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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4341118.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4341118.stm)

Spielberg takes film magic to EA



I like Spielberg's movies. Wonder how he'll be creating games - and how the partnership between him and EA will turn out.

Oh, but his last few movies were kinda bad . . .

I like the idea, however, of Hollywood directors making games. Even though I don't have high hopes for the games they make, it brings gaming to the forefront of culture, which can only be a good thing. When this culture is marginalized, you get too many people like Jack Thompson, who hate it because they don't understand it.

Also, they are obviously highly creative, and their ideas may bring some new aspects to gaming generally.

And Jack Thompson doesn't want to understand it!  There'd be no mileage in it for him!

"Spielberg's DreamWorks had produced games for a time under its DreamWorks Interactive division, but EA bought it in 2000."

Call me cynical, but I think this is the only reason they are bringing Spielberg into anything. It was probably part of the buyout agreement. Spielberg probably started DreamWorks Interactive because he got a bee in his bonnet to make games, but he probably didn't know the first thing about running a game company, which is why EA probably walked in and bought it. Also, this comment ("Spielberg's role will be similar to that of an executive producer on a film.") seems to say that he's there to bring in capital and argue with the developers to add in whatever elements he thinks will be cool.

Well, I never for one moment imagined him sitting down at a computer and working out the programming!  But it's a pity Hitchcock isn't with us any more - there would have been some creative ideas!!!!

Fresh thinking is good.  Fresh creative thinking is better.  Fresh creative thinking backed by lotsa capital is really really good.

The female market is still marginalized by the gaming industry, even after the "shocking" Sims revelation that women, even middle aged women, know how to turn on their computers (and pull out their credit cards) too.

There isn't a lot that is written that has the broad appeal of a classic Spielberg blockbuster.  You could argue that The Sims has a correlation to Raiders of the Lost Ark, something for everyone.  What other games are out there like that, besides the Sims?

(If there are, don't tell me.  The Sims is already too much for me!  :P)

If Spielberg actually plays games, imagine what he could bring to the table.  If he doesn't have fingers on the keyboard (controller), well, concept to experience is a long road.

Are you kidding? Well I haven't seen Saving Private Ryan, but supposabley that was good.

Now, admittedly, upon first viewing, A.I. and Minority Report were let downs for me in the theatre, just because they were very long, and it felt like they each could have had 3 different endings. BUT! I definately feel that these movies are the kind that require repeated viewings. I definately gained a greater appreciation for both of those films, after watching them a couple more times at home.

And his last three films were fantastically entertaining: Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal were a bit more whimsical, but they were still both great films. And War of the Worlds? I thought the remake was excellent! The film itself was visually stunning and the acting was pretty top-notch, even if it had a buncha crazies in it (Tom AND Tim, what's up with that?!?! Freaks. :P). Nevertheless, I thought it was all done very well, the characters were nicely developed, and it was cool to bring the focus of the story onto a family, with the original story as a backdrop for all the tension. And I may not necessarily be a huge Dakota Fanning er... well... fan :P but I think she was really good in this film. I definately think she's a rising star with potential chops comparable to Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore, and Haley Joel Osment. I've read that people have complained and bitched about her just being a screamer, but I thought she was very convincing and compelling in WotW, which was just, to me, your basic, classic Sci-fi at its best. And personally, I can't wait to see how Munich will turn out. That just seems like it'll be an interesting project. Not to mention, what will hopefully be classic Spielberg in the upcoming Indiana film.  :D


Ste

Just think, though, Spielberg dropped out of college to start his film-making career, and only finished his degree a few years back, I believe!  Today, I doubt that could happen - you almost need a degree these days to get a job as a garbage disposal person!  and I honestly think that too much education can kill creativity!

You can tell me instead!  :P

I just spent some time browsing through a computer game store - and left thinking that if some company actually cottoned on to the idea that females about the age of 10 like to play with computers, then there's a huge market...  once you eliminated all the first person shooters, racing games, and sports games, there really wasn't a lot left!

about the only games I play are sims and settlers - I'd really like (considering just how long those two have been around!) to find something else!

