The usual rattle of gunfire and thunder of explosions in our living room has been replaced this Christmas by the even more frightening sounds of prolonged wailing and crashing mis-plucked guitar chords.
Yes, in looking back at this season’s best video games, and playing them, music seems to have been a big winner.
Guitar Hero is becoming a perennial best-seller and its World Tour version adds a microphone and drums to make it a battle of the bands with the rival Rock Band game.
It is very addictive, I never thought of myself as much of an air guitarist but am determined to nail The Killers’ When You Were Young before Christmas is out.
Other musical titles getting plenty of play in our house are Sony’s Singstar on the PlayStation 3 – the karaoke game now has an Abba edition, and Lips, the rival karaoke title brought out by Microsoft for the Xbox this year.
Microsoft’s wireless microphones give it the hardware edge, but Sony perhaps has the better song selection at the moment and is coming out with its own wireless mikes in the new year.
Wii Music has not got much play from us and sales seem to have been disappointing so far for Nintendo, with its older Wii Fit title way ahead of Music in the bestseller list. Perhaps Music needs more musical accessories and other titles to take off , but making your own music does not seem as compelling as hamming up existing pop tunes.
Murder and mayhem games still seem just as popular. Sony’s Resistance 2 has come up against Microsoft’s Gears of War 2 this holiday season and there is the cross-platfrom Call of Duty: World at War from Activision Blizzard.
However, we have had the most fun fighting zombies in Left 4 Dead and this has to be a contender for action game of the year alongside earlier releases Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3.
Other games worthy of note are EA’s Mirror’s Edge, an exciting pursuit across rooftops, and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift for the PS3 is the most fun we’ve had behind a steering wheel lately (Mario Kart on the Wii is recommended too.)
For game of the year, a clear winner with us is Sony’s LittleBigPlanet for its all-round appeal, the creativity it brings out in players designing their own levels and for the character Sackboy, a Mario for the modern age.
