Up to the Minute (CBS) snippet - 2005-12-21 (video games)

Channel: malgent

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] [music]

[0:03] There are now just four shopping days

[0:06] until Christmas, Hanukkah, and Quanza.

[0:08] If you still have gifts to get, you're

[0:10] running out of time. I guess I probably

[0:11] don't need to tell you that. Here to

[0:12] help you decide on gifts for the more

[0:14] technologically inclined is up to the

[0:16] minute computer consultant John Quain.

[0:17] JQ, we're talking video games. Here I

[0:20] have one person's Christmas list and

[0:22] lives in my house who's just video

[0:23] games. I bet I'm familiar with these.

[0:25] >> I bet different platforms. Oh, yeah.

[0:27] Console, PC, we got them all. All right,

[0:29] break it down.

[0:30] >> So, for this morning, I didn't choose

[0:31] any things that were the shoot them up

[0:33] games, the first person shooter games

[0:34] are what kids call them, just because

[0:36] they know which ones they are, and you

[0:38] can get those. Some families don't want

[0:39] those or appreciate those. So, I tried

[0:41] to choose titles that pretty much could

[0:42] go to any family.

[0:43] >> That's a good idea. A little less

[0:45] violence always.

[0:45] >> Right. So, that was the general idea.

[0:47] For the PC, there are still great games

[0:49] for the computer out there, Windows PCs.

[0:51] So, I picked a couple here. One very

[0:52] unusual one is called The Movies, and

[0:55] you are actually the head of a movie

[0:58] studio. The whole idea is that you pick

[1:00] the stars, you pick the script, you make

[1:02] the movie. It's all up to you. The fun

[1:04] stuff, the bad stuff, the drama, the uh

[1:07] budgets. It's for everybody who said, "I

[1:09] could have made a better movie than

[1:11] that."

[1:11] >> Yeah. And the drama, you say drama, it's

[1:13] behind the scenes drama. It's not even

[1:14] the movie. Yeah. That's absolutely.

[1:16] >> Yeah. Soap opera.

[1:17] >> But you can even upload the movies that

[1:18] you do. You can put them online and

[1:20] people can check them out and view them

[1:21] and give you a thumbs up or thumbs down.

[1:23] So, it's a very interesting game. Um,

[1:25] it's about $50 and it's pretty much for,

[1:27] you know, teens and up.

[1:28] >> My 15-year-old has that on the list.

[1:30] >> Now, if you want something, there a lot

[1:31] of strategy games big on the PC,

[1:33] real-time strategy games. One big one is

[1:35] called Age of Empires 3. Um, it's uh a

[1:38] great game in terms of detail and the

[1:41] strategy. And these are we're seeing

[1:42] some of the cinematics and visuals, but

[1:44] they've improved a lot of it. Basically,

[1:45] the idea is that you're going out to the

[1:48] new world and um you have the regular

[1:51] strategies and combat and things that go

[1:53] on, the French versus the British,

[1:55] helping the natives, helping um

[1:57] revolutionize South America,

[1:59] >> rewriting history,

[2:00] >> rewriting history. And they have

[2:01] something new in Age of Empires now.

[2:02] It's called Home City, so that what you

[2:05] do in the New World goes back to benefit

[2:07] your home city or your home city can

[2:08] come and bail you out, sending you new

[2:10] supplies, things like that. Um I like it

[2:12] a lot. It's rated T4, that game. But I

[2:14] think it's a good idea.

[2:16] >> Uh absorb them for hours though. Another

[2:17] one is Civilization 4 just very quickly.

[2:19] It's from the Sid Meyers group and um

[2:21] they've done a lot of these kind of

[2:22] games. Very involved. Again, we're

[2:25] looking at some of the cinematics, but

[2:26] um the idea is to develop an advanced

[2:28] civilization. What I like about this one

[2:29] is it's not just combat. You can also

[2:31] pick a religion and that might help you

[2:33] if it's a religion [music] that's the

[2:35] same as a neighboring civilization.

[2:37] >> So there's also peace and war and

[2:39] culture. you can have great artists that

[2:41] form things and that benefits your

[2:43] society as well. Very interesting.

[2:45] Again, it's about $50 as well for the

[2:47] Windows PCs, right?

[2:48] >> So, um now the big thing of course this

[2:51] year, this past year been more the

[2:53] portable handheld players. They gotten

[2:55] better, better screens. Now, the

[2:57] Nintendo DS was the first one that has

[2:59] two screens now. It's a dual screen.

[3:01] People said, "What was good about that?"

