There are three kinds of people in this world — hard-core gamers, casual gamers and entry-level gamers. (Actually there’s a fourth, nongamers, but they don’t deserve anything for Christmas.)
Purchasing holiday gifts in a world so cut-and-dried is fairly easy. All you need to do is ask three questions:
1) What level of commitment does my intended recipient have to games?
2) What hardware does my intended recipient use?
3) What kinds of games does my intended recipient like to play?
If you are giving games to gamers this Christmas season, this matrix should help:
THE ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE RATING BOARD’S RATING SYSTEM:
EC (Early Childhood) — 3 and older. Giving these games to your teen kids will cause them to contemplate changing their names and pretending not to know you.
E (Everybody) — ages 6 and older. Might contain warfare and other kinds of nonpersonalized violence.
T (Teen) — 13 and older. Might contain violence, mild or strong language, and/or suggestive themes. Some of the best shooting and fighting games are in this category.
M (Mature) — 17 and older. Might contain more intense violence or language than products in the Teen category. Also might include mature sexual themes.
AO (Adult Only). Might include graphic depictions of sex and/or violence. Not intended for people under 18.
Role-playing
Entry-level gamer
Pokemon Gold or Pokemon Silver
Nintendo Game Boy, rated E-Everybody
“Gotta catch ’em all” fever has returned.
Nintendo has breathed new life into its Pokemon series with 100 new monsters, better graphics, and all kinds of new features.
Pokemon Gold or Silver is great for travel.
Role-playing
Casual gamer
Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Nintendo 64
Rated E-Everybody
Link, a young elfin hero, has three days to save his world from a really evil moon.
This game does not have as many dungeons as past Zelda games, but the dungeons it has are huge in this brilliantly executed game.
Role-playing
Hard-core gamer
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Interplay
Rated T-Teens
PCs
Lead a party through dungeons and across vast worlds in a game that is faithful to the D&D rule book.
With a tremendous range of weapons, spells, locations, and monsters, this story-intensive adventure is dazzling.
Racing
Entry-level gamer
Mickey’s Speedway
Nintendo 64
Rated E-Everybody
Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and other Disney familiars compete in classic battle-cart action.
There are going to be similar games based on James Bond, Star Wars, and more — Mickey’s Speedway appears to be the best.
Racing
Casual gamer
San Francisco Rush 2049
Midway
Rated E-Everybody
Dreamcast, PlayStation and N64
The best blend of racing and battle carts on the market today, this futuristic racer lets players meet on the mean streets of San Francisco in cars that rip, glide, and shoot.
Racing
Hard-core gamer
Midnight Club
Rockstar
Rated T-Teens
PlayStation 2
It’s night, and while the civilized denizens of New York and London are tucked in their beds, the wild, untamed, and totally hip compete in all-out races and deadly games on slick streets.
Fighting
Entry-level gamer
Ready 2 Rumble: Round 2
Midway
Rated T-Teens
PlayStation 1 & 2, Dreamcast
The clown kings of the ring are back. In this boxing spoof, old pros like Afro Thunder and Boris Knokimov are joined by Michael Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal and the Clintons for some seriously silly brawls.
Fighting
Casual gamer
Dead or Alive 2
Tecmo
Rated T-Teens
Dreamcast Special “Hard-core” edition on PlayStation 2
For fast action, colorful combatants, and great arenas, Dead or Alive takes the title this year.
Fighting
Hard-core gamer
Tekken Tag Tournament
Namco
Rated T-Teens
PlayStation 2
With seven battle modes, 34 fighters, and the widest variety of combinations and moves, this is the fighting game of choice for hard-core gamers.
Thanks to PlayStation 2, it’s also the most sophisticated fighter of all-time graphically.
First-person shooter
Entry-level gamer
Half-Life
Sierra; Rated M-Mature
Dreamcast
Talk about a day you should have stayed in bed. Gordon, an agile physicist, is framed for tearing the wall between dimensions and unleashing a horde of deadly monsters into his enormous lab complex.
Great monsters, dynamic setting. The PC version set a high-water mark in gaming.
First-person shooter
Casual gamer
Deus-Ex
Eidos
Rated M-Mature
PCs
A wide-open game in which players define themselves and their strengths by learning skills. You can develop stealth, shooting skills, or any number of other abilities to customize the game around your taste.
