Few things bother me more than the “genrefication” of literature in any media — be it film, or novels, or theatre, or even in less typically narratological forms like music and visual art. The application and blind aspiration to fulfill genre (and even, at times, subvert it) is at best pointless and at worst offensive. Thankfully, most other media have managed to cut out a place where “genre” is secondary. Video games, however, have not caught up to the level of genre-eschewing sophistication that its older siblings have.

There are three things in particular I would like to talk about in relation to “genre games”: the dismissal of the thematic in favour of the mechanical in virtually all definitions of game genre, the abstraction of judgment that genre permits, and, finally, video games’ lack of “genre”-as-genre.

Arsenault’s representation of major web publications shows a heavy bias toward a certain type of genre delineation. With the partial exception of MobyGames (whose genres seem, at best, muddled), the others — allgame.com, and gamespot.com — show an understanding of genre only as deep as the mechanics of the games. From these genres, we can tell that the game in question will require more planning or more reflexes; we can tell from what perspective we will be looking at the gameworld; and, we can tell if the game is intended to be played alone or with a group. These, while important elements of a game from a ludological perspective, ignore theme and narrative entirely. Praise for Braid’s bending/subverting of genre does not in any way represent its narrative or thematic work. By speaking of its genre as “platformer” and not, say, “romantic tragedy,” it is easy to ignore that, narratively, the “deconstructive” ending sequence does nothing to actually deconstruct the save-the-princess trope, and, in fact, doubles down on making the female character twice objectified/made a “goal” instead of a character (running from the knight and to Tim / running from Tim and to the knight). What could have been looked at from a narratological perspective and very sharply criticized was judged almost universally as a “ludic” genre piece, where it succeeds — even though it is, otherwise, a sub-young-adult-fiction, Holden-Caulfield-meets-Memento mess.

What is worse is that, when a game fulfills the ludic specifications of a genre but not the typical thematic specifications, it can be judge (unfairly) against those more “typical” games. If SimCity had come out after Starcraft, would it be criticized for representing a city-building sandbox? Would it be panned for having no competitive multiplayer aspect? It is, after all, a strategic game (in fact, I would argue that the layers of strategy outclass those of most RTS games that came after it) and it plays out in real time. But RTS means one very specific thing now: little buildings that make little men that kill other little men faster than another person can make other little killing men. This concept of how representation should inform design is completely backwards.

What I hope video games can do that other forms have successfully done is remove genre classification from mechanics, and, once it has done that, remove “genre games” from the greater set of games. In film, there is “genre film” — Golden Age oaters, or 50’s low-budget sci-fi, or mischief films, or anything-sploitation — but these are, by and large, splinter genres that are only aimed at and enjoyed by genre aficionados. The films that reach critical success are, for the most part, non-”genre.” Last year, Metacritic’s top films included The Social Network, Winter’s Bone, and Black Swan — none easily classified as any “genre” (The Social Network may be considered a “docudrama” but that speaks more to the origin of the film’s narrative than the presentation of the narrative). When looking for fiction in a book store, one usually finds a section dedicated to fantasy and sci-fi, and another dedicated to young-adult fiction, and perhaps a couple more “genre” sections, but they are all dwarfed by the general fiction section. And it’s in this section that you will find some of literature’s most adored and successful works. Even in music, where most critics are stumbling over themselves to coin the term for the next “genre”, it seems that those records with the most crossover appeal are not “country” or “rap” or “electronic” or even “rock” — the records that are most universally acclaimed are the ones that are simply great music.

This change can only occur in video games once we stop classifying them based on how we perceive them (can you imagine if all “first-person” novels were expected to include gunplay and action sequences?!) and classify them on their thematic content. Only then will bending and subverting those genres lead to an exciting new mode of storytelling. For now, we’re just trying to pick the king of B-Games.

Read this to hear more:

Arsenault, J. (2009). Video game genre, evolution and innovation. Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture., 3(2), 149-176.

I’ll cut straight to the chase, because you’re a busy person. I am running a poll to define, completely arbitrarily, the best video game ever released on the PS2. It’s with a website I frequent called ILX, but that’s beside the point. The point is GAMES, and LISTS, and POLLS. And GAMES. Did I say GAMES?

Firstly, I implore you: visit this website. There’s a list of nominated games there: this is part of the first step. Only games nominated can be voted for, to avoid vote splitting and confusion and such; however, nominating a game is as easy as commenting on this blog, or commenting on that blog, or emailing me (that’s magacid, by the way, at gmail). Nominations are due by March 14th.

After that, the fun part: BALLOTS. You would send to my email (not by comment, we wanna keep the results SECRET until the end) your list of favourite PS2 games: as few as 1, as many as 15, in order (ties are allowed!). Ideally (but optionally) one would also include small blurbs, frmo one sentence to one paragraph, explaining why it is an awesome game to you. The results would slowly leak out on the previously-mentioned blog, complete with delicious youtube links and pictures and blurbs from other voters (AND YOU!).

If you think your list will suck, FRET NOT. It’s easy and you should send one anyway. A lot of the people contributing are not “gamerzzzz” in the hardcore sense; in fact, our year-end lists often end up with free flash games and iPhone puzzle apps near the top of the list because, well, that’s how we roll.

THE PS2 IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE PS2.

That lead me to something else I have been thinking about a lot recently, as prompted by Angus’s recent article on game morality: creating artificial barriers to overcome.

I’ve seen it in countless other scenarios in games since I found myself staring into the 16-color abyss of a Netscape Navigator window in 1997: beat Final Fantasy with four white mages. Survive a Roguelike with only the items you can forage within the dungeon. Finish Ikaruga without firing a bullet (or, you know, finish it while playing two players simultaneously). Solo Onyxia. Beat Mirror’s Edge without using a gun. Don’t kill anyone in a Metal Gear Solid game. The list goes on, I’m sure.

I, on the other hand, never have the patience or skill to do any of these things; they require qualities (namely, hand-eye co-ordination and/or unemployment) I’m devoid of. However, I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty clever kid (my imagination is at least good enough to imagine that I’m an imaginative person) with a decent grasp on the English language (I know great nouns such as “dirge,” “colugo” and “arthrodesis”), and as such, I see Scribblenauts as a fantastic way to get creative with arbitrary rules.

I know it’s a bit early to start coming up with arbitrary “hard modes” for the game, but it’s been on my mind for a while. As such, I’d like to solicit ideas from my audience!

Here are some of my ideas so far, ranked in ascending order of assumed difficulty:

1. Played-Out Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without summoning zombies. ZOMBIES ARE PLAYED OUT.

2. Acrophobic Pacifist Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without use of height-assisting items or weapons (although, in true Pacifist style, tools which are also weapons can be used for their original tool-like purpose, so a chainsaw can be summoned but only to cut down a tree).

3. Fantasy Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that only exist in the realm of fantasy. If a replica has been created of an item, it is okay, but use your discretion: a Bat’leth is okay because it is strictly from the realm of fiction, but a robot may not be, despite its birth in the realm of sci-fi.

4. Alphabet Aerobics Mode: Beat the first “level” (or stage, or starite, or whatever they end up being) using only items that start with A. Beat the next with B. The next with C. You know how the rest of the alphabet goes. Flip back to A, I guess, if there are more than 26, flip back to A, I guess. Have fun on level 24! (For the record, though, Phi-Life Cypher did the ABC thing better only a year later.)

5. Conversationist Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without destroying any of the environment. Summoning animate objects to do the destruction for you is also not permitted.

6. Breath of Life Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that are alive upon their summoning. A tree is okay; a wood pole is not.

7. Midas Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only gold-coloured items.

8. Intangible Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items whose noun is an “intangible.” While they typically become tangible once summoned in the game, words like “dream,” “temptation” or “theorem” are acceptable while “pillow,” “chocolate bar” or “right angle triangle” are not. Homonyms are a cheeky way to get around it, but are not allowed if the word you’re pretending is allowed isn’t a noun. So, no using stalk and saying “but the verb is intangible!”