Ness

Yes, the whole gaming thing revolves around males of about 15 - as if they are the only people out therre who use computers!  Sexist/Ageist or what?

*nods*

My day job is strategic marketing, so I tend to look at anything from that perspective. I've read up, just a bit, on the gaming industry and the female and/or non 15 year old male markets...The Sims revealed huge markets for gaming that was previously thought non-existent..but after all of these years, they still don't know what to do with it...lack of ideas.  Not necessarily lack of will (there's money in them thar hills!), but lack of ideas.

If you could get a mind like Spielberg or Lucas (or their next generation counterparts) engaged in gaming, the world could explode open.  They never let technological limits get in the way of their storytelling...when they didn't have the technology, they hired smart people to invent it on the fly, hence Industrial Light & Magic.

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised Lucas hasn't made a game already, since the gaming industry is practically white canvas for him to paint. 

Also, what about really good games for kids - at present most games, being geared for teenage boys, are just not suitable for a seven-year-old!  Wouldn't you think disney would really start to open up this market?

Well, I was going mostly by what I'd heard, because I hadn't seen most of the movies. I did see WotW (at the NYC premeire, in fact!) and although I liked the special effects, I hated Spielberg's whole "lets add some family values into it" deal. I also felt it had a weak ending.

I could recommend a whole big pile of games, but I don't know if I have 'odd' tastes for a female gamer or not. That doesn't mean you aren't completely right, Zephyr and Windy - the game industry still has it's collective head stuck in it's ass the 80's when it comes to a lot of game design, and I still get surprised reactions from some guys when I tell them I play video games, and no, I'm not talking about solitaire. Makes me wonder what rock they've been living under - I know so many people who play games now I'm surprised when I meet one who doesn't.

At any rate, they need to start taking advice given to authors and apply it to the games they make - don't bloody focus on the gender of the player, design it for people, and put characters who are people in it. Make it fun for, you guessed it, people. Gender is by and large irrelevant if one focuses on making something awesome that people will like (although a little good sense in costume design never hurt anyone).

Yes, you're right, but they need to recognise what it took hundreds of years for governments to realise - women are people to!!!  As it is, they may be programming video games for the 21st century, but their collective heads are still firmly in the 19th!

I've done okay with my boys, mostly Mario.  Say it with me..... Mah-ri-OH!.  We started with the N64 when they were 6 and under.  

True story, boys 6 and 4.  The oldest needed help from his younger brother to navigate the game and got used to depending on him as they played together.  Dad and I often played with them, but also like to just listen from the other room. Oldest would get frustrated and demand help from his brother, funniest was when the boxes of directions or dialogue would pop up.

6 year old, loudly, "What does it say, what does it SAY?"
4 year old, even more loudly, "For the last time, I can't read!!"

 :P

Disney turns out games for every big movie.  Most of them are crap with little replay value... I know, we've spent hundreds on them.  Nintendo has produced a lot of good titles, though, family games that can also appeal to that 15 year old gamer.  

Consoles we own:  N64 (still works but barely), GameCube, PS1, PS2, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy 2 (i think), that latest little Nintendo thing.....bunches and gobs of games later, I still think the Mario line is the only one that has a broad spectrum appeal.  My younger (11 now) is playing Sly something or other now, the third edition, and while I watch him I just can't get into it.

Give me a new Mario story game, though, and I'm in.  (Not the same thing as the Sims, though, is it.)

Well, I just totally love movies. I love everything about movies: the acting, the costumes, the visuals, the cinematography, the direction, the emotion, drama, comedy, action, etc. and the story. And I thought some of Spielberg's latest movies were pretty good at visual story telling. As for WotW, I actually thought the ending was quite satisfactory. I thought that it really harkened back to classic sci-fi/fantasy storytelling. Something that you would see in shows like the Twilight Zone, or Strange Tales or Amazing Stories or whatever those shows were called. I thought it was great, fantastic irony, and although it was a bit implausible (the aliens had technology to supposably send ships lightyears away from their origin, and theoretically millions of years ago, but they didn't have technology that would have detected whether the planet had a hospitable environment?!?!?! Didn't they learn anything about "M" class planets from watching Star Trek?  :D ), I still thought it was a great ending to a great story. I would have been disappointed if they attempted to "Hollywood" it up with like a final, climactic battle. That would be too "ID4" for me. And I thought it was great that they added the story of the family because it helps to humanize it, and put you in their place and experience what they were going through, the true terror of it all, and to really throw you into the thick of things. It's a great way to bring the viewer in and immerse you within the story. All in all, I thought it was a great movie. It was a fun, summer blockbuster Hollywood action movie, and it did its job, to entertain, quite well.

