Mansoor is a pro wrestler and former WWE superstar where he won the only known 51-man battle royal to ever exist. You can often find him on Twitch with his fellow former Maximum Male Model tag team partner.
Everyone told me having a child would change my life. What they didn’t tell me, however, is that it would BE RUINED.
I’m just kidding! Raising my daughter has been the most fulfilling experience I could imagine. The extent to which I love her only grows exponentially, truly amazing and terrifying me. That being said, sometimes you just wanna bing bing wahoo and stomp some goombas instead of keeping the little munchkin alive, ya know? Sadly, my fascist wife puts the Switch on a shelf I can’t reach and won’t get it for me until the baby is asleep, so here are the top ten games I played in 2023 during my newborn’s naps!
10. Marvel’s Midnight Suns
I am not exaggerating when I say I have sat down to play Firaxis’ tactical RPG set in the Marvel universe multiple times across various naps, and not engaged in a single minute of actual gameplay. This game will make you withstand seemingly endless amounts of tutorials, cutscenes and dialogue centered around aspects of the game I have no interest in engaging with. Take, for instance, the in-game social media where you are instructed to DM superheroes and read their posts. My daughter pissed and shit on me during her newborn photos, but that was nothing compared to the disgust I felt seeing Blade tweet about Taco Tuesday.
Midnight Suns also tries to trigger your gamer lizard brain by having all kinds of loot box types you can watch opening animations for. That doesn’t work for me, brother. I’m 28 with a paid off house, if I wanted to gamble I’d just hit the slots (or I would if it wasn’t for my fascist wife guilting me for borrowing from our kid’s college fund).
At its core, however, is a very fun card game with an addictive gameplay loop. As an XCOM fan, I appreciate Firaxis keeping some of that DNA while keeping this game unique. The difficulty and complexity of the game strikes a good balance, keeping me engaged, but never frustrated. I just wish the great fundamentals of this game wasn’t surrounded by unnecessary fluff.
My verdict: play it, but skip most of the story stuff, unless you’re a huge Marvel fan. It’s the only way to get a mission in before your spawn awakens and demands more titty juice.
9. Katana Zero
First thing I want to say is there is no way I am writing as much for any other entries in this list as the last one. That shit took me an entire day, and I’m just now realizing I have like 9 more to go??? Fuck. Anyway, this game rules. It’s almost antithetical to Midnight Suns in its respect for your very, very limited baby-less time.
This game borrows many elements from the stellar Hotline Miami, one being that dialogue and plot progression serves as short, but impactful breaks between the fast-paced gameplay. I personally feel the narrative has a little to be desired, but if your priority is an engaging experience with almost zero filler, Katana Zero is your game. My one big hangup is the very unsatisfying ending that leaves you with bigger blue balls than me when the old ball and chain had to spend weeks recovering from giving birth.
That joke was horrible, I’m sorry you had to read that. I asked my wonderful wife for permission to write it, she just shook her head and called her mother.
8. Crusader Kings 3
All this talk about the fragile balance between narrative and gameplay in gaming… Here we have a game where the story unfolds from a small canvas into a beautiful (or sometimes horrifying) tapestry, all depending on your choices. Covering much of our planet east of the Americas, CK3 gives you the opportunity to lead countless kingdoms, empires, baronies, duchies, counties, and tribes across hundreds of years of recorded history.
As the King of Spain, I married a beautiful Irish princess whom I soon found out could not bear children. The only way to get a game over in CK3 is to die without an heir to play as, so I sadly petitioned the Pope to permit a divorce. My new wife bore many children, the first of whom inherited my Kingdom and immediately fell in love with my ex-wife. After marrying her, he was promptly seduced by his own mother. One thing led to another and my son’s affair with my wife while married to my ex-wife resulted in an inbred bastard child, the existence of which allowed for his brother to blackmail him for more power.
Boy am I glad I had a girl!