9. Gadsby Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without using the letter E.

10. Summon Nothing Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that rhyme with wolf. Remember that wolf does not rhyme with wolf. They’re the same word no matter what terrible rappers may try to trick you into believing.

11 (yes, THIS LIST GOES TO 11). 43 Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only words that are a part of George W. Bush’s active vocabulary.

Tiff Chow and I are curating what will hopefully be a totally dope and expansive repository of great examples of text in videogames. From unforgettable splash screens to thoughtfully-placed speech bubbles (ooh, that reminds me… Comix Zone), anything where the text makes you sit up and say “I like the way that looks” will be up there, a couple entries at a time.

But, then again, chances are you’ve already seen this at Offworld. Or Destructoid. Or Infovore. Or Waxy. Or Tiff’s blog. Oder Nerdcore. Ou Graphism.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m late to the party on linking to someithng I had a part in making. Still trying to figure out if that’s sad or awesome. If you’re not already, follow us on Tumblr (or make a Tumblr so you can), and we’ll transport you to…

…sorry. Lame joke.

Aside from criticizing the “invisible hand of God” that keeps a fully tabulated and annotated count of how many “good” points and “not so good” MoralityPoints™ you have, he raises interesting ideas as to how one might truly present moral quandaries to a player, and, therefore, add new depth to “playing” and “beating” a scenario.

But the most interesting parts of moral conflict, the ones that separate pulp and genre from literature, are the ones that are ambiguous and dependent on situation. I ran an Unknown Armies (a pen and paper role-playing game) game for some friends awhile ago where everyone played sort of idealized selves and put them through any number of horrible events that have no grounding in life. Players reactions were surprising. People acted out of panic, anger, fear, attachment, all of the things that many simplified moral codes urge us to deny.

Definitely worth a look, if this sort of thing is up your alley.

1) 150-450 words, roughly, unless it’s a special case;
2) At least one screenshot;
3) No number scores (6/10, 85%, etc).

It was a good idea, though. I brought it back and started recruiting friends to write for it. It started with myself, Scott, Angus, Brian, and Mekki. From there, it began to flourish. Monday through Friday, we’d bravely wade into the sports-game-infested waters of the SNES catalogue. I had (and still have) an ulterior motive, though: by forcing deadlines and topics, I got some of my most gifted writer friends motivated enough to actually write something. Looking at those previous blogs will show you how long it’s been since they even wrote something of their own accord.

And, despite my own shoddy writing on the site (my own official excuse is twofold: one, my focus is now on badgering people who are late to submit ASAP; and, secondively, I’m experimenting with copying other people’s writing styles or toying with my own on a weekly basis), it’s going fabulously. We’ve since doubled in authorship. Scotty joined the team, bolstering the ever-important “dick jokes” quota required for a modern website; Travis, too, was recruited for another quota: pretentious English Master’s student-style existential pontification. Adam found the site through my blog (I think) and expressed interest, so I hooked him up to help with the load. Alex showed interest, and contributed to the noise with his debut article on Chessmaster– in all-caps. Tiff Chow joined the team to round it out to a nice, even ten.

Since the site gets little traffic, aside from some very weird search engine results (my favorite at the moment is still last week’s “where can a condom get lost in vagina”), so I thought I’d highlight some of my favourite articles from the site over the past few months. I’ve included links that will allow you to read just that author’s works, as it’s a lot more enjoyable to read one author at a time and develop a sense of their style. These are in random order, except for the first two who I recommend above the rest of us (sorry, everyone, but Scott and Travis truly have this thing locked down — step up your game if you wann be at the top of the next roundup in a few months!).

TRAVIS makes you want to read from the get-go. From his review of the diabetes edutainment title, Captain Novolin: Captain Novolin is a brilliant metaphor for the struggle with obesity and diabetes, but also the simple yet unending fight against temptation that we all face as ultimately flawed human beings.

Also check out his Chrono Trigger review. It’s some of the best game-related writing I’ve seen on the Internet. It’s a crime he isn’t writing more about the games and the industry. But there is a difference between your standard unsophisticated video game story, upon which I now smirk from my ivory tower, and something like Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger is a fantasy/sci-fi genre epic translated from Japanese, and it wasn’t written by professionals in either language, I’m fairly sure. This is, generally, not a recipe for the most delicious of successes. But it’s something special. It has a rather intricate narrative of time travel and the alteration of the future through your actions; it has characters that, to some extent, come alive. It has a nasty, big-boss villain who you can even convince to come to your side, if you do it right. It has multiple endings and a terrifying final boss that destroys worlds and waits for you at the terminus of every timeline, like a living, breathing dark god of entropy.

SCOTT manages to turn many of his pieces into hilarious little bits of short fiction. From his review of Andre Agassi Tennis: I’m glad these 16-bit graphics don’t allow the detail necessary to see the disappointment on the faces of my family as they sit in the audience and hold back tears of shame and disgust. How did this spastic even find his way to the tennis court? I knew there was something wrong with him…spends his whole day watching Mr. Belvedere re-runs and eating Sun Chips out of a dirty wooden bowl.

Or, check out his write-up of California Games II: I hoped that once the drug testing was done, I’d be banned from the California Games forever. Too many dark memories, scattered fragments riding a wave of victory that took me through the silver-lined gutters of stardom. Once you’ve won a California Game, the ultimate test is detoxing from the heady fallout of athletic recognition. Party people. Opiates fell like candy from the sky into my open mouth and I twitched slightly and pulled the hair of a supermodel. She screamed in outrage, but there were others waiting to take her place.

WILL (that’s me!) misses the simpler times. From Brett Hull Hockey 95:Originally I was going to talk about the weird 3/4 perspective in this game, and the even weirder old guy with greasy hair who POINTS at your coaching resource allocations with his HAND, in effect being a living cursor, but what’s the point? You don’t care about that. I don’t care either. I do, however, care about a bygone era where kids had artifacts other than the ones you see in poorly-encoded Youtube videos.

SCOTTY hates rudders, even though the word sounds sort of dirty. I hate flying games. Flying games are way too complicated and there’s usually no pay off. It’s like trying to sleep with girls that listen to NPR and check Pitchfork every 5 minutes. I just don’t have time to devote to something that won’t end in burgers or orgasms, or if I’m lucky, both, in any order I see fit.

MEKKI gets why Battletoads included two modes. From Battlemaniacs: The game is full of great times for two players. You can select between two modes. In one mode, you can hit your teammate. In the other mode, you can’t it each other. The first is great for trash talking. The second is great for actually making it anywhere in the game.

BRIAN managed to truncate every story ever quite succinctly, with Art of Fighting: (the) Art of Fighting’s plot is simple enough. Ryo’s sister gets kidnapped. Ryo and his friend Antonio Banderas go save her. Along the way you uppercut some dudes. The end.

ANGUS has been MIA for a while (finals tend to do that), but he’s coming back with a vengeance. From his recent article on Beavis and Butthead: It would be a beat-em-up if there was any sort of combat system. It would be a platformer if it had platforms. It would be a puzzle-platformer if it had any puzzles. It plays a little bit like A Boy and His Blob. Except the blob doesn’t do anything. And you can slap it. Repeatedly.

ALEX hasn’t been with us long, but his first review, of Chessmaster, is a lot of fun:
THIS AIN’T YOUR GRANDMA’S CHESS VIDEO GAME, FUCKERS! THIS IS ON SOME REAL, STREET-LEVEL SHIT. TOP OF THE LINE MOTHERFUCKING CHESS GRAPHICS! INSANE MOVES! WHITE KNUCKLE ACTION! THIS IS THE BAD BOYS 2 OF CHESS VIDEO GAMES FOR THE SUPER NINTENDO!

ADAM, as well, is new to the site. He has two reviews up (should be three later today!) and he was lucky enough to start with everyone’s archnemesis: the snackfood tie-in. But maybe I’ve been asking all the wrong questions. Would it sell a pack of Cheetos? Probably it would!
“Screw this, Cheetos are heaps better than this game. Wanna get some Cheetos?”
“HELL YES.”

