12 Retro Video Games to Bring You Closer to Your First Sergeant (If That’s Something You Want)

Whatever branch of service you’re in, you probably have a senior enlisted leader (SEL), be that a first sergeant, a chief or a gunny. That SEL was probably born in the 1980s or later, meaning that even though they’re old and cranky, they likely grew up with video games. They were just a kid with good knees and a controller in their hands when Tetris, Pokémon and Mario Kart were young.

If you’re looking for common ground with your SEL, you might try playing the games they're nostalgic for, if that's something you want. 

Here are 12 games to shake the dust off to try to put yourself in your salty senior noncommissioned officer’s worn-out old boots. 

Read Next: These Fitness Video Games Might Actually Help Your PT Score

The Oregon Trail (1971)

Your crankiest senior NCOs and officers probably played this game in school and will excitedly tell you about hunting in the game and fording the river. Hunting is obvious, since it was just shooting animal after animal. Players remember fording the river because 1) it was an awesome endgame activity and 2) it was high stakes. It was very easy to wipe out the family you’d just painstakingly transported across the entire country by making just a couple of mistakes while crossing a little river. "Here lies FARTS. Survived dysentery but died when CHAD's hands shook during the river minigame."

Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Any early Mario game is probably a great topic of conversation with your Gen X or elder millennial supervisor, but Super Mario Bros. is one of the best-selling games of all time. It kicked off the entire Super Mario enterprise, which is now 40 years old and contains dozens of games, a few movies and thousands of toys. 

Super Mario World is also great and introduced Yoshi. While it never quite broke past Super Mario Bros. in total sales, it was the top-selling game on Super Nintendo. Almost all gamers over 30 have played it.

Tetris (1989)

Tetris is one good thing to have come out of the Soviet Union. Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov made the game to test a new computer he was working on. He got hooked, got the Soviet Union hooked and then the world got hooked. 

If you don't know how Tetris works, stop lying; you definitely have seen someone play it. If nothing else, you've seen the mobile game ads for Tetris clones. Take colored blocks, stack them into lines and watch the filled horizontal lines disappear. It's simple, fun and you can play it on almost any platform.

Any Original Pokémon Game (1996)

Back in the day, there were only 151 Pokémon, or "Pocket Monsters," in the popular game series that has now sold millions of copies across dozens of titles. Pick a starter Pokémon (Charmander if you love dragons, Bulbasaur if you're not basic) and march out into the world to make animals fight one another for fun, profit and power.

Most younger gamers have played a few Pokémon games, but if your military mentor is over 30, you'll have to connect with Gen IV or older Pokémon. Your first sergeant has no idea what Scorbunny is.

Mario Kart 64 (1996)

Mario Kart 8 has remained on shelves for more than a decade, but there's still a chance your elders have a soft spot for Mario Kart 64 or even Super Mario Kart. 

Race all your friends as Nintendo characters like Donkey Kong or Bowser, blow through classic tracks like the Haunted House or Rainbow Road, and try to remain friends as blue turtle shell after blue turtle shell crashes into your kart.

World of Warcraft (2004)

There's a very real chance that an NCO in your support channel has been late to at least one formation in their early career because they were finishing a World of Warcraft dungeon, raid or questline when they should have been walking out the door.

The original premise for WoW, as it's commonly abbreviated, was to drop players into the Warcraft strategy games. At this point, it's more about joining the approximately 6 million people who make Azeroth a living place by playing in it monthly.

To get the real experience, play on classic servers, which rewind the game world to 2012 and the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

Red Dead Redemption (2010)

In Red Dead Redemption, a former outlaw is forced to serve federal agents as they try to capture or kill his former gang. It was, for a long time, one of the most popular sandbox games in history. It's got raids on western forts, fights against cattle rustlers and even a chance to hunt Bigfoot into extinction, if you buy the Undead Nightmare expansion.

Its prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, is now one of the best-selling video games of all time, so there's a solid chance most of you are already familiar with John Marston, the main character.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)

Yeah, of course there's a Call of Duty title on here. The reason there are almost two dozen Call of Duty games is because of how many folks bought them in the early 2000s, including all the barracks rats of that era.

Modern Warfare 3 rounds out the Modern Warfare Trilogy as a sub-series in the larger Call of Duty universe. It was one of the fastest-selling games of all time and had awesome graphics and gameplay. If you have the time, it's worth it to play the entire Modern Warfare Trilogy.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

It's sort of depressing to get to the 14-year-old game that is still waiting for its sequel to drop. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been re-released and remastered so many times that it became a meme, but it keeps selling in every iteration because it's also an awesome game.

Play the base game in order to get the real, OG experience. But the game also has amazing expansions, like Dawnguard and Dragonborn, as well as a massive number of player-created mods that can make the game feel brand new.

One tip: Don't look up the most powerful game builds before your first playthrough. Players have figured out a lot of ways to crack the game, which can be fun but ruins the initial experience.

Borderlands 2 (2012)

Absolutely psychotic, like all the Borderlands games. Borderlands 2 is the top pick, both for having come out in 2012 -- when modern sergeant majors were privates and sergeants -- and for its tight story and hilarious writing.

Wake up in an icy dump on the planet of Pandora, start looting guns and killing bandits, and just never stop doing that. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll drown in the millennial humor.

Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

Another game over a decade old that's still waiting on a sequel, Grand Theft Auto V has a storyline and cinematics that could have earned an Academy Award as a movie, probably with Quentin Tarantino directing. 

It's fun, it's chaotic and it's been relevant for more than 10 years. If you're new to the game, though, focus on the story. None of your noncommissioned officers in charge have many hours in the online multiplayer.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an amazing game set in a fantasy world reminiscent of Medieval Poland. The titular witcher, Geralt of Rivia, hunts monsters, tries to find his adoptive daughter and helps decide a massive war. He carries two swords, one for killing monsters and one for killing men. The crossbow is good for either.

Brewing potions and building custom hand grenades helps, too, and you can hunt vampires, werewolves and wyverns, just like the first sergeant did when he was your age.

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