Anyway, I think Spielberg still has that touch. Something that Lucas has sort of lost focus of. The thing is, Spielberg still has that twinkle of child-like innocence in him, but yet, he's grown more mature in his style and taste. It's a bit grittier; there's a grim, darker, edgier feel in his movies, and yet he still manages to capture that whimsical, child-like essence as well. This was probably always there, even as far as E.T. and Close Encounters, but it was probably more subtle and somewhat underdeveloped. I think now, he's finding a balance; it's a bit more sharpened and focused, yet still retain s a rawness to it as well. I'm sure this all sounds like bullshit, but I can't explain it any better since it is 5:30 AM and I'm a bit delirious and sleepy. lol.



Actually, doesn't Lucas have a whole like division devoted to video games? LucasArts? Most of their games have been pretty excellent, especially the PC games, or so I've read/heard. I haven't really played those. A lot of the flight simulating/shooter games for the consoles were really good. But the other platformer types all pretty much sucked, with the exception of the SNES version of the original Star Wars trilogy, at least for me, personally. The graphics for those three games were amazing for that system, and they adhered fairly well to the story line of each movie, for the most part, and it was pretty decent platforming and decent execution of lightsabering and force powers. A lot of the new franchise games have been mostly crap, with probably the exception of that space pod racing game (again, hardly played that one, but it did seem kinda cool). But the most recent games, like the Rogue Squadron ones for the GameCube, and Battlefront were all very excellent. I'm totally looking forward to Battlefront II. ;D

Ste

I don't know what they have for the PC, but with console systems, there are a lot of genres to choose from. Sure, there are a lot of one-shooters, racing, and sports games,  but there are also puzzles, RPGs, platforms, and many others. Personally, I find enough console games to play to keep me happy. However, I am not a person of quite "female" tastes, and have been playing video games since I was very young. I may not relate to the "average female" out there.

What I recommend is that you go to a game store that sells old consoles like the Super Nintendo and Genesis and look at those. They tend to have a lot of good games that aren't violent and graphic, simply due to limitations in the graphics. They're cheap, but they are very good games, that sold for about $30 many years ago when they were new. What I would be careful of is of games that have battery memories, that the saved files on your games may suddenly become 'deleted.' Make sure the store has a return policy just in case you get a faulty cartridge.

If you like Mario, I recommend similar series like Sonic, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and many, many others. There are tons, and they tend to be similar in style. Sonic is the next best thing to Mario, too, except with animals.

...as for PC games, count me out.

He does indeed! They've been putting out games for quite a long time now (1987!). My favourites are the old adventure games - Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, Loom, The Dig... they're good 'everyone' games because they require thinking and very little in the way of twitchy muscle reactions and usually are low on violence. Some of these games have been re-released as freeware and to work on modern systems; others you still have to pay for but there is a way to make them work on modern systems with SCUMM VM (SCUMM being the acronym for the game engine). Others have been re-made under other engines.

As far as adventure games go, Sierra used to make some good ones.

And finally, if you are interested in old NES, SNES, and Genesis games, there's always ROMs and emulators, but that's skirting the edges of legality unless you actually own the cartridges of the games you have ROMs for. That isn't completely unlikely; a lot of the old RPGs relied on a battery to keep the saved games, and those only had a life of about 6 years and are a pain in the ass to replace. Playing console games on the computer is pretty awkward with a keyboard, though.

As to all the kids' games mentioned, they do seem rather orientated towards, yes, boys!  As, for that matter, do a lot of films.