Please check it out. While they can’t all be hits (I turn beet-red when I think about how bad some of my articles were. My Axelay acrostic poetry stands out as one of the most embarrassingly pathetic jokes I’ve ever commited to a computer), there are gems worth looking to as great pieces on games you (and, usually, the author) have no interest in.

And if you’re interested in writing, let me know. We may add a couple more in a month or so.

Instead, I got a bunch of comments that challenge my position, and that really put my brain into overdrive. I think we fail to challenge people’s opinions far too often on this whole Internet vidyagame blogging sphere thing, and I truly appreciate the feedback. So much so, that I’m writing this response! It might be worth reading the first article before this one or else it may not make sense.

Matthew Gallant was the first to post, and he said:

Of course memory == binary, so that’s another direction you could take.

This is in reference to my use of the word “mems” to replace “videogames.” He’s right, and mems is close to memes, so… bines? I like bines.

From commenter mad, I got this response:

There is history here; see Chiptunes, 8-bit, 16-bit.

Naming it after the memory makes it feel static, like data. Naming it after the processor makes it dynamic, which is what games are typically all about.

Compare also to processes, executables, etc.

I see what you’re trying to do here; but, the only problem I see is that it assumes that a… a mem… (you know what? for the sake of the argument, I’m jsut going to call ithem mems for the rest of this entry) must be dynamic. Why didn’t they name “the film” after the projector? Because to name an artistic medium because of a characteristic you assign to it does a disservice to anything that wishes to use that medium to illustrate the opposite of that characteristic. What if a mem’s purpose was to communicate stasis, or stagnation? The only truly neutral way to name it is to simply name it for what it is on (ie. film, memory/binary)… not what takes it from that form and displays it (as a projector or processor would).

mad adds:

also note:
video games are about graphics
computer games are about numbers
most players don’t care about the other stuff :P

But, they don’t have to be. They can be about whatever the originator wants them to be about.

teh_red_baron says:

And then there’s ‘movies’, or ‘moving pictures’.
I think ‘videogames’ is fine. It’s inextricable. All it takes is exposure for people to respect the medium.
But I still like what you’ve attempted here.

The terms movies/moving pictures, while not perfectly accurate (after all, there are experimental films where the pictures does, in fact, never move), is restrictive but nowhere near as restrictive as forcing every piece of computer-assisted interactive entertainment/art to be a game. While exposure is key, so is changing some of the very language we use to describe the medium. After all, respected games are still games.

Eric J:

in the middle days of Infocom, they decided that the moniker “interactive fiction” was too clunky to go on, and announced a contest to have it renamed.
The contest ended without a winner, nobody was able to come up with anything decent.

I rather fancy the term interactive fiction. What else could explain it better? Plus, it shortens to IF, which is bloody brilliant for so many reasons.

Travis‘s response will need to be broken up, I reckon, if I’m going to respond to it at all properly:

The problem goes beyond nomenclature. The medium of which we speak is largely composed of, yes, games. It is to games that we look when we want to make some kind of critical artistic analysis.

It is indeed largely composed of games, but it doesn’t need to be. I agree: the nomenclature isn’t the only issue, but, it is one that needs to be assessed.

Can a game be art? Is chess an art? What about Puerto Rico? Is good game design an art form – establishing balanced choices and keeping players entertained and stimulated throughout? What about playing a game – is there art in being a mindboggling Street Fighter expert? Does that mean polevaulters and gymnasts are artists too?
There is a philosophical distinction between “design” and “art,” one that only became pronounced after classical times. Building a beautiful chair that is like a minimalistic sculpture is surely art, but building a GOOD chair became delineated from that. Some would suggest that the gap between them is narrowing again.

This skirts the original question, which is, why must the medium only be games? There is interactive scuptural art which is certainly not called a “game”– immediately to mind springs an exhibit where a robot was sweeping a floor. When people approached it, it would sweep more feverishly. By the end of the night (accidentally, I might add), it had managed to etch a design in the buffed concrete underneath it. That’s not the point, though; while the generative art it created is interesting, the point was the interactive structural piece. Why does all computer software need to be a “game,” then? That robot wasn’t a game. Whether the creation of a game is art or not is meaningless — the question is, why must we call any attempt at art within the medium a “game”?

Beyond that, should “video games” remain in the arena of gaming, or should there be attempts to move beyond entertainment to a more artistic realm? As you say, most art is not “fun” in the same sense of the rest of its medium. I have fun reading a good entertaining story, but when I read Joyce or Faulkner it’s not “fun.” It’s satisfying, it’s engaging, it’s fulfilling, it’s mind-broadening, but not fun.

I think that, as a medium, there’s absolutely no reason that it shouldn’t be explored in pursuit of experiences other than fun. I can’t justify that; it’s an opinion. I don’t think humanity would be where it is now had film or literature simply stayed in the realm of fun, though.

But how else can people be motivated to engage in something so interactive? How else can their interest be gained, especially in terms of a medium so deeply embedded in our minds as a game? The video game is so closely tied to the engine of industry, and so young, that I don’t foresee it breaking away from being fun – usually mindless, shallow fun – for profit. Of course, film and books and music are massively profit-based as well. There exists still a strong current of “art” film and “literature,” at least, which is driven by artistic needs and desires rather than entertainment = money.

There exists a similar current within gamemaking. It’s a lot smaller, and much more stunted, but in time, it will be a force, given the current trajectory.

I really don’t foresee the imminent success of a game that isn’t “fun” to play, but on the other hand we are seeing some now – the one where you play a grandmother walking through a cemetery, and all you do is walk and wait to potentially die, for example. Probably not “successful” but it has been published and received news stories from various major websites.

Exactly. It moves away from gameness, but is still called a game. Wherefore?

mad again:

Games of poker, chess, football, war, the heart…. with money, pride, life or love on the line, all games contain anticipation, drama, conflict, hope, tragedy, catharsis. There’s always a context, a history; there are colorful characters, their developments and revelations. To win or lose is simple and pure; but it provides a reason, and a meaning to everything that surrounds it.
Games aren’t supposed to be fun because they are fun, but because that’s what can sell to people who just want to have… fun! Trying to distance oneself from games not because of what they are but how they’re sold is kind of meh…
..‘Game’ is the perfect word though. My argument is that the only reason it seems like an improper term is because the markets, media and even academia, have co-opted the term to suite their needs. To rebel against the word ‘game’ because of how they use it, is to implicitly buy into their worldview.

The question isn’t, though, what defines a game: the question is, why must “game” define so much? It’s as much a misnomer as when someone calls commissioned urban aerosol art (yeah, I just called it that) “graffiti.” It misses the point. Furthermore, I’m not sure the word game is being misused. Sure, there are dozens of entries in the dictionary for “game,” but to me, it means something that’s meant to challenge in a way that can be defeated. Art can’t be defeated; it does challenge, but that’s a different definition of the word “challenge.” You can interpret a piece of art; you cannot master a piece of art, though. I want this medium to have the opportunity to be interpreted without being mastered.

Ben Abraham writes:

I think that “video game” (or videogame if, like me, you prefer) comes close to describing what they’re usually “put on”, since they’re usually on some sort of video screen.
I also think that the conventions around memory say that something is stored “in memory” rather than on memory derails your argument a bit.
What’s wrong with ‘Computer Games’? That *is* what they are played/put on, after all – some kind of computer. In fact, ‘computer games’ used to be my defacto term for video games before I picked up that convention.

Whether it’s in or on, memory is the place it is put to be worked on, distributed, and consumed. But, the point is twofold– not only is “video” outdated, but “games” is as well, in my opinion.

And, finally, Tellurian writes:

There’s the constantly ongoing bitchfight between consoleros and PCgamers wether you’re talking computer- OR videogames, since one term supposedly doesn’t fit the other’s contents.
Going in the “Movie” direction, the term “Interactive” could be coined there, since that IS the common element of these.
“Yesterday I watched a movie and played some online interactives.”
Yeah still sounds a bit like a 70s sci-fi version of today.

