Guide: How to find out the name of a game you have forgotten using game databases
Okay, since I could help a few people around here find the games they were looking for, given the fact that I answered one of them without having any idea what the game he was talking about could be, I decided to write this guide so people can use my methods to find the game they're looking for. If you find it helpful you can attach this to the first post so people can find it more easily.
Guide: How to find out the name of a game you have forgotten using game databases:
Before asking others, you might wanna try to find the game you're looking for on your own. You probably remember something about the game, like the console you played it on, or the game's genre. Maybe you can guess the time it was released. Or maybe you remember the game's perspective (first person, third person, top down, etc.) This information could be enough for you to be able to find the game you're looking for with the help of searchable game databases.
1-Gamerankings:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-Grlogov2.png
GameRankings is not really a "Game Database", it's actually a review database. However, it has a user-friendly yet highly effective advanced search function which makes me use it on most occasions when I'm looking for a particular game or am trying to find some information about a group of games. However, this site does not index games older than 5th gen, so if the game you're looking for was released in SNES era or before, you should try the other database.
How to:
Click this link to go to the advanced search page. On top of the page, you see the parameters:
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/341/gamerankings.jpg
Let's say you're looking for an FPS (First-Person Shooter) game, which was released exclusively for the PS2 in 2006.
In the "Platform" section choose Playstation 2, and choose "Action>>Shooter>>First Person" in the category box. As you can see, the good thing about GameRankings is that it has a highly detailed category selection. As an example, if you knew that it was a shooter game, but you weren't sure if it was FPS, you could choose "Action>>Shooter". Or if you knew more about the game, like you knew the game was based on modern settings, you would choose "Action>>Shooter>>First Person>>Modern".
Now in the "Released" section choose "2006". Leave the rest untouched and hit "Browse/Search".
The search results shows 9 games that match our descriptions. Since there are just a few of them, we can view screenshots for each and find out which is the game we're looking for.
Clicking on each game will bring you to a page with some general info about the game. Under the game's name there are several tabs, (Home-Reviews-Cheats-Images-Check Prices) clicking on the Image tab will show you some screenshots of the game. If the first game wasn't the one you were looking for, go back and try the other ones.
In this case the game I was looking for was "Black" which is the second result.
Another tool that can help you is the "Search:" field. This is a basic name search, and it's good for when you know a part of the name of your game. As an example if you know the game you're looking for was called "Heroes of something", or "Something Racers", you can fill in the search section with "Heroes of" or "Racers" respectively.
2-MobyGames:
http://www.mobygames.com/images/s/1/mobylogo.gif
MobyGames is the most famous game database around the net. It has a huge amount of user contributed information, coupled with a rather complex and powerful search function called "Game Browser". If you couldn't find the game you were looking for with GameRankings, you can use MobyGame's search function to narrow down or widen up your search to your liking.
How to:
Visit Game Browser. On the left side you can see several sections such as "Sports Themes", "Non-Sports Themes", "Year", "Genre", "Platform", and others. On the right you can see the game list, which contains the games that match your description.
Let's say you're looking for the same game in this database, which was an FPS game that was released exclusively for the PS2 in 2006.
The thing about Moby games browser is, it "unlocks" new sections as you narrow down your search. As an example, if you choose Playstation 2 as your platform, you can then specify some PS2 only options like "Multi-Tap Support"
So for now let's choose our platform and year. Clicking on "Playstation 2" in the "Platform" sections brings you to a new page that doesn't feature platform selection anymore. On top of the page you can see this text: ">Game Browser : PlayStation 2 [x] (2217 games)" This means that you have chosen PS2 as your platform. If you click on "[x]", PS2 will be removed from you specifications, and you can specify other parameters for your search.
For now click on "2006" in the "Year" section. This narrows down your search to 400 game that were released for PS2 in 2006.
Now this part can be a bit tricky. MobyGames doesn't have a detailed category selection like GameRankings. Instead, it shows each category with a mix of specifications. Here we're searching for an FPS. FPS is an action game, so we choose "Action" in "Genre". Since it's a shooter, we can choose "Shooter" from "Non-Sports Themes" section and then we choose "1st-Person Perspective" from "Perspective" section. This defines FPS on GameRankings.
Some genre's can be defined using a mix of two genres. As an example, "Car Combat" (which looked like "Driving>>Car Combat" in GameRankings), is "Racing / Driving [x] > Action [x]" in MobyGames, with "Racing / Driving" chosen as "Genre" and "Action" chosen as "2nd Genre".
Now that we have narrowed down our search to"PlayStation 2 [x] > 2006 [x] > Action [x] > Shooter [x] > 1st-Person Perspective [x]" We can go on and try each of 24 games and see if it's the game we're looking for. Selecting each game from "Game List" will show us the game's page with a section on the right side of the new page titled "Selected Shots" which shows you some screenshots of the game. Clicking one of them will show you more screenshots. Try each game to see if you can find the game you're looking for. In this case, "Black" is the 3rd result.
As you can see, MobyGames has more games in it's database than GameRankings (Which found 9 games). This can be both good and bad. The game you're looking for might not be one of the 9 games GameRankings found, here you have more options. On the other hand, MobyGames might show some irrelevant games, maybe showing too many games and making screenshot searching a pain in the ***. As an example, one of the games that is shown in our search is "SpyHunter: Nowhere to Run", which is a racing game.
This is why I encourage you to search GameRankings first, and if you couldn't find the game you were looking for, try MobyGames.
3-Google:
http://www.tabletroms.com/wp-content.../07/google.jpg
If you couldn't find your game using any of the above databases, searching google might yield you some results. Someone else could be looking for the exact game you're looking for, asking about it in one of the ask sites or game related forums. Here, if we search for "2006 FPS PS2", the very first result, "Black", is actually the game we're looking for.
Searching google can be quite time consuming as it can make you browse hundreds of irrelevant pages (You know how google is). I recommend searching the databases first and if you couldn't find what you're looking for, try searching google.
4-This Thread!
If the game you're looking for can't be found anywhere, you can ask here and someone might have played the game before and know the name. Don't get your hopes too high though. :P
