Who's Got Game?

By Chris Taylor

1 KARAOKE REVOLUTION Now the whole family can sing its way to fame and fortune

You may never hit the dizzying heights of American Idol, but Karaoke Revolution (PlayStation 2, $69.99 with headset) is compensation enough--and easily the most original and fun game of the year. In 2001's cult hit Dance Dance Revolution, players stomped on a dance mat in time to the beat; this sequel exercises your vocal cords via a plugged-in microphone. Singing on key couldn't be easier: an arrow shows the pitch of your voice, while a scrolling bar shows the pitch of the song you selected. Just match the two. Do so consistently, and the onscreen crowd goes wild. The game's 34 songs range from grandparent-friendly oldies (When a Man Loves a Woman) through the disco era (Celebration) to 21st century raves (Complicated). So it's not hard to imagine the whole family battling for the next turn at the mike. The easiest level is forgiving enough for even the most tone-deaf warbler to win a round or two. Just be thankful Simon Cowell isn't listening.

2 SOUL CALIBUR II The best fighting game of all time is here (finally)

Martial-arts games (like the Street Fighter or Tekken series) used to be the digital equivalent of a cheeseburger--good for a little messy, mindless pleasure but always leaving behind a coat of grease and guilt. Beating your opponent to a bloody pulp by hitting all the buttons on your controller faster than he or she did was hardly something you would call tasteful. Then came Soul Calibur (released in 1999 for the now defunct Dreamcast), the caviar and champagne of fighting games. Its sword-wielding characters preferred fencing to fisticuffs. Combat was balletic and mercifully blood-free. You won by mastering martial-arts moves, not by mashing buttons.

Now, after four long years, owners of the other consoles get to share the Calibur experience. And it was worth the wait. Though Soul Calibur II (all consoles, $49.99) doesn't tinker with the first game's look and feel, it adds a cast of characters that varies depending on your machine. Got a GameCube? You'll love playing as Link, the hero of Legend of Zelda. Xbox owners, who skew older, get Todd McFarlane's Spawn. Nobody gets cheeseburger.

3 REPUBLIC: THE REVOLUTION Bring down a totalitarian regime in this psychological spy thriller

A former Soviet republic is about to experience regime change. You must maneuver your faction into position to replace the tottering totalitarian leader and win the hearts and minds of the people without attracting the attention of the secret police. That's the premise behind Republic (PC, $40), a thoughtful, nuanced game for all those who have ever wanted to try their hand at Machiavellian politics.

Your base is an inner-city rooftop, where you monitor citizens through binoculars, identifying targets for persuasion--or eradication. The degree of detail--in buildings and personnel--is stunning. Are you playing a game or watching a psychological spy thriller? At times, it's hard to tell.

4 TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 2004 Choose your tee time, golf club and body type

Of course you'd expect great things from a golf game to which Tiger Woods lends his name--especially one that releases a new version every year. But it's amazing that EA Sports' Tiger Woods PGA Tour (all consoles, $46) manages each year to exceed expectations. If you enjoy whacking a tiny white ball around manicured lawns with a big stick, this is a must-have addition to your video-game library. Two neat touches put the 2004 version head and golf pants above the competition. First, there's a feature called Game Face, which lets you--by tweaking everything from eyebrows to teeth to paunch--create a golfer who looks just like you. Second, club control has been simplified and and perfected. You get a very professional swing by yanking the joystick on your controller forward, then back. Tiger Woods 2005 has a tough act to follow.

5 SPACE COLONY Rule an alien world that's peopled with colorful, unruly characters

The Sims may be the most popular PC game of all time, but there are plenty of players who don't find it escapist enough. So what if you're supposed to manage willful little people through their eating, sleeping and bathroom habits? Isn't that their parents' job? Space Colony (PC, $40, Gathering) takes the Sims concept and runs with it for about a billion miles. You're still managing an unruly bunch of little people, but now they're trying to build industries--ranging from tourism to chicken farming--on alien worlds, and are beset all the while by bothersome creepy crawlies of every variety. Unfortunately, you don't get to tweak the personalities of these little people as you do in the Sims. But the built-in cast of characters is plenty entertaining. Venus Jones is the coolheaded heroine who must keep together a string of interplanetary colonies; her cohorts become happier and more productive if you raise their allowances, make them fall in love or send them to the disco. Real parents might find all this a little too real.

6 TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL A vintage adventure game gets its computerized revival--no dice necessary

Remember Dungeons & Dragons, that game for anyone who was too smart for his own good in high school and didn't have a date on Friday night? Time was you needed a pencil, books of character information, a sturdy imagination, similarly afflicted friends and the ever-present 20-sided dice to play the game.

