Good Year Get! 2010

Hello.

This was supposed to go up last Thursday and is actually unfinished…

I apologize for that. Hopefully you’ll still enjoy it as Andy, Matt, and Aaron took time to write about their favorite games of the year.

Thursday afternoon, our Chinese Crested puppy, Juniper fell and broke both of her front legs.



After an initial expensive trip to the vet, she now has two casts, and is extremely unhappy with being unable to walk, and comfortably use the bathroom. She requires constant attention and needs to be held or watched over most of her day.



I don’t really care about much else other than the essentials right now.

I won’t be posting for a while. Until she is better, and she may require surgery - which sounds bad, and is expensive, but it would increase her recovery time dramatically.

I was thinking that some videogame internet famous person like Maré Odomo, Corey Schmitz, or even Brandon Boyer could rally up some video game lovers and help support Juniper in her medical costs as truthfully I’m just a student, working part-time at a big box computer retail store.

Maybe some sweet illustration, graphic design, or something that could be created to help us out with Juniper’s medical costs - which of course I would be completely transparent about.

We’ll see.

Thanks,




Hello!

Welcome to our year-end post!

I realize that what makes a game good can mean a lot of different things to people, but hopefully it’s universal and obvious that good games have one thing going for them - they’re fun to play.

We haven’t been able to cover all of gaming, but I believe we’ve highlighted enough good games for you to hopefully be inspired to support and play.

Before we get started, Matt Kish has one thing he’d like to say.

Thanks,


Hey folks. I have every reason to believe that I will be the proud owner of a new Nintedo DSXL as of Christmas morning. I used to own a Nintendo DS, but I had to get rid of it over a year ago and I haven’t had one since.

I have really been far far too busy to play anything on it anyway, but now that a number of personal projects are coming to a close, I will have more time than ever to re-dedicate myself to my love of videogames. I’m definitely a little rusty and out of the loop with the portable scene though, so I’d appreciate any recommendations and reviews of DS games I should check out.

The last thing I played was The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and I was actually a little disappointed with that one. So let me know what I should be looking for come December 26th. Many thanks!

- Matt

P.S. for Aaron Fitzwater, Andy Fluke and Kyle Wallace: Yes, yes, I know - HeartGold and SoulSilver. I get it already. Sheesh.

Good Game Get!

Presents

The Best Games of 2010

Best Game

Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver

By: Andy Fluke

“…the best game I have played in the past ten years.”

- Aaron

My list of favorite games from 2010 was far longer and far easier to assemble than I expected. In fact, I can’t really decide what my favorite game from the past year really was. With Cave Story going main stream, Red Dead Redemption showing that Rockstar can create something great from any genre and the iOS proving itself a real gaming platform with unexpected gems like Game Dev Story, I doubt I’ll ever make up my mind. But there was one surprising game that I played more than any other, and had anyone told me last year Pokemon HeartGold would be one of my favorite games of 2010 I wouldn’t have believed it.

I could claim that I played this year’s installment in the Pokemon franchise because I have a 9-year-old nephew who loves Pokemon. I could also claim I picked up the game because I wanted to learn what the whole “pocket monster fuss” was all about. I can also point to a conversation I had with a couple adult fans who convinced me not to judge the series based on the merchandising. All these claims would be true, but they are only the reasons I bought the game, not why I played it through to the end.

I played Pokemon HeartGold on the road, filled up my lunch hours with it and used it to relax at the end of the day (so many books went unread, but I don’t care). I embraced its pocketable peripheral and made it part of my morning routine and knew without a doubt having only played a few hours that I was going to see it through to its very end. In this simple world of befriending, taming and battling monsters, I rediscovered the simple magic that kept me returning to the worlds of Myst; the challenging data management behind every metropolis I built with the SimCity series; and the satisfaction of success I received from surviving each of the Fallout games. These are my favorites from the past 30 years, and I don’t hesitate adding Pokemon to the list.



It’s easy to dismiss Pokemon as a soulless merchandise machine. I really don’t know anything about the toys or the card game or the cartoons. I tried to watch a tv show one afternoon when I was bored, but they are produced for a very different audience (even my nephew explained to me that the show is for “little kids”). The game lives on another level entirely. True, it’s not very hard, especially when judged by its first few hours. However, if you embrace the idea that the challenge is not found in the individual battles, or even its collection element (though both are excellent mechanics in their own right) but instead rises from fulfilling the narrative experience, you are rewarded with an opportunity to engage a world in a way few other games have ever accomplished.