Interactives is indeed another possibility. Originally I was going to try to work with that term. But, at some point, I decided that I couldn’t derive a punchy, one-syllable name from it. Certainly nothing that could invade the public arena like “games” already has. As far as computer vs. video goes– do people actually argue about this? I call it whichever comes to my mind first, generally.

The point is, basically, that I have a problem with calling the entire form “games” when the medium has potential to be more than games. Calling it games means that people are not only less likely to make non-”games” due to the name, but people are also less likely to accept those non-”games” for not being fun, even if they have something else to offer.

I had a conversation with Matthew Gallant recently about the term “video games” and how it’s useless and paints the entire medium into a corner. I mean, clearly the video part needs to go. There are entirely auditory games. I heard about an XNA one recently where you have to sue your speakers to evade a monster of some sort. He brought up “interactive art” or “interactive entertainment” but who’d say something like that? I think at a certain point we decided that, since it’s software, and it’s art, why not software art?

The thing about software art is that it works insofar that you might refer to filmmaking as “the cinematic art.” Or, you know, when you’re in school and you have to study “language arts.” That’s not what we need, though. We need a good, solid noun.

So, I decided to do a little research: where did other media get their everyday names from?

BOOK: From Old English bōc { Proto-Germanic *boks, probably related to *bōk- (“beech”) (perhaps originally used to make writing-tablets). Cognate with Dutch boek, German Buch, Swedish bok. Compare beech. — Wiktionary

Right, so the book is probably named after that which they were originally put on. That makes sense, right?

MUSIC: Now, hold up a minute. Music isn’t the product that you have. You have singles, or albums, or MP3s or whatever, right? Let’s look at album, here. From Latin album (“blank white writing tablet”) { albus (“white”). That’s Wiktionary again. So, it seems like the musical album was informed by the more traditional book-like album, which is a word for what it’s on. Again. I am seeing a trend here.

FILM: A film is on film. I never call it a movie anyway. It sounds like a kid’s word. Besides, film supports my argument.

Books, albums, and film are references to what they’re on. What’s a “videogame” or “video game” or “piece of interactive entertainment/art” or “software art” on? Well, probably a number of things, potentially. A punchcard. A USB key. A GD-ROM. A hard drive. A website.

Thing is, it’s always on memory.

So what if we called them “mems?” It’s short, catchy, doesn’t pigeonhole itself by explaining only one facet of itself, and refers to the one thing it needs to exist: the memory upon which it is imprinted.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think this is going to happen. I just needed to put a cease fire on the war going on between my blog and the massive writer’s block in my head. I banged this out in… well, by the time I finish this paragraph, 20 minutes. I needed to make sure my blog still works. Or I can still press buttons on a keyboard. Or something.

So, yeah. MEMS. It’s the new slang. Someone tell Michael Abbott, Ian Bogost, N’Gai Croal, and Geoff Keighley to start saying it– they’ve got the blog, academic, enthusiast media and mainstream media pretty much locked down. Those four are like the Voltron of changing our lexicon. I implore you, gents: MEMS.

It could’ve used a few more QA runs. Its physics are dodgy. I assume you know a thing or two about Breakout clones, if you’re reading this; if not, try this for about 30 seconds and i’m sure you’ll know what I mean. You get a paddle, and a ball, and a bunch of bricks that the ball breaks, and you have to break them all. It’s Pong Vs. A Wall. It’s ubiquitous.

There are good Breakout clones out there, to be sure: the DS title “Nervous Brickdown” played around with the formula a lot, to pretty good results. Arkanoid is an arcade classic. I’ve not played Arkanoid for the DS, let alone with the custom paddle controller, but I bet it’s fantastic. Brickbreaker on the Blackberry is mediocre when compared to the vast multitude of clones out there. Its entire existence is designed to waste a bit of time here and there and make you consider buying more games on your phone.

And yet, I play it — hardcore.

I can think of few other games with a more broken physics set. Balls will bounce at weird angles and go through walls and the paddle will completely miss balls it shouldn’t miss at times. The controls aren’t exactly good, either: the trackball on a Blackberry Pearl isn’t exactly the most high-quality device (more on that later). Maybe, though, it’s that it’s on my phone, and I don’t look like a total dork staring at it on the metro, but I end up playing it a lot. Far more than my DS, anyway. I have a couple other games for my Pearl, though. A friend of mine worked for a place where he could get me a few for free, but nothing touches Brickbreaker as far as play goes. It’s so lightweight that it boots immediately and requires virtually no battery, and you can pause it at any time.

What I love about Brickbreaker is… I can’t believe I’m saying this… the depth. I am absolutely convinced that a lot of the depth is accidental (to be fair, I am convinced a vast majority of quality in games is accidental, over the history of video games), but it’s there nonetheless. The powerups are as bland as cornmeal, but open the game to interesting permutations. Multi makes many balls, but they shoot in four upward directions from the main ball the second you get it. This means waiting a split second might mean the difference between uselessness and quick finishing. Gun allows you to blow up any brick in one shot, even the “unbreakable ones.” This means you can break some levels by popping holes into boxes with only one rather inaccessible hole in them. One powerup flips your controls, offering no bonus other than the usual 50 points coming with a powerup– making it poison to a new player, and free points to a veteran.

The longer you play, the faster the ball moves until you lose a life. If you aren’t directing every shot with precision (as much as the nonsensical physics will afford, at least), the puzzle starts dropping towards you, applying even more pressure. There are levels I am convinced are unbeatable if you let it drop all of the way, so it often makes sense to drop a life that these points like some sort of ablative armor. Throw a steak to the hungry wolves outside to spare your life-meat.

Once you beat the 34th level, you loop back to the first stage. It took me months to realize this, because some of the levels leading up are so brutally difficult to the learning player. Once you loop back to 1, though, you think “boy, I can just play infinitely!” However, the puzzles start dropping from shot ONE in this playthrough.

My high score when I started writing this was 28000 points. Since, it became 32780. I made it to level 31 of the second playthough. Sadly, I’ll probably never beat this score, because Pearl’s trackball has a pretty poor lifetime. Mine sticks intermittently, now, and I lose dozens of lives because it decides to crap out mid-move.

I, and many others, hate the state of review scores. 1UP was probably the best because it was completely arbitrary and subjective, and it wore that on its sleeve. They write their gut reactions, which I really appreciate. It’s not about graphics and sound and gameplay as completely stupid separate categories coming into a terribly useless aggregate. Many other sites and publications have taken this sort of review to heart, but I still think there’s something to the idea of breaking down the score and building your ultimate reaction from the sum of its parts.

To do this, I’ve invented a crackpot four-point review rubric. I can’t say I thought about it that much; actually, while on the brink of sleep it came to mind and I texted the idea to my friend Angus and promptly fell asleep. And forgot about it. I may have already been unconscious. Hey, don’t let that discount the idea though: at least one person thinks the lucid space between regular consciousness and batshit insanity is where the best ideas come from. I just use sleep because LSD is kinda illegal. I’ve given these four categories adorable disorder-based names that poke fun at things gamers are accused of having. Feel free to change them to less potentially offensive names if you’re interested.

THE SYSTEM

ADD x/5

The ADD measure is indicative of how immediately engaging the game is at all (or at least many) times. There are a lot of games I can think of that I simply didn’t like as much as others due to this. A great example would be Fable II; there were far too many times where I found myself bored just because it would take so long for something interesting to happen. What counts as interesting can vary, as can what takes too long; getting from point a to point b might take twice as long in one game, but if the journey is intriguing enough, it doesn’t matter. Now, don’t get me wrong: a game can definitely have parts that are tedious and still get a five. The question is, how often is the tedium broken up? How much of the game’s time does it dominate? Is the tedium rewarding? When it comes to Fable II, the answers to these questions were simply unsatisfactory.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I’ll use a game like N+ to illustrate my point. You go into your Xbox 360′s Game Library. You select N+. Once the game goes through its two (very quick, as these things go) company logo interstitials. A bad-ass BZHOOOOO sound happens and the menu drops in. You pick the menu, you pick a level, and you’re in the middle of the action. It takes less time to get into the action than it takes most disc titles to spin up. The difficulty ranges from enjoyably casual-yet-challenging to downright diabolical, but it stays fun as hell.

