Good Games For Christmas?

Since nothing really interesting seems to be happening today (unless you count some lame overpriced scooter) I figured I'd throw this out. We've discussed christmas presents in general, but what about refining the subject to just video games? With Final Fantasy 10 not due out until the day after christmas, what new games are coming out? Please mention systems in your subject line. Personally I just finished Klonoa 2 and enjoyed it, I'm maybe half way through Grand Theft Auto 3 and am absolutely in love, and just picked up Metal Gear Solid 2 but have yet to break the celophane, but can't wait. On the PC side, The Sims Hot Date expansion pack is pretty smooth if your idea of fun is micromanaging an armada of virtual people. I hope a psychiatrist never analyzes my Sims style.

Comments

Civ III

[UberOogie]

This is a gimmie. Buy it, and you won't need another game, or TV, or food, for a vera, vera long time.

Re:Civ III

[UberOogie]

I certainly understand this sentiment. I had been waiting six years for this game. The CTPers were cheap ripoffs with pointlessly snazzy graphics. I bought a copy of Civ III on day one, and promptly got my ass kicked by the computer until I saw the note about starting the game at two levels below what you're used to playing at. I got frustrated and went off and completed Max Payne and Wolf 3D (both in under a week--not long games, but good games), and I came back to Civ III. And then I found the sucking of my soul returned. Some brief reasons why this is a great game:

Wars: Wars are much more realistic in this go around. They are much more difficult. You have to use actual planning and strategy and concentrate on specific goals (like one city).

Strategic Resources: There add an entire new element to the game, and give much historically realistic reasons for wars. You might finally find yourself sympathizing with the Japenese in WWII when you're playing the game and another civilzation will just not trade you for an important strategic resource you need that is just outside your borders.

Culture: This one kicked my ass to there and back and is the biggest change you have to get used to in the game, but the culture in the game accurately reflects the influence it has in the real world. One only has to look at the pervasiveness of American "culture" today to see how it really has an influence on geopolitics.

In all, it is much more realistic and deep advancement on Civ II. Take a step back and come back to it with fresh eyes. The hype and the wait probably did the same thing to you as it did to me.

Have you played Ico yet?

[Nelson]

It's pretty cool. Not the longest game in the world but the graphics are amazingly fluid and it's entertaining. It's not your run of the mill sports game or shoot 'em up, you've got to do a lot of exploring to beat it. I highly recommend it if you havne't played it yet. Check out Ico.

Also that scooter has two wheels, side-by-side, I've been wondering why it hasn't been posted on the front page yet.

PS2 / PC Games

[Captain_Frisk]

PS2 Wise I would recommend the following:

• Grand Theft Auto 3 - Amazing
• Metal Gear Solid 2 - Has its ups and downs, but pretty cool

Reviews have been good on the following:

• SSX Tricky
• Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3
• Ico
• Devil May Cry

PC Wise the only thing that I have played civilization 3, and its good, but might not be for everyone.

I'm also probably going to pick up the often discussed Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

In a related note, does anyone know of any good party style games for the PS2? I really enjoyed Smash Brothers on the N64, but don't want to pick up a new system just for the 1 game, so I was hoping that there was a similar, multiplayer, simple PS2 game out there my girlfriend might be able to play.

Thanks,

Captain_Frisk

Other choices

[ChaoticCoyote]

For those of us who aren't into anime (FF 10) or first-person shooters... ;)

Kohan: Ahriman's Gift , the most original and entertaining RTS this year.

Wizardry 8 , if you like party-based, heavy-combat, first-person RPGs.

Stronghold , a terrific "castle simulator" built by some of the folks who created the Caesar/Pharoah series.

Grand Theft Auto 3

[GregGardner]

CmdrTaco already mentioned this game, but he didn't give enough detail on it to convince people why it is such a great game.

Unfortunately it is only out for the PS2, but for those of you with a PS2 should seriously think about getting this game. The complexity and depth of this game is pretty amazing. And the graphics are a huge improvement from GTA1 and 2. That silly low-detail overhead view made playing the game too cumbersome. GTA3 got the graphics/interface right.