As to Disney, that was what I was trying to say - they make a lot of films that little girls really relate to, why can't they make GOOD PC and console games to go with them?

Anyone ever play 'Neverhood'? Best puzzle game I ever played, entirely suitable for children and wonderful music.

Well, obviously there are some games around that will appeal to small girls, but I don't think there are as many as are aimed at boys!

I get depressed in computer game shops. Millions of racing, shooting, army sim type games. Bugger all else. I bought Monopoly Tycoon recently, that's a bit more than just monopoly - apparently the developers wished they'd called it something else to indicate it was more involved.

Trouble is I think the complexity and openendedness of the sims has spoilt me for most games. I don't like playing rigidly defined roles with predictable outcomes.

I rarely play anything else except Spider solitaire!  Trouble about small girls is, those I meet, which admittedly isn't that many these days, all seem to be attracted to Sims2, which is unfortunately totally unsuitable for 7 year olds, although the original label in the UK for the base game was 7+  I know sims 1 is mostly suitable for kids, but it's not easy to explain to a 7yearold why her big brother or sister can have Sims2, but he/she can only have Sims1.  Perhaps the time has come for EA to make a child-orientated sims game, based on home, school, shopping, holidays etc., but with all the sophistication of sims2 minus the adult features.  I mean, if they don't really like the idea of kids being seen in bathrooms, why not send them to the bathroom then when they lock the door it blanks out like a dorm room?  And I don't mean the game should just be a censored version of Sims2, but a totally child-orientated game, with parents, older teens, etc. as peripherals, and including teachers.  Kids could get good grades, move up a class, that sort of thing.  There could be a sports day every few sim days, and sim kids could get fit in order to win races etc!

*shudder*

I got monopoly tycoon...  I can't get past the allegedly easy levels!  Same with beasts and bumpkins - there's one level that is apparently still in the tutorial phase that I just can't get through!

gah!

Ness

*nods*

That's the beauty of The Sims.  It is infinitely different, depending on the player...hence the mass appeal.  It's only one idea, though, in a relatively confined setting with relatively confined world rules.  Certainly there are more worlds to conceive!

ZZ wrote:

*nods furiously*

I would rather my kids weren't playing The Sims 2 as is...and the younger was particularly p'od when I wouldn't let him play Sims 1 when he was 9.  P'od, I tell you.  ::)

I tried to placate with RollerCoaster Tycoon and some particularly simplistic Sim type games that were more age appropriate, but, they didn't have anywhere near the depth.  I gave into an unrelenting Sims 2 campaign....  My husband looks at the more bimbo-ish Sims characters and says "You're letting them play that, are you sure you know what you are doing?"  (Sorry, I'm too busy having my own Sims sneak over to Don Lothario's house to  think about this right now.)

The thing is, the kids have to pick their way around Romance Sim aspirations and whatnot.  They aren't any worse for the wear, but, I'd dearly love to have a Sim game like the Sims that's a bit more age appropriate.

(I'm happier when they play Rise of Nations.  Yeah, wars and stuff, I know, but the Sims is so up close and personal, I'd rather they were a little bit older for the content as is.)

It is depressing in gaming shops. As everyone has pointed out there is a real lack of games that could appeal to the female mind, and I really don't like violence, guns and so on that are generally populated by unfeasibly over-endowed girls. Perhaps it's just that we are not soo attracted to living in that virtual landscape that lads seem to find so fascinating or could it be, perhaps, that the "top-dog" competitiveness of these things is offputting?

And it is a very valid point Witch made about openendedness... a game is far more likely to intrigue me if the outcome is uncertain. So why aren't there more like this?

 :(

Don't mention Sierra. It makes me cry to see the state these companies are in today (LucasArts included). The rise of shooters, racing games, etc. - basically everything that stocks the game store shelves these days - is pretty recent really. Many of the games pre-2000 were targetted both at male and female gamers, of differing ages - this teenage boy syndrome is affecting everything from movies to games to music, I've noticed. One of the genres with the greatest amount of female gamers was the adventure game industry - and, even though they're rarely produced these days, you can get them from abandonware sites like Home of the Underdogshttp://www.the-underdogs.org/ (http://www.the-underdogs.org/). As Renatus said, for LucasArts games you need Scumm VM but for others like Sierra DOSBox is pretty fantastic.

