Why don't people talk about this game more?

[Jrecee]

I'd like to try yakuza but I don't want to play mahjong. There's a part in Timesplitters (not sure which one I have) where you have to solve a bunch of electronic circuit things. . . that was the end of me playing that game. . .

And I was just reading about Future Cop a little while ago, I'm putting that on my to get list.

[molotovwars]

I will soon be playing Yakuza. I'm hoping for a Shenmue experience and at the least the series has life to it so the games will continue to be made. I know Yakuza 2 is $20 new at amazon.com still.

About Majora's Mask. I am currently playing it and its alright. I keep telling myself I am going to explore more, go and get the magic beans to use in another area, but I just don't end up doing it.

There was a really good article posted on this site about Majora's Mask, but the search function is down. It was when some group did a 4 day play through of every zelda game. They wrote about how powerful the game was because of the idea that the end was coming, and how that along with the masks separated it from all of the other zelda games. Does anyone have a link to that article?

[J T]

Killer 7 (PS2)-

If you travel through GameCube circles, you might have heard about this game because it stands out in the cube's smaller library of titles, but if you are just a PS2 owner, chances are it slipped through your radar. The atmosphere is dark, violent, and creepy, but not in a cliched way-this game oozes with style. Enemies explode into a thousand balls of blood that freeze, then scatter across the screen. Characters dressed in S&M fetish gear talk to you in their own bizarre language. The angular cell shaded graphical style makes you feel like you are walking through a modern art project. This game is incredibly unique and its a shame it doesn't get more attention.

Peter Jackson's King Kong (multiplatform)

It's easy to ignore movie games because so many of them are just cheap promotional garbage slapped together at the last minute to milk a little more money out of the franchise. Unfortunately, this means many gamers miss out when a really good game like King Kong comes out. This is what a movie game should be. The game plays out to great cinematic effect. You have professional actors doing the voices because it's the same cast from the movie. And the scenes unfold while you are playing, instead of relying solely on cut scenes. The storytelling is a lot like Half Life 2, but it's about a giant animals instead of head crabs.

Grim Grimoire (PS2)

Most people just get mad that the story rips some key ideas from Harry Potter and they just ignore this game. But if you are a PS2 owner, this is probably the only Real Time Strategy style game you will ever find. It's beautifully animated by the people that made Odin Sphere, Vanillaware. The storyline actually is pretty good, and really it's more Groundhog Day than Harry Potter as you work through the game. It requires a large amount of strategy and it's incredibly rewarding to scan through screen as all of your magical creations come to life and launch a full scale attack on your enemies.

Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit, multiplatform)

This game developed a really unique form of storytelling where the storyline is affected by your actions. You play both the murderer and the cops trying to catch him. You have to cover up your tracks as the murderer. Then, as the cops, you have to pick out the clues left behind from your actions as the murderer. Your 'mistakes' as a killer aren't necessarily punished by the game, because the story adjusts itself to your actions and it just gives you more clues to find when you play as the police. There's really nothing else quite like this game and it's quite brilliant. Heavy Rain promises to continue what Indigo Prophecy started by getting even more adventurous with how the story unfolds, for example, you can die in Heavy Rain and the story goes on with the other characters instead, so death of a main character does not mean game over.

Sly Cooper series (PS2)

This game often gets ignored by hardcore gamers because it is a cartoony kid's game. However, it is a very well designed and fun to play kid's game. The game is lighthearted and fun. It's like watching a Saturday morning cartoon. The real star of the show is the gameplay. It's designed to make sneaking around the city easy. You can climb ledges, run along tight ropes, and leap from ledge to ledge with ease. These are the same guys that later released Infamous, so if you want similar excellent play control with a cheerier atmosphere, Sly 1, Sly 2, or Sly 3 are all great.

[General Chaos]

The Quest For Glory series. The Lucas Arts point and click adventure games have a huge following, but I often feel like Sierra's adventure games deserve more attention. Even when they are discussed I find that the King's Quest series gets the bulk of attention, and I just don't understand that.

For anyone interested, Quest For Glory 2 had a VGA fan remake made recently. It's quite good.

You can find it here:

http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/games.html

[the7k]

Ack: I definitely agree - I often site Square's PS1 Non-RPGs as the reason I loved them in that era, and their total dropping of non-RPGs into the PS2 era is the biggest reason I cite for coming down with a huge case of the "Who gives a shit?" with them.

Threads of Fate is a game I suppose I can mention along site all of that. One of my most favorite games for the PS1.

JT: I honestly didn't think to mention Sly Cooper, but yeah - I love that series. Don't own any of them, but I did borrow Sly 2 from a friend of mine and enjoyed the hell out of it. I wish Sony would release a Sly Trilogy at some point.

