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Playtested & Approved: Video Games

16 items

Ben Rosequist

I’ve been a gamer for nearly 40 years, and after spending more than 1,700 hours in Fallout 4, I know what makes a game truly worth your time. This curated list features my top recommendations across the genres I return to most: the best strategy game...

Sections

Immersive Open-World RPGs

Tower Defense

City-Building (Simulation)

Survival & Crafting Adventures

Board Games

Story-Driven Action

Immersive Open-World RPGs

Step into massive worlds where every decision shapes your story. These games combine rich narratives, player choice, and endless exploration—giving you the freedom to fight, build, and discover at your own pace. Whether you’re wandering the wasteland...

I love Fallout 4 for the “Special” system that ensures every run feels unique, and for the environmental storytelling—like skeletons that whisper their darkest final moments. Even after 1,750 hours, it still surprises me with buried secrets: that coa...

Fallout 4 on Steam

If Fallout 4 is about immersion and exploration, New Vegas is about choice and consequence. Every decision you make—from which faction to side with, to how you approach even the smallest quests—ripples through the Mojave. Unlike many RPGs, your words...

Fallout: New Vegas

Few games capture the feeling of freedom like Skyrim. From the moment you escape Helgen, the world is entirely yours—climb every mountain, raid every ruin, join (or betray) every guild. The main questline is only the beginning; the real magic comes f...

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

Tower Defense

Perfect for strategy lovers, tower defense games challenge you to outthink endless waves of enemies with smart planning and quick decisions. Whether you’re placing towers, upgrading defenses, or finding clever ways to exploit enemy paths, every round...

Don’t let the colorful art fool you—Bloons TD 6 is one of the most strategically deep tower defense games ever made. What starts as simple monkeys popping balloons quickly turns into a complex challenge of planning, timing, and synergy. With dozens o...

Bloons TD 6

Kingdom Rush is a tower defense classic that set the gold standard for the genre. With its charming cartoon style, endless waves of enemies, and perfectly balanced challenge curve, it’s the kind of game that hooks you for “just one more level.” The r...

Kingdom Rush

Few tower defense games are as instantly recognizable—or as fun—as Plants vs. Zombies. What looks like a quirky casual game quickly reveals itself as a clever, highly replayable strategy experience. You’ll place sunflowers, pea shooters, and wall-nut...

Plants vs Zombies Video Games - PopCap Studios - Official EA Site

City-Building (Simulation)

These are games where creativity meets strategy. City-builders and simulations put you in control of living worlds—tasking you with designing, managing, and optimizing everything from traffic patterns to citizen happiness. Whether you’re crafting the...

Cities: Skylines is the ultimate modern city-building simulator—an endlessly replayable sandbox where your imagination and planning skills bring a metropolis to life. You’ll manage everything from zoning and traffic flow to education, healthcare, and...

Cities: Skylines

Building on the success of the original, Cities: Skylines II pushes city simulation to a whole new scale. With larger maps, deeper economic systems, and more detailed citizen behavior, it’s the most ambitious city-builder yet. Every choice—from how y...

Cities: Skylines II

Survival & Crafting Adventures

These games drop you into unforgiving worlds with nothing but your wits and the resources around you. Survival and crafting titles challenge you to gather materials, build tools, and construct shelters while fending off hunger, enemies, and the envir...

Few games capture both the tension of survival and the joy of creativity like Raft. You begin with nothing but a hook and a small platform drifting on the ocean, and slowly transform it into a floating base—piece by piece, board by board. Every upgra...

Raft

Board Games

If you enjoy deep strategy and Euro-style board games, Lorenzo il Magnifico is a gem. Set during the Italian Renaissance, you take on the role of a noble family competing for prestige through careful planning, resource management, and influence over ...

Lorenzo il Magnifico

Wingspan is one of the most beautifully designed board games of the past decade, and the Steam edition captures it perfectly. As a bird enthusiast, you’ll build a wildlife preserve by attracting different species, each with unique abilities that crea...

Wingspan on Steam

Story-Driven Action

These are games where the action is thrilling, but the story is unforgettable. Cinematic shooters combine fast-paced gunplay with rich narratives, drawing you into worlds filled with tension, atmosphere, and style. These games prove that shooters can...

This is the game that made me fall in love with cinematic shooters. Max Payne isn’t just about running and gunning—it’s about style. The moment you dive into your first slow-motion bullet time shootout, dodging gunfire like you’re in The Matrix, you’...

Max Payne

If the first Max Payne hooked me with bullet time and noir grit, Max Payne 2 reeled me in with its story. This is where Remedy doubled down on cinematic action, sharper gunplay, and—most importantly—a heartbreaking tale of love and loss. Max’s relati...

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Turn-Based Strategy

These are the games where patience pays off and every move counts. Instead of twitch reflexes, it’s about outthinking your opponent, managing your resources, and pulling off that perfectly timed strike three turns down the line. I love these because ...

This one is a classic—and for good reason. Heroes of Might and Magic III is one of those rare games that feels just as good to play today as it did when it first came out. You pick a hero, raise an army of fantastical creatures (yes, dragons included...

Heroes® of Might & Magic® III

Heroes of Might and Magic VII carries the legacy forward with updated visuals, deeper systems, and that same “one more turn” magic the series is famous for. You’re still commanding heroes, recruiting fantastical armies, and battling it out on giant t...

Might & Magic® Heroes® VII

Card & Deck-Building

These are the games where strategy lives in your hand. Card and deck-builders challenge you to outthink your opponent, stack powerful combos, and adapt on the fly with the cards you’ve drawn. One match might have you carefully managing resources, whi...

If you’ve ever wanted a game that feels like chess, poker, and Saturday-morning cartoons all rolled into one, Hearthstone is it. Blizzard took the world of Warcraft and turned it into a fast-paced collectible card game that’s equal parts strategy and...

Hearthstone