Ninja

Gunstar Heroes!

I love Ninja Gaiden's difficulty. It's a total throwback to games like Contra (and, of course, the NES's Ninja Gaiden). They seem impossible at first, but once you figure out what weapons are best where and memorize your enemies' attack patterns, they become completely doable (if really hard.) If I can beat the game on Very Hard, along with both of the Hurricane Packs, so can you.

Microsoft is publishing the sequel, so... not a chance. The PS3's still got Sigma, though.

Cave Story should be number one. If you haven't played it, and you like the Metroid or Castlevania games at all, give it a shot; despite being free, it's every bit as good as Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night.

The combat is awesome, with some very memorable boss fights, the world is huge and beautifully detailed, the plot is surprisingly memorable, and the old-school music and graphics are pleasant and fit the game perfectly.

It's an absolute classic, it's free, and it should run on any windows PC that's from the mid-80's or later. Do yourself a favor and play it.

Oh, and Knytt and Crayon Physics are really fun too.

The enemies don't look anything like Bionicles, but the Rogue and EOD Spartan armor types definitely have an uncanny resemblance to the toys.

Halo's pretty clean, as far as M-rated games go. There's little language, the violence is pretty sanitized, and instead of killing people, you kill ugly-looking aliens with green, orange and purple blood (or, online, aliens and robotic-looking human soldiers with no visible skin.) If the Flood couldn't be dismembered and there was a bit less blood, Halo would be teen, easily.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I always thought they did that to encourage people to buy the games before the games come down in price. Although the original Xbox's Platinum Hits boxes probably looked a bit nicer than the normal boxes.

The flood. I wouldn't touch one of those things with an 80-foot pole. Not unless I wanted the hep'.

Grunts, easily. Those guys creep the hell out of me. Methane-breathing alien midgets, with razor-sharp shark teeth? No thanks. If they have a breather mask on, they wouldn't be too bad, but seeing those teeth would scare the ever-living shit out of me. I'd rather take a Brute any day.

Cave Story's an absolutely brilliant game. Every bit as great as Super Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and with a better story to boot. Warning Forever's a fun, addictive shoot-em-up, worth a download, probably better than any of aba's games, which I also love. I'll have to try some of these others.