Games worth playing
By Nick Hackett
Monday. Feb 05, 12:37 PM
...If you weren't among the chosen.

It’s early in 2007, and most people are still riding the holiday consumer wave, living off stored fat. Of Santa’s chosen, very few received a Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii under the tree (unless a family member worked at Best Buy). This could prove fortunate, however, because neither system has any good games. There are scant few (Zelda, Resistance: Fall of Man), but all the titles worth playing are on the Xbox 360. Here are a few:

Dead Rising
Frank Thomas, journalist, is stuck in a mall full of zombies. Use him to take pictures, save people, or just kill the zombies with a mall full of weapons. This addictive adventure requires that you play it over and over; you can’t possibly see everything the first time. It also manages a good script and even some anti-consumer social commentary. Brains?

Gears of War
A violent, fast, dark game about shooting monsters. Imagine Halo with gore and online co-op. Now imagine an ingenious cover system and a feature that makes reloading fun. Imagine that game, but writhing and reptilian. Now imagine that game being sawed in half using a chainsaw bayonet, spraying so much blood the camera gets covered. Yeah!
www.gearsofwar.com

Saints Row
Do you like any of the Grand Theft Auto games? If you do, you will absolutely enjoy Saints Row. Why? Because the game designers completely ripped GTA off, copying everything from the map system to the car radio stations. Still, if you have to copy, then copy the best. Saints Row is fun to play for all the same reasons that GTA is. It shines in some places (cool car physics, insurance fraud) and lets you design your character almost any way you can imagine. It does have some hokey dialog and stories, but it’s still fun. It should tide aspiring game criminals over until GTA 4.
www.saintsrow.com

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent
I’ll get right to the point: this is a good game and has some cool spy action, but it simply isn’t as good as Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (available as Xbox Platinum Hit for $20). Still, Double Agent is a really great game that continues the adventures of super-spy Sam Fisher. Some of the espionage missions are thrilling and the multiplayer online game is great.
splintercell.us.ubi.com

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Before I tell you how incredible this game is, there are a few things that need explaining. First, this game involves wizards, spells, dungeons, dragons, and the undead. Second, this game requires that you sacrifice all free time for at least 100 man-hours. Third, this game allows you to finally live out your desire to be an evil sorcerer ninja, commanding an army of the undead across a terrorized village.

LEGO Star Wars: The Original Trilogy
The title says it all. Play through all the best scenes from the original three Star Wars classics, but with two important changes. First, everything is composed of LEGOs, from the huge starships to Chewie. Second, the game features no dialogue. These two simple changes are what make LEGO Star Wars genius. Plus, the game has a convenient “jump in, jump out” multiplayer system, easy gameplay, and only LEGO-based violence. Fun for all!

Nick Hackett

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