This is distinctly a guide for fogeys. Do not use this to judge what the favorite child in your life would like. These games are for boring, thirty-or-forty-or-fiftysomething you.
Guitar Hero, Legends of Rock (Wii) I have my eye on the World Tour bundle, which apparently opens up the possibility of drums and singing. But this is the staple that has kept an untold number of bloggers mesmerized for hours. The idea is simple: there are five buttons, which correspond to notes on the screen; your job is to hit the notes in time with the display, and the song. But the game is almost too fun; I actually developed tendonitis in my index finger at one point, trying to master a song. This is what it looks like if you get really, really good:
But don't worry; if you're over twenty-five, you will never get that good. There's a beginner level that uses fewer keys and goes a lot slower. I recommend investing in a second guitar, because your friends/spouses/children will definitely want to play. Or you could also get the World Tour bundle, which comes with one.
Mario Kart (Wii) I was actually too old/female for original Nintendo, so I'm fresh to this, but it's embarassingly fun. You drive around in circles. You fall off things. Your three year old nephew beats you, repeatedly. It's like the distilled spirit of Christmas.
The game comes with one Wii wheel, but I recommend getting at least one more for multiplayer; we have four.
Dance Dance Revolution (Wii) The most aerobic game available for Nintendo. It sure beats staring forward on an elliptical trainer for forty minutes.
Okami (Wii) Weirdly beautiful, weirdly entertaining game from Japan. It's hard to describe--"Myst with a Paintbrush" isn't a bad stab at it from a hooked friend.
Civilization IV (PC, Mac) Years after it came out, I'm still playing. It's simply the best world-builder out there. War, science, religion . . . I'm not sure it's ever come up to Civ 2 for me, but it's still light-years ahead of any other competition.
Railroad Tycoon III (PC, Mac) This is the other game that I go back to year after year. I'm a rail buff, so of course, I would love this game, but even people who don't care about trains find it deeply satisfying to build a working company, and see towns grow up around your railroad.
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The Civilization is by far my most favorite game series of all time.
Given her penchant for strange and beautiful Japanese games, I wonder if Miss McArdle has ever played anything by Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus). Though, to be frank, these are ultimately stories about boys fighting monsters to save a princess, considerably more conventional than playing the lupine avatar of the Sun Goddess. Also, I rather suspect Megan doesn't own a Playstation...
Forgive the excess italics... Apparently I've forgotten how to close markup tags. Brilliant.
Touching the competition for Civilisation, have you tried Europa Universalis III, published by Paradox Interactive? It is much deeper, and rather less repetitive because you don't control the production queue of every city.
Hey civilisations isn't just for old fogey's Ms Mcardle. Those games are pure gaming crack for all age groups. I known people who've playing since they were 8.
what's your favourite wonder if I may ask? is it Wall Street?
Loved railroad tycoon II. Didn't like III - just didn't feel right.
Sorta like the difference between super monkey ball I (one of the best games ever) and super monkey ball II (a gigantic monkey turd).
There never was a Mario Kart for original Nintendo (NES.) The first Mario Kart game was for SNES.
But as long as we're talking about the Wii, why bother with the new Mario Kart game when Mario Kart Double Dash for the GameCube (and therefore compatible with the Wii) is way, way more fun? Picture co-op kart racing, where the driver drives and the rider tosses shells out the back. Way cooler.
Have you considered Rock Band instead? I've tried both Rock Band and World Tour, and I vastly prefer Rock Band. Though admittedly with the Wii, you don't get all of the downloadable content that you would on the Xbox 360 or PS3.
Also, do you have the Civ IV expansions? Beyond the Sword adds quite a lot.
Interesting picks: some popular mainstream Wii games, one cult favorite (Okami), and two nerdy empire-builder titles.
If I might suggest one: LittleBigPlanet. It's like a Pixar movie in that both adults and kids love it. The game is easy to play and just loaded with imagination. If you are ambitious, you can build your own levels. Tons of fun.
You still don't have Super Mario Galaxy? This is a situation which demands immediate rectification. And if you liked Okami you should get Twilight Princess, which Okami was basically a clone of (in terms of gameplay mechanics, minus the brush, anyway).
Sophomore year in college I came back from class around 5 pm and a buddy said I had to try this new game called Civ. I sat down at his computer and basically didn't move for the next 12 hours.
The later Civs are clearly smoother and better designed, but nothing can top that first all encompassing experience. That game just consumed my brain.
