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...?