First-person shooter
Hard-core gamer
Half-Life: Counter-Strike
Sierra; Rated M-Mature
PCs
For those who have not experienced Half-Life, this is the first-person shooter that gave solitary players a great storyline in single-player mode and gave online fans almost endless options and action. Counter-Strike updates the action with squads of terrorists and counter-terrorists.
Strategy
Entry-level gamer
Warlocked
Nintendo Game Boy
Rated E-Everybody
With Warlocked, Nintendo proves yet again that its designers can stretch well beyond natural bounds by creating a simplified real-time strategy game that actually works on Game Boy.
Warlocked is similar to The Conquerors with highly simplified play mechanics.
Strategy
Casual gamer
The Sims
Electronic Arts
Rated T-Teens
PC, Macintosh
Talk about a macro view, The Sims lets you create your SimCity one person at a time.
In this Sim world, you micro-manage your avatar’s employment decisions, help he/she establish a social life, and even help he/she decorate the house.
Strategy
Hard-core gamer
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
Microsoft; Rated T-Teens
PCs
A wild and intricate world in which you must gather wood, stone, gold and food while developing technologies and creating armies while locating and destroying enemies.
The Conquerors lets you guide the Mayans and Aztecs as well as 13 Old World superpowers.
Wildcard
Entry-level gamer
Who Wants to be a Millionaire-Second Edition
Disney Interactive
Rated E-Everybody
PC and PlayStation
Regis is back in a game that perfectly captures the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” television phenomena. People who like the TV show will love the game. Judging by the ratings, that’s a large segment of the population.
Wildcard
Casual gamer
Samba de Amigo
Sega; Rated
E-Everybody
Dreamcast
Players shake motion-tracking maracas to the beat of Latin music hits.
Simply goofy fun, especially in two-player mode with people competing to see who really has the beat.
One word of warning, the maracas cost $80/pair.
Wildcard
Hard-core gamer
Incredible Crisis
Titus; Rated T-Teens
PlayStation
Dad goes to work and breaks into line dancing. His dance ends when an enormous globe crashes through the building. If he can outrun it, he must dodge debris on an elevator until an explosion sends him flying to a flagpole.
That’s just Dad. You also can play as others.
Sport Simulation
Entry-level gamer
Madden NFL 2001
Electronic Arts
Rated E-Everybody
PlayStation 2 only
At first glance you might mistake this for the real thing. Players have faces, stadiums look real and commentary is believable.
All skill levels are accommodated and a help feature allows even the most inexperienced quarterback to land most passes. No online.
Casual gamer
Sport Simulation
Madden NFL 2001
Electronic Arts
Rated E-Everybody
PC version only
No fantasy football fan should be without this. For best stats and the best playbooks, there’s simply no option that overpowers Madden.
Madden PC also offers the best online options but suffers graphically when compared to NFL 2K1 and the PlayStation 2 version of Madden.
Sport Simulation
Hard-core gamer
NFL 2K1
Sega; Rated E-Everybody
Dreamcast
Brilliant football game with great graphics, a huge playbook and perfectly balanced play action. A great single-player game for people who want to play the season; but just wait until you try it online.
Tweaked so it plays perfectly on Dreamcast’s 56K modem.
Hardware
Entry-level gamer
Sega Dreamcast:
Don’t bother camping out to get a PlayStation 2 for this crowd, they won’t appreciate its power — which no one has fully tapped into yet.
Nintendo 64 and the original PlayStation look a bit long in the tooth when compared to Dreamcast and PlayStation 2.
Hardware
Casual gamer
Sega Dreamcast:
Selling for $149 (half the price of Play-Station 2) with more than 200 games on the market, Dreamcast has enough great software to keep intermediate gamers happy. Should your recipient decide to buy PlayStation 2 or one of the other new consoles next year, Dreamcast’s slim price will not leave you rubbing your pocketbook.
Hardware
Hard-core gamer
Sega Dreamcast:
Only Dreamcast comes with a modem in the box, and Sega’s optimized games network brings all kinds of pluses to gaming for the kinds of people who live to humiliate their friends in head-to-head gaming.
