Stay Home, Chill Out #2 - James and Mathew's Drive Through Greece

This is fun, isn’t it? Staring out of the window at three in the afternoon trying to remember whether or not you’ve eaten today while every conceivable form of communication we have is constantly reassuring us that things are just awful. But! In this time of looking at the news alerts on your phone through the cracks in your fingers and everyone despairing at the thought of their post-quarantine hairdo, there is a ray of hope; sitting on our arses, and playing the shit outta some video games (as is our national duty).

We all have games for when we’re in particular moods. Sure enough, we each have a different definition of ‘chilling out’. So long as we can find the space we need and drift away into a wholly consequence-free world, where the sun is always shining and you don’t have to shank someone for the last toilet roll in the shop (unless your relaxing game of choice is RUST). 

AC Odyssey - Matthew Lanceley

The Assassin’s Creed games have been a part of the gaming world for over 12 years. I’d diligently followed the franchise since the much-celebrated Assassin’s Creed 2 and had a merry old time painting a variety of time periods a deep shade of red. From high-fiving Leonardo Da Vinci during the Renaissance to swashbuckling alongside pirates of the Caribbean. Unity nearly lost me, but after Syndicate I lost all interest in the series. Resulting in the reboot, Origins, passing me by completely.

Yes, Assassin’s Creed prides it self on historical accuracy. But if Medusa doesn’t scream BOSS FIGHT to you, you’re a lost cause.

But then I started hearing good things about Odyssey and decided to check it out. The initial pitch was baffling to me. 400 years before ‘ancient’ Egypt? No hidden blade (again)? And nothing even closely resembling an assassin? Nonsense.But, I got the game for Christmas last year so I gave to a go. Sure enough, played it twice and gave up. However, now I’m staring down the barrel of many months of quarantine on account of my crap lungs. So, I dusted off the box to kill some hours and then four days had passed. 

Odyssey’s story has a way of tying together the slightly weirder parts of the overarching AC plot that is nice and unexpected, while the sheer volume of stuff to do is perfect for lockdown boredom relief. Every side mission has a story (turns out Ancient Greece had lots of bandits and people requesting animal skins), and AC Odyssey keeps in touch with the real-world history more than ever, with your mercenary helping/annoying/killing various historical figures along the way. Although I do feel like I was judged when I sneakily googled who Herodotus was. It also leans into the more fantastical elements of Greek myths and legends, which gives it more of a fun tone than any of the other entries in the series. 

Gran Turismo Sport - James Smith

I love it when @SunhiLegend starts playing a game because then it get way easier to make stories about those games look cool.

If we’re talking about games that help one relax in the midst of a stressful time, I think it can be said that - outside of things like Animal Crossing - the best way to relax is to play what you know. I’ve been playing racing games most of my life, to the point that pinning a throttle and hitting an apex is muscle memory to me. Having to focus on a racing line might be stressful to some, but to me being in that zone is when I feel most at ease, and no game gives that sense of precision driving better than Gran Turismo.

Burning around the Nürburgring in a Red Bull X2014 Junior is one of the more simple joys gaming has to offer. Hitting each corner perfectly, not even to win the race but just to drive around a track at breakneck speeds without crashing - well, it doesn’t get much better than that. If you throw in the game’s superb and diverse soundtrack full of only the best driving songs you’ve never heard but wish you had, then there’s nothing quite like it.

So that’s another two games we’ve been retreating back to for comfort here at startmenu. You can check out Ollie’s picks here and we’ll have more to come.

Stay Safe.