Bored parents seek entertainment

[zogathon]

So, one of our favorite ways to pass the time in the evenings is to play a console video game. (Usually, Jon plays while I knit and watch. Yes, we're lame and domestic, hush you.)

The problem is, we're fresh out of games to play and all of our knowledge is rather old. So, great collection of the more-technologically-savvy: What should we play next?

Absolute musts:

• Many hours of game play
• Killing people during game play is not okay with us (monsters are fine)

It's nice if:

• The game setting is original
• There's some amount of flair or humor

We've played and enjoyed:

• Metriod Prime
• Final Fantasy [VII, X, X-2, XII]
• Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Reqiuem
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
• Prince of Persia
• Beyond Good and Evil
• Pikmin
• The Mario games
• Riven and Thief (we are not looking for computer games, this is just for informational purposes)

We have a Nintendo Gamecube and a Sony Playstation 2. So! What should we be running out and buying RIGHT NOW?

ETA Jon's further thoughts:
After spending some time thinking about the things I like in a video
game, I came up with the following:

• I most enjoy exploring
  three-dimensional, puzzle-based environments. For me, Riven was the Best
  Game Ever, followed by the Thief and (later) Mario games. Prince of
  Persia ranks high, too.
• The game needs to have a strong and
  immersive 'feel.' Whimsey seems to be best, but suspense and horror have
  worked as well.

Also, I get turned off by the following:

• I will not play an adventure game that requires me to murder (kill a
  human being with premeditation). Games like Splinter Cell and Grand Theft
  Auto (from what I have seen) are right out. And even killing a human in
  self-defense is iffy. And while I have no problem killing
  zombies/monsters/aliens/etc. in a game, I don't enjoy combat for its own
  sake. (For some reason, I don't have a problem with Soul Caliber, even
  though it is all about the killing people. But as soon as you have me
  murder as part of a story, with *plot*, I get up and leave.)
• I
  cannot pass a side-quest by without feeling compelled to execute it
  whether or not it would be fun. Thus, I find games like Final Fantasy
  (with overwhelming numbers of side quests and weapons to collect and
  abilities to unlock and blah blah blah) to be exhausting. FF12 was fun at
  first, but I found myself actively resenting it by the end.

Does
this spark any ideas?

Oh-- and for those who mentioned it: We've also played the first Katamari
Damacy game and really, really enjoyed it. Good call.