Yep - and the Neverhood Chronicles was published by... Dreamworks *fanfare*.

Did you collect all the tablets and read the whole back story? It was amazingly detailed. I loved the clay animations.

Unfortunately, the followup, Skullmonkeys, took the puzzle aspect and threw it out the window. It was all jokes about farting :(.

Everybody seems obsessed with farting!  It seems to me that our level of civilisation has just about reached a near rock bottom as it can get!

I play the Sims 2 almost exclusively, although I do play the occasional PS2 game and I downloaded Nero (awesome game, by the way) yesterday. For the most part, though, there aren't any games that I don't find excessively restricting. Even The Sims annoys me sometimes, because I'm stuck in suburbia and can't mess with different social structures. I don't know if this is typical of most women, or is a peculiarity of mine, but I can't stand games that aren't open ended, and games that pretend to be open ended are even worse.

This is why CRPGs annoy me. I have two really good friends who are always talking about all these great CRPGs they play. Every so often, I pick one up and mess with it for a few weeks. Then I get bored, because I keep thinking of things that it would be nifty to do, or ways to solve problems, that I'm not allowed to implement. Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, even Myst, and the only reason I got through Return to Monkey Island is that it was hilarious. Plus, the plots are usually lame, in CRPGs and computer games in general.

Example: The Jak and Daxter series of games. (Jak and Daxter, Jak II, Jak III) Fun little PS2 platformer/shooters, good animation on the first two, decent and well executed, if cliched, story for the second one. (First didn't really have a story, but was funny enough that it made up for it.) Now, the second one had some twitchyness issues for difficulty level. It tended to spike on random levels, so one gets stuck for hours doing the same thing over and over again. Third game had much, much better gameplay. Very smooth, very fun. But I didn't like it nearly as much as the other two. Why? The story sucked. And in a very specific way. There was this character who had been in the game since the beginning, and a sort of love interest for the main character just as long. (They game starts when they're both like 12 or 13.) First two games end with the annoying sidekick keeping them from kissing. Third game ends with the main character kissing . . . some other chick. Introduced in the second game, dating someone entirely different (a plot point). However, until that particular scene, there was no buildup whatsoever to the relationship, no reason why the two of them aren't still with the other people they were with in the other games.

This ticked me off. Majorly. Sure, character #2 probably appealed more to the guys playing the game (Wooh! Hot chick with a gun!) since she was some sort of special ops commando rather than a mechanic, but the first character had been developed since the beginning of the game, was smart, capable, had gotten the main characters out of major trouble several times, and had a relationship that had been built on since basically the first scene in the series. But no. The developers (Naughty Dog) had to turn it into "how alienate off your female players," especially when you think about the fact that the kind of women who play video games tend to be on the techie side themselves, and thus identifie with that character. (Not that all female gamers are techies, but most of the women who play games that I know are into science or tech, whereas there's not as strong of a correlation with men.)

Grr.

On the upside, both Spore and Oblivion look like they may be flexible enough to be worth playing. So I'm happy. But still annoyed.

We have a lot of Nintendo stuff at home, and there are Nintendo products that are more, well, gender neutral than there seem to be for other platforms. My 5 year old daughter loves anything to do with Mario; lots of the Mario games have the girly option of playing as Princess Peach or Princess Daisy, but she also loves Yoshi. She also likes Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. We have bought a couple of PC games that were meant to have girl appeal (including My Little Pony), but the games were totally lame.

Unfortunately, this is one of the gaming rules that has always stayed consistent: Never buy games made especially for young girls unless you are looking for crap that is too pink and too female-stereotypical. I've downloaded some NES, SNES, and Genesis ROMs of Barbie games, just to check out the horror, and they weren't even worth the effort to download. Idiotic, no challenge, fashion-orientated, and PINK. I've NEVER seen so many different values of pink sprites gather in one place, and hell if I want to see it again.