Not anymore. Temple of Elemental Evil (PC, $45, Atari) is a computerized homage to one of the best-loved adventure games of all time, enhanced with up-to-date graphics. As with the original, loading up your character (and up to four fellow adventurers) with your choice of spells and skills is almost as fun as the action itself. Your goal for the game depends on these choices: make yourself morally good, and you must rescue a missing elf princess from the eponymous temple; choose the path of the evildoers, and you may end up taking over the place. If Dungeons & Dragons had been this much fun, the geeks would have had a lot more dates.

7 SIMPSONS HIT & RUN Who can find fun in video-game violence? Trust Springfield's finest

From the moment the clouds part and a heavenly choir chants the name of America's most famous cartoon family, you know this game is working hard to live up to its Homeric heritage--something two previous Simpsons-brand games failed to do. But this is no retread: Hit & Run (all consoles, $46) is the first Simpsons title to boast a plot and dialogue from the show's writers and the vocal talents of its stars. The game is also a deft satire on Grand Theft Auto III, that controversial masterpiece of motorized mayhem.

The result is madcap entertainment that has you driving maniacally around Springfield on nonsensical quests, guffawing all the way. Where else do you get to help Marge wipe out violent video games by crashing into a delivery van full of them? Or watch her husband navigate a pink sedan in his underwear while chanting "I am evil Homer" as pedestrians scatter? Every corner of the game is so gag crammed ("Don't eat beef," implores a roadside billboard displaying a doctor and a plate of meat. "Eat deer!") that you'll laugh from beginning to end. Not unlike the television show.

8 URU: AGES BEYOND MYST Immerse yourself in a world of interlocking mysteries

You find yourself lost in the middle of the New Mexico desert, near a strange rift in the earth, with no explanation of why or how you got there. A pudgy-looking guy in a trailer home encourages you to explore the rift. After a while, you dig up a magical book that whisks you away to your new home, an island in the clouds. So begins Uru (PC, $50), the fourth game in the classic Myst series.

Like its predecessors, Uru is a gently paced puzzle-solving game set in a beautiful, ethereal fantasy world. Good memory and analytical skills will help you unlock the secrets of the D'ni, a mysterious 10,000-year-old human civilization. Here, you're on the hunt for more linking books, each of which opens the door to a new D'ni world, or Age. Unlike its predecessors, Uru is utterly immersive--a universe that seems as sentient as if you were really there. Thanks to an online multiplayer version, the D'ni Ages are constantly updated, and friends can get lost in Uru together.

9 TRON 2.0 The 1980s hit movie gets a new lease on virtual life--where else?--inside your PC

When Tron was released in 1982, it was the cutting edge of digital animation. Now, in the age of Finding Nemo, this inside-a-computer adventure seems downright quaint. But its retro look has been lovingly reproduced in Tron 2.0 (PC, $50), billed as an interactive sequel to the movie--which is precisely what it feels like.

You play Jet Bradley, son of Tron creator Alan Bradley. Jet gets accidentally digitized down to the level of bits and bytes and must fight his way back. All the iconic features of the original are here, including lightning-fast disc combat against electric-blue enemy "programs." And then, of course, there are the light cycles. These ultra-speedy bikes that left deadly traces and tried to outlast one another were easily the best part of the movie. The light-cycle arena in Tron 2.0 is so intensely cool that it has been made into a separate mini-game, which you can play against the computer or online with others. Be warned: you'll need very good reflexes to win.

10 LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER Despite a cartoonish makeover, this quest will blow you away

Ask just about any video-game aficionado what the best adventure game of all time is, and chances are the answer will be Legend of Zelda. The series began 16 years ago when the green-clad hero Link first rescued Princess Zelda. But it flew off in a new direction this year with Wind Waker (Nintendo GameCube, $50). The game is set 100 years after an earlier title, Ocarina of Time. You play from the perspective of an island-dwelling boy (who bears a strange resemblance to the legendary Link) as he takes to the rough seas to rescue his kidnapped sister. Here's where the wind comes in: if you don't learn how to sail with it, you're doomed.

This is Zelda's first outing on Nintendo's GameCube, and most fans are buzzing not about the plot but about the game's updated graphics. The new platform gave programmers the option of using a 3-D style called cel shading, which lends the world of Zelda a kind of cartoonish simplicity. Faithful followers are evenly split on whether this is a good thing. To its credit, cel shading makes the game's well-crafted special effects--like heat haze from flames and the ubiquitous wind--stand out even better. And it doesn't do anything to distract from the puzzles, which are as clever as ever.