Admit it – you’ve got a guilty pleasure game. You know, that game you play but rarely admit to it. The one you set yourself to offline on Steam before playing, just in case someone sees you. Everyone’s guilty pleasure is different, but these eight games fill that role for plenty of gamers.
Madden Games
Everyone likes to talk about the legions of gamers that only play Madden games, but the truth is that there are plenty of people who still like to play a little NFL football on their consoles. Maybe you only buy one every other year, or maybe you always buy the older game to save money, but whatever the case, you’re still picking you favorite team and getting some snaps in.
Goat Simulator
Originally, Goat Simulator was a joke created during an internal game jam held by Coffee Stain Studios. Its lead developer, Armin Ibrisagic, called it, “an old school skating game, except instead of being a skater, you’re a goat, and instead of doing tricks, you wreck stuff.” The alpha footage of the game drew tons of attention, convincing the studio to develop it as a full title, and gamers everywhere have jumped in to wreck stuff. You can even play a zombie survival or MMO-style DLC, if that’s your thing.
Harvest Moon
We’re gamers! Gamers don’t care about farming! Well, except in Harvest Moon – then we’re obsessed with it. The game’s simple world and clear objectives can be a welcome break from complex systems, and besides, who doesn’t want to have prize-winning chickens? Never mind the guilt we feel when we spend hundreds of hours over a number of years on the game, or the fact that we really don’t want to tell our friends what we’ve been playing. It’s still a blast.
Mario Party
Mini-games suck, right? Well, unless you have friends over and there’s drinking involved, or you want to play board games. Especially if you don’t want to have to keep reading the rules to figure out this board game. Sure, they’re unbalanced as hell, and rely mostly on random chance, but there’s something that still pulls you in, even if it is like playing Mario Kart with that one friend that always throws a blue shell at you.
Bejeweled
No matter which version of Bejeweled you play during downtime at work, or on your tablet on the bus, you probably don’t talk about it much. Still, you’re playing it. It provides gameplay in short bursts that can be enjoyed during a break or other brief period, and it’s actually quite fun. Despite a huge inventory of games that could fill this portable slot, there’s something about Bejeweled that keeps people coming back to its match-three goodness.
Peggle
Peggle scratches the itch to work out a complex plan, and then pull off an amazing shot to execute it. Despite the cartoony visuals, many gamers find themselves going back to play it over and over again. It might be nothing more than a digital version of Plinko from “The Price is Right,” but that doesn’t stop us from loving it anyway.
Train/Truck/Farm Simulator
The onslaught of simulator games in recent years is really only due to one thing: people are playing a lot of them. Odds are that you have a friend who’s playing at least one of them, even if you don’t know it. It doesn’t sound all that exciting to drive a truck or a train across Europe, but people keep doing it anyway. Farm Simulator lets you run a farm, with all the work and time involved. Something about these games keeps people coming back, even if they don’t want to admit to their friends.
The Sims
Of all the games that people won’t admit to playing, none eats up more hours than The Sims. The series targets casual gamers, allowing them to create a virtual life around a character of their choosing, and that possibly sometimes entices hardcore gamers as well. Sure, you might say that you’re only playing it so you can try out new ways to make your character’s life miserable, but everyone has that friend who plays The Sims and thinks that no one knows.