(Though, I have to admit, Barbie Super Model for the SNES was hilarious, for all the wrong reasons. For instance, in one level, Barbie drives down a Hollywood street. Cars there have no regard for the rules of the road. They appear out of nowhere, drive backwards, and purposely try to crash into you. A lot of the other levels feature Barbie walking and skating down a road. Random birds, balls, and kids would try to make her trip and fall on her butt. If she falls too many times, it's GAEM OVAR. Hahaha.)


Ah, yes. ROMs. They are considered illegal, yes, but no one has ever been arrested or charged for having them, so they are similar to recording shows on a VCR in the legal sense. Websites that have them are rather easy to find; while they DO go down every once in a while, a ton of new ones will pop in their place. It takes some getting used to, especially controlling with the keyboard, but you can also buy computer controllers that look strikingly similar to console controllers.

Batteries on games tend to last a bit longer than 6 years... if they were well taken care of. Most of my SNES games with batteries (those that I bought at launch) still can keep memory. However, in a used game shop, you don't know the treatment of the cartridge in question, or if it even still keeps memory. I *think* some stores have refunds and exchange policies for cartridges with no working batteries, but I am not sure. I've only bought a few old cartridge games in those stores.

No consoles here...  and I think my super-techy husband would be horrified to see that sort of thing going through the surround system and the new widescreen TV...  hubby was in broadcast TV for a while and he's very particular about that sort of thing.

so basically, it's PC games or nothing...  I'm probably a big fan of the sit back and conquer the world from your arm chair type games - so I played civilisation to death and had heaps of fun with all the different settlers games.  These days that style of game seems to make a huge deal over the battles and fighting, and it just turns me off.

Years ago I got a lucas arts game - afterlife, was ok for a bit, but like sim city, once you figure out the tactics of borrowing money and then paying it back it becomes - like all the other sim city games - very, very boring!

Harvest Moon! That is possibly one of the cutest, most fun games in the world. I recommend it to everyone (but stay away from the regular game boy incarnation, it was a hobbled version of the original. PSX and GBA versions were my favourites). It's one little guy with a little decrepit farm he's slowly bringing back to life... it's gentle and absolutely brilliant. Keep in mind I'm usually the sort of person who enjoys bashing hordes of monsters over the head, and I adore that game and wish there were more like it.

Seconded (thirded?) on the Harvest Moon thoughts. The most bizarrely addictive game ever. Only problem with it is that you have to buy a whole other game if you want to play another gender, and only for the newer versions, and you have to play it straight. Obviously, no one at Nintendo has ever heard of TwoJeff's "pregnancy for all" mod. ;-D

There's no pregnancy at all. I thought the kid came from the vegetable patch, myself.

Odessey, if you want an open-ended game, I just bought Sid Meier's Pirates! and it seems pretty open and surprisingly good. It just may break my Sims 2 addiction :)

Pirates is good. Glad they finally patched it.

I was just looking at Pirates in the shop this morning, I usually like Sid Meier's stuff. It's still $59.95 where I was looking which I thought was overpriced. Might try one of the chainstores.

That is overpriced. I got it at Best Buy here in NYC for $30. The price dropped recently, but I've never seen it at $60 like where you went.

EB games sells it for 29.99$ (Pirates).

I'm sure I saw Pirates offered for £15.00 in one of the supermarkets here... Will have to check that out.

And Spore looks as if it could be very fine indeed.

Sorry, New Zealand $59.95. Roughly the exchange rate used to be about half for US $$. Maybe equates to about $US35?

Buying off sites in the states is no cheaper for me, what with postage and packaging plus the exchange rate means I would most likely pay slightly more than if I buy here.

I love Sid's games. Played Pirates until I got Sims earlier this year. But, I'm really looking forward to Civilization IV that is coming out very soon. It will be my Christmas present to myself.  ;)

http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=6 (http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=6)
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/noflash.htm (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/noflash.htm)

About five years ago, there was a new phrase developed in our house called "People Games."  This is what my then 2-year-old son decided I played.  I would get a new game and he'd say, 'Oh, Mom, you got a new People Game!'