Well, I may be showing my age, but I loved the original Railroad Tycoon game. My dad and I spent many, many hours playing that version. I remember reading some negative reviews on the follow-ups, though, that they were more about pretty graphics than gameplay, so I never bought any of them.
And looking around, I just saw that the original RR Tycoon game is available as a free download at Sid Meier's Railroads site. I may have to download that and start playing again.
Love the Civilization series. My daughter and I play the game all the time and it has a become a great tool to teach her history and social science. Oh yea, fun too. I do recomend taking breaks ever hour or so, if not, your back will end up like a pretzel
I never tried the railroad game, may have to check that one out!
Admit it, you play railroad tycoon to pretend that you're Dagny Taggart
I second the Mario Kart Wii recommendation, and also agre with getting an additional wheel. My family makes do with just two, but we only have two wiimotes. For extra people, we have a couple of GameCube controllers that we have for other games anyway.
As for Civilization IV, I agree it's great. But for me, Civ 3 still reigns supreme, even to Civ 2 (which I started with).
Civilization ought to be illegal. The last time I played it, I went to bed at 2:30 (and had to get up at 5:30). Crack has nothing on Civ. My wife has threatened to leave me more than once over it. Megan, aren't there any Civ-12-step groups out there?
A few upgrade recommendations:
Rock Band 2 is far preferable to Guitar Hero 3 or Guitar Hero: World Tour. Especially on the XBox 360 or PS3, where you can download new songs from a continually growing library, currently at 500 songs. GH:WT has a much weaker multiplayer mode that's very awkward at parties, and the drums have had a lot of problems.
Civilization IV is good, but a pair of expansions make it even better. Civ IV: Beyond the Sword adds Corporations, which act a little like late-game religions with economic benefits, along with a whole host of other neat additions. Civ IV: Colonization takes the engine and runs an entirely different, much more economically focused game where you have to colonize the New World and then fight off the home country for independence. With tricky supply chains and other neat things, it plays like a wonderful mixture of Civ IV and an economic game like Railroad Tycoon.
Railroad Tycoon 3 is still probably the best railroad game, but Sid Meier's Railroads! is a decent pick for a beginner to the genre.
She loves Civ 2. Be still mt beating heart!
"On CNN today, I heard Suze Orman answer the following question: "We have no money and considerable credit card debt. Should we dip into our paltry emergency fund to pay for Christmas for the kids?"
What a sad commentary on our culture. No, you should not spend money you might need for food on a transformer. How do we live in a society where this is even a question?
I have no doubt that that parent is miserably thinking about how her kids will feel when all their classmates have new Christmas presents, and they have nothing to show. What makes me mad is that we've created an environment where the most magical thing that can happen to a child is to be given a few pieces of plastic glued together in China."
-Megan McArdle, 11/21/08
Man, Civ is dangerous. I remember when I got Civ II, the Call to Power version. I installed it on my laptop while I was working in Germany and started playing one evening before I was scheduled to fly home. I ended up playing until 5:30 in the morning when I had to go to the airport. When I got to Flughafen, Muenchen, named after Franz Josef Strauss (as is every other public facility in Bavaria) I found a power outlet in the corner behind a potted plant and sat down there so that I could plug my laptop in and continue playing. When airport personnel would come over and ask what I was doing I would tell them that I needed a little bit of power for my laptop so I could charge it for the flight.
On the flight back to Seattle I discharged both of my laptop batteries playing the game. I then got home, plugged the laptop in and played for another 13 hours until I had to break it off, shower and shave and go to work. It was then that I knew that I was an addictive personality. Drugs don't do much for me, I can take or leave alcohol and every opiate I've ever tried (all under prescription, demerol, methadone, oxycodone, fentanyl, pretty much everything but heroin) but Civ, man that was dangerous. This is why I've avoided World of Warcraft, I'm afraid of getting sucked into it and not being able to quit.
Harmonix is the company to go with (The makers of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II, then Rock Band, Rock Band II, DDR, Frequency and Amplitude and a host of other games like that).
Railroad Tycoon III is ok, but I still think II had better game Mechanics.
Rock Band is the way to go (if you can play drums on hard on Rock Band, you can probably learn drumming in Real Life).
Anyone else ever dreamed of starting with a capital location that had one whale, one coal, one bison and one wine?
I think Sid Meier may have had more influence over me and my Malthusian understanding of the world than my parents.