OCD x/5

If you are poring over GameFAQs looking for more information you already have the ability to beat, you’re probably playing a game with a 5/5 OCD score. This is a meter of a game’s technical immersion. Droves of games come to mind as high scorers: Street Fighter II and III, Super Mario Kart games, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tetris, earlier Armored Core games… I could go on. The ability to get lost in the intricacies of a game’s play and the urge to do so mean an easy high score, but it doesn’t need to be complex– sometimes it just simply has to be incredibly satisfying. There are certainly amazing games out there that wouldn’t score well in this respect; for example, while playing Ico, I found it technically somewhat tedious and unfulfilling but I continued because I liked everything else so much. But, as such, I could hardly call it a “perfect” game, and it’d be punished in this category.

Escapism x/5

If OCD relays the game’s technical immersion, escapism relays its emotional immersion. How much are you affected by the story, the characters, the world? If it’s something you want to get lost in, and every time you play you forget about your bills and your shitty job and you just want to marry the main squeeze and you wonder what happens in the world once the game ends, it’s a high scorer. Final Fantasy Tactics somehow achieved this. For me, Vice City did not achieve this at all; once I was done playing it, I didn’t think about it again– let alone feel any urge to visit it again. If it made you cry, it’s probably a 5/5. If you tried to skip as many cutscenes as were possible, it was probably closer to a one. There’s not much more to say about this.

Histrionics x/5

This is almost certainly the most controversial of the four categories, but I’ll try to justify it.  Basically, this is a marker of how relevant the game is or should be. Many games will get 5/5 before I even play them: Grand Theft Auto 4 and Braid would start with a minimum of five in this category simply because they’re something anyone who talks about games needs to play. They could have both been humongous pieces of garbage (which, thankfully, they weren’t), but they deserve to be played and talked about due to that hype. However, this is also a category where games that deserve that kind of conversation are highly rated; the “overlooked” gems like Team Ico’s releases that innovate and create fantastic new worlds are pretty important in their own way. Games that are far from perfect but invent a new mechanic that future games will exploit to become amazing are also high scorers in this category. I’m looking at you, Assassin’s Creed.

Some people would argue that a game’s hype should have no bearing on its score (and I don’t mean to sound like I care about material things, LIKE MY SOCIAL STATSSSSS), but here are three reasons I believe this is a valid category:

1. It means that you can easily justify not attaching it to the other categories, and get a more pure review score.
2. It’s honest. I mean, if GTA4 has an all-time Metacritic rating of 98, how can you say that it doesn’t factor into the score already? It’s not like it’s the best game of the decade like that MC rating would imply.
3. If you disagree with the hype, you can easily change this score in your head to something else and get what you consider a more “realistic” review score.

—

Each is marked on a scale of one to five. One is deplorable, three is honorable, and five is spectacular. The final percentile score is (a-1) * 6.25+ (b-1) * 6.25+ (c-1) * 6.25 + (d-1) * 6.25. Or, more simply, each score adds either 0%, 6.25%, 12.50%, 18.75% or 25% to the final score. The worst score is 0%, the best is 100%, and the exact middle is 50%. However, I would very occasionally consider giving a game a rating higher than 5/5 in a category; if it sets an utterly mind-blowing new standard in any of these departments (at least, for me), I’d give it a six. I would’ve given Football Manager 2008 an OCD 6/5, for example, because it dominated my life for months last year with its intricacies. I’d also give World of Warcraft a 6/5 in histrionics or escapism, because it was such an utterly new experience for me: for a year, I had dozens of best friends all over the US and Canada. Needless to say, a 6/5 would be incredibly rare. Like, possibly less-than-once-a-year rare.

However, on top of all of this, I’d still give a game an entirely separate score: it’s a three-point scale. One is “don’t bother,” two is “play it if you have the time and the money to do so and nothing better is available,” and three is “make this a priority.” A scale like that is just as important, if you ask me. Even if Ico scored low in one category and not perfect in others, it’s still a solid 3 in this entirely other system. You just need to give it a spin.

Anyway, that’s the system. I’m toying with the idea of using this rubric for all future reviews of games I write. What do you think?

Microtravel, in essence, is taking some time to see a part of the area you live in as if you were an explorer. By ignoring the little part of your brain that tries to pull you down the streets you normally walk to get home, you can make yourself enter some pretty weird areas and see great things. Taking it a step further, it’s often a lot of fun to take your main arterial public transit route (be it subway, tram, or bus) to an entirely irrelevant stop off at which you’ve never gotten and start walking. While it’s not always interesting or englightening, you’ll often find inspiring little crannies in the sides of walls. Cameras are recommended, though I tend not to bring one (my distaste for taking my own photos is another topic entirely).

What’s weird is how few people I’ve spoken to have ever even considered this, given the games that we play (you knew I’d work it in at some point, didn’t you?). Even the most open-world games give us only a city, or maybe its outlying areas, or maybe even a couple of other cities (I’m thinking of San Andreas at the moment as the largest one that comes to mind). However, these games encourage you to work in and explore what amounts to a relatively small amount of space (small is relative to, say, everything between Montreal and Mumbai, for example). There are always rewards for finding little places in the environment, too; perhaps there’s an agility orb in this previously unexplored cove, or a radioactive pigeon to shoot.

For many, the reward only comes from finding those scattered prizes (and the corresponding achievements/trophies that they lead to). But, for others, including myself, the reward isn’t the prize; it’s the exploring itself. I jsut don’t get why this itch doesn’t extend to the real world for many: if you don’t need to find an easter egg to enjoy it, why not do it where your field of vision is 360º and there’s no polygon count? Maybe Ottawa and Montreal are okay places to do this because you can be pretty confident that you’re not going to get shot, which isn’t necessarily true of every city in the world, but I’ve found this a pretty rewarding activity.

I’m not saying you should break into sewers like in that previously mentioned urban exploration wiki entry. In fact, the wohle UE thing strieks me as pretty needlessly “extreme.” But, there’s nothing wrong with taking a day to explore a neighborhood you haven’t checked out due to its lack of buzzworthy restaurants or its distance from your comfort area. In fact, it’s Brilliam-recommended!

It’s been a while, I know. Just letting you know I’m alive and that, while I haven’t had anything particularly good to say since December, I’m still around. Here’s some of the stuff that’s been keeping me busy:

1. Every Game Ever

I have restarted the Every Game Ever blog with multiple writers. Now, instead of just me writing about seven SNES games a week (exhausting), I write about one a week and four others do the same. Oh, and I edit their work, too (also exhausting). For those unaware, it’s an exhaustive (ha) blog attempting to “review” (to comic effect) every SNES game ever.

2. My Sucky Job

My job has been in crisis mode for the past while, and they recently turned it up to 11 with a “we’re probably going to lay you off unless the impossible happens” demand. I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about employment insurance, and budgeting whether or not I’ll be able to subsist on what amounts to very little money per month. I think I can do it, which is a relief, but now it looks like they might not even layme off, which is confusing. They still haven’t given me written two weeks’, so that’s… I can’t decide if it’s good or bad. I’d love an excuse to not work here anymore…

3. “A Fistful Of Tokens” Podcast

I’ve also been editting the first episode of a podcast that was worked on by myself, Scott, Angus, and Travis (who has no web presence… in 2009. And he’s an English Master’s graduate. Someone please tell him the face of writing today so he can catch up with the world). It exists now in its editted form. All I need to do is sort out the hosting and the RSS and all of the stuff I can’t be bothered to sort out. The show exists as a sort of videogame-related version of the BBC5 panel show Fighting Talk, where questions of the industry are asked and the pundits get points for witty, insightful or downright hilarious responses. There’s also a lot of noise in the recording, particularly on my end, so I’m going to try to find a solution to that too.

