Yeah - don't let people get you down on the whole Wild West thing because they pull it off very well. I'm not giant into the genre and I really love it myself - the game is really, really worth it and the online portion is very well done at the same time.

I would say that it's much more likely that Assassin's Creed II would be the best game that Ubisoft ever created - as it is leagues better than the original in ever way, shape and form. The first game was meh, got boring after a while.. but the second game was a joy to play all the way through to be sure.

Mother 3 is the only answer that I can think of for this thread - the only game that ever really tugged on me.

I'll agree with two posts above - why the hell are these two games being compared?

I started a review series on the Mother games before I left here my first time - I've got just about everything Mother related in my room at this moment and out of all my childhood/teenage obsessions it's the one thing that I refuse to pack away with the rest.

I like all three games, but ultimately I prefer the first game when it comes down to it. I play it like, once a summer and I think I'm about to boot up my third playthrough of Mother 3.

...and I feel that Microsoft is doing absolutely everything better. I don't see how that's hard to catch onto, and really you're just taking everything that I say out of context or ignoring the "main part of my post" just the same by changing criteria to "oh yeah, games that casuals would like".

Meh.

I've been a member of the New Atheist movement since I first heard about it a few years back - I've done work on it with my university and sadly, some family members have decided to push me away for my beliefs. It's only really driven me to learn more and cement my beliefs over the years and I've never been one to push what I believe on other people. This is why when I talk about it - I never aplogize for what I am saying, I never say anything like "well this is only my opinion" and I never back down from my position. It's not just a fleeting interest for me, a lot of this has shaped my life.

Either way - picking up from the original post, the meaning of life.

I don't exactly believe in a specific meaning of life persay - that's just another thing that people try and find an answer to, and for some the answer is religion. I believe that I am here to live, just like any other organism. I can choose to do that any number of ways and for that I am thankful. Past that I don't have much of an answer because frankly "why are we here" isn't a question to me.

And when I die?

I think that's just it - I die. Sometimes it's hard, even for me, to think that there is absolutely nothing past the life that I live right now... but from everything that I've seen, all the history that I've spent years compiling, everything in my head - I see absolutely no reason to believe that anything happens to me when I die. Nothing concerning heaven and nothing concerning the supernatural.

And other stuff...

The idea that religion was created initially to stem the fear of people about death isn't something that I entirely buy. It's something that I think drive a lot of people towards religion today - but if you want to look at the roots of even a Christian religion these days you have to look back to the pagans and all of the gods that came before the Christian god. The pagan gods were answers to why things happened - people didn't always understand the world that they lived in as I am sure that you all know, so they had to create an answer.

I'm sure we've all heard about ancients worshipping the sun and while that seems odd to us today, the sun was a mystery to people then. With little contact between the seperate areas of the world, different religions sprang up - all with the answer and all worshipping basically the same ideals with their own culture mixed in to create the differences that we know and understand today. Religions borrowed, dropped and created deities from those that had come before them, even the Christian God and Jesus both have striking similarities to figures that came long before them. This is fact.

I believe that religion evolved from a sincere search for answers, to a method of control - why can't you do this? Because God told me that you couldn't do this, and God told ___ in the Bible that he couldn't do this other thing, so you can't do it either. To a mix of the two today.

Call Of Duty was going to win from the start for me - I don't really have a want in me to play games that are focused on aliens or anything of the sort. I'm a huge history buff, so playing through events that actually occured (before the Modern Warfare series of course) or are more rooted in the real world (Modern Warfare) is a much more rewarding experience for me.

Online multiplayer is another big factor for me, and Halo frankly can kiss my ass when it comes to that. Shields, an inability to run and a bunch of sci-fi gizmos - doesn't really cut it for me.

The reason for the success of World Of Warcraft is very simple and had been done before with other MMORPG games - Everquest comes to mind, but I digress. Now that we are in a time where high speed internet is the norm and WOW can be played on just about any decent computer - it's pretty much been the perfect storm as far as addicting people to the gameplay experience goes.

World Of Warcraft is constantly rewarding. Just like any other RPG, when you level up you get new stuff - you get access to new areas and you want to test that out. What seperates WOW from a normal RPG is the fact that the game world is ever expanding, and it's already huge to begin with. The addition of human players around the player character is also a big factor in this.. with so much to do and see you naturally experience all of it at a slower pace. By the time you've hit a level where you can basically go anywhere you want, finish whatever quests you please - you've already been addicted to the meta portions of the game. You've most likely started an alt by now and then at the same time you're probably min/maxing that character and trying to perfect the way that you play the game.

With around 10 hours of gameplay and a so and so online mode, I don't see how this game would be anything but a rent.

s*** - I thought hockey would be on there before Volleyball at the very least.

But yeah, that kind of gives away my answer - if I had to play or watch anything, anything at all I would have to go with hockey.

I think I'll have to go with Mario Kart 64 - since Diddy Kong Racing has friggin' horrible driver AI in the form of massive amounts of cheating when you're trying to get everything. If that was pulled back a bit, I would probably say Diddy Kong just because of the variety that they put into the game.

I have all of them - save for the Jaguar. Growing up, I never had a single clue of its existence.

I grew up the son of a Forest Ranger and for a brief period of time I was in the Sea Cadets, so I've received the bare minimum training needed as far as firing a rifle goes. Heck, I think I actually know more about maintenance and care than the firing aspect - but eh.

