Recommend a Video Game to me...

Cafe Society
1

I will be 44 years old next week, but I am a die-hard video gamer. I don’t play as much as I would like to (work interferes a lot!), but everytime I have more than a week off work, I get a blister on my thumb from either my PS2 controller or my Nintendo DS buttons.

I would like to get a new game for my birthday, but I don’t really have time to go looking/scouting right now, so I’m hoping to get suggestions from fellow Dopers…

First, I own a PS2, a Nintendo DS, a Gameboy Advance, a Gameboy Color, and a Nintendo NES, as well as computers with Windows XP and Windows 2000. (There’s an original Gameboy around here somewhere too, but let’s not mention that.)

I like Pokemon, but I’ve played through nearly every version up to Emerald, and I don’t want more Pokemon right now.

I made it through Myst, but then realized that I really don’t like puzzle games very much.

My favorite PS2 games have been Sly Fox 1 & 2, and Robots.

My favorite computer games have been Descent II, King’s Quest VII: Mask of Eternity and Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. I like first-person shooter games that are not too bloody/gory, and which are reasonably difficult to complete. (I have not found any M-rated games that appeal to me in the least.)

I also LOVED the original PS Spyro games. I did not particularly like the PS2 Spyro game Enter the Dragonfly, and that has made me avoid Hero’s Tale. (I didn’t like Spyro: Kingdom of Ice for GBA at all, so I haven’t even looked at the other GBA Spyro games!)

I do not want to do the MMP games like Baldur’s Gate and Everquest. While I am quite sure I would enjoy them, they would probably mean losing my Real Life job and going bankrupt. I will not take the temptation that they offer.

Can anyone suggest games that I might like, given this kind of information? (For the record, I’m mighty tempted to but a GameCube, given the right incentive, but I’m not that interested in XBox. I like Nintendo games like Mario and Pokemon, but I haven’t seen too many games for XBox that don’t also exist for PS2 that I am that interested in.)

2

Sounds to me like you might want to keep going with platformers. The two big series out there right now for PS2 are Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank. Jak is the more classic platformer series, especially Jak 1 (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy). Ratchet and Clank is big on lots of weapons, but it’s not gory or anything like that. Besides, once you’ve turned a bunch of enemies into sheep or ducks, you’ll never want to stop. And you’ll start finding yourself wishing for a sheepinator next time you’re in Wal-Mart. Best of all, all six games are currently $20 each, so if you buy one and don’t like it, you’re not out much.

3

Cave Story (it’s better than the screenshot makes it look. It’s a computer game but it plays just like a console platformer and you can use a gamepad if you feel so inclined. One of my favourite games of all time :smiley:

4

Oh, and it’s nice and oldschool. That was why I recommended it.

5

Do you mean Sly Cooper? Cause the 3rd and final one just came out. It’s sweet!

6

Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari. Fun fun fun.

7

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, The Series of Unfortunate Events Game, and Link: The Minish Cap have all occupied far more of my time than I’d like to admit. They’re all for GBA, and very, very fun. FFTA (from what I’ve heard) is a lot like Pokemon, Series of Unfortunate Events is, well, very Lemony Snickett-esque, and Link is Link. Good stuff.

8

Baldur’s Gate is not MMP. I’;m not too keen on any of it’s console versions (i think there’s one for X-Box or maybe PS2) but the PC version is a single-player RPG, but it is fairly dated.

Neverwinter Nights is a great RPG. I like it better than Baldur’s Gate, because you only control one character (hey, with SIX people, in a real-time battle, it’s hard to get everyone to do what you want.) NWN is about 4 years old, but has two expansions, each about half the length of the original, AND you can play custom-made adventures by other people, and even make your own. And, since it is a little odl, you can probably get the complete package (original game plus both expansions) for $40 or so.

9

Elder Scrolls Series games Morrowind and Oblivion (Oblivion will be out on PC and XBox 360 this December). Great RPG’s, huge game space, lots of quests.

Hold up: there are four Baldur’s Gate games. Two are top-down RPG’s. The graphics are dated, but it’s not so bad because the backgrounds were hand-made. They are classic Dungeons and Dragons RPG’s with all the fixings.

The PS2 games are isometric Diablo-style action games, and picking up treasure is almost as important.

10

I second asterion. Ratchet and Clank is one of my favorite series: not gory; fun and ridiculously huge weapons (the best part about the duck one - the Quackinator, I think- is that if you get the final upgrade, you then get this evil fire-breathing duck that flies around with you divebombing your enemies. That never ceases to amuse me. :slight_smile: It’s not ridiculously hard, and fairly clever.
I found Jak and Daxter to be a bit more challenging (I don’t spend a lot of time playing games). I played Jak 2 for the first time about a month ago, and it was a really great game. Lots of side missions, so you don’t have to follow just one linear path through the game. And a soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh.

11

I second Katamari Damacy. Kooky goofy fun. You begin the game as a tiny intergalactic prince who needs to recreate the constellations by rolling everything he can find into a big ball. You start with thumbtacks and paperclips, and as your ball grows bigger, you can move on to birds, lampposts, people, cars, elephants and stadiums.

12

Some great suggestions so far, but everyone forgot about the DS! Check out Kirby Canvas Curse. It’s exactly the kind of game the stylus based DS was built for and it’s a ton of fun. I started playing my little brother’s copy and couldn’t stop until I had beaten it two days later. It’s been out a while though, so you may already own it.

13

Another plug for Katamari Damacy. Like nothing you’ve ever played before. Addictive, goofy, colorful fun. And the music is terrific too.

14

Ahem! 44yo is NOT “oldschool.” Besides, unless you have played Jewels of Darkness for weeks on end, instead of doing homework for college, you don’t really know what “oldschool” is. (Jewels of Darkness was a text-based role-playing game that we played on the main frame of the computer network where I went to school in the early 80’s. Played on a monochrome green monitor with no graphics whatsoever, but it was FUN!!! They later released a version with ASCII graphics, but it wasn’t nearly as interesting.)

15

Yes–Sly Cooper. (Spy Fox is a Humongous game that my kids used to like.)

I saw that the third one had come out just a couple of days ago.

16

This is on my mental list. It looks pretty cool, but I haven’t gotten around to buying it yet.

17

Pff. You speak as if I’ve never played anything more than 10 years old.

18

Oh, and I recommend Cave Story to everyone. If you want something newer I’ll join the ranks of Dopers extolling the virtues of Katamari.

19

As FPSes go, Deus Ex might appeal to you. It’s an FPS with RPG elements. Pretty well done. There are versions for PS2 and PC, but the PC one is easier and cheaper to find.

There are plenty of RPGs for GBA. Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls has Final Fantasies 1 and 2 (originally for NES) revamped with SNES-style graphics and music. There’s also the Golden Sun series. I’d stay away from Final Fantasy Tactics for the GBA, though if you find the PlayStation version, go for it. It’s cheap and fun.

20

I love, love, love my Fallout, Fallout 2, and Arcanum games. Single player RPGs, and you can choose to be good, evil, or a mix. There’s also Nethack, which has the advantage of being free. Lately I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts, AKA Final Fantasy Disney. The gameplay is great, but it’s realtime battles. Also, I am not terribly fond of having Goofy and Donald as my permanent sidekicks. But it’s a lot of fun. I liked all of the Final Fantasies up to FF9. Crono Trigger and Crono Cross are good, too. Crono Trigger was originally put out for the SNES, but it’s been ported to the PS/PS2, with some great new cutscenes.

My daughter loved Katamari, but I never really got into it. I am much fonder of the other games in my library. It’s a good game, and the music is very catchy indeed.