I'm currently quarantined away from the rest of the PC Gamer crew for fear of spreading what may or may not be the zombie virus around the office. I'm sitting here with a box of Kleenex, hot tea with honey and several gallons of Robitussin within an arm's reach, but the most effective way to treat my symptoms, far and away, is to play some games. A few minutes into a game is all it takes for me to completely forget about the stuffy nose and throbbing headache, and it's not until I have to get up for bio-breaks that I remember that I'm actually miserable.
Since CODBLOPS' whack-a-mole shooting isn't my style, I've only dabbled in that one the past couple of days. Instead, I've invested most of my time into improving my Zerg skills in StarCraft II. My first 100 or so 1v1 games over the past couple of months were a monument to Blizzard's matchmaking software - I was batting exactly 500, treading water in the Gold league. But now I've put some time into studying the replays of my Zerg idol, Idra , and I've improved my macro play dramatically. The result: yesterday I won nine of 10, putting me so close to the Platinum league I can taste it.
The downside to playing SC2 while sick: it's exhausting. A close game really gets your pulse pounding, and after a few of those I was ready to pass out for a good long nap.
For a more relaxing pace, I've been checking out the beta for the Galactic Conquest expansion for Gratuitous Space Battles , which adds a single-player campaign to the set-up-and-go space war game. My StarCraft skills have not transferred well, though, as I've yet to successfully conquer a planet (I'm going to blame that on the cold).
Next up: jumping back into Fallout: New Vegas and revisiting Civilization V.
What do you guys play when you're sick?
