Cheat sheet to great video games

Admit it. Video gamers are the easiest people to buy gifts for. Every year, dozens of new games are released during the months leading up to the holiday season, and there’s bound to be a gap or two in the libraries of even the most hard-core.

Shopping for a gamer might be intimidating if you can’t tell the difference between a shooter and a platformer and you can’t differentiate between good and bad games. That’s where Trigger Happy comes in. We give you the cheat sheet you’ll need to brave your local game retailer. As always, we recommend that you abide by game ratings. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, for example, are not intended to be played by children under the age of 17.

The essentials

It’s the biggest-selling game of the year, so you should check whether the gamer on your list already has Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision; PC, PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature). If they don’t, it’ll probably be the easiest gift purchase you’ll make this year.

Other games that will get you hugs of joy include Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft; PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature), Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts; PC, PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature), Halo 3: ODST (Microsoft; Xbox 360; rated mature), Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve; PC, Xbox 360; rated mature), and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Sony; PS3; rated teen). Gamers who don’t have these titles will want them. Trust us.

Superheroes ’r’ us

Possibly the best superhero video game yet created, Batman: Arkham Asylum (Eidos; PC, PS3, Xbox 360; rated teen) is a third-person action game that puts players in the role of the Dark Knight, slinking around the asylum among the criminally insane he’s put there. For cooperative play with friends, gamers will want Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Activision; DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360; rated teen), which lets them play characters such as Spider-Man, Thor, Gambit, and Jean Grey.

For the musically inclined

The Beatles inspired a generation, and now John, Paul, George, and Ringo are entertaining a new one with The Beatles: Rock Band (MTV; PS3, Xbox 360, Wii; rated teen). With beautiful visuals, the game comes with a selection of songs from the Fab Four’s diverse career, and can be supplemented with full-album downloads of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and, coming in December, Rubber Soul.

The rock-star experience can be enhanced with a real-wood Fender Stratocaster from Mad Catz. Made from genuine Stratocaster wood components and with a metal bridge and tuning keys, this wireless guitar controller has a quarter-inch output jack that can connect it to a separate overdrive pedal.

DJ Hero (Activision; PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii; rated teen) expands the music-game genre to include all the electronic, hip-hop, and synth-based music that isn’t performed with guitars and other traditional instruments. Gamers can scratch on the included turntable controller to music mixes by the likes of Daft Punk, DJ Shadow, and DJ AM.

Platformer paradise

If you feel like platform games have failed you in the past couple of years, two new releases will remind you why you used to love them. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo; Wii; rated everyone) allows up to four people to play together—cooperatively or competitively—in a wonderful Mario Bros. world that includes new power-ups, new enemies, and the same old fun you’ve come to expect from the series.

The high-concept Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time (Sony; PS3; rated everyone 10+) is simple to pick up and play, is full of hilarious characters and dialogue, and adds new features to the series, the most significant being Ratchet’s ability to fly around star systems and visit planets and moons.

For sports addicts

NHL 10 (Electronic Arts; PS3, Xbox 360; rated everyone 10+) adds board play and first-person fighting to the best sports game of last year, and any gamer who doesn’t have NHL 09 should just start here. Fight Night Round 4 (Electronic Arts; PS3, Xbox 360; rated teen) is a visceral, intense boxing simulation that has players trying to float like butterflies and sting like bees.

FIFA Soccer 10 (Electronic Arts; DS, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii; rated everyone) is the best sports game of the year, in our estimation. By adding a mode that allows players to design their own set plays, and by finding a way to have the soccer players move 360 degrees, this game is a quantum leap in quality compared with the previous version.

Blasts from the past

If your favourite gamer hasn’t yet played Fallout 3 (Bethesda; PC, PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature), now is the perfect time to indoctrinate them with the game-of-the-year edition of the title, which includes the five downloadable chapters that were released after the game hit shelves.

All the new PlayStation 3 owners out there will appreciate a copy of the God of War Collection (Sony; PS3; rated mature). It includes the first two games in the franchise, developed for the PS2 and remastered in high definition for the enjoyment of us all. For those who’ve already played these games, this is a good excuse to play them again.

Kid stuff

The next game in the Legend of Zelda series, Spirit Tracks (Nintendo; DS; rated everyone 10+) is similar in style and design to 2007’s Phantom Hourglass. In this title, Link has to restore an ethereal railroad. He is aided in his efforts by a disembodied Zelda, who can possess Phantom Guardians.

Another handheld title that’s great for kids is the PlayStation Portable version of LittleBigPlanet (Sony; rated everyone), which captures the same playground-like atmosphere as its PS3 sibling. As in the PS3 version, gamers can design and share their own levels, a feature that really differentiated the first game from the herd.

Two recently released Lego games make for great fun for kids of all ages. Lego Rock Band (Warner Bros.; DS, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii; rated everyone 10+) replaces the waiflike characters of Rock Band with Lego characters—the renditions of Iggy Pop and David Bowie are perfect—as gamers play along to a catalogue of Top 40 hits from the ’70s to the 2000s. Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (LucasArts; DS, PC, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii; rated everyone 10+) lets players take on the role of Indy in scenes and sequences from all four of the films.

Rounding out the best titles for kids are the adventure game Mini Ninjas (Eidos; DS, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii; rated everyone 10+), which is about saving the world by saving the animals, and the wacky Rabbids Go Home (Ubisoft; Wii; rated everyone 10+), in which gamers play a pair of the frantic, rabbitlike creatures piloting a shopping cart through various environments, avoiding obstacles and collecting items in order to build a pile that can reach the moon. The latter title can be played in split-screen mode with a friend.

Race to the finish

Car-racing games have attained new heights of fidelity and provide fun, exciting, and realistic racing experiences. Need for Speed: Shift (Electronic Arts; PC, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360; rated everyone) is a great example, and Forza Motorsport 3 (Microsoft; Xbox 360; rated everyone) is another. Both titles let gamers get behind the wheel of some of the world’s most exciting cars and drive on some of the world’s most picturesque and challenging tracks.

If you really want to do it right, consider shelling out for a VRX cockpit, designed and built in Victoria. They’re not cheap—systems start at US$5,000 and can go above $13,000—but with an array of three LCD screens, surround-sound speakers, and force feedback, they really put the simulation in the racing sim. VRX sells to race-car trainers and professional drivers, too. They use the cockpit as a training tool to keep familiar with the tracks during the off-season. Recession? Bah!

Workout

Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo; Wii; rated everyone)—which includes the Wii MotionPlus, a peripheral that makes the Wii remote controller more accurate—is a fun way to use your Wii to get active through competing in sword fighting, archery, canoeing, cycling, table tennis, and more.

EA Sports Active More Workouts (Electronic Arts; Wii; rated everyone) is the expansion of the Burnaby-developed title that’s the closest thing you’ll find to a personal trainer in a box. Give that Wii—and yourself—a workout.