Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to stay at home, gaming has always been an excellent way to just relax and have fun. What’s even better is that now, there’s the internet. Even if you’re far apart, you can enjoy wonderful bonding moments with your friends and family.
In addition, there are video games for everyone—even those who aren’t gamers at heart can find something they will enjoy! Here are just a few suggestions:
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
Mobile Legends or simply ML is a multiplayer online battle arena or MOBA game. It was first released in 2016 and has since gained wild popularity. In fact, ML is an eSports game and was a medal event in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games held in the Philippines.
The main goal in Mobile Legends is to destroy the other team’s base while defending your own. As a player, you control an avatar called a hero. Each kind of hero has a role—assassin, fighter, mage, marksman, support, and tank—and it’s up to you to use your hero’s skills to attack or defend.
Mobile Legends also offers three arcade games: Survival, which is the battle royale mode; Chess-TD, which is a tower defense game; and Magic Chess, an auto battler. ML is free to download, but you can also make purchases (like heroes, items, or skins). You can check out the Maya gaming menu to purchase in-game credits.
Among Us
If you love deduction games, you’ll love Among Us. It was released in 2018, but recently gained massive popularity due to the enforcement of quarantine measures. The game even won Best Multiplayer Game and Best Mobile Game awards at The Game Awards 2020.
There are two “teams” in Among Us: the crewmates and the impostors. The goal of the crewmates is to determine who among the group is the impostor (or impostors, depending on how many players there are) while completing their tasks around the game map. Meanwhile, the goal of the impostors is to sabotage the tasks and kill the crewmates before the tasks are completed.
The crewmates will win the game if they complete their tasks or if they identify and eliminate all the impostors on time. The impostors will win if the sabotage counter reaches zero or if the number of the impostors is equal to the number of crewmates.
PUBG Mobile
PUBG stands for PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds. It’s an online multiplayer battle royale game, where up to 100 players fight each other for weapons and equipment to take down other players. Some players prefer a stealthy gameplay, where they sneak around for covert kills. Others like to face others head on in blitz attacks. In the end, the last man or team standing will win.
To make the game more challenging, the “safe area” of the game map becomes smaller after some time. This will push the surviving players into forced encounters. Will you be the one to say “winner winner, chicken dinner” in the end? There’s only one way to find out!
Scrabble Go
Are you a fan of classic games? What about word-based games? Then you’ll certainly love Scrabble Go. It’s just like the traditional board game, but online!
Scrabble Go also comes with four other game modes. Duels is kind of a speed Scrabble game played in 5 rounds. Word Drop is a word search game, where used word tiles are replaced with new ones. Tumbler is for those who love anagrams; the goal is to find words from a rotating set of letters. Finally, Rush is the solo mode where you try to set-up the highest-scoring plays in a smaller version of the Scrabble board.
UNOtidying up
UNO is another classic game that’s beloved all over the world. The goal is to be the first to score 500 points, usually by “shedding” all of your own cards. Adding excitement to the game are the Wild, Wild Draw Four, Skip, Draw Two, and Reverse cards. It’s certainly hilarious to drop a Draw Four just when your friend thought they’d already played all of their cards!
The virtual version of UNO not only allows you to play anytime, anywhere, but it also adds new game modes. For example, there’s the 2v2 mode where you can team up with a friend. You can also compete in tournaments where you can win rewards as you climb the leaderboards. Then, there’s the Go Wild mode where anything goes!
Of course, these are just a few selections among literally thousands of available games for consoles, PCs, and smartphones. Technology has even allowed developers to create games that can be “cross-played.” That is, players with different hardware (e.g., a game console and a PC) can still play the same game together.
The COVID-19 pandemic has definitely changed human interactions. Luckily, technology is on humanity’s side! Thanks to the internet, not only can you communicate with your friends and family no matter the distance but you can also have fun and strengthen your connections.
Try these games the next time you have an online get-together for hours and hours of guaranteed fun.