Each step of this game is designed to move you forward, each element rewarding you with either the satisfaction of victory or the desire to do better. Every battle, every Pokemon caught, every new town explored, every badge earned becomes a piece of a puzzle that assembles into one of the most engaging games ever created. Dismiss it as a child’s game if you will, but consider its success and its penetration of the global psyche the next time you suffer through the repetitive end boss of the latest 10-hour, $60, “made for adults” GoW or CoD rip-off.

I don’t know if I’ll play another Pokemon game. I mean, damn, they are serious time sinks. But I’m glad this series exists because it provides a near perfect and brilliantly accessible example of what’s best about our hobby to every young gamer. Pokemon HeartGold will always live on my “favorites of all time” list.

If you have never played a Pokemon game, regardless of your age, you owe it to yourself to dive into this world, at least once. Your education as a gamer will never be complete if you don’t.

Best iOS/Android Game

Game Dev Story

By: Andy Fluke

I’m not a big fan of iPhone games that try to match the complexity and mechanics of console or PC games. Not that there haven’t been some interesting or entertaining attempts, it’s just that I feel that a game (or any piece of software) should be designed for the device it’s run on to get the best possible experience. This is just my personal opinion, and it’s an opinion that was greatly tested by my favorite iOS game of 2010, Game Dev Story.



A lot of really amazing games were released on the platform, including swipe-friendly games like Kometen and Maestro! Green Groove, trippy puzzlers like Osmos and Shibuya, addictive action games like Solipskier and Canabalt and the occasional, hard-to-categorize title like WikiHunt. But of all the games I played on my iPod Touch this year, none of them grabbed my attention like Game Dev Story and it’s the least platform-friendly one of the bunch.

Created by Japanese developer KairoSoft and based on a PC game of the same name, this menu-heavy “business management” game challenges you to run your own video game company. From choosing what platforms to build for and what genre of game to create, to hiring and firing staff and planning for game conventions, Game Dev Story scratches that “I would love to be a game designer” itch that all gamers have. With tongue firmly embedded in cheek, it takes you through the lifespan of a game development firm rewarding your good ideas with GOTY awards and punishing the bad ones with backhanded reviews.

Although your actions will quickly get repetitive, its joy comes from the feedback you receive for every decision you make, and the game provides a considerable variety of options, from the game types you can develop to the consoles you release them on. It even allows you to market your games with a marching band, which is apparently very effective.

Game Dev Story is unlike anything else on the platform

and although it certainly can be played in small bites, like every other game for the iPhone, this is one that will have you staring at that little screen for hours (it’s a battery drainer). But when you get your first Grand Prize, like I did for “Gumbochét: The Continuing Adventures of Gumbo the Bear, Crimefighter”, you’ll be hooked. One warning though, the music is going to stay with you…

Best Xbox 360/Playstation 3 Game

Bayonetta

By: Aaron M. Fitzwater

Bayonetta might not have been the BEST game of year, and that’s okay because it definitely was my favorite. Personally I found it to be the perfect mix of absurd over action and classic addictive console gameplay, with just a touch of controversy thrown in for good measure. The game could be played as a frantic button masher, or just as easily as a fast paced rhythm game.



While much of the press brought the game to task over the ridiculous PS3 load times, I was actually quite grateful for them. As the game loaded I quickly discovered that I could safely practice combos and new moves while I waited. With the threat of enemies removed, Platinum inadvertently helped me. Each load screen effectually becoming a practice stage; a place to experiment and place to hone my skills. And with the many upon many load screens, hone them I did, and a better player I became.

Why Street Fighter hasn’t adopted this idea is beyond me.

But what really sold me on the game is the way it made me feel and the moments it made me laugh or clap my hands with pure delight. Bayonetta is a FUN game. It doesn’t take it self too seriously; the plot is off the wall and the characters are some of the most bizarre I have seen, and thats okay too. I feel like I’m apologizing for liking this game as much as I do. And perhaps that’s just it.

Bayonetta is a guilty pleasure and one that I do not mind indulging in.