I'm much more experienced when it comes to archery.

I actually have to go with the Battle Network games - the regular style of play just doesn't appeal to me. I mean sure, they pumped out about one a year but I think they were great to decent depending on which number we're talking about.

Perfectly acceptable gaming.

..wait what?

The C64 was a home computer back when the idea of a home computer was first being introduced to the public, and it came out a full year before the NES did in Japan and 3 years before we ever saw it in North America or Europe. So eh, they were never really the same market all that much.

And just like the notion of anyone saying that the NES was the worst ever = troll, the same has to be said for anyone saying the 360.

Originally posted by bignatealpha

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Originally posted by apsham

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All of this talk about Nintedo is misleading and frankly - just flat out wrong.

I mean yeah - it's nice to think that hey, they've been doing this for a long time and they have a lot of mascot characters out there. Frankly, that doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Nothing is ever the 'best' just because it has been around for a long time.. Nintendo built a powerhouse and it's going to take major inepitude for them to mess that up.

All this talk about the Wii and its motion controls - seriously people? The Wii has been out how many years? And even with the additions made to the Wiimote there is still a lack of true 1-to-1 control. Pushing it as a Nintendo exclusive thing is a moot point anyways, now that Sony and Microsoft are trying their hand in motion control, with a bigger resource base and the benfit of newer technology to do it with.

My vote has to go with Microsoft - who despite coming into the console game late, have done an amazing job at securing the games that people want to see on their console, creating an amazing online community (that while at times, filled with douchebags) is more functional than any other... and the list could go on and on with things that are just my opinion (functioanlity, controller, etc.)

But frankly, I believe that nostalgia and the ready availibity of backlog Nintedo titles has swayed most people into choosing their side when it comes to what console is best today.

Also, I'm tired of hearing that the possibilies with the Wii are endless. The console has shown time and time again that they are very much so in the form of endless.

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Hold it right there, mister. Do you actually think that Project Natal will be better than the Wii remote?! That's rather funny, seeing as Natal is simply waving your arms in front of a TV. I like holding a controller in my hand, Wiimote or not, and I'm sure many other gamers do as well. Natal is gonna go down the same road people say the Wii is traversing, just with better graphics. Also, I don't think you're paying much attention to people's posts . When they say they like Nintendo best, it's usually followed by a list of some truly great games, better than what Microsoft has to offer BTW, and you're translating it into nostalgia. And I'm hearing more "the next Nintendo System will have what the Wii lacks" (thanks, LK) kinda stuff than "Wii has so much potential, it really beats the PS3/360 out of the park" kinda stuff. You seem to be misreading people. Of all time, apsham, of all time: think about it, forget today's stuff, which did you like better before all this new-fangled stuff came out, before people judged games almost entirely by their graphics, and tell me you still like another company better. And as for Microsoft games, I've said this in another thread: give me a list of 20 amazing games only found on a Microsoft system. If you can come up with that many, then I'd be shocked.

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First things first I might as well get the list of games out of the way. Some of them are also found on PC, but they are console exclusives and most are Games For Windows if they're PC anyways, so Microsoft indeed.

Ace Combat 6
Alan Wake (to be decided, but all signs point to yes)
Amped 3
Battlestations Midway
Battlestations Pacific
Beautiful Katamari
Blue Dragon
Chronicles Of Riddick
Crackdown
Dead Rising
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Fable
Fable 2
Forza 2
Forza 3
Gears Of War 1
Gears Of War 2
Halo
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo ODST
Halo Reach (same boat as Alan Wake)
Jade Empire
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Metro 2033
Ninja Gaiden
Oddworld: Munch's Oddessy
Perfect Dark Zero
Project Gotham Racing 4
Saints Row
Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack The Ripper
Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic
Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic II
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction
Viva Pinata
Viva Pinata - Trouble In Paradise

That's all I can think of all the top of my head - nearly 40 of them and you can surely give or take a few and still get an easy 20 out of it, not to mention ones that I possibly forgot. You really worked your way into a corner with the whole "list me 20 games" thing, because it was pretty simple.

Now onto Natal - I never implied that it would be better than the Wiimote, only that Microsoft and Sony both have the benefit of hindsight when it comes to their motion control devices... but then again it's not out. Who is to say for sure now whether its going to be better or not? If it delivers what it promises it will absolutely be a bigger innovation than the Wii.

If you're going to look at it like "Nintendo did all this stuff first" then yeah - it wins by default, and I hate looking at it that way because it just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, the Nintendo 64 had the rumble pad - but the rumble on the 360 controller kicks its ass.

And now that I've been pushed to think back and really think about exactly what games I liked in the past - I really have to say that growing up with Mario and certain RPGs are the only memories and experiences I would hold over what I've done with the 360 since I first received mine. Along with a few other sentimental picks.

The biggest sellers when it comes to the iPod store are all games that are basically, flash games. If people could play the free versions of these on sites like Miniclip and Newgrounds.. I don't see any reason why they'd buy the same thing in the store.

As far as taste goes - the first two Grand Theft Auto games were far worse and GTA III wasn't all that bad at all. Everything was over the top, and it was absolutely meant to be that way. Meh.

There were worse before and unconnected to GTA III, there has been worse after.