4. Books!

I’ve also got an unread book pile that is menacing over me from my shelf. I am convinced that, despite my attempts to tame it of late, it will consume me. I’m curently reading Lawrence Lessig‘s Remix, which is a thoughtful look into the success of “hybrid economies” on the Internet (which, boiled down to the barest terms, is a commercial site that fosters a sharing community among its members, like craigslist) as well as the music/film/television/etc industry’s backwards-facing stance on copyright (for a hilarious dose of irony, check out Lessig’s blog right now: he has a CC license on a segment he shot with Stephen Colbert, and asked his readers to “remix” the segment: the segment was taken down due to a “copyright violation,” claimed by Viacom. THAT is too funny). I’m also reading Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid On Earth which is a fantastic book. A fantastic book with pictures. I don’t want to call it a graphic novel because I think the author himself, Chris Ware, recoils from the term (or so the little cartoon on the back of the book would imply), and rightly so; I’ve never seen a graphic novel deliver this level of richness of character, bleakness of setting, or realness of conversational flow. I’ve also got about six books on my “borrowed books that I feel guilty about not having read yet” pile, and another six on my “books I bought but haven’t read because there are still books in the other pile” pile.

5. Procrastinating on playing games to play… other games!

Gamewise, my attempts to sit down with Far Cry 2 and Dead Space and Fallout 3 (all of which I intend to actually let soak in at some point; they’re still borign to me, but I’ve barely otuched them. I need to immerse) have been stymied by the release of Crayon Physics Deluxe (post upcoming, surely), Steam’s $4.99 sale of the entire X-Com catalogue (now, sadly, back to $14.99 but still a great deal — post ALSO upcoming, surely), and the release of the 9.2.0 patch of Football Manager 2009 which actually makes the game playable (if you’re going to flame me on playing an excel-sheet-game, stay tuned because SURPRISE! POST INCOMING!).

6. Making a game!

Cikro is also “hard at work” (that term is subjective, right?) on its first videogame. The tentative title is Malmö. Brush up on your Swedish, because due to a coworker of mine who speaks the language, parts of the game will be presented in the tongue of ABBA and Mats Sundin.

7. Secret blog!

There’s also another somewhat comedic blog that I’ve started and will be contributing to in the near future but I’m keeping that one under my hat. The only hint I’ll give is that it’s related to both breasts and eggs. But not chickens. Well, not really.

8. Cover band?

I’m signed up to be the lead singer in a cover band next month. I don’t know if that’s happening, but if it is, I don’t ANY of the songs I’m supposed to cover. Hmm.

9. The Wire & True Blood

I’m also staring at The Wire (the TV series), trying to will myself to watch it. I’m on season 2, and it’s VERRRRY difficult, but I can’t watch the (apparently amazing) seasons 3-5 without enduring 2. I watched True Blood, though, which was schlocky (not s1ocki, unfortunately) and fun enough.

10. P&P RPGs

Been playing D&D at my buddy Angus’s (different Angus than above — yes, I know and hang out with TWO Anguses). He might run Vampire The Masquerade. I am conflicted because I think vampires are dumb, but I think acting like an ass with your friends is the best thing ever.

11. Catching up on blogs superior to my own

I’m trying to catch up on the past year of all of the blogs listed here. This might take a while.

I didn’t intend for this to be such a long piece; really, I just wanted to round up everything I’m doing at the moment. Apparently I’m doing A LOT.

I’ve been laid off before. It sucks. In fact, I wasn’t even laid off: I had my “contract terminated” along with 90% of my peers, which is like getting laid off but without severance, employment insurance, or two weeks notice. Games testing is a bitch, right?

But this isn’t about me, this is about you.

Don’t think about this as a disaster, but think of it as a way to do what you want to do, your way, without the bumbling useless fools at Ziff Davis breathing down your neck. CGW was one of the best publications around, and somehow they couldn’t keep it together. Then they file for Chapter 11. Then they fail to hang onto Jeff Green and Shawn Elliott. Then, finally, they sell the whole kit and caboodle to… Hearst? Seriously? Could they really not make it worth it to keep 1UP? Were they really not bringing in enough dough?

I call zombie bullshit.

It’s ridiculous that those podcasts, probably some of the most listened to within the gamer community (who, shockingly, have money, as evidenced by the fact that they buy VIDEO GAMES ALL THE TIME), couldn’t monetize. It’s ridiculous that an online zine that blazed trails for reviews, previews, interviews, and all sorts of other -views couldn’t capitalize on what was very likely a large readership.

I mean, the print thing makes sense, sort of. I don’t know the numbers, but it makes sense that print is dying. I still buy magazines, but only ones that double as artifacts; ones whose content is worth owning, like an item. I had a subscription to Wallpaper* (the asterisk is in the title, don’t look for a footnote) for a year, and still enjoy picking up newsstand copies of the British music mag Wire, because each is a bible unto itself (the former for design and fashion architecture, the latter for, well, music). And, unlike a bible, they’re timely. But, also, they’re timeless. EGM, while a great mag, didn’t have the same sense of tangible wealth, and, as such, was doomed as information got more free.

So let’s look at these online things again: the written stuff, and the podcasts, and the 1UP Show.

The 1UP Show is was, in my opinion, the best informational videogame video serial available. Better than anything on networks or cable or anything. Period. It was also probably peanuts to produce, comparatively; did an episode of t1S cost even a third as much to produce as Attack of the Show, or X-Play? I highly doubt it. Two guys work full-time hours, and a few talking heads, and maybe a person or two locking down interviews and video of games could probably cost you under five figures a week. Let’s make up an arbitrary number and put it at $8,000 an episode. Stop me if I’m crazy, but that seems reasonable.

Given the show’s pedigree, and number of viewers, and potential for growth, it’s not unreasonable to think that you could’ve made it premium on iTunes and charged $0.99 an episode. Despite the insane number of complaints from freeloading whiners, you could’ve easily managed to sell this product to 8081 people a month by simply riding on word of mouth alone. No marketing, nothing; an assistant PR rep fresh out of school with a GAF account and half a brain could’ve gotten this to the right people. Now, I also don’t know how much money Apple keeps from these sales, but even if it were half, or three quarters, surely you’d be able to sell to thirty thousand people a month. Offset it with ads, if you must; the 1UP Show had virtually no ads in it, despite being a PERFECT place to sell such space; there’s no limit on how long the file can be, and there’s no law saying that you must have a maximum of 8 minutes of ads per episode. The highest bidder would surely pay you a couple hundred bucks here or there for thirty seconds to hock their free-to-play MMO bullshit.

The podcasts, as well, couldn’t cost much to put together. Aside from the space in which to record, and the equipment with which to do so, I’m sure these costs might be covered by a monthly $1.99 subscription to all ‘casts. I mean, really; how many hours a week would you have to pay the hosts? Eight hours per person per week?

Hell, while we’re at it, go two-tier on the website. 1UP with 1UP Premium, for $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year. The basic site has all of your favourite writers and your reviews and your previews, while your longform editorials and breaking news and podcasts are on the higher, paid echelon. If you can’t move TWO DOLLAR subscriptions, you need to get a PR/marketing guy who likes his job. That’s all there is to it.

But, hell, hope’s not lost! You’ve lost the 1UP name. But, you haven’t lost your own names. You’re in San Francisco, right? The geek’s American Dream. The Land of Opportunity. Surely, if you guys make some noise, you’ll find an investor. Steal the audio equipment from Ziff Davis; they don’t need it anymore. Use one of your own cameras. Get this stuff going, already. Use that severance pay and work overtime, on your own time, to turn pink-slip lemons into green-paper lemonade. Do what Ziff Davis couldn’t: make something great, that people will pay for, and keep doing what you are doing without the fear of the man selling you to the father of a Stockholm Syndrome casualty.

10. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2)

I haven’t played very far into it so far, but everything I’ve seen, I’ve loved. It’s not the pacing, because it’s slow; it’s not the combat, because it’s pretty basic so far; it’s not the voice acting, because it’s deplorable. Honestly, I think the reason I love this game (and, incidentally, 3) is the graphic design and the ease of use. I think one of the greatest secrets of a good RPG is a menu system that continues to be a joy to use, and P4 nailed it. Furthermore, the high school sim is intriguing, the whodunit is intriguing, and the art is stunning. Now, can this be the last great PS2 game, so I can stop having to plug it back in every few months for the next unbelievably good release?

9. Burnout Paradise (360)

I don’t really buy car games. Unless you count GTA IV, this is the only car game I’ve bought this generation (I got Forza with my 360, so that doesn’t count). In fact, it took me a really, really long time to pick it up; it wasn’t until I went into a Future Shop and saw it for $20 or $30 (I bought it at the same time that I bought the hilariously excellent Earth Defense Force 2017). What I didn’t expect was to get one of those games that you can just throw in when you just want to mess around. It’s like the Skate of cars. I don’t care about the driving around to start missions, despite the fact that it’s just the kind of thing I usually hate, because driving feels good in this game. More games need to steal this idea: make an engine that is SO GOOD, that nothing can feel like a chore. Go figure, right? Add to that the most progressive, laudable DLC releases in the history of DLC (free stuff, so you don’t resell your copy) and you’ve got a game that nobody should be without.

8. Braid (XBLA)

In spite of there being a lot about this game I didn’t like, I still loved a lot about it. I hate laundry-listing games, but the mechanics and the pacing and the art are all utterly top-notch. I LOVE Hellman’s art style. What I didn’t like was everything else about the presentation; the story, the text dumps, and even the setting left me a little flat. Still, no platforming game has been this incredibly well put-together. Blow might be a bit of a dick, but he knows how to think up insane puzzles, and that’s awesome. I hope his next game doesn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth like this one did, because he’s clearly an incredibly talented director.

7. Rez HD (XBLA)

Yeah, it’s a re-release, but two points: firstly, I never got to play the DC/PS2 releases due to scarcity, and secondly, HD is (probably) how the game was meant to be played. Bad demo alert, though, the first level is very simplistic and not so exciting. It’s not until you get into the later levels that you realize how thrilling this game is. By the fifth level, Fear, I am so enrapt that I forget I’m a sack of meat on a chair staring at a glowing picture frame. I forget everything, really. I just listen to some dorky rave song and react to pictures and grin like an idiot. If you doubted this game’s quality, check it out anyway. It costs little and doesn’t take long. But turn the lights off and sit close to the screen. You won’t find better immersion for a while.

6. Audiosurf (PC)

Yep, two music games, and nary a Guitar or Rock in their names. I can’t remember where I read it (apologies if you said it), but someone said of Audiosurf “If you hate this game, you probably don’t like good music.” Pretentious, and probably a bit inaccurate, but there’s a seed of truth there: if you don’t like Audiosurf, you’re playing it wrong. I’ve listened to new records using this, and it makes it even easier for me to absorb them on first listen because I am so intently focussed on little idiosyncrasies. Of course, it doesn’t really work for, like, a Bon Iver record as much as it does a Zazen Boys release, but I digress. This game is simple, but as endlessly playable as your music library. I reckon I’ll be messing around with this title until they make a new one.

5. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS)

This only came out in December (in English), and only in Europe (North America is, inexplicably, still waiting on it) so I was hesitant to include it. But, I wanted to, because it’s great. It is a Fire Emblem game, to be sure, but unlike some of the most recent entries, it’s really thoughtfully laid out and interesting. It forces you to lose a member early, meaning you are less likely to freak out about the inevitable casualties you face. Class changes are more flexible than in previous iterations, meaning that no character is as irreplaceable as before. The battles, while difficult, are not hair-pullingly maddening meat grinders. Each is a well-thought out set piece, unlike the decidedly mediocre Gamecube and (especially) Wii installments. While it might not stand quite up to the GBA games (I haven’t gotten far enough yet to judge) it is a great handheld turn-based strategy. And, since that genre is like catnip to me, I can’t help but adore this game.

4. Left 4 Dead (PC)

As I mentioned before, this game was instrumental to my friends’ ability to keep in touch once everyone moved across this giant, freezing country. Now, I’ll be honest: this is a game best experienced in groups of four or eight. Once you throw strangers into the mix, it’s less fun. But, when you play with a crew that you’ve been gaming with ages, and you know each other’s weird gaming idiosyncracies, and you’re forced to take care of each other while a sadistic AI attempts to bleed you out over the course of a dozen incredibly thoughtful set pieces, you end up realizing how awesome those gaming relationships can really be. My favourite gaming moment of the year was probably when Andy was charging ahead, and Angus was trying to be super-careful and thoughtful, and Travis was accidentally shooting everyone in the back, and I wasn’t paying any attention and a smoker choked me to death. Even though we hadn’t really displayed those tendenceies in this game yet, it was so us. And it was great. Add to that some of the most thoughtful social satire in zombie-related media since Dawn of the Dead (“I miss the Internet,” the how-many-zombies-I-killed pissing contests, Zoey calling zombie bullshit) and you’ve got a game that was really worth the long wait.

3. Space Invaders Extreme (PSP)

Space Invaders Extreme, like Pac-Man Championship Edition last year, took an old game, flipped it on its ass, and made a new, more modern, incredibly exciting game. Aside from speeding the game up and turning it into a veritable laser light show of a game, they do a lot of little nice things that remind you that you’re not playing as game designed to eat your quarters. If you fail a level (there are five, with branching levels of difficulty), you can start it over. If you turn the game off, you can come back to that level later. Or, you can start over from level 1, but it never forces you to– it makes it your own choice. But, the point is, it’s thrilling. It’s nimble and colorful and, while there are only five “bosses” (yes, there are bosses) in the game, each feels like an inventive use of the game’s mechanics. The inclusion of little, commercial-break-sized bits (where it breaks away from the main game and sticks you in a mini-game) gives it a pacing where you never get so used to the speed that it becomes boring. Every time it drops you in, you’re thrilled.

2. The World Ends With You (DS)

This title is, for lack of a better term, transcendental. It transcends its publisher, Square Enix, by existing as a bold counterpoint to their inaccessible, tradition-laden, committee-made lineup of sure-sale RPGs. It transcends any sort of “action” or “RPG” or “action RPG” genre definition by doing both things better than ny of their permutations. It even transcends what could have been a disasterously stupid setting (“extreme”-looking teens trapped in an “extreme” version of a metropolis’s shopping district) by handling it, with as much grace as can be expected from a handheld videogame, maturely. I found myself playing it all of the time, for a while. I was enthralled, in spite of the developer and the setting and the genre and whatever else stood in the way of fun. And, if that’s not proof of something awesome, then I need to take a class on what’s fun because YOU GOT ME.

1. N+ (XBLA)

There’s a lot to be said for a game that just feels right. N+, more than any game I can remember in the recent past, feels right. Its physics are neither floaty, nor overly frictional and oppressive; the game is as airy and precise as a monofilament whip. And, as such, is as difficult to master. There’s also a lot to be said of a game that comes in bite-sized but satisfying chunks; the freedom to play for as much or as little as I want has always been a major sticking point for me (RPGs with “save points” instead of allowing saving anywhere, a prime example of the OPPOSITE effect). Minimalist but clean graphics are, in my opinion, both a lovely use of HD technology and a striking contrast to it. I can’t think of a single thing this game does wrong, with the possible exception of too few leaderboards. I’d love to see the current “score” leaderboards complemented by pure time-trial leaderboards, but that’s a nitpicky detail for a game that feels so right.

Well, that was exhausting. I better take a little break, since I’ve only got a year left to make my 00′s best-of lists! Start early, Internet!

