Trauma Center: Second Opinion

Ping!

Source // Moby Games / Nintendo

A short while ago I said that using a stylus was a great input method for a game like Trauma Center. It'd make no sense to play it with a controller, I said. 

"But what about a motion controller?", says Trauma Center: Second Opinion, the second game in the series, making the leap from the Nintendo DS to the Nintendo Wii. I don't know, Second Opinion. I imagine it makes a bit of sense. Shall we find out?

Source // Moby Games / Nintendo

Viva Piñata

Get that shovel away from me...

Source // Moby Games

Gardening. We're not all fans of it, that's for sure. I'm quite happy to look at a garden and enjoy the life within, but getting out there and maintaining it... Nah. I let nature take its course. Which is why I spent the precious few moments of sunshine yesterday indoors, tending to a virtual garden full of strange little cartoony critters in Viva Piñata.

Battered shovels at the ready, because we're about to create a thriving ecosystem in our digital backyard.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

"GOAT IN!"

Source // Nintendo

"You are here because the Wii is about to launch with a new Zelda title. It's motion controls perfected, it's art style more to your liking."

"Bullshit."

"Denial is the most predictable of all human response. But, rest assured, this will be the tenth time we have made a Zelda title worthy of this 1001 list, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it."

I don't know why that popped into my head. Maybe I want to talk about anything other than The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess right about now, the return to its action-adventure roots with a grown-up lead character controlled with a waggle stick...

Spoilers?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Your blogging skill has increased.

An open-world first-person action-RPG where you can, if you want, leave items scattered about your house, on tables and shelves, to admire whenever you popped back into town. For some reason, when I first heard about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, this what was I couldn't quite believe.

I remember asking, on GameFAQs, if I recall, whether you could, actually, have that level of realism or immersion in Oblivion. I, having only played dumb little console games, was amazed. Easily amused, you might say, and I was desperate to get hold of Oblivion for my PlayStation 3.

Cyrodiil is threatened by the Mythic Dawn, a group of up-to-no-goods intent on opening Oblivion gates - portals to Hell, essentially - and welcoming the inhabitants into town. How distracted by sidequests will you be to help the Blades find the Emperor's only surviving son to save the day?

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent

Pick your side carefully, now.

My track record with Splinter Cell games isn't exactly what you'd call spotless. I eventually made my way through a chunk of Splinter Cell, but it wasn't pretty. I absolutely didn't manage to get through much of Chaos Theory, but I was eager to find out more about both games, and the series as a whole.

Now we've got another instalment to add to the 'must get better at or die trying' list of Tom Clancy titles, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent.

Sam Fisher is not in a good place and needs to please both the NSA who employ him and the JBA terrorists that he's been placed undercover with. How far do you follow your orders? How do you keep both the terrorists and the counter-terrorists happy? Who will you side with when the credits roll?

It certainly sounds interesting enough for me to find out.

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast

How far are you gonna take me?

The leisurely driving - not racing - game that was OutRun finally got an arcade sequel in 2003 and that arcade sequel got an expanded remake in the form of OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for home consoles a few years later.

Bringing the arcade experience into your living room, you're able to throw Ferrari's into vicious powerslides around stages that take you through a miniature road trip around the world, all to impress your girlfriend or a big guy known as Flagman. Or both, seeing as there is plenty of content to get stuck into here.

And just like the arcade games, getting stuck in is easy.

Test Drive Unlimited

Just taking it for a little spin...

The Test Drive series of racing games have been around since the late 1980s, but they've never come with the glitz and glamour of the Gran Turismo's of this world. To be fair to Test Drive, though, it's not a series that really aims to compete with Gran Turismo. It's more closely related to the likes of Need for Speed, where outrunning the police is as common as racing your opponents.

That kind of gameplay wasn't of interest to me back in the day, so I never bothered with any Test Drive title, and that includes the many open roads of Test Drive Unlimited, an open-world drive around Hawai'i.

Open world driving? Before Forza Horizon? Before Burnout Paradise? Ok, what have I missed here?

