The word “awesome” means that a thing, in some way, produces a feeling of awe. Awe is the feeling of being so impressed that you're blown away, speechless, with your jaw gaping and eyes bugging out of your head. It's different from “aww,” the response to something cute. If a thing is awesome, or awe-inspiring, it means you're basically going to be floored when you experience it.

Get ready to feel some awe. These four games are pretty mind-blowing. Some you'll definitely know about, a couple you might have merely heard of. We'll start with the obvious, but further down are a couple which many people still haven't played.

World of Warcraft

“WoW” is an appropriate nickname for this MMO. Not that Warcraft is necessarily the most visually beautiful MMO on the market, but the user experience of entering the game is quite fluid. It only took me about 3 hours of play to start feeling like a role-player, desperately training to ready my warrior for the horrors that were threatening his people from around every corner.

The gradual tutorial system brings you into the game quickly and stays with you on a need-to-know basis, encouraging real play experience rather than forcing homework down your throat the instant you roll a character. Compared to other games of its complexity, Warcraft instead pushes you into vista after breathtaking vista, and makes new players feel at home as quickly as possible.

Spore

This one's a repeat, recently covered here in detail, so I'll just assume you read us raving all about Spore last week and move on.

Meanwhile, somehow, there are still people who have never even heard of the following two games.

Flower

There's only so much to say about Flower, because it's a very short game. It came out this past February for PS3 online players, and there's basically never been anything like it. You are one of six flowers on a city windowsill, having a dream. In the dream, you're riding the wind at high speed through a rolling countryside, with no smog nor skyscrapers in sight.

Using the controller's motion-sensitivity to steer, you fly through breathtaking vistas listening to nature and tranquil music. As you find other flowers and touch them, pleasant animations signal the opening of new zones. The only sense of objective in the game is unlocking the next playable flower when you complete each world. It's a very simple game - cruising around as a trail of flower petals is the main experience. Its benefit on a bad or under-inspired day cannot be overstated. It's awe-inspiring.

Katamari Damacy

Also a repeat, but there's so much I didn't say before...

The awe and fascination in Katamari Damacy starts immediately. For anyone who's ever asked themselves, “how could I make a simple game that's better than your average $10m video game production,” Katamari Damacy was instantly inspirational. From the humble but catchy theme music to the brief, surreal back story, Katamari never lost its garage-project feel.

However, it also never failed for one minute to produce a feeling of awe. The bizarre experience of starting the game with an avatar that's smaller than a thumbtack only gets weirder and most compelling as you collect stuff on your katamari-ball and eventually start collecting trucks and small buildings. Katamari, like Flower, borders between being a game, and being interactive art, and successfully achieves both.