Trauma Center: Under the Knife

Fetch the machine that goes 'Ping!'

"If you want something pleasantly disgusting to do on a train journey," says the 1001 entry, "then Trauma Center: Under the Knife is societies only acceptable answer, really." Who is asking that question in the first place?

Trauma Center is a series of surgery 'simulations', linked together into a visual novel, which kicks off with the first entry, the Nintendo DS's Under the Knife.

Your stylus is the only tool you'll need, doubling as scalpels and syringes where necessary, but do you have a steady enough hand to cut the correct parts? Who does surgery on a train, anyway?

Tower Bloxx

This is definitely a hard hat area.

Gaming on mobile phones kinda exploded when the likes of the iPhone were unleashed into the world. It was practically impossible to not find something entertaining to play, whether you wanted to match gems, bounce balls, or create tower blocks.

Wait, what? Create tower blocks? How can that be a game? How can that be fun? How, Tower Bloxx? How?

Nintendogs

Where my dawgs at?

Source // Moby Games

So, who had a Tamagotchi? I think I had a chicken. I don't think I ever saw it as a chicken, though. Why would I want to hatch a digital egg and feed a digital chick so that it turned into a gloriously pixellated chicken that required attention? Actual attention. Every waking moment of the day. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Except people do, and if they had a Nintendo DS, you can bet they got hold of Nintendogs, the 21st-century video game Tamagotchi equivalent.

Prepare to go nuts for puppies.

Project Gotham Racing 3

Screaming Kudos!

Source // Moby Games

There are a great many series of racing games. Some I'm not really interested in, and some I never had the chance to play, being exclusive to a platform I didn't own. One such game is Project Gotham Racing 3, a game with a weird name on a new system, the Xbox 360, that I didn't want.

As a release game at the start of the next generation of consoles, PGR3 would be raising the bar, and I had to double-check that this was indeed an Xbox 360 game that I was playing next for the 1001 list. It feels too early, somehow. Surely there can't be hundreds of games from the seventh generation to keep us going. How many sequels will we be playing?

A question for another time, for we've got some street racing to do. Legally, this time.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Get in.

If there's one racing series that I've almost actively not taken a look at at every single opportunity, it has to be Need for Speed. I don't know what it is about it that doesn't appeal to me, especially when the series has done seemingly everything from road races to police pursuits to illegal inner-city street racing.

The 1001 list has plenty of games to choose from and deems the ninth entry, Need for Speed: Most Wanted as worthy of a look. The city of Rockport seems to be a street racing hotspot, drawing all-comers and their pimped up rides to temporary street circuits, point to point races, and more.

How well can we shift through the gears in this one?


Oh, and remember:

Always wear a seatbelt.

Rogue Galaxy

"We don't look suspicious at all."

It's completely normal to not know a developers entire back catalogue of games. There is always the possibility of a quirky little release on the side or a game that gets rightly forgotten about. I've just learned that Jade Empire was a BioWare title, for instance, and I'm about to learn something about Level-5.

Here are their first four games. Dark Cloud, the RPG where you rebuild the world as you see fit (ideally in a way that pleases the townsfolk). Dark Chronicle, its cel-shaded sequel, worthy of the 1001 list. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, the cel-shaded RPG that brought the main Dragon Quest series to Europe, also on the 1001 list. Rogue Galaxy, the cel-shaded sci-fi action RPG that we're about to launch into on the 1001 list.

Of those four games, I've played three, enjoyed three. Finished none, but still. It's looking like I'm drawn towards Level-5 and their games. And then I found out Rogue Galaxy was basically Star Wars...

Jade Empire

No resting in peace leads to quite the problem...

Role-playing games can take players anywhere in time and space. If you favour the dark dungeons of fantasy, you can spend tens of hours wandering through Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. If you prefer some science-fiction in your fantasy, then Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic fits the bill nicely.

Those of you familiar with those three games will note that it seems BioWare knows how to make RPGs, no matter where they're set. How do they fare in a setting inspired by Chinese mythology?

Originally an Xbox exclusive - the reason I know nothing about it - Jade Empire sees players navigate the mysteries and the many dangers of a world where the dead can't rest. How are your martial arts skills?

Mario Kart DS

Mama Mia...

The longer this 1001 list goes on, the more I question some of the inclusions. Usually, that's as I come across them - a sequel that just tacks a '2' on the end, for example. But sometimes an entry lets me look back and wonder why clearly inferior versions of a game were considered must-plays.

This is the fourth Mario Kart title to be featured on the 1001 list. Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are on here twice. Ridge Racer three times. Mario Kart... well, no spoilers, but it's not done yet, even after its fourth 'worthy' inclusion, Mario Kart DS.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time

BACK TO TUTORIALS!

What would a 1001 list be without 101 Mario titles on it? Well, it'd be much like the 1001 list I'm following, for starters, because there aren't that many entries fronted by the plumber. It does feel like it at times, though...

Another sequel. Or another prequel. Or both, actually, this time around, in the form of Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, an RPG for the Nintendo DS in the same vein as Superstar Saga from the Game Boy Advance, the 'stick Mario on one button and Luigi on the other' game.

Ok, yeah, that wasn't a terrible time at all. How is it spruced up on the DS?

LEGO Star Wars

I have a very good feeling about this...

Source // PlayStation

I was in the middle of my late teens when a Star Wars game like no other was released, combining a series of films that I liked with a childhood toy it's almost impossible not to like, LEGO. That game was, of course, LEGO Star Wars, a trilogy of tales set in a galaxy far, far away, and mimed by dinky little toy figures.

Not only was it charming, but it was also jam-packed full of stuff to do, ensuring that long after the kids had enjoyed their time with it, the adults could replay levels again and again in an attempt to track down each and every hidden secret.

It's been a long while since I've played a LEGO game. How do they hold up today?