itself heard against the forces that oppress them, an extreme pandemic mood. In Sludge Life’s alt-cartoon world, you bum around a polluted island talking to workers, checking out protests, and spraying graffiti on bathrooms. It’s cute, but slight. 

Meanwhile, Umurangi Generation isn’t a much longer game, but it’s packed with political meaning. In this leftist, Maori photography game, you’ll document vibrant youths trying to lead the best and most fun lives they can, all while the authoritarian government nonetheless fails to stop a world-ending threat. It’s too real, especially when you use the Switch in handheld mode like a physical camera. There are also giant jellyfish monsters. Play this and Disco Elysium to become fully radicalized.  

Single-Player Self-Care

Video games won’t solve all your problems. If the pandemic took a huge toll on you (which is completely understandable), go to a doctor, start seeing a therapist, get involved in political organizing, or just hang out with friends and family in the safest way possible. When your next vacation is far away, video games may be the escape you need. Press start, and create your own happiest place on Earth.