I agree there aren't a lot of games out there that appeal to women.  As I look at my CD rack I see a bunch, though, with most of their expansions.  I loved CivII so ended up getting Alpha Centauri when it was in a bargain bin.  I also lucked out and picked up the expansion, Alien Crossfire, which is super hard to find for less than around $50 because they quit making it all too soon, for about $10 with a Buy It Now from eBay.  I've tried and tried and tried CivIII and to my mind it just stinks!  I enjoy the culture aspect but there're too many other things in there they changed.

I also love Sierra's City-building series and have all of those.  I started out with Ceasar II which had a demo for Caesar III and I couldn't wait until I could get that one.  I remember visiting the Heaven's Game forums and amazed at how many women were into playing the City Building series.

I've also given Tropico a shot but I found the scenarios were ridiculously hard and the open-play got too bogged down too quickly.  You could start on a nice little town but by the time it got up to any size at all (like 1/3 of a larger island) everything became so inefficient the city would basically melt down.

I think one of the all-gime classics out there is Zoo Tycoon.  I got the original game for Christmas shortly after it came out then later got the expansion packs.  I was even one of those who helped to make the User Expansion Pack (thanks to the wonderful brains of the fellow in England who figured out how to make scenarios for the game).  With all of my involvement in that community, though, I ended up getting so burnt out on that game I just about couldn't play it.  I since bought Zoo Tycoon 2 last summer but honestly in my opinion it just can't beat the original.  Sure, it has some nice features but the user-made animals for ZT1 gave the game tons of replayability, whereas while I haven't checked recently, when I got ZT2 there was no user-made content.

My 7-year-old loves to play games and I haven't bought him a new one in ages.  He mostly plays original NES games and finds freeware games online to download and is reasonably happy.  Sure, he wants to get a gaming system and I'm thinking about getting him one in the next year or so.

My daughters are into games, too.  My 16-year-old loves playing RPGs and my 19-year-old loves RPGs and creating things for TS2.  They both play TS2, too, although they don't seem to be as rabid about it as I am (thank goodness!).

I like to read game reviews in the newspaper and our local writer does a bang-up job.  He said one game that he was absolutely surprised with was the Lego Star Wars.  He said he had bought it something like three months hence, and was still playing it several times a week with his son, which is a rarity for them.  He said the game was fun and had good replayability.

Another game I think is awesome but they've never made it for PC is the Harvest Moon series.  My sisters and nieces are huge fans and I've tried it and it's great!

When it all comes down to it, though, I don't play much now besides TS2.  I had base TS2 for an entire year before NL and wasn't getting tired of it and now with NL it's just that much more fun.  For the most part I think my family thinks it's safest if I stick with one game at a time. LOL

Alpha Centauri with Alien Crossfire is one of my absolute favourite games ever. I loved Civ and CivII, but I thought III was kind of a stupid step backwards. I'm definitely excited about new Civ, and will most likely get it for my birthday or Christmas.
One game that was similar, and that a number of my female friends liked was Master of Magic. It was very like Civ in some ways, but it had exciting heroes and battles where you had to make decisions. Plus, you know, the magical spell casting.

I heard Myst was popular with female gamers.  Never played that one myself tho.

Some of the old Sim games are great.  My favorites were Sim Farm, Sim Life and Sim Ant.  Sim Ant did have you fighting the red ants, but it wasn't as bad as most of the RPG games.  I always loved it when I got the message in Sim Life, "Pigs have mutated to fly." :D

Hook

I tried Myst and just couldn't get into that kind of game.  My cousin loved it, though.

You reminded me that some of those older Sim games are one my son loves, too.  He plays SimAnt, SimEarth, SimTown and more.  They're great kid-friendly games.  Oh, and SimTunes is wonderful, too, because they're composing little musical diddies.  He also plays the original (if you can imagine) SimCity on his dad's computer.  I don't think he ever gets much past putting in the power plant and first zoning, but it seems that each time he learns a little bit more.  Another one of his favorites is his dad's Real Planes Flight Simulator for RC airplanes.  He can now successfully land the plane on the easier levels.