Medieval II: Total War

That's not a hedge line, is it?

"I think I'd enjoy a sequel more", I once said, with regards to Medieval: Total War. "Oh yeah? Go on, then" replies the 1001 list, shoving Medieval II: Total War into view.

Sequel to the first game, obviously, Medieval II brings the middle ages into the modern ages with the new 3D engine first seen in the last outing, Rome: Total War. I've never gotten into these strategy games, but if I said I thought I'd enjoy a sequel more, I better at least play the sequel to find out, right?

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

Rise of Eyebrows

Source // Moby Games

When I was on the lookout for these 1001 games in the wild, I would, without fail, go "Oooh, oh, there's one!" Whenever I saw Rise of Nations, before realising that, no, it still wasn't the Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends that I was looking for.

What was this game? An expandalone? A sequel? Something altogether different? I had absolutely no idea for the longest time. And to be honest, I still don't.

A real-time strategy where steampunk technology meets actual magic, Rise of Legends serves as a spin-off to Rise of Nations, so Wikipedia tells me. I wonder why that is...

Lumines Live!

We'll do it live!

Source // Moby Games

Lumines II was a firm favourite of mine on the PSP, but a simple game like this can be put on anything, and the next place that it was found was on the Xbox 360 in the shape of Lumines Live!

What could a console offer a game like Lumines? More importantly, what could a digital marketplace offer it...?

Gottlieb Pinball Classics

Tilt with care now...

A long time ago in this 1001 list, I played Pinball Dreams, an early attempt to bring classic tables onto television screens. A year or so ago, I played Flipnic, an attempt to reimagine pinball without the constraints of having to be played on a pinball table. Or make sense.

Now, though, we're back to attempting to bring classic tables onto television screens again, only this time with far more care and attention, in Gottlieb Pinball Classics.

If the name Gottlieb means nothing to you, don't worry. It means nothing to me, either. Say what? They did Q*bert? Well, apart from that, Gottlieb means nothing to me, but to pinballers, it means the very best, and this museum quality collection aims to show you why.

Slitherlink

Please touch!

The transition from paper to screen, or even from physical to digital, can turn a mediocre game into a smash hit. I play a lot of tabletop games, but the digital versions of some of them are so much easier to set up and play that if you want a quick game of them, it's a no brainer.

The digital arena can be used to great effect to highlight old or obscure puzzles, keeping them alive through the generations. Crosswords and word searches, Sudoku, or - if snakes are your thing - Slitherlink.

The rules are simple, and the number of puzzles available is seemingly infinite. Do I have the necessary logic to complete just a single puzzle?

Naked War

MOVE OUT

'What do you get if you cross Advance Wars with Worms?' I hear nobody saying, because as questions go, that's not ranked high on anyone's list. The answer, apparently, is a must-play game called Naked War, where units don't explode and turn into tombstones but instead lose their clothing and run around the map desperately searching for a promotion.

Huh.

Mercury Meltdown

Formerly known as Hydrargyrum. Little chemistry joke for you there.

Marble Madness. Whatever happened to that game eh? You don't really see that coming out in swanky HD releases these days, but its hard to argue that it's not worthy of such a release. Delicately diverting a marble around a stage designed to knock said marble anywhere but across the finish line - the gameplay doesn't even need to be changed.

But along came Archer Maclean, who probably said: "Yeah, but what if it was a blob of colour changing Mercury instead?", and minds were blown and multiple PSP games were made about just that, the second of which being Mercury Meltdown, building upon the launch title (and my first PSP game) Archer Maclean's Mercury.

Tilt stages to manipulate a blob of mercury from the start point to the finish line, through obstacles and puzzles, across level after level of simple, though head-scratchy gameplay. Do you think you're smart enough to avoid a meltdown?

Gunpey

Go-way, please.

Gunpey Yokoi is remembered for essentially making everything you ever loved about Nintendo in your youth. The Game Boy, for example. You know, like, it, as a thing, is thanks to Gunpey. Even earlier than that, the guy is praised as the creator of the D-pad. Where would you be without that, eh?

