Neptune's Pride

The almost-final frontier.

It may not look like much, but Neptune's Pride has already been awarded one of the highest achievements a game can have on a PC. No, it hasn't been installed on the C Drive, it's a web-based game, and it has gotten its tab pinned. Can you believe it?

Well, it would probably help if I explained what Neptune's Pride was. In short, it's a 4X game set in a randomly generated galaxy, full of aliens with one goal: own the majority of stars.

Who, if anyone, will work together and remain at peace until the inevitable backstabbing must occur? How will your galactic empire develop? What aspect will it flourish in? Wealth? Science? Huge numbers of warships?

I don't have a clue, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

The Beatles: Rock Band

While my Guitar gently clacks.

Source // PlayStation

I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm not playing The Beatles: Rock Band.

I'm not going to hunt down plastic instruments and multiple USB microphones - I don't even know how they'd all connect to the PlayStation 3 anyway. I'm not going to welcome people into my home to join me in clacking and bashing those instruments or wailing into those microphones. I'm just not going to do it.

(Insert record scratch here)

But part of me wants to.

Killzone 2

"My people. Sons and Daughters of Helghan."

Source // MobyGames

There are an awful lot of components that go into a great game. Solid gameplay is an obvious bonus, but as technology has advanced, great stories, characters, and voice actors have made games shine, and film composers and orchestras have provided incredible soundscapes that can be recalled in an instant.

But there's another aspect that can make an otherwise excellent game fade over time if not done right, and that's worldbuilding and the aesthetics of what's on show. The reason I rate Front Mission 3 so highly is the look and feel of those big stompy mechs. I'm a fan of that aesthetic. Metal Gear Solid is also helped by its look and feel, but that game does have a whole load more going on besides them. Wipeout famously had a graphic design studio turn the game into the vibrant futuristic wonder that it is today.

However, in my opinion - though it's a tough call to make - there may well be no more aesthetically pleasing game, no better world to dive into, than the grungy, smoggy, near-future, WW2 analogy that is Killzone 2.

The first game of the series didn't grab my attention. That E3 teaser trailer and the subsequent gameplay footage that followed sure did. By the time you've played it, you too will know that Helghan belongs to the Helghast.

Left 4 Dead 2

Dude, haven't we been here before?

Less than a year after Left 4 Dead came Left 4 Dead 2, and there's probably some pun we could make about dealing with one group of zombies only to turn around and walk right into another, or that the dead aren't easy to kill, or that's always more where that came from.

I have a history of not liking it when this 1001 list says we need to play what are essentially identical games, especially sequels. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is a sequel to Metal Gear Solid, but despite their similarities, you can find a whole bunch of reasons to put both forward as must-play titles. Halo 3 is a sequel to Halo 2, but we've got a harder time of things now, though 'finishing the fight' might be enough to sway it. Left 4 Dead 2 is a sequel to Left 4 Dead and it has, let's see... daylight, melee weapons, a few new monsters.

So who should we leave behind, this game or the first one?

Guitar Hero: Metallica

Off to Never-Never land.

Source // Nintendo

I couldn't tell you a single song that Metallica has written. Well, there's Enter Sandman, but I only know that from ECW, and wouldn't have been able to tell you that it was a Metallica track until I looked it up just now.

I am, quite simply, not the target audience for Guitar Hero: Metallica, though it does have the odd offering from much more recognizable bands should you require a change of... musicians?

Look, you know the drill. I don't have the kit, I don't have the desire, I'm not going to be saying a whole lot about this game, and I'm probably going to slag off Metallica, so let's all just ignore this one and move on.

Death Tank

Down a bit. Bit more. No, go back. Down again...

Source // Microsoft

Is there enough chaos on your couch? Do you even have local multiplayer in the games you're playing? Despite a remake on the Xbox 360 where online multiplayer was in full swing, Death Tank allows you and up to three friends to get your artillery hats on for some chaotic last-man-standing rounds of vehicular warfare - and then allows you to play against another four players online at the same time.

It seems to give you options, but what are you doing in the first place?

Fat Princess

Let them eat cake.

Source // PlayStation

Smaller downloadable titles can give folks the chance to try something that perhaps wouldn't work in a bigger game. They also allow for the adaptation of classic game modes into something more focused or nuanced, fully exploring what it means to capture a flag in a multiplayer team game, for example, like Fat Princess chose to do.