I have been playing it every spare second I have for the last month, and I am still only 36% through it according to the stats. And I believe that only relates to the missions. If you are bored with the missions you can always:

1) Try to get "stunt" bonuses by stealing fast cars, boats, or airplanes and driving them off ramps, bridges, buildings, etc.
2) Steal a taxi cab and play a little Crazy Taxi-esque game to earn a little side money
3) Steal a fire engine and go around the citty putting out fires for $$. I hear if you put out 10 in a row you get the flame thrower. (How does that work?)
4) Steal an ambulance and drive people to the hospital.
5) Steal a police car and go on "Vigilante Missions" where you track down criminals around the city and get cash for killing them.

Oh did I mention that this game is very non-PC and not recommended for people under 17? But man is it a lot of fun for those of us who are over 17.

Re:Civ 3

[Doomdark]

I know it's just matter of taste, but I thought Civ 3 was bit of a disappointment (or at least mixed bag). I loved Civ, Civ II, and have been happily playing CivCTP (since I bought a copy on Linux back when it first arrived... with enough patches it's even stable. :-)), but Civ 3 I bought few weeks ago is now collecting dust. It wasn't totally horribly bad, just not quite what I hoped for. Perhaps Sid is getting old or something. :-) (or perhaps I am)

The biggest problems were its instability (dunno why, perhaps it's not completely Civ3's fault, but Win ME kept on locking up all the time when running Civ 3), crappy gfx (I absolutely hate them compared to, say, Civ 2), non-usable UI (compared to what CivCTP or Civ 2 had... hey, let's make it more user-friendly by removing all "complexity", like menus...), and the fact that there didn't seem to be all that many interesting new features.

On plus side, it wasn't total rip-off (a la Settlers 3); sphere of influence (or whatever it was called) is a nice idea, movement restrictions are more varied (and interesting) now, diplomacy seems to have been improved, special resources are a nice addition... and perhaps there are more goodies if I do spend more time with it.

Hmmh. Perhaps I'll need to give Civ 3 a new chance during xmas break, after all. :-)

Re:Civ 3

[Arandir]

non-usable UI (compared to what CivCTP or Civ 2 had... hey, let's make it more user-friendly by removing all "complexity", like menus...)

I'm not a Windows user, so I thought that was standard :-)

Seriously, the UI really sucks, and the manual doesn't help much. I talked with a friend who have won two games (where does he get the time!) and he talked about saving the game and then retiring just so he could see what his score was. Then I mentioned the "h" button hidden on the unit display and he went gaga. Then he told me about the capital diplomacy menu having different options than the advisor diplomacy menu (which has different options than the "d" button diplomacy menu hidden on the unit display).

Just pretend Civ III is Myst III. There's a hidden control panel there somewhere, and you job is to find it.

Games I liked to play recently

[Tom7]

- Chu Chu Rocket (Dreamcast)
- Advance Wars (GBA)
- Paper Mario (N64)

Golden Sun for GBA looks really good. RTCW and Max Payne were pretty fun for the PC, but I think I am personally a sucker for bad single-player FPS games.

Spy Hunter for PS2

[steveha]

I just got Spy Hunter and it's a blast.

20 years ago, Spy Hunter was a sprite-based top-down scrolling shooter. Your little car sprite would shoot the other little car sprites, or drop oil slicks in front of them. Sometimes you would drive a little boat sprite. You drove on an endless scrolling road (or sometimes river). (With Shockwave, you can play a version of the original Spy Hunter here.)

Now, on the PlayStation 2, Spy Hunter is a 3D game. The camera is just above and behind your car. There are 14 levels to play, with multiple objectives per level. It plays a lot like Hydro Thunder, but with weapons.

Drive into water, and the car morphs to a boat. Drive the boat up onto land it and morphs back to car. When the car takes too much damage, lots of parts explode off it and what's left morphs to an armored motorcycle! Even cooler, drive the motorcycle into the water and it morphs into an armored jet-ski! When you are driving the car/jetski, you don't have the full special abilities of the car, and you have reduced firepower, but you can play the level anyway; it's just tougher. Dock with the weapons van (or weapons boat) for a full repair of all damage and full ammo load.

If you like Hydro Thunder you should like this too. I haven't had it long, but I don't think I will get tired of it, just as I'm not tired of Hydro Thunder. The gameplay is somewhat repetitive: you drive around shooting bad guys, you try to find the ramps that let you make the jumps, etc. But the level design is fun, and I don't seem to get tired of locking guided missiles on enemies and blowing them away.

