Have Hype Will Game

There are so many game releases every year that it is hard to know whether a game is worth buying or not, and upon seeing the list of top 100 games that have been sold in the past year it becomes clear that if you have a well known name you can sell anything.

The full list is on Next Generation should you wish to read it all however as the atrocity of some games in the 40s still haven’t lost their shock I shall just list the top 10 here:

10. Brain Age 2: More Brain Training in Minutes a Day
9.   Super Mario Galaxy
8.   Assassin’s Creed
7.   Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
6.   Need for Speed: ProStreet
5.   Madden NFL 08
4.   FIFA Soccer 08
3.   Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
2.   Halo 3
1.   Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Now, this provided a look at what people are looking for, however there are some games missing here that deserved a place much higher than the sales place them, and some games that shouldn’t be here. Let me start by saying that Madden and FIFA don’t deserve a place this high, simply because the games aren’t exactly that great, and Halo 3 is there, but I will come to that later.

The ‘Saga Collection’ of Lego Star Wars was ranked 27th. Lego games are great, pure and simple, they might not speak, but they can sure act and the games are fun, 27th? below Ratatouille and Harry Potter, seriously? Bioshock made just 29th, Mass Effect down in 34th, and the one that probably shocked me most, Orange Box, that’s 5 games Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, down in 44th, one place above Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. Think long and hard people, are the top 10 games really the best games of the year, or just the ones who push themselves onto people the best?

This brings me to Halo. Too often have I been told that the Halo series is the best ever. I once read an article saying that you are not a true gamer unless you have played the Halos. Not only was this person wrong, he was just being stupid. I have played Halo, it was, as First Person Shooters go, a good game. Was it the best FPS ever? No. I can name three games that are better than Halo and they aren’t hiding behind shiny graphics. Quake 4, Half-Life, and Goldeneye (N64). Yes, the games go that far back, and are still better than Halo. If we want to go for tactics, Rainbow Six is in there. People praise the multi-player of Halo 3, I have just two words and a number for you. Team Fortress 2. If you haven’t played it, I would suggest you do now. And don’t forget Unreal Tournament, just in case I’m using too many Valve games. And if you are after a game that is far cheaper that Halo, there is always Americas Army, y’know, the free one, that recruitment tool. And before I get told there are too many annoying people on Americas Army, please go use XBox Live.

I feel the whole Halo series to be over hyped. OK they are good games, but not to the extent that everyone seems to say they are, and from that I now get to complain about a game that was under-hyped when it originally came out on the PS2 in 2006, and hasn’t been receiving all it deserves with the upcoming Wii release.

The original studio who spawned the game has gone now after the game didn’t sell as well as had been expected, which is a shame because everyone deserves to experience this game, if only for a short while. But I doubt anyone would want to put this game down. I am talking about Okami. It brings together a lot of Japanese myths and legends and does so in what is possibly the best visual experience of any game. By that I don’t mean great, super-realistic graphics, I mean it looks great because it has a special quality. It was reviewed well, but it never really took off. You play as a dog in a water-colour world very like that of Japanese artwork. It’s an action-platform-puzzle game, strangely similar to the Zelda games, but with one thing that every game should have. A celestial paint brush.

This worked so well with the PlayStation analogue sticks, however reviewers have said that the Wiimote controls can cause some problems, even with the simplest line drawing. In theory the Wii is perfect for this game, however as with most things evidently what happens in reality isn’t quite what you hope for.

I hope that this game does well, if just for the legacy of Clover Studio. This game deserves to do far better than Halo 3. Will it? I doubt it for one simple reason, Halo 3 had Bungie and Microsoft pushing it, this game has Ready at Dawn and Capcom. People should play this game, however I have a strange feeling it will be overlooked again.

If you have a PS2, buy the original, if you have a Wii then buy the Wii version, if you have both, I would say go for PS2, just because you don’t want the bugs with the Wiimote to ruin this experience.

MTFBWY