[3:02] What's good about that is this little

[3:04] game here. It's called Nintend Dogs. And

[3:06] those little pups are your dog. You

[3:09] train them. You pick them from the

[3:10] kennel. You uh then actually run a

[3:13] little contest and see how well you've

[3:14] done. There are different ones.

[3:16] >> So, I can get out of getting my daughter

[3:17] a real dog just by this. [laughter]

[3:19] >> I I thought about that when I looked at

[3:20] this. And you know, you are just having

[3:22] this virtual dog. And the great thing

[3:24] about is they never mess up the carpet.

[3:26] >> Yeah. Lovely.

[3:26] >> Or it could encourage your kids to ask

[3:28] for a real dog. But I I it's a great

[3:30] game. It's $30 and it's very cute. It

[3:33] works very well. Great game for the

[3:35] Nintendo DS. If you also have the

[3:36] Nintendo DS, um, Virtua Tennis or sorry,

[3:40] Animal Crossing is the one I like on

[3:42] that. It's, um, called Wild World. It's

[3:44] specifically for that. It's an

[3:45] adaptation of an earlier game. Again,

[3:47] animals, characters, but it uses both

[3:49] screens very effectively, and I thought

[3:51] that was a good one. That's about $50,

[3:53] though. They can get up there in the

[3:54] price. Um, as they can for the other

[3:57] portable thing, which is the PSP. If you

[3:59] don't know what that is, that's

[4:00] >> Oh, I'm familiar with that. That's

[4:02] PlayStation Portable. Um, very slick

[4:04] looking thing. a lot of people buying

[4:06] movies for that. They're in their own

[4:08] little format. So, you have to buy

[4:09] special movies, but you want

[4:10] >> one bad part. You can't use the games

[4:12] you already have for the movies,

[4:13] >> right? So, the games, virtual tennis is

[4:15] the one I was just going to say. Tour

[4:17] World Tour. I like that a lot. You can

[4:18] be Andy Rodic or Sherupova. You can do

[4:21] that. Watch that. And while away the

[4:23] hours playing tennis on it. Also, a neat

[4:26] game is called Luminous. Even though

[4:28] it's spelled with an e s at the end,

[4:30] it's called Luminous. It looks like a

[4:32] sort of a zooped up version of Tetris. I

[4:35] guess that's the best way to describe

[4:36] it, except that it's involves music as

[4:38] well and the sound effects. There 24

[4:40] different stages. It's a lot more

[4:41] complicated. It It may not look so cool

[4:43] right here, but really it's an addictive

[4:45] engrossing game. It's called Luminous.

[4:47] It's $40. Anybody can play that. And

[4:50] Burnout Legends is my other game for the

[4:52] uh PlayStation Portable. It's a car

[4:54] racing game and it's really fast and

[4:56] really fun. Um, of course, the big one

[4:59] everybody wants for all the platforms is

[5:01] Madden NFL. It's still there. 06 for

[5:04] 2006. It's on every platform you can

[5:06] imagine, PC, GameCube. It looks

[5:09] beautiful. It looks great. And every

[5:10] year it gets more complicated. This year

[5:12] it has like this uh quarterback visual

[5:15] where you can tell where the

[5:16] quarterback's looking and so you can try

[5:17] and intercept the ball and things like

[5:18] that, but it looks great. Um it's almost

[5:21] too complicated for me to play now. Um

[5:23] it's on the Xbox, the Xbox 360. If you

[5:26] know somebody who's lucky enough to have

[5:27] an Xbox 360, they snagged one, then

[5:30] they'll probably want the Xbox 360

[5:32] version of this game. It does look

[5:34] gorgeous.

[5:34] >> Very cool. All right, that's it, right?

[5:37] >> Uh, yeah, that's it. Oh, Guitar Hero.

[5:39] >> Oh, yeah.

[5:40] >> That's the last one I was going to

[5:40] mention. Very interesting game. It's for

[5:43] any age like 11 and up. It actually

[5:45] comes with sort of a miniature guitar

[5:47] with buttons and a flipper instead of

[5:49] strings. Great game. Uh, you play rock

[5:52] music. It's even if you don't know how

[5:53] to play, really fun. Um, I think that's

[5:56] a the big hit this year. Guitar Heroes

[5:58] for the PlayStation 2.

[5:59] >> I love it. No one dies. No one

[6:01] >> No one Dies air guitars. All those air

[6:04] guitars people did. This is a great

[6:06] game.

[6:06] >> All right, Jake, as always, thank you

[6:07] very much. Happy holiday.