Best Love/Hate Game

Metroid: Other M

By: Matt Kish

I was one of the haters, initially, and I even played all the way through the whole miserable thing. One of my most beloved Nintendo franchises, Metroid and I go way back although our history is spotty. I was one of the early adopters, picking up Metroid for the original NES as soon as it was released and following pretty closely with Super Metroid for the SNES years later. After that though, things got dicey. I never owned a portable player until very recently, so I missed out on everything from the rebooted Zero Mission to the Return of Samus to the much-lauded Fusion (which I hear is supposed to be just about the best videogame ever or something). Years passed and the Prime series welcomed me back into the fold with some of the best first person exploration and shooting ever seen on any console anywhere. Nintendo struck gold with the Prime series, and to this day, I don’t think I have experienced a game with the same kind of atmosphere, immersion, tension, and narrative. Brilliance.

Coming after the Prime series, just about any installment would suffer by comparison so in many ways Team Ninja was destined to stumble with Metroid: Other M. And don’t get me wrong, there is an awful lot wrong about the game. But after playing the entire thing all the way through and marinating on it for some months, I’ve become convinced that the game is a diamond in the rough and the herald of a promising new direction for future Metroid installments.

First though, let’s get something out of the way. The damage done to the character of Samus was absolutely brutal and just about unforgivable. Taking one of gaming’s greatest heroes, a strong and silent warrior fearlessly fighting her way across alien worlds swarming with horrors that would make most people curl up in a catatonic state, Samus was truly a character to be admired. What little we knew about her, her suit, her mysterious Chozo origins, and her personality came from a handful of cryptic hints scattered through multiple games, some mildly informative log entries, and decidedly non-canonical manga and animated specials. What worked so well about Samus was that, due to her silence and her armored visor, she functioned perfectly as a cipher for any gamer regardless of gender. It didn’t matter who you were, once you took the controls, you BECAME Samus Aran, blasting your way through alien worlds.

Other M blows that all away and just puts every ugly, pathetic, whiny sordid detail right out there. Rather than showing the steely bounty hunter with ice water in her veins, Samus is instead a needy girl with the heart of a teenager and some serious daddy and mommy issues. She becomes defined by her relationships to others, especially other more powerful men. This drastically reduces Samus’ stature and rather disappointingly ensconces her firmly in the “damsel in distress, in need of other men” camp. This alone almost crippled the game beyond repair for me.

Control and difficulty were issues too. Team Ninja opted for a rather curious and not always easy to implement control scheme which involved holding the nunchuk-less Wii-mote sideways most of the time, but occasionally forcing the player to point the Wii-mote at the screen for actions like shooting missiles and grappling. Not a bad idea, in practice, but in some serious need of continued examination and polish. For the most part, I was able to get used to the sudden transitions and this didn’t hamper combat too much, but the learning curve was steep and it never felt completely natural.

The difficulty level was surprisingly uneven as well. One of the very first bosses, the King Kihunter, was almost nightmarishly difficult due to swarms of Kihunters, being forced into the fight with only the possibility of two energy tanks, and few weapon enhancements. Beyond that battle though, the rest of the game was at times disappointingly easy due to the newly implemented auto-targeting (simply press the “fire” button repeatedly and Samus blasts away at the nearest enemy with perfect accuracy) and the strange “sense-move,” a dodging technique that almost instantly shoves Samus out of harms’ way and powers up the charge beam for a quick and might blast. Again, these concepts showed promise but they don’t seem to have been given enough play testing to smooth out the bugs and work them into the game more seamlessly.

Where Other M did succeed is in elements of its surprisingly deep narrative and in its world building. The game takes place aboard a Federation Bottleship, a research vessel designed to create bioweapons. The different areas of the Bottleship and the way these areas incorporate holographs is really quite impressive. Although one doesn’t get the same sense of almost terrifying isolation present in the best Metroid games, the Bottleship does offer some wonderful and incredibly beautiful areas to explore. The bestiary was also pretty fantastic with just enough nods to old games to keep the veterans interested and more than enough new creatures to keep any player staring at the screen and asking “What the hell just jumped out at me?” Rather than using the Prime series’ muted palette and naturalistic sense of design, Other M opts for garish radioactive greens, bile yellows, and putrid purples which, at first, look cartoonish but gradually add to the feeling of utterly alien life forms.