What he won't be remembered for is Gunpey, a puzzle game with a lengthy history, but a DS release that has the unofficial honour of being the game I played for the least amount of time before noping out of.

I think I've already taken the same amount of time to write this intro than I spent playing Gunpey. That's how quickly I backed out of it. So let's get this over with, I guess.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

"Quit your whining. The bullets went straight through. Now get up!"

The PlayStation Portable was a neat bit of kit. I got one early on its life, and while I probably never made the most of it, I have some damn good memories of various titles. The Metal Gear series, for example.

2005 saw the release of Metal Gear AC!D and its sequel, a turn-based collectable card game tactical RPG that I think is all kinds of fun and worth playing without a moment's hesitation. There was also a digitally animated adaptation of the Metal Gear Solid graphic novel by Kris Oprisko and Ashley Wood, which I am absolutely gutted that I no longer have (so far as I can see), though I do cherish the actual graphic novel itself.

That brings me neatly onto Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, the fourth Metal Gear on the PSP. Just think about that next time you wonder what happened to the PSP. It was loved, that's what happened. Metal Gear had been proven to work as a card game and a visual novel. The PSP was clearly a capable little machine. Could we squeeze a full Metal Gear Solid game onto it?

The answer is 'not quite', but while we didn't get a mini Metal Gear, we weren't left with a half-arsed product, either. Are you ready for some Metal Gear on the move?

Just Cause

"I can't believe I get paid for this."

While I do prefer games to have a great story and be focused on what they do, sometimes you just need a playground of one sort or another. If you want your playground to be a third-person action kind of thing, full of ridiculous combat and over the top stunts, then Just Cause might just grab some of your attention - and if even has a story, should you want to pursue it.

The island of San Esperito is run by a dictator that needs to be overthrown, and you're just the man to help get things moving, Agency operative Rico Rodriguez, channelling as much Antonio Banderas as he can muster.

Will this island paradise end up tourist-friendly? Let's find out.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

"He found me cryin' like a baby at the convenience store, surrounded by a bunch of coffins."

We can't find ourselves on top of each and every series worth playing. If you took RPGs alone, there'd surely not be enough hours in the day for you to experience them all, so you've got to stick with what you know and like, or go and explore something that comes highly recommended by someone you trust.

It took me far too long to listen to people pleading for folks to play the Yakuza series. Have I made the same mistake by overlooking Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3?

In the right circles, all you hear is Persona this, Persona that. Shin Megami Tensei is too foreign a title for me to get behind, it's too weird, I'll never be in the right frame of mind for that, I thought. But even the series' title has fallen as game after game gets released and re-released as Persona something or other.

There's something going on here. A world I know nothing about, but one that people have high praise for. What's going on?

Jeanne d'Arc

Mon Dieu!

Some historical stories just beg to be retold, and the life and times of Joan of Arc is one such tale. A French peasant leading an army against the English because she heard God telling her to do so? Sounds like there's at least a little something to explore in all that, right?

What about if we added magic and animal-headed companions and anime, though? Well, we'd get Jeanne d'Arc, the tactical RPG for the PSP, from the minds behind Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy, and more. Geez guys, just stop it already, let other developers make it onto this 1001 list, yeah?

Hitman: Blood Money

"Names are for friends... so I don't need one."

I'm a fan of the Hitman series. Not a massive fan - I still haven't gotten around to the latest trilogy yet - but a fan nonetheless. Thanks to the success of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin on the PlayStation 2, I was introduced to the series, but didn't venture out to play them all, with Hitman: Blood Money being one that I didn't bother playing.

A mate did. He said it was good. That's about all I know of the game, beyond the obvious 'murder people and get away with it' deal that Agent 47 has going on...

I imagine this to be a great improvement on the formula, perhaps easier to control for console players. Not as brutally strict with its enemy AI as previous instalments have felt. Eh, enough speculating, more discovering.

