12 Games That Can Help You Survive a Breakup
Forget vodka and antidepressants and meaningless sex. (Well, forget the first two anyway.) Survive even the most painful of breakups in high style with videogames. Dr. Crispy tells you how.
4/27/2009 8:18 PM | 16 Comments | Page 1 of 3
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
Are you lying on the floor right now, crying into your $8 IKEA rug while Damien Rice warbles on your iPod? Trust me, you pathetic, nose-blowing mess: We've all been there. Let me guess: He/she ripped out your heart, right? You tried to love, you gave it everything you had -- and I'm talking everything -- but the whole goddamn thing blew up in your face like an experiment gone wrong in Dr. Isaac Kleiner's laboratory?
Our advice: Pull yourself together, you wimp. [Insert sound of us slapping you across the face with a pair of white gloves HERE.] Weeping into cheap carpeting and listening to oh-poor-me music is the long way around the pain. What you need is a big, unhealthy dose of escapism. And nothing provides an escape more effectively than videogames.
Steep yourself in any one of the following 12 videogames for three days straight. If you don't feel better in 72 hours, feel free to go back to wallowing in your fetid pool of self-pity, and seek real advice from a trained professional. (Legal disclaimer: Dr. Crispy is not a real doctor. He is what's known as a "fake doctor." His advice, and his hygiene, are generally really terrible.)
Problem: "I'm lonely, and I really miss those daily phone calls from him/her where we really just chatted about nothing at all."
Solution: Any BioWare game.
Mass Effect,
Jade Empire or either of the Knights of the Old Republic games feature enough inane chatter to keep your ears preoccupied for the next 25 years.
Problem: "He/she made the best vegetarian chili I have ever tasted."
Solution: Personal Trainer: Cooking (2008). Did you know that your DS can teach you how to cook? It can! And it doesn't call you a "Donut" like Gordon Ramsay does when he "teaches" people how to cook on the television show "Hell's Kitchen." (Donut = worst insult ever.)
Problem: "I really just need to get away from civilization for a while, maybe build some fires, and get back to nature."
Solution: Far Cry 2 (2008). This game will put you in touch with your inner survivor in a big way. Alone, in the African veldt, with nothing but weeds and tigers all around, you can hole up for the night in a tiny hut with a creepy friend who will also sell you a semi-automatic rifle, should you be in the market for one.
Problem: "I really just want to see half-naked men rolling around together."
Solution: UFC 2009 Undisputed (2009). In motion, this game doesn't look so bad. But any static screenshot from the game inevitably elicits the response, "Why don't you two get a Zipcar and drive to Vermont and get married already?"
Problem: "I really just want to see half-naked women rolling around together."
Solution: Rumble Roses (2007). With countless sexually explicit grapples, a variety of outfits in which to dress your Roses and a very sophisticated boobs-physics engine, this game isn't a game; it's thinly disguised pornography. And the thin disguise it's wearing is of the lacey variety.
