If video games are essentially a diversion from the trials and pressures of life, then minigames are a diversion from the trials and pressures of the pretend life you’re living within a game to escape the real ones. Quite profound, when you think about it.
Some just serve to tell you a bit more about the world you’re inhabiting and the people who share it with you. Others give a nod to a developer’s own lineage, including some form of its past material within a new title. And then there are the minigames whose developers accidentally made them too good, and which threaten to overshadow the main event entirely unless somebody makes a spinoff release specifically about it, stat. Gwent, looking at you pal.
They show depth and dedication from the developer, a real desire to go beyond our usual expectations, and to cram every possible corner of a game with value and enjoyment. They’re like pizza, in that way: even when they’re bad, they’re good.
Also like pizza, it is possible to discern the best from the rest, so we’ve done that. Here are the minigames you’ll give up on your grand high-stakes mission for, world be damned. 
What a lovely moment Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End treats us to early on when Nathan Drake sits down at a dusty old TV and plays a complete level of Crash Bandicoot. This is Naughty Dog acknowledging how far the studio’s come, from a rudimentary marsupial jumping over barrels to a cinematic experience of, at the time, unparalleled depth and presentation.
It’s also Uncharted saying to us, look: Nathan’s just like you. He enjoys a gaming session as much as the next Olympic-standard climber with specialist archaeological knowledge and the ability to kill a man without thinking twice and then make a funny joke. Truly, though, we always enjoy these meta moments of playing a chunk of a developer’s previous game, from a bygone era, somehow inside a new one. 
Ah, Geralt of Rivia. A famed Witcher, supernatural detective and nigh-invincible warrior cast at birth for a life of – Geralt? Are you even listening? We’ve got a Griffin setting fire to villagers out here buddy, any chance you could step away from that deck of cards and lend a hand? You are, after all, the most powerful being in the entire land. No? Sure. One more turn it is, then.
Playing Gwent feels at once like deepening the immersion of the world – really being in that tavern, kicking back with the locals and sharing their pastimes – and at the same time disconnecting from it entirely in order to focus on negating that Nilfgaardian deck’s annoying sabotage abilities. 
Orlog was not, in fact, a real game played by people in the Viking times, but it’s about 100% of how the virtual Vikings of Ubisoft’s vision spend their time in Valhalla. You can think of it as Gwent with dice, and like CD Projekt’s famous diversion it’s similarly cozy in its vibe, all wooden pieces and heathfire roaring somewhere in the background.
So popular was this non-historical game in fact that Ubisoft released a physical version of it following the game’s release. At least that way you know the dice aren’t being subtly coded to ruin your evening. 
“I’ve got a game for us”, said someone somewhere, presumably, at one point. “Put your hand out and then stab your knife in between your fingers at an increasing rate.”
“And then what?” – someone else, rightfully perplexed by the idea.
“And then… Look, just hold your hand out.”
There’s no grand strategy to Five Finger Fillet. No meta to keep track of. You just stab a knife between your fingers. Like so many activities from Rockstar’s forensic recreation of the Wild West, it’s brutal, places an extremely low value on human safety and wellbeing, and it makes you glad you were born long, long afterward. 
How many more of us would have been tempted in to chess club meetings if the ancient perfect information game had undergone a rebrand and renamed itself Machine Strike? A lot. A lot more of us.
And that’s essentially what the far future-dwelling society of Horizon: Forbidden West have done. Machine Strike takes place on a board and operates according to similar rules, but there are many more modifying factors including stats for each piece and a topography to the board itself. It’s a slow-burn, designed not to be mastered in one sitting but over hours, and with depth like that it’s all the more impressive that it just turns up in an otherwise unrelated game about powering down robot dinosaurs. 
Picking out a single diversionary activity from the Yakuza series is akin to holding a grain of sand aloft on a beach and proclaiming it the very finest grain of sand to exist. It’s a life sim as much as a gritty actim crime caper, and as such you might consider disco dancing its high point.
Pocket Circuit Racing, though, is really special. Taking place downtown in some hybrid of a toy store and karting track, it sees RC cars motoring along tiny little tracks. It’s preposterous, and yet it’s treated with the utmost seriousness by its competitors, as though they’re one step above Formula 1. And so you must you, if you want to take the victory. The image of seeing a grown man who you know could kick an almost unlimited supply of adversaries to death in the street outside, standing and giving his absolute all to a remote-controlled car race is just priceless. 
This was your dad’s Gwent, an unassuming card game that cropped up as a diversion in an action-RPG with far grander scope and stakes than collecting decks and challenging people in taverns. What I’m saying is, Knights of the Old Republic walked so that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt could run.
Vaguely similar to Blackjack, the aim is to get as close to 20 without going over. Unlike the Vegas croupier’s favorite though, Pazaak has modifier cards that totally change your tactics and turn it into much more than a game of chance. Whether finding those cards is worth letting the Sith run amok for is another matter. 
Honestly, if you preferred playing golf, or tennis, or yoga, then consider that activity swapped in for this entry instead. Let’s not fall out about it. I’m just here to say that competing in triathlons is a surprisingly engrossing minigame, particularly given the timescale involved.
Work your way through the two preliminary events and you’ll unlock an absolute monster of a tri, one that takes about 30 minutes from jumping off into the Alamo Sea South Beach to reaching the finish line. You’re really just mashing X and pushing forwards for almost the full half-hour, but during that time you’re also watching a beautiful dawn turn into day, carefully managing a stamina gauge, flipping back and forth to the TV cam view to hear some choice commentary with Rockstar’s trademark satire dripping off every line, and taking in the sheer scale and detail of the world map at a different pace than you’re used to. If you never bothered before: give it a tri. Sorry.
Written by Phil Iwaniuk on behalf of GLHF.
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The Memphis Grizzlies will meet the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 4 of the NBA Playoffs on Saturday night from the Target Center.
The Grizzlies will be looking for their third straight win after losing the first game and coming back to win Game 3 by the score of 104-95. As for the Timberwolves, they will be looking to even up the series at two with a win tonight, but it will be tough after losing a game they seemed to have in the bank.
We will have you covered throughout the NBA Playoffs, here is everything you need to know to…
The Boston Celtics will meet the Brooklyn Nets in Game 3 of the NBA Playoffs on Saturday night from the Barclays Center.
The Celtics are coming off two straight wins over the Nets to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the series. Meanwhile, the Nets will be gunning for a win at home as they look to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant to step it up.
We will have you covered throughout the NBA Playoffs, here is everything you need to know to watch and stream the action today.
Boston Celtics at Brooklyn Nets
When: Saturday, April 23
Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
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