I think I enjoyed the original Sim City more than the sequels.

Another game I had a great time with was Rollercoaster Tycoon.  The first thing I'd put into every park was the carousel, just for the music.  I love fairground organ music.

Hook

I also like the first SimCity best. Also, loved Cesaer, Pharoh and other Sierra games but that was before I found Sid's games. Civilization and Pirates kind of ruined the other games for me. Started with CivIII, so I can't compare it to the earlier versions.

I'm sure some marketing wonk head has already done a study on this, but I'm wondering what appeals to the stereotypical ADULT Sims 2 player - game features, strategy, etc.

It's fairly simple, I think.  On the surface, Sims 2 is an animated dollhouse.  At its core it's a resource management game.  This gives players a wide range of things to do. 

Hook

That reminds me of a bbs siggy I saw, the poster quoted his 4 yr old brother I think, the child said something like, "you know, the game you play where people stand on the sidewalk and wait for the house to be built". I cracked up over that as it makes quite a good description of the way I play.


OOOHHH! I thought it was just me. I always tried to build too much at once admittedly, but even so the game never seemed to find a balance. I do like the game and wish my CD weren't corrupt, adored the music! Never got the expansion. Wish they'd make more like Tropico!

I'd like to try Harvest Moon, I've heard so much about it. I like most of the Tycoon games and the older sim games though I heard there was simplanet but have never seen it.

Theme Hospital anyone? Starship Titanic? Startopia? Ghost Masters? I've enjoyed all of these. Must try the leggo, I have a demo.

witch, you're probably thinking about SimEarth. The game sucked though.

oooh!  theme hospital!

had a ball with that one!

I even had a bit of fun with worms, but could never master the bazooka...

I've looked at zoo tycoon a few times, and all the roller coaster tycoon games, but was never really impressed with the way it sounded on the box, sounds like it may be worth checking them out...

Ness

The little guy said I should post here about a software company that makes games suitable for everyone.  If I remember right they're called Everybody Games but I'm not sure where the one we have is at the moment.  I believe it's called Penguin Puzzle and it's a blast to play.  I bought it for me and the short one ran off with it. ;)

There's a sequal to Tropico which I think is called Pirate's Cove.  I've read that it's a lot better than the original.  I just pretty much quit buying other games until the prices come way down because I end up not playing them enough to justify the cost.  The Sims is another matter all together.  There are times when (I'm embarrassed to admit) I play somewhere around 8 hours a day.  Health issues prevent me from doing many things at times so that's when I put in quite a bit of playtime.

Roller coaster tycoon and that genre seem to be about micro-management. Great at first, then boring maintenance. There aren't that many challenge scenarios to be drawn out really, most customers, most profit, fastest growth, and so on and on.

I'd like to see a really accurate hospital simulation I just realised, after talking about Theme Hospital.

My 'quick game' of the moment is Bejewelled Deluxe, a popcap game. Lovely little interface, great sounds and a good combo of luck and skill.

Oh yeah, Ghost Master. Had a great time with that. What happened to the sequel that was supposed to be coming out?

My favorite strategy games:  Sim City (at which I sucked), Rollercoaster Tycoon (original), Zoo Tycoon (original), and Tropico 2 (yes, my islands also melted but heck I made millions!). 

If you can get your hands on Grim Fandango (adventure), I highly recommend it.  It's old and the graphics are blocky, but the humor is unforgettable and the puzzles are not too easy/hard. 

If you're into sneakiness and stealing, you HAVE to try Thief 2.  Excellent game!  Some scenarios are a little creepy, but still exhilirating.  You may forget to breathe.

I can't play anything where I might forget to breathe!  I do that often enough anyway--I'd be found passed out on the floor if I played that! LOL

I forgot about Grim Fandango. I actually own it too, first game I bought for my 166Mhz PC. Beautiful settings, sort of a cross between baroque and jazz. Witty story too as the central character, in the underworld, attempts to figure out why events are going awry and dead people are being processed oddly. Wonderful beatnik poetry generator in one bar.