[Gamerforlife]

Peter Jackson's King Kong (multiplatform)

It's easy to ignore movie games because so many of them are just cheap promotional garbage slapped together at the last minute to milk a little more money out of the franchise. Unfortunately, this means many gamers miss out when a really good game like King Kong comes out. This is what a movie game should be. The game plays out to great cinematic effect. You have professional actors doing the voices because it's the same cast from the movie. And the scenes unfold while you are playing, instead of relying solely on cut scenes. The storytelling is a lot like Half Life 2, but it's about a giant animals instead of head crabs.

Sly Cooper series (PS2)

This game often gets ignored by hardcore gamers because it is a cartoony kid's game. However, it is a very well designed and fun to play kid's game. The game is lighthearted and fun. It's like watching a Saturday morning cartoon. The real star of the show is the gameplay. It's designed to make sneaking around the city easy. You can climb ledges, run along tight ropes, and leap from ledge to ledge with ease. These are the same guys that later released Infamous, so if you want similar excellent play control with a cheerier atmosphere, Sly 1, Sly 2, or Sly 3 are all great.

I thought King Kong was brilliant. The way in which the characters interacted with you made the story more involving than the movie. I always loved the sense of immersion and realism the game tried to create. No HUD and one hit sends you knocking on death's door if you're lucky, Game Over if you're not. Notice how the NPCs react too whenever you take a hit as well as the blurred vision and disoriented sound. That's attention to detail

The Sly Cooper series have always been in my opinion sadly underrated when compared to its more hyped up peers, which would be the Ratchet and Clank series and the Jak series. It's WAY better than the Jak and Daxter games and has better dialogue, characters and variety than the Ratchet series(though I do greatly enjoy the R&C series).

I would also add The Red Star, which was VASTLY underrated and COMPLETELY ignored by the gaming community as a whole. It is a PERFECT action game in every area.

The Dynasty Warriors series also gets a bad rap here in the West. It's almost like a goddamn conspiracy since the series generally gets both high sales and good reviews over in the East.

[corn619]

i wana try yakuza. should i start from the first one or can i go straight to the second one?

You can start from pt2 if you want. It has optional flashback scenes of critical moments from pt1. You can skip them if you want too. Its a great game and recommend it highly.

[J T]

I would also add The Red Star, which was VASTLY underrated and COMPLETELY ignored by the gaming community as a whole. It is a PERFECT action game in every area.

I learned about Red Star from the Racketboy Hidden Gems series. That game is great fun. It's an old school gamer's dream. I guess a lot of fans of the Red Star comic book didn't care for it too much though because it doesn't do the justice to the storyline. I don't really care about that though- the play control is as good as it gets. Send on the waves of bullets!

[RCBH928]

well its hard to say, people stop talking about a lot of games but then there are games that are totally forgotten like they never existed. I guess those kind of games are the games that were unique and revolutionary but had bad sales.

but I took notice that people stopped thinking crash bandicoot even existed. This game was tops back in early ps1 days. Now like it never was. Majora's Mask is a game usually forgotten I do not know why.

[Daniel Primed]

No one there is saying much either, just talking about how it reminds them of the music from, "ocarina of time", and that they need walk-throughs to help them.

Yeah, that's kinda how those people roll.

I wish there would be more in depth discussion of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

When you break it apart though, you'll see that its not doing anything above and beyond, Ocarina of Time, just more of the same.

What? You really believe that?

Majora's Mask is a much more personally challenging game than Ocarina of Time. The game begins by stripping you of your items, transforming you into a socially despised creature and locking you within a new, unfamiliar city. This happens in an instant, throwing out all familiarities and tropes of the franchise from the get-go, and placing the player in a very uncomfortable situation. This already is far from the comfortable ride through conventional lore of which Ocarina of Time is. Furthermore, once you clear the initial problems, the game imposes the 3-day cycle forcing the player to operate in a routine, abiding by the stringent mechanics, rather than doing as they please as per every other Zelda game.

This time travel mechanic interjects as a catalyst to the story of Clock Town. As Link, you literally see the world's populants fall into chaos as part of the doomsday cycle. Further, you're given the ability to change the characters and effectively see that change as part of the game's routine, in an entirely organic manner, 'mind.

Then there is the mask system which re-angles the franchise's cultural societies, not to mention to rebalancing of dungeon-external gameplay ratios, with a total of 4 dungeons, compared to around double, maybe triple that in OOT. I'm not going to carry on, but you can read more about the mask stuff in my column, scroll a bit.