Two teams battle it out in a gory cartoon competition with one goal: rescue their princess from the opposition castle, all while their enemies are making it harder by fattening her up with cake.

Don your caps and grab some cake for what will probably be a silly little game.

Demigod

FrankCavil is Godlike? Doubt it.

Source // Steam

The one video game genre I've avoided the most probably has to be the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. It's not just that I prefer to play single-player games, or shy away from team-based offerings - hundreds of hours spread across a few Battlefield titles will tell you that I'm not averse to this sort of thing at all - but because of the two big MOBA titles being so impossibly big and alien to me that no amount of free-to-play introductions would convince me that it was worth all the effort to learn umpteen characters inside and out just to compete.

I should probably roll the clock back a bit and tell you what a MOBA is, and what better game to do that with than one that's old, has a single-player version to get to grips with, and was hit by so many problems at launch that most people would have been put off from playing it in the first place.

That's right, it's Demigod.

Battlefield 1943

PTFDigitalOnlyO

Source // PlayStation

An awful lot of first time Battlefield players site Battlefield 3 as their entry to the series, the consoles finally getting a smaller but no less impressive taste of the action, scaling from boots on the ground to dogfights in the sky.

As a nice little treat for those who were hyped to dive into the series, a bite-sized digital-only game was bundled with copies that aimed to give players a blast from the past, and a blast within a minute of entering a map.

Battlefield was going back in time, in more ways than one, with Battlefield 1943.

LittleBigPlanet

"An ethereal dreamscape of adventure and possibilities ... and you can go there now."

Source // Media Molecule

Some games are aimed at kids. Many more are aimed at adults. A few of them are aimed at big kids, and little kids, and weird kids, and creative kids, and LittleBigPlanet is one of those few. A platformer and a platform for, it gave the world the seemingly infinitely customizable Sackboy, a delightful avatar for all kinds of hand-crafted physics-based entertainment.

Surely I was too old for a game like this in 2008, right? Never.

Rock Band 2

"Crawling in my skin. These games, they will not disappear."

Source // Nintendo

From time to time I've spoken about how this 1001 list makes some pretty awful decisions regarding which games to feature, to the point where basically identical games are listed to justify a new sentence that has words to the effect of "this time they got it right!"

Part of the appeal of this 1001 list is seeing the evolution of video games through the decades. Milestones in technology are important things to remember, be they successful or not. A game can introduce the world to something, it's sequel can perfect it. You can argue for the inclusion of both games - after all, there's still room for 999 more games, right?

But Rock Band. Bloody Rock Band, and it's spin-offs, and it's competitors... they can get a goddamn 1001 list of their own at the rate they're going. Here's Rock Band 2. This will not take long.

Tetris Party

Are Solo games better with more people?

Source // Nintendo

How can you tweak a classic like Tetris? Different shaped blocks? A landscape-oriented grid to fill? Special abilities and power-ups? These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, and all of them cause a little shudder because they all seem a bit naff when compared to the pure Tetris experience.

And yet developers have still tried to make some Tetris-y spin-offs work, and may well have succeeded in Tetris Party, a collection of different Tetris-based modes for a gathering of Tetris fans.

Are any of the games in here good enough to replace the O.G. itself, or is this just a neat little compilation of something to do with your mates?

Guitar Hero World Tour

When will the noise end?!

Source // Nintendo

So, Harmonix made a few Guitar Hero games, unleashing the plastic plague upon second-hand electronics stores the world over, before they swapped bands for whatever reasons and played for Rock Band, which introduced more plastic peripherals into households that really didn't need them, proving that there was - somehow - a market for this tat.

Not wishing the up-and-coming competitor to have all the fun, whoever was left in the original Guitar Hero band thought they too could pull off a microphone and drum kit and here we are: Guitar Hero World Tour.

Yes, it's got one fewer drum, but it has two more cymbals, so ner. Is that enough to get me to play it? You know the answer to that.

Left 4 Dead

"Dude, where's my thumb?"

Sometimes it feels like the world may be heading towards a zombie uprising. There are an awful lot of braindead individuals out there, that's for sure. What would it take for them to work together for the greater good? Co-operation, for starters, and an intelligent leader to push and pull everything in the right direction.

