Your guide to the holidays
Our Holiday Guide has more ideas to help you get ready for the holidays, including gift ideas, advice on high-definition TVs and digital cameras, a preview of holiday entertainment in the city and our popular printable carol song sheets. It's all at thestar.com/holidays.
CRYSIS (EA)
Exclusively on: Windows PC
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating: Mature (17+); blood, strong language, violence.
For the hardcore PC gamer, buy Crysis. Period. The game single-handedly proves three key points about the games industry:
One, the world really does need another sci-fi, shooter extravaganza, but only if everything about it is top-shelf – graphically super-sumptuous, wickedly wily, deep and enthralling, and contains a multi-player component that will be enjoyed for years.
Two, as any self-respecting PC gamerknows, PC categorically "pwns" shooters. Console shooters are just pretenders compared to Crysis.
Three, Crysis affirms that a publisher doesn't have to make 27 insipid sequels of one hit game in order to please the game-consuming masses, and that more original games of this calibre might bring back the love.
UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE (SCEA)
Exclusively on: PlayStation 3
ESRB rating: Teen (13+); blood, language, mild suggestive themes, use of tobacco, violence.
To describe Drake's Fortune as a modern-day Indiana Jones game would be apt, but totally superfluous. It's much deeper, more intelligent, more witty, more morose and more graciously indulgent.
As an action-adventure that excels at everything most other games only wax at – graphically outstanding theatrics and animations, a story to care about, clever and intelligent characters.
Buy this for the PlayStation 3 gamer who has been waiting for that one game that proves once and for all that PS3 gaming can be beyond compare.
SUPER MARIO GALAXY (Nintendo)
Exclusively on: Wii
ESRB rating: Everyone (6+); mild violence.
Nintendo's super-jumper plumber returns in a far out, fanciful adventure of princess-saving, coin-collecting, star-hoarding and Bowser-bashing.
Probably the best Mario game to date, once again defining the genre that the chortling fathead invented all those years ago. And huge! Big like a galaxy, because a mere Mario "world" or two was too confining for this generation. Buy it for just about anyone with a Wii.
MASS EFFECT (Microsoft Games Studio)
Exclusively on: Xbox 360
ESRB rating: Mature (17+); blood, language, partial nudity, sexual themes, violence.
A sci-fi, role-playing, action game extravaganza for the serious gamer in the house. It's a humongous, highly evolved and hugely involved game with a genuinely compelling story to tell, with brilliant visuals and about 20 times more dialogue than your average movie. Not for the casual players, except maybe to convert them into serious gamers.
SINGSTAR POP, SINGSTAR ROCKS, SINGSTAR AMPED, SINGSTAR '80S (SCEA)
Exclusively on: PlayStation 2
ESRB rating: Pop and Rocks: everyone (10+); alcohol reference, mild lyrics, mild violence, suggestive themes. Amped and '80s: teen (13+); lyrics, suggestive/sexual themes, tobacco/alcohol reference.
Sony has the lock on karaoke games, with four titles in different genres (sold with or without microphones).
All of them will have you and your friends singing over the original recordings of various artists, while the original videos play on the screen and you're scored on pitch and cadence and such. Buy these for anyone with a penchant for embarrassing themselves silly (see review, V2).
ZACK & WIKI: QUEST FOR BARBAROS' TREASURE (Capcom)
Exclusively on: Wii
ESRB rating: Everyone (6+); cartoon violence.
Sure, it's cute, cartoony, piratey and kid-friendly, but Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure is also an inventive and entertaining game that you won't find on any other platform, simply because it wouldn't work on any other platform. It is wholly and brilliantly reliant on the motion- and gesture-actuated Wiimote. A novelty game that remains fun even when (if?) the novelty wears off.
GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK (Activision/RedOctane)
For: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Windows PC or Xbox 360
ESRB rating: Teen (13+); lyrics, mild suggestive themes.
Get Guitar Hero III for the rocker in the house. The Guitar Hero titles are a bona fide phenomenon, allowing you to play air guitar to the original master recording (and remakes) of many rock epics, (while the game scores you on dexterity and timing), except with the "air" bit replaced with an actual, guitar-shaped wireless controller. Legends allows for, among other things, two-player shredding at home and online.
LEGO STAR WARS: THE COMPLETE SAGA (LucasArts)
For: Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii or Xbox 360
ESRB rating: Everyone (10+); cartoon violence.
Two previously released games in one, totally enhanced and majorly supplemented with new content. Buy The Complete Saga for Star Wars fans of either generation and Lego fans of any generation, and let them have at it together in a hilarious, all-ages romp that both parodies the Star Wars franchise and pays homage to it at the same time.
The Complete Saga is particularly cool on Wii, offering the same riffing on the Star Wars saga with pantomiming Lego versions of the various trademarked characters and settings, but also allowing for the gesture-based control of lightsabres and such. Nothing complicated though: it's a fun-for-all game after all, and that's truly where Lego Star Wars excels; anybody can play it and, more important, everybody will enjoy it.
ASSASSIN'S CREED (Ubisoft)
For: PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360
ESRB rating: Mature (17+); blood, strong language, violence.
A fresh take on stealth-action gaming, Assassin's Creed goes all medieval on your console, offering a deep, dark, sometimes dank, usually dirty world to explore, shadows to skulk through (over, around, under), legendary (and not-so) bad guys to creep up on and snuff out, and religious righteousness to ponder.
Shaun Conlin is president and editor-in-chief of Evergeek Media Inc.