I have only two complaints about the game. 0) Most of the cinematic cutscenes are pretty boring (just a shot of your car making the getaway after finishing the level). 1) If you are a good player, it will probably take you 20 hours or less to finish all the levels. But as I said there is a lot of replay value even just playing the same levels over and over, plus it will take you many plays to find all the secrets and accomplish all the objectives. Once you have found all secrets and accomplished all objectives, that level unlocks for 2-player mode; in 2-player mode you both play, split-screen, at the same time. I haven't tried 2-player yet but it looks like a blast.

The music is great. The rocking "Spy Hunter" soundtrack the "Peter Gunn Theme" by Henry Mancini, but remixed and with variations. I like the soundtrack so much that if they sell a CD of just the music, I'll probably buy it.

GameSpot has a review. They like it but not quite as much as I like it.

Recommended.

steveha

Re:The Burning Question Everybody Wants to Know:

[scrytch]

> And exactly how smutty is the Sims Hot Date expansion?

It's still pretty much G-rated. You can turn it up to PG-13 here and to the next level here. The second site is a pay site, but it's cheap -- $3.50 US for 30 days, which is more than enough time to suck down everything on the site.

Re:Dreamcast: Even cheaper shit.

[garyrich]

Yep. Got one last week, couldn't resist. Stop at blockbuster on the way home to rent a game and they say they've stopped renting them (bad). Then he says they are selling the used ones for ~5$ each on an endcap (sweet!). Cheap is cool!

Skies of Arcadia is indeed pretty col so far. Kind of ugly character designs, but that's life. Dead or alive has the best character designs -- my goodness, she really does kick high doesn't she?

garyr

Re:Racing games?

[TheCrazyFinn]

If you are interested in racing get a PS/2 and GT3 A-Spec, nothing else compares. Project Gotham has prettier cars, but the tracks suck, and it has only 25 cars and 4 base tracks (Albeit 240 variations of those 4), vs 140+ and 29 tracks in GT3. The Crazy Finn

PS/PS2/DC/GCN/XBox - RedOctane Rental Programs

[Ondo]

Don't buy - just rent.

Check out www.redoctane.com - they have a rental program similar to NetFlix. For a monthly fee you get a certain number of games out at any one time, and when you return one they send you the next one on your list. They have a great selection (including some imports), but it's pretty common for games to be out of stock for a while. For example I put Sonic Adventure 2 in my queue when I joined in late September, and recieved it in early November. I still haven't gotten Parasite Eve though, which I also added when I joined and which it now finally says is in stock. I haven't gotten any GameCubes games yet, and don't really expect them for a while.

Still, it's been worth it. There are a lot of games that just don't take that long to finish. ICO, for example, was very fun first time through but I can't imagine wanting to play it again. It's also nice to not have to rely on reviews, but actually be able to easily check games out for yourself.

IBM-clones: RPGs - PS:T and BG2

[eddy]

Not new, but still the very best of the best: Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2.

Half-Life!

[sbryant]

It still rocks! No need to spend big bucks for the latest games. You should be able to pick up a bargain-priced copy of HL - if you're lucky with Opposing Force and maybe even Blue Shift. HL is still (IMO) the best single-player experience that ever happened.

Download the latest patch and you become part of the biggest online gaming community. Team Fortress Classic and Counter Strike are included in the patch, and are the most well known, but there are others. See Planet Half-Life for more mods/skins/levels/cheese.

Another FPS which had a good immersive story line was Who Wants To Live Forever. More tongue-in-cheek than violent. Shouldn't be too expensive now either.

Other classics would be the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert. Tiberian Sun wasn't bad, but RA2 was pure cheese.

Also worth a mention: Total Annihilation (along with expansion packs Core Contingency and Battle Tactics), and Age of Empires II. I liked those.

The game I play the most: TFC (online of course). I'm looking forward to TFC2.

-- Steve

Some games

[JimPooley]

The aforementioned Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Really shows how things have changed in the last ten years.

Hmmmmmm.... Leather-clad Dominatrix Nazi Babes.... Can I freeze frame that bit...

Ahem. For the flight sim fan, Microsoft Flight Sim 2002 is a major improvement over the 2000 model. Better and more importantly faster graphics, autogen scenery, other planes, and ATC.
Free-scrolling virtual cockpit with working dials means you can take a good lookout as you'd do in a real plane. The program that shows Microsoft can do some things right!

Also on a flight sim vein, IL2 Sturmovik is a delightfully different combat flight sim. Unlike most WWII combat flight sims, IL2 concentrates on the air war over Russia, and the Russian IL2 ground attack fighter. Looks pretty good so far..