The story itself works quite well in terms of its place in the overall Metroid saga. Adam Malkovich plays a great role in things, and we learn more disturbing details about Ridley than ever before. In fact, Ridley’s entire role in the game was deeply disturbing and one of the most unsettling aspects of the entire experience. It was great fun to see the Queen Metroids make a return as well.

All in all, Metroid: Other M needed a lot of improvement, but as I mentioned earlier, Team Ninja had the almost impossible task of following up a near perfect trilogy of games. Hopefully the next Metroid game, whether it comes on the Wii or the 3DS or something else entirely, will build on what Other M did right and bring Samus back to where she needs to be. Which is kicking ass.

Best PSP Game

Valkyrie Chronicles 2

By: Kyle Wallace

Valkyrie Chronicles happens to be the only good game besides Bayonetta that Sega is publishing these days. As the PSP dies or perhaps we’re already post-mortem – it becomes more apparent that all it needed was more wonderful developer support from teams that could make awesome portable titles like Valkyrie Chronicles 2.

While I’ve only played the demo of the original Valkyrie Chronicles, I am aware that some did not like the gameplay changes from one to two; but I have to say I have no issues with gameplay in Valkyrie Chronicles 2.

It feels as if it is the evolution of the magic that the first Final Fantasy Tactics brought so many years ago and Square-Enix has only capitalized on the magic with sequels and spin-offs that only match gameplay rather than the full package the PSX classic has to offer.

Best Playstation 3 Exclusive

God of War III

By: Matt Kish

God of War III surprised no one. If you didn’t play God of War I or God of War II, it’s highly unlikely you were tempted to spend $60 for God of War III. By the same token, if you played God of War I or II, you knew exactly what you were getting with III. In spades. The nice part is that III did not disappoint in any way.

Sure, there were few innovations. The combat system was more or less unchanged and the sub weapons were, if anything, slightly less unique than what we were given in II. The enemies were still a fairly routine series of skeletons, cerberi, cyclops and harpies. The levels for the most part resembled the bizarre Ray Harryhausen meets “Clash of the Titans” aesthetic so familiar from the first two games. All of which is appropriate. What God of War III did offer, though, more than made up for any perceived shortcomings in innovation and originality.

First, and at long last, we finally got to witness the epic clash between the Titans and the Olympians. Some of these battles left me wanting more, but the sense of scale was so dazzling and awe-inspiring that I can still replay those scenes and battles in my mind with pitch perfect accuracy. Whether I was running around on Gaea – yes, actually ON Gaia – while fighting Poseidon and his hippocampi, or battling the mighty Cronos, ripping off his fingernails and slicing my way out of his guts, the sense of power and mass was simply astonishing for a videogame.

Most importantly though, Sony finally gave us a fairly definitive end to Kratos’ tortured saga of vengeance and redemption. It must have been tempting for the developers to simply continue amping up the tension, the madness, the scale, and the body count giving players bigger and crazier battles against more and more monsters. Wisely, though, they held back just enough and injected just the right amount of psychological depth and complexity to Kratos’ ultimate fate. Rather than simply go out with the biggest and best bang they could muster, there is real emotion, real struggle, and real ambiguity in Kratos’ transformation from man to soldier to god and finally back to man again. I won’t spoil it, but Sony is to be commended for not taking the easy road and actually attempting to weld a story to what is otherwise one of the smoothest and prettiest beat-em-ups ever committed to disc.

God of War III rightfully deserves the rave reviews and high honors it earned, and the entire series has left and indelible mark on the current generation of console slashers. Something tells me we may not yet have seen the last of Kratos, and it will be intriguing to see where the developers go next.

Best Nintendo Wii Game

Super Mario Galaxy 2

By: Matt Kish

Nintendo and Miyamoto seem to have the unique ability to take games that were almost perfect to begin with and find ways to improve them. Such is the case with Super Mario Galaxy 2. Not much has changed between Mario’s first jaunt into outer space and this trip, yet this game will still leave you hungry for more and anxious for a few more minutes with that Wii remote and everyone’s favorite plumber. What few issues there were with the first game, including some occasionally frustrating camera angles, have been smoothed out into an almost seamlessly perfect whole and the addition of Yoshi borders on genius. Somehow, Nintendo manages to make sure that the Yoshi-centric levels never feel slapped together or tacked on, and Yoshi provides a whole new dimension of platforming and strategy.



