Geek Culture: A few games to wind down with

It’s around the time of year when mid terms rear their ugly misshapen heads, and if you aren’t freaking out about that essay for your economics class, you really should be. A good grade in that one can be the difference between the transfer college of your choice and working as a McDonald’s manager for the rest of your days.

But after you’ve read several thousand pages of text, tattooed crib notes on every surface of your body and memorized facts that will never help you in the real world, how do you wind down? How do you keep your stress in control so your head doesn’t explode in class?

Surprisingly, there are a few games that can help with this. As a master of Geek Jutsu, I’ve played several games that people have described as “relaxing” and judged their effects. Also in consideration of your average students budget, most of these games can either be played free or bought for dirt cheap.

You are probably aware of this thing called Facebook.com, and the thousands of games that have spawned from it. Probably the most prolific is Farmville, a simple farm sim where you can raise crops and manage live stock. The fact that you can’t really lose, or win for that matter, detracts from the enjoyment somewhat. Still, it can be almost therapeutic to manage a plot of virtual land after a hard day of mind flaying.

Peggle is another free game that can be found on myspace.com, yahoo.com, popcap.com, or a million other places on the world wide web. A physics puzzle that plays like a mix between pachinko and pinball, you shoot metal balls at pegs and try to clear the board while racking a high score. The free demo that is on most sites is enough to sate any tired student, with the full game for PC and DS going for around $20.

If you are a red blooded American that needs a little ultra violence, there is Quakelive.com. This is a version of Quake 3 that plays right in your browser, on Mac and PC internet machines. This game is essentially the classic act of shooting people in the face while trying to avoid being shot. After a hard night of cramming, a few rounds of death-matching can be surprisingly cathartic.

Finally, that brings us to Pokemon. Most people my age have fond memories of training pocket monsters to kill each other, and these games are just as relaxing today as they were when we were kids. I recently picked up the DS version used for $20, and you could probably get the earlier Gameboy Advance or Gameboy Color versions for less.

Now get back to studying, future robot war lords of the world!