This holiday season has been billed by the major gaming companies as the biggest and best ever – and they aren’t kidding. With over 750 releases this year, and 150 of those slated for release between November and December, the gaming public is flooded with new stories, scenarios and gimmicks for each of their favorite consoles.
Fortunately, we here at The Centurion recognize this dilemma, and have compiled a list of our top ten game choices, as follows:
Final Fantasy X-2
PlayStation2
Developer: Square-Enix Japan
Publisher: Square-Enix USA
MSRP: $49.99
Rated: T for suggestive themes and violence
The first true sequel to a Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy X-2 picks up the story of Yuna, Rikku and newcomer Paine, two years after the first game ended. With an incredible story follow-up that cleverly integrates details from Final Fantasy X, and the addition of the new Garment Grid dress-up battle system with real-time battles, X-2 reigns king (or Queen) of the RPG genre on PlayStation2, and is perhaps the best game released this year for the system.
SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals II
PlayStation2
Developer: Zipper Interactive
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
MSRP: $39.99
Rated: M for blood and violence
Sequel to last year’s best selling online game, Socom II places gamers in the role of a Navy Seal ops leader, whom must complete various missions in a wartime environment. Multiplayer online play returns, stealing the light from the somewhat repetitive single player campaigns. With the addition of Breach and Escort modes, as well as more than 20 new maps and promise of downloadable content form the developer, Socom II is an excellent choice for those who are die hard fans of the Online shooter genre.
Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
GameCube
Developer: Nintendo of Japan
Publisher: Nintendo of America
MSRP: $49.99
Rated: E for mild cartoon violence
After years of waiting, the next installment of Nintendo’s extremely popular Mario Kart series has been released, with significant improvements. Players will immediately notice the addition of another racer to each cart, so that one character drives while the other controls different items and power-ups littered along the 16 new tracks. This key addition provides mass multiplayer appeal, as two players can now play cooperatively together, and is the type of innovation that Nintendo is so well known for. With sleek graphics, classic Nintendo gameplay elements and many unlockable secrets, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! should be atop everyone’s list.
Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga
GameBoy Advance [SP]
Developer: Alpha Dreams
Publisher: Nintendo
MSRP: $29.99
Rated: E for everyone
First there was Super Mario RPG; then Paper Mario; and now, the world’s most famous plumbers return in a brand new RPG adventure, with a quality that succeeds in surpassing the previous two installments. The story unfolds into a grand tale, beginning with an evil witch, Cackletta, stealing Princess Peach’s voice. Mario and Luigi must then recover the voice, while trying to discover the motive behind this bizarre theft. Filled to the brim with jokes and throw backs to many of the old Mario games, and the clever system of controlling both Mario and Luigi together at the same time, Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga stands as the best Game Boy Advance release so far this year and should not be missing from any gamer’s collection.
Rainbow Six 3
XBOX
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
MSRP: $49.99
Rated: M for blood and violence
The brilliance of the Tom Clancy Rainbow Six series is not that its amazing what it accomplishes, but how it accomplishes it. In this newest installment, players are once again thrown into the role of leader of the Rainbow Six operative team as they move throughout 14 different objective-based missions. The brilliance in this case comes with the addition of an online cooperative mode, where players can play the single player campaign together through XBOX Live, a feature desperately lacking from other games within the genre. This, along with the engaging single-player mode, is backed by a highly entertaining multiplayer free-for-all, which screams production value. First person shooters this well executed rarely come along; hopefully this can hold us over until Halo 2 next year.
Other noteworthy games:
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Playstation2, GameCube, XBOX, GameBoy Advance [SP], PC
Tony Hawk’s Underground (THUG)
Playstation2, GameCube, XBOX, GameBoy Advance [SP]
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
XBOX
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
Playstation2
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III – Rebel Strike
GameCube