Beyond that, you’ll get more of the same eye-poppingly gorgeous galaxies to run around in, challenges running the gamut from almost relaxingly simple to controller-throwing hard, and a plethora of bosses old and new. If the first Super Mario Galaxy didn’t do much for you, then this is definitely not your game. But if you liked what you saw in the first one, this game is guaranteed to be the best investment you could make. Hands down, my favorite game of 2010 

and one of my favorite of all time.

Best Reboot Game

Kirby Epic Yarn

By: Matt Kish

First, confession time. I have never played a Kirby game before. Ever. Sure, I’ve seen him. And I guess his gig is that he eats things, right? Really, until now, Kirby kind of vaguely disturbed me. He (she? it?) always seemed like some rejected Pokemon that had been designed as a veiled reference to a perverse sexual euphemism. So I guess you could say I had my doubts about the Kirby games.

Perhaps it was just the general state of jaded cynicism regarding the gaming industry I had recently fallen into, or perhaps it was the relentless flood of gushing reviews. Or perhaps it was both. Either way, on a whim I decided to check out Kirby’s Epic Yarn. After all, I had played Zelda games, Pokemon games, Final Fantasy Games, Donkey Kong games, Castlevania games and Metroid games. I didn’t want to die without at least a cursory visit to one of gaming’s most revered property.

And Kirby’s Epic Yarn? Well, honestly, it’s a hell of a game. Quite unlike anything I’ve ever played before, in theory at least. Lately, with the New Super Marios Bros. and Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii, Nintendo has been doing an absolutely smashing job of seemingly resurrecting the almost forgotten art of the side scrolling platformer. Kirby’s Epic Yarn follows this pattern nicely, and with just as many gorgeous touches as anything on the Wii.

This time around, rather than being a disturbing pink blob that eats everything, Kirby (here referred to as Lord Kirby more often than not) has been sucked into a magical sock and deposited in a patchwork world of fabric, string and yarn. Kirby himself has been transformed into an adorable outline of himself made of pink yarn, and he now interacts with the environment and his enemies primarily by lassoing them with his yarn and unraveling them. It’s a subtle thing, but it flows perfectly in the game and the mechanics are smoothly beautiful.

Borrowing liberally from previously successful franchises like Little Big Planet, the aforementioned New Super Mario Bros., Animal Crossing, Super Paper Mario and even some oddsters like SkullMonkeys, Kirby’s job is to help Prince Fluff restore the fabric of Patch Land – literally – and to defeat the evil wizard Yin Yarn. To do so, Kirby must travel through the seven pizza-shaped slices of Patch Land - aptly named Hot Land, Space Land, and so on – to find the seven magical threads that will stitch together the whole. Along the way, Kirby finds treasures like mirrors, sofas, fountains and more to decorate his new apartment in Patch Land, giant compact discs so he can replay his favorite game music, patches to unlock new levels, and beads to earn medals. There are even cunningly and beautifully designed bosses to defeat at the end of each slice of Patch Land.

Much has been of the game’s simplicity and almost childlike visuals. True, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is an all-ages game in every sense of the word, appropriate for anyone from the ages of 3 to 93. What is often overlooked though is the surprising depth of the game. For a younger player who simply wants to play through the levels to see what happens, the learning curve is forgiving enough to offer a consistent and constantly enjoyable game play experience. For the battle-hardened veteran gamer, the game provides enough fiendishly difficult challenges to provide dozens of hours of game play. For example, in the average level, Kirby must proceed from left to right jumping over obstacles, defeating enemies, finding treasures, and gathering beads. Getting his by a flung spear or a flying area doesn’t kill Kirby but it does knock all of his beads out of him. And much like that nightmare in all of the Sonic games, there is never enough time to gather up all of the dropped beads before they flicker and disappear. So, for the perfectionist who wants to complete a level with every bead intact, the challenges can become almost brutally difficult. Multifaceted game play like this is extremely difficult to balance, and Nintendo has done a remarkable job with Kirby.

Like like, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is what you want it to be. Gamers willing to be open-minded, spend some time with the game, and put a bit of work in will find a surprisingly deep and challenging game with a simple interface, intuitive controls and lots of hilarious surprises. I’m not sure what else the Kirby franchise has in store in either past or future games, but after spending some time with Lord Kirby and Prince Fluff in Patch Land, I am more than ready to give those games a try.