Co-operating can be hard for some, however, so we should probably get some practice in playing first-person survival horror shooter Left 4 Dead, where a handful of citizens have to rely on each other to wade through the onslaught that lay between them and their survival.

Can you wade through an onslaught, or do you wade through the blood and guts that come out of that onslaught? I'm not sure. Let's find out.

Castle Crashers

No, don't beat me up...

Hack & Slash. Beat 'em Up. Button mashing. There's pleasure in the simple things. Following an intricate story, solving a challenging puzzle, mastering complex mechanics... sometimes you're just not in the mood. You want to sit back and press an attack button over and over, watching the chaos unfold.

It can be too simple, though. You'd prefer it if your button mashing made you look cool, or if the context was humourous. It'd probably be much better with co-op partners, too, to really hammer home that old school feeling of fighting your buddies as much as you fight the baddies.

A game like that could take many forms, but chunky colourful visuals from the golden era of Flash gaming, from the folks at Newgrounds, no less, sure sounds like a damn good idea, and that pretty much leaves us with Castle Crashers.

Will the knights in shining armour please rise and promptly run out of the castle to hack and slash everything in sight? And try not to hit each other?

Buzz!: Quiz TV

Question number one...

Source // PlayStation

Who doesn't love a good quiz? Me. It's got to be a good quiz, mind you. None of this Mensa application rubbish, or intellectual nonsense that only strokes the quiz-masters ego, no. I like my quizzes to be sensible for the most part, and humourous for the rest.

Your first question then: What is Buzz!: Quiz TV?

Mario Kart Wii

Blue. Shell.

Source // Nintendo

At last, we have made it to the final Mario Kart title on the 1001 list, Mario Kart Wii. The series has been a bit hit and miss, highlights including DS and, obviously, Super Mario Kart, and the games have been a clear example of knowing what you're going to get.

New Nintendo console? New Mario Kart title. New controller gimmick? Better show the world how to use it. Grab your plastic steering wheel attachment and stick new batteries in your Wiimote, because we're about to go racing.

Again.

Carcassonne

Tiles. Not cards, tiles.

Source // Microsoft

It's no surprise that I like video games. I wouldn't be going through this many of them if I didn't. I've grown up with video games, I've not really stopped playing video games, I get a lot of my entertainment from video games.

But my other big passion is gaming on the tabletop. It was once in the form of mass-market board games, then of pencil and paper RPGs, and then, a few years ago, mostly thanks to P2 (though I will admit I took the ball and didn't so much run with it, but outright blast it off to space), board and card games.

They're big business these days, we're quite defensive about them, we will fight you on your incorrect opinions - it's very much like video gaming, actually. Give it twenty years and we'll all look back with a different set of eyes and appreciate some of them a little more, though The Mind can piss right off.

That's another topic for another day because we're talking about a video game version of Carcassonne, which, according to P2, is the absolute best you can get from a board game. She's wrong, but not by much, and it's the Xbox Live Arcade that plays host to this version.

Grab your Meeples. Yes, the things that look like fat people. Just pick them up already and let's get tiling.

Warhawk

Now land it.

Source // PlayStation

The 1001 book contains a lot of pictures, and it usually brings out a chuckle when I find that the imagery chosen was one of the first you could find with a basic image search. What puzzles me from time to time, though, is imagery that doesn't quite represent the game that it's attached to.

You see, I'm lead to believe that Warhawk is about flying a fancy looking futuristic jet fighter through the skies as war rages below you. At least that's what the box art shows me. And doesn't 'hawk' lend itself to aircraft more than tanks?

A multiplayer exclusive game for the PlayStation 3, whose single-player content was supposedly cut for lack of quality. Ooh. This is going to be tricky.

Team Fortress 2

"Keep crying, baby!"

I have never seen the appeal of Team Fortress 2. I mean, I understand how a first-person team shooter can be engaging, and unique classes can work together to form a formidable threat, and how cartoony characters and aesthetics can make it stand out against your more run-of-the-mill FPS titles, but I really, personally, cannot find a reason to pick up Team Fortress 2 and play it for myself.

Except, of course, that the 1001 list says we should. So there's that, I guess.

I know Team Fortress 2 only for it being vastly popular for some reason and having too many hats or something. I don't know, and to be honest, I don't care, but lets at least give it a shot.