Guitar Hero II

Clack Clacklack clack Clack Clack Clack

I am so close to writing "It's more of the same, move along" and just call it a day, but apparently Guitar Hero II is more than that. It marks the point at which the series showed the music world that these kind of games are going to stay, and at the same time represented the series peak before the developers split off to do Rock Band while the Guitar Hero name was dragged around the world.

Or something. I'm not really interested. One clacky plastic instrument functions the same as another, does it not?

Let's get this over with.

GTR 2 - FIA GT Racing Game

Realism Redefined

I called GT Legends a 'museum for the forgotten', a game of old circuits and older cars, simulated to degrees far above what I was expecting. I like GT Legends, novice driver that I am.

A year later, the simulator picks up the pace considerably in the form of GTR 2 - FIA GT Racing Game, allowing players to get behind the wheels of cars from the 2003 and 2004 FIA GT Championships, complete with a dizzying array of realism settings and sliders to give you the closest taste of racing you can get without wearing flame retardant overalls.

I get the distinct impression I won't be winning many races in this one, but we'll see how we fare nonetheless.

flOw

It's so safe to play along.

Source // PlayStation

If there's only one unusual trilogy on the PlayStation 3, it has to be the non-trilogy that is flOw, Flower, and Journey. The 1001 list was written years before the release of Journey, but it would definitely get a spot on the list alongside the other two games.

These games aren't anything alike or connected beyond the fact that they are pretty chill experiences, asking you to reflect as much as play and explore. If video games have too much going on for your liking, maybe you just want to drift through life as an amoeba-looking thing in the first game, flOw.

God Hand

"You can wax on, wax off all you like. I'm still kicking your ass."

I've been playing an awful lot of Yakuza 0 recently, and no matter how many fights you get into, it's always fun to just destroy your opponents. You don't just knock them out, you squash their face into parked cars and smack them around the head with baseball bats. Every hit is felt and they all seem to hurt quite a bit.

Take out all the boring Yakuza plot and you'd have God Hand, a game all about destroying your opponents with equally satisfying and wince-inducing assaults from your fists and feet. The beat 'em up just got brutal...

Ōkami

"A handsome guy like me should never be covered in wolf slobber!"

Source // PlayStation

Games and art. They are one and the same, no? A game is a work of art whether it looks like a Hollywood film or a piece of garbage. Who are you to judge what is and isn't art? Some games take more obvious inspiration from the world of art and have a style of their own based upon brushstrokes and line drawings. Cel-shaded games can be found everywhere in the last two decades, but there's only one that allows you to get your own brush out and change the game directly (please let there be only one).

Taking on the role of saviour of the land/divine being Amaterasu, Ōkami has you control both a wolf on a mission and a spiritual brush with ink that can change the world. It's not too often you can describe a game like that now, is it?

Final Fantasy XII

"I am simply myself. No more and no less. And I want only to be free."

They just don't stop coming, do they? Final Fantasy is the gift that keeps on giving, should you be a fan of the JRPG series with far more entries and versions and spin-offs than I'm even aware of. I'm still very much an outsider, even having played a few for this 1001 list, but you can't not know about FFVII, or FFX, or FFXIII.

You can picture the art style, you can have a pretty good guess at who the main characters are, even if you don't know their names... but when I tried to remember anything I had come across for Final Fantasy XII, I was drawing a complete blank. No characters sprang to mind. No look, no environments, no mechanics. Nothing. Was this the black sheep of the family?

For once, I'm actually going into an FF title completely blind, rather than mostly. What will I find?

Art Style: Orbient

That's not how gravity works...

Games don't need stories. Stories can just emerge from gameplay. You can personify inanimate objects, moan when something bad happens to them, cheer at something good. That's pretty much all the story you'll get from Art Style: Orbient, a gravity 'simulator' puzzle game that has you control a star drifting through the galactic neighbourhood.

And for the old folks out there, it uses just two buttons. Wow. Stripping gaming back to its roots here, eh? Let's find out how many laws of physics we need to relearn.