Procrastination is a devastating temptress. One moment, you’re focused at the task at hand — nose deep in a textbook, soaking up information like a parched starfish. Then a rogue thought enters: “You should take a break,” “You’ve been at this for long enough,” “You deserve a reward.”
As procrastination whispers into your ear, you find yourself picking up a game controller. The screen lights up. All of the stress and worries that consume this week melt away into fantasy landscapes — everything feels right with the world for what seems like only fleeting minutes.
At some point during this digital tranquility, your mind drifts back to what you were doing before you started playing. Your eyes glimpse at the clock, only to alert you to the fact that you’ve wasted five hours of study time — and any chance you had at passing marine biology. This doesn’t have to happen. As we enter the final weekend, the last chance to cram before the scantron dawn, take precaution. If you own any of these time-evaporating monsters, keep them far away. Like a recovering addict, remove all temptation from your life. Uninstall them from your Steam library. Bury your Xbox in a shallow grave. Whatever you do: Don’t play these games. At least not right now.
FTL: “Faster Than Light” (Steam, Mac, iOS) — Everybody has dreams of being a starship captain; it’s just natural. Hustle up a crew, commandeer a ship and blast off into the great unknown in FTL. This roguelike strategy game will keep you hyper-focused, dealing with space pirates, space robots and even space aliens. Once your team has been silenced in the never-ending void of deep space, you’ll have to start from scratch with a new collection of hopeful explorers. With the constant drive to make it just one planet farther than your last voyage, you can expect to lose many an hour in FTL.
“XCOM: Enemy Unknown” (Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Mac, iOS) — If you prefer to slaughter vast legions of space freaks from the comfort of your home planet, “XCOM : Enemy Unknown” may be a bit more your speed. A modern take on the classic turn-based strategy franchise, this sci-fi war epic places you in control of an international effort to eliminate an alien invasion. Tactical, with just enough action to interest newcomers to the genre, it’s prone to make a junkie out of anyone.
“Just Cause 2″ (PC, Xbox 360, PS3) : Open-world action games just keep getting bigger. From the mythic forests of “Skyrim,” to “GTA V”’s sprawling portrait of Los Santos, it’s been a great generation for huge landscapes ripe for exploration. But of them all, none are bigger than “Just Cause 2.” This third-person action extravaganza is like a long-lost ’80s action movie reborn into a living environment. You play Rico “Scorpion” Rodriguez, a one-man mercenary force deployed to the island nation of Panau with the simple objective of causing chaos and upsetting a communist regime. Equipped with a grappling hook, a parachute and a complete disregard for the laws of physics, the island nation is your canvas, and explosions your medium. With over 900 square miles of digital terrain to explore, densely loaded with collectibles, you’re in for a long mission.