Top 5 Timekillers: Games You Have Probably Used to Procrastinate Homework
Graduation is at hand! Many of our seniors will be leaving us soon, and it has probably taken a great deal of hard work to score degrees in their respective fields. They have also probably spent a large chunk of their time procrastinating homework, and game enthusiasts have likely sunk hundreds of hours on their favorite hobby in the name of doing that assignment later. Here are the top five games (or types of games) that you may regret checking how many hours you’ve killed with.
Number 5: Farmville, Mafia Wars, Pet Society, etc.
I do not play these games. I will never stop declining your requests for me to accept your chickens, I will never join your mob, and I do not need a squeaky toy for my digital Chihuahua because I will never play that Zynga pet simulator. That said, you might be one of the people sending me requests for that crap, in which case I don’t mean to offend you, but I’m not going to get sucked into that. I have better ways to spend my time… And better games to waste it all on.
Number 4: Diablo III (Torchlight II, Path of Exile, etc.)
For all of its problems and all of the hatred directed at “Diablo III,” it still had one heck of a run. People still play the game, and many who don’t are pouring hours into one of its dungeon crawling competitors. I myself have played through the game a couple of times, and I’ve also very much enjoyed “Torchlight II.” These games make it very easy to melt away hours and hours without even checking the clock. They’re addictive and fun, and the multiplayer element to the more recent members of the genre has only made it more difficult to put these games down.
Number 3: Skyrim (and the rest of the Elder Scrolls series and Bethesda’s Fallout saga too)
This game has a bigger reputation of separating gamers from the rest of civilization than perhaps any other. In case you haven’t noticed, this is the only bullet point on the list that is not a multiplayer game. A player can just shut the blinds, close the door, and slay dragons while the rest of the world keeps on rolling. If you have never heard of “Skyrim,” first off, I’ll be shocked, and second, I’ll recommend that you look into it just as soon as you finish your degree.
Number 2: Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, and other MMORPGs
These monsters are created from the outset to provide as much lasting content as humanly possible. In the case of subscription based MMORPGs like WoW, they make their money based on how long you stay tethered to the game, so it is really important to them that you get completely and utterly addicted. Don’t get me wrong. These starkly differ from the terrible Zynga games that plague Facebook; I might even recommend a couple of these to you if you can’t seem to find any games of value to throw away your precious time with. “Guild Wars 2” is a fantastically designed game which would hold up even as a single player experience, and there is enough content for WoW to make ten other games with. That only serves to make them even more addictive, but even these aren’t as bad as:
Number 1: League of Legends and Dota 2 (HoN, SMITE, Dawngate, etc.)
If you don’t play one of these, you know someone who spends an ungodly amount of their life on these. These are the absolute titans of time wasting, the paragons of procrastination, and the deities of distraction. I have played every game on this list (with the exception of number 5) and can safely say that I have not wasted as much time on any other game as I have on “League of Legends.” I am ashamed to admit that I have played exactly 2,057 games of LoL across all game modes as of writing this story, and matches can last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour depending on the mode of gameplay and the relative skill of the two teams.
So if you find yourself addicted to one of these games, fear not, there are no withdrawal symptoms should you decide to quit cold turkey. You probably don’t want to, though, and as long as you keep it under control, who cares? Just don’t let your priorities get mixed up, and take a break from gaming if it’s getting in the way of stuff that matters.
