Article: Gaming in Ramadan

We’re nearly half way through this holy month of the year and we wish everyone a pleasant fasting month full of grace and good will. Everyone has their special way of getting through the day with their fasting and whether it would be sports, hobbies like fishing and drawing, or gaming, they’d be able to find some interesting things to do to pass their time. Lucky Generation Gamers brings you the first full length article for your reading enjoyment.

Games of Ramadan

With everyone doing various gaming activities, it easily boils down to what you’re playing and who you’re playing with. We’ve asked our fellow followers on Twitter to see what games they’ve been playing, whether it was before or after the iftar period to see the diversity on what genre of games that are most commonly played. We’ve came down with a nice list of diverse options that we would like to share with you. You may take that as a suggestion on what to play, or add some spices to your gaming taste buds by trying out something entirely new.

Let’s begin!

Retro Gaming

One of the interesting responses we’ve got from one of our friends was that he was playing some good old retro games! Remember the good old 8-16bit eras? Yes, those were the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The games back then had a special vibe to them. Side scrollers like the legendary Streets of Rage, which we will come back to in a bit, Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega’s good old mascot) and Super Mario (Nintendo’s super mascot). Those so called “Bit Wars” days were the best. One can still re-live those days of glory by running emulators to play these games, or if you’re really hardcore, you’d still own a working NES, SNES or Genesis unit! Those were infamous for breaking quick and not lasting very long but there are people out there that still keep them intact, which can be considered an excellent feat. Let’s take a look at some of the games and genres that generation had to offer.

First we have the glorious platforming adventure games. These can be categorized in different fields, such as the super fast Sonic the Hedgehog series. These games featured a super fast blue hedgehog with an attitude, and his job was to run as fast as he can, dodging various obstacles and stage hazards such as pit falls, spikes, and Dr. Robotnik’s robots. The stages were designed to be extremely fast, diversified with loops, ramps, huge jumps and speedy corners. At the end of each stage was a boss fight with the all-so-famous Dr. Robotnik. The evil genius came with an ever so changing robot which he built to specifically eradicate the hedgehog and put an end to his noble cause of saving his animal friends. The strategies of each boss fight differed dramatically from stage to stage and the player had to find out where Robotnik’s weak spot was. That kept the player guessing all the time in order to defeat Robotnik and put an end to his plans for world domination.

Let’s put Sonic aside and look at Donkey Kong for a second. Another variation to the platforming adventure was made by Rare, a company that worked with Nintendo to bring you Donkey Kong Country and it’s sequels to the SNES platform. Donkey Kong offered a very enjoyable experience for the Nintendo fans of the day with a different collection of stages to play, mounts to ride on like the ostrich and rhino, and a series of cool boss fights to name a few. The game was a better 2-player experience than many other titles of it’s time and is still considered today to be one of the best platforming adventure games.

Another genre we would like to recommend would be the classic “coin-op-type” beat em’ ups like Streets of Rage and Final Fight. Sega and Capcom made games in this genre that would be considered by many gamers to be epic. They offered 2-player co-op modes where players would team up to defeat endless waves of gangsters and bosses through a variety of stages. They were extremely fun to play and were very cool at it’s time. Those are some awesome games to play alone or with a friend. Get your retro on!

The Shooters

If shooting someone in the head and bragging about it later is your cup of tea, there’s nothing more satisfying than taking up a couple of shooting games. If you enjoy a single player experience you may want to give the Call of Duty series a shot, however; everyone knows that a good shooter always translates to a good multiplayer as well. Going online with Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Team Fortress 2 can be quite a rich and enjoyable experience. Playing with people around the world (provided that you’re willing to mute the voices of several individuals with all the trash talking nowadays) can be very challenging. The time you would spend logged into one of those games is so enjoyable that you wouldn’t notice that 3 hours of your life passed by. Be sure to play with a friend for a more rewarding experience.

Party Games

Party games are always a good way to kick back and enjoy some time with friends or family. These games are designed to gather 4 or more players and fight to the death (alright, we kid), and enjoy a rather rich multiplayer experience. Games that fall into this category include the infamous Mario Party franchise, Uno, Risk, and other board games/mini games alike. The objective is simple: toss a dice, advance ahead of your opponents, play a series of mini games to determine the ultimate winner. Uno is an old card game everyone must have played or tried in their childhood which has seen a console release on all major platforms. Risk needs no introduction either.

Fighting Games

Here we are, fighting game fans need no introduction into what games to play in this genre. The options are practically endless: Super Street Fighter IV (the featured picture is actually a pre-alpha stage SFIV image of the game with the Ultra gauges located on the top of the screen!), Tekken 6, Marvel vs Capcom 2, BlazBlue, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the list goes on and on and on. Get online, play some friends, if not then lay down the smack locally at the dewaniya or at home with friends and family and show them who’s boss!

Massive Multiplayer Online Games

MMO RPG’s are big. In fact, so big that a huge population are playing in what seems to be an endless void. These games are designed to eat up your time and keep you busy as long as you’re still logged in. There are different options here for you to choose from. If you want a fast paced MMO game then your perfect pick would be World of Warcraft or Aion. If you’re into a slower experience all in all, go for Final Fantasy XI. If you desire an MMO game that you can play at any time without having to worry about monthly payments, go for Guild Wars or Lord of The Rings Online. There are so many out there to name so we’ll leave it up to the reader’s discretion to pick the right one. You may want to listen to Episode 14 for more information.

Strategy Games

With Starcraft 2’s recent release, you can’t go wrong with it as a pick for a nifty strategy game to play. It’s campaign mode is rich and exciting, it’s multiplayer is blood pumping. Each game can take a while to complete and the online mode will keep you busy for a long time. We believe we’ve covered Starcraft 2 extensively on the past 2 episodes so listen to them for more information. Age of Empires, Napoleon: Total War and others are also excellent picks if you’re interested in playing a strategy game. We’d infinitely recommend Starcraft 2 though, so go on and buy it if you still haven’t!

With these recommendations, we hope to have given you a good choice of games to pick from. Whether you’re playing alone or with friends or family, there is a game for you to enjoy. If you have any other games that you’re playing during Ramadan that we did not mention, then please leave a comment on here, or send us an email or leave us a tweet even! We’d be glad to see what you have to share with us.

Happy gaming!