Gaming for mental health

well computers are our future leaders. 

God of war was my game of last generation. Easily. 

yes i agree humans make mistakes. In fact i loose so many games to what the computer calls blunders. I have also noticed some computers i can beat and some i win one in 20 games approximately .  What i really hate is computers can go for a stalemate when you have them corned and thus not let you win, people would resign,,,,  it so annoying

yea so people realise their is no point going on and walk away or whatever and you win by time out

Also sometimes people forget to play and get timed out or one game i had we had 50 moves without a pawn move or capture so I turned a loser into a draw, I'm sure a computer would not have let that happen

aye because humans miss things and can be tricked. computer cannot be tricked easily and can see anything and cover any mistake that you tried to work them into.

i member playing against this one guy and i he beat me past few matches but i had him on last match by making myself so open and sacrificing so many good pieces that he failed to see i maneuvered his king into checkmate by next turn with one of my last pieces lol computer you cant trick like that, computer would see and cover it up on the fly and ruin your plan too easy.

I play Chess everyday against people over the Internet, I find it more relaxing than playing a computer as they have between 1-10 days to take their move

I play Chess everyday against the computer  ---- humans are easier  

gaming is a good escape.... but if you escape too much and get lost in the digital world your life will become neglected and get worse, your problems will thus get worse and you will then need to escape more and more until your digital escape is no longer possible or isnt good enough to escape the overbearing disaster of your life. so its good but only if you dont end up getting too lost in gaming, life will slip you by while you live a virtual life.

YES! I do, if I really need to relax I turn to games like Journey or ABZU

I reordered Mass Effect legendary edition yesterday I cannot wait, if you haven't heard of watch some YouTube videos on in it's a great sci-fi rpg shooter 

Yep. I tend to take long breaks of years then get back into it once the technology has taken a jump forward. Helps to quieten my busy mind but I do get very tired if I overdo it so I can take breaks of weeks (sometimes months) before I load something up.

I enjoy most genres - so FarCry 5 & Prey (2017)  I'm having a lot of fun with, Pathologic2, Resident Evil 7 and Alien:Isolation for that oppressive atmosphere, Watch Dogs / Shadow of War / X-Rebirth (I found it fun once I'd modded it to be slightly less frustrating) for the open world fix.

I really enjoy 4X games - but they take too long and I'm useless at them, but I've fond memories of the Civ series, Age of Wonders and Fallen Enchantress.

Huge fan of the 'shock series. (Infinite is one of my all-time favourites) 

....oh! And Obsidian. Lets hope they never get gobbled up by some triple AAA publisher.

Nice. I loved AC Black Flag and Odyssey but struggled to get into Valhalla. Totally depends on the setting I think.

Totally agree about AAA games. I do play them but tend to stick to the single player. They are stressful. I've been looking at more retro type games recently on PlayStation store. Will likely check out Narita Boy and Hyper Light Drifter. Have you tried Journey or Rime? Both single player and pretty chilled.

i have also tried metrovianias i deeply enjoyed ori and the blind forest.... I am in the middle of our in the will-o'-the-wisp at the moment but keep procrastinating on playing i think there's too much complexity for me. next up i think is hollow night we shall see...

haha. well honestly same i'm doing a degree in business but always get sidetracked on something else 

same

Minecraft might've saved my life. My therapist recommended gaming as a way to escape the dire consequences I was living through back in 2014. 

Not sure if you've played Hellblade : Senuas sacrifice on ps4, but that's a tough play, although incredible from a mental health point of view. Not only are the graphics gorgeous and the gameplay superb, the leaving curve is very linear and the message very positive. That no matter how bad things are, no matter the ugliness and the negativity, if you keep on fighting you can win. Well worth playing, but not your usual switch off and chill out experience like Minecraft, which is basically like digital Lego. 

I game as well. It really helps ease the anxiety and stress. I play on my pc, usually games like Assassins Creed, gta and the Sims.

I greatly enjoy gaming. It's probably been my main hobby since childhood, but lately I have not enjoyed it as much because the games are not as good in my experience. I found I have not liked any AAA game for perhaps over a decade and if people ask I don't tell them I'm a gamer because I feel like the industry has changed so much that I don't really know what people are talking about when they discuss modern games. I mainly play older games and I mainly play single player games.

All modern games seem to be hyper-social and feature loot boxes and require you to play extremely regularly to get rewards, or they are open world games with no limits on where you can go and loads of interactions with NPC, which I find stressful because I can't do them perfectly or systematically, and I get overwhelmed and don't want to play it because it's basically too much like real life.

The games I like to play are generally single player linear FPS games which I can 100% (so games from the 90s to early 2000s), retro platformers or metroidvanias, and roguelikes that I can spend a long time mastering, in which every game is slightly different but still basically linear in their progression of an individual playthrough (e.g. The Binding of Isaac, Faster Than Light).