My slightly less videogame-obsessed friends often ask me to recommend games to them. Unless I’m in the middle of a game I usually don’t have a great answer… so just tell them about the game I played last. So in an effort to head y’all off at the pass, here are some of my favorite games from 2005.
by Sony Computer Entertainment — Santa Monica for PS2
For some reason I find it really difficult to sum up God of War in a few words. It’s kinda like you and your best friend spent an entire summer coming up with your dream videogame back in the 80s after gorging yourself on Clash of the Titans, The Empire Strikes Back, and Raiders of the Lost Ark… and then you jumped forward in time and made this game for the PS2. God of War is an extremely well-crafted game with classic fighting game sensibilities, brain-tickling puzzles, and amazing art direction. I’m really impressed that they took Ancient Greece, a setting most kids nowadays would think of as pretty boring, and made it totally rock.
by Double Fine Productions for Xbox, PS2 and PC
Psychonauts is also difficult to describe. It’s a little like Harry Potter, but instead of being wizards, the kids are all psychics. The best compliment I can pay Psychonauts is that my wife and I sat down and played through it together. The writing is absolutely terrific, the characters are instantly lovable, and the entire experience is really funny. Psychonauts takes solid platformer gameplay (a-la Super Mario 64) and combines it with a dash of old-school adventure game storytelling, a bunch of rad psychic powers, and some of the coolest level design ever. No really… there is one level in Psychonauts that is worth the price of admission. I promise.
by Digital Eel for PC
If you have a laptop you should go download the Weird Worlds demo right now. Weird Worlds reminds me of the old-school space games I used to play on my 286, except instead of being really crazy complicated and taking hours and hours to complete, you can learn and complete the game in about fifteen minutes. And then you can play it again. And again. And then again. The game generates an entirely random universe each time you play, so you never know when or where you’re going to end up in a fire-fight or find that coveted hyperdrive. The game is just good old-fashioned 2D fun so you don’t need a super computer to play it. And oh yeah, you can mod it. Nuff said.
by ArenaNet for PC
I have an admission to make. Sometimes I like to run around and hack at monsters, steal their gold, and then use said gold to go buy better swords and bows with which I can go hack at more monsters. The catch is I like to do this with my friends, I don’t like to do it all the time, and I certainly don’t want to pay a bunch of money to do this once in awhile. As such, Guild Wars is a “massively multiplayer” game designed for people like me – the “casual hardcore” gamer. Guild Wars is probably the most visually stunning game I played last year, but underneath the glitz there’s a simple-yet-broad game of swords and sorcery to be found… all without any monthly fees. If you want to play some Guild Wars, email me and we’ll hook up for some hack and slash.
by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. for PS2
Shadow of the Colossus makes me cry. Sometimes I cry because of the framerate. But I usually cry because it shows me some of the most beautiful imagery I’ve ever seen in a game. I don’t mean that they have the most polygons or the highest-res textures (that would be Guild Wars). Instead Shadow of the Colossus fills me with wonder and amazement and hope. It’s the most emotional game I’ve played since Ico (the last game by the developer), and the first time you find yourself standing underneath a 100-foot-tall giant you’ll know what I mean. I wish the game was a little less difficult and a little less hardcore, as I could see this being a game that everyone in my family could really enjoy playing. As it is they can at least enjoy watching it.
by Harmonix Music Systems for PS2
Speaking of games the entire family can play… Guitar Hero is one of the simplest, and therefore best, videogames of last year. The idea is just great – you plug a plastic “guitar” into your PS2 and you “play” a bunch of (mostly) awesome rock songs. The catch is that the guitar controller is much more basic than a real guitar, and the game is pretty forgiving when it comes to actually making you play the right chords. But you *feel* like you’re playing the songs… and when you have a living room full of relatives cheering for you as you blast “Thunderkiss ‘65” you really feel like a rock god.
by Capcom Production Studio 4 for GameCube and PS2
Resident Evil 4 is the closest thing to a “shooter” game on this list, but it’s really not like any first- or third-person shooter I’ve played before. Resident Evil 4 has all of the tension, suspense and surprises of the original games in the series, but this latest game is told in an extremely cinematic fashion. The in-game camera work makes it feel like there’s a documentary cinematographer riding along behind you at all times, showing you what’s happening from the coolest and most dramatic camera angles possible. The extremely simple controls are admirable, and while limiting, the lack of run-and-gun really grounds the gunplay and adds to the overall tension of the experience. And oh-yeah, shooting zombies is fun.
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