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift would have been among my dishonorable mentions had I not ended up playing it so much. I wrote a piece about how I felt about it on my Destructoid community blog before I had this space. Basically, my feeling on this game can be summed up as such: it’s slower than should be legal. It’s the weakest attempt at a plot in a Strategy RPG I’ve seen in ages. It’s, at best, a monkey on my back. However, it’s also a game that came at the right time: just as I was getting completely sick of spending three hours a day in transit a day (my job’s location sucks), this game appeared in front of me, and I gave it my time.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 is a brilliant followup to what might be one of the best games of this generation. I’m not sure I appreciate all of its tweaks to the system, but the Pacifism mode (and, by extension, the Wax On/Wax Off achievements) really put it over the top. I’ve never had so much fun chasing two simple achievements before, and GWRE2 gave me faith in the entire concept.

Ikaruga is a further testament to the depth of this year’s release list. A game I played a fair bit on my friend’s Dreamcast ages ago, getting to revisit this old gem was a total treat. This was further enhanced by my purchase of a TATE-friendly LCD monitor; indeed, Ikaruga was the first vertical shmup I played on my vertically-tilted screen. While this game was a joy, it couldn’t make my top ten, simply because I had experienced the breadth of what it had to offer me in years gone by.

Lost Odyssey is another unfortunate casualty of my incredibly elite top-ten list, as it was probably the most fun I’ve had with an old-fashioned JRPG since… well, if you don’t count FFXII and Suikoden V as “old-fashioned,” then FFX. Despite its shoddy case (four DVDs on a tiny spindle? Really? Couldn’t you guys shell for something a BIT more secure?), the thirty gigs of game within contained some of the most challenging character studies found in a game like this that I’ve ever seen. Seth, who starts a typical, quick, independent pirate-woman undergoes a series of trials that prove she is anything BUT typical. I won’t be surprised if this is the best classically-styled JRPG of the entire console generation.

NHL 09, simply put, is enough to instill complete faith in EA’s iterative sports game model. More than a mere roster update, EA has decided that the only way to make users want a new game is to add so much to the game that the previous one feels like a useless coaster. Indeed, the Be A Pro mode changes the way to think about the game; its use of gently-guiding arrows ensures that you learn positional play, and its awareness of the importance of statistics other than goals (like, for example, +/-).

Professor Layton & The Curious Village combines two of my favourite things: those dorky brain-puzzles that used to come in books that offered “Over 300!” of them, and awesome professor-detectives in top hats with plucky, curious young sidekicks. Indeed, this game captured my brainmeats as well has my heartflesh. And, despite my fears, it even managed to offer me some new puzzles that I hadn’t conquered long ago during my socially awkward library-habitating days.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is the shooter I wanted when I bought Call of Duty 4: a realistic, modern-day FPS with a real sense of self-preservation. Ever since the halcyon days of the Half-Life mod Hostile Intent, I’ve yearned for more shooters that make you as scared of the guns that you’re carrying as you are deadly with them. Vegas 2 delivered this in spades, with a pretty fun “terrorist hunt” mode for co-op multiplayer fun.

World of Goo is a game that I’ve yet to give more time to, and perhaps I’ll regret not putting it among my top ten once I get further, but from what I’ve seen, what a fun game. I haven’t enjoyed a wobbly, physicksy, experimenty game like this since I first played Armadillo Run a couple of years ago. I’m always glad to see games that feel like high school science projects, especially when they’re coupled with such above-the-cut presentation. While I’m not usually one for blobs with eyeballs, the game gets massive points for its love-filled messages from its mysterious sign-painter.

Now that you know my list of disappointments, and the list of games I didn’t play, you can try guessing what my fave games are! Whee!

Fable II
This is the last 360 game I bought, about two months ago. The main quest is a lot of fun, admittedly. But all of the stuff that Molyneux was pimping really hard, like the social functions and the dog, left me completely cold. I mean, really? A dog whose sole purpose is to look cute and pop “TREASURE” up over his head when the game decides you’re worthy enough to receive some stuff in a hole? A digging animation from 1999? A menu system that takes ~45s just to eat an apple? The ability to fart on command in front of your wife over and over until she decides NOT to divorce you on grounds of being gone for a week (but doesn’t care when you’re gone for ten years)? Argh.

Fallout 3
I’ve played for about 5 or 10 hours on the PC, and the game has crashed about ten times. I never save, so this REALLY sucks. Plus, the last time I played, I got stuck in a hole that I could not walk or jump out of. And it’s not like this hole was intended to capture me; it’s in some dumb random place. I haven’t booted the game up since then. Furthermore, while I never intended to hold it against its predecessors, it does so itself by giving you so much of the SAME as those games, but without even a modicum of charm or heart or soul or whatever you call that spark that makes a great game amazing. Fallout 3 is sexy, but offers the user NOTHING worth remembering in ten years. I felt the same about Oblivion, as well. It’s soulless.

Football Manager 2009
I love FM08. I also loved FM07. I liked FM06, and that’s when I started playing the series. However, this one just isn’t doing it for me. I’m still playing my 08 games. I’m open to the idea of a 3D match engine, but it doesn’t feel right. It just feels off. Ad to that that everything feels really… I don’t know, imprecise, and that the injury engine, as cozen put it, “[built like] Passchendaele 1916.” I just can’t get into it this year. I’ve heard that a patch was released in the past few days, which might be enough to get me back on the wagon… but that, mixed with the fact that my dumpy work laptop can’t run the new game, is really putting me off playing.

Grand Theft Auto IV
Maybe this should be in my top games. I did beat it, after all, and that takes a lot of time. There is a lot about it that I do like — it LOOKS stunning. On another level, really. Driving under trains in fake-Brooklyn, staring at billboards in fake-Times Square, getting shot in fake-Bronx (ha)… it’s absolutely worth playing just to look at. But, I have the same problem with it that I had with other GTA games (excluding San Andreas, the only one I really loved): it’s junk food. Once I have played through a GTA game, I don’t retain anything; there’s nothing about them that I think about and want to write about. They’re just incredibly well-made junk. By the end, I didn’t even want to turn the game on. It had become a chore. San Andreas gave me characters I cared about, at least; while Niko Bellic had potential, he completely lost it at some point when he was the exact same sociopath from III and Vice City.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots
I forgot to originally add this, but I’m going back just to do it now. This is the only PS3 game I’ve played much of, and I beat it. I loved MGS, MGS2, and MGS3, in that order. What made thme great was that they pushed the definition of player and console and game to the absolute limit. Not only does MGS4 fail to do this in the same way, it’s also got one of the most irritatingly preposterous scripts in the history of script. And not in a way that’s amusing, like MGS1 and 2. Definitely one of the most interesting games I played this year, but hardly one of the top 20.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
I didn’t play it much, to be honest. The Smash Bros games just don’t do it for me. Maybe the fact that I never had an N64 or a Gamecube or a Wii means that I don’t “get” it, but it feels floaty and imprecise and random and unbalanced. It’s fun enough with a bunch of plebes who can’t play the game for a drunken night of hitting each other with fans, but I just can’t get behind it as a “good game.”

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix
Chalk this one up to the Xbox 360 controller. I can’t buy an arcade stick, because I’m waiting for those new ones to come out with SFIV. This means, sadly, that I can’t play this game effectively AT ALL (unless someone miraculously releases a 360 controller that ships with a SNES or PS2 D-pad.

Prince of Persia
I got about a half-hour of this game at my friend Matt’s house while in Ottawa, and it just didn’t grab me. I don’t see what everyone likes about it; I’ll be the first to say I want something more Assassin’s Creed, where there are many ways to handle the tasks in front of you, instead of precise button combinations at precise times. But, I didn’t spend enough time with it.

FIFA Soccer 09
I love soccer, and I really wish I had picked this up considering all of the love for it on I Love Games. I may still do so, but I don’t know. I probably will waste many hours with it if I do.

Time Hollow
One of the several DS games I’ve heard are unmissable, I just haven’t had the energy to pick it up and try it out.

Lock’s Quest
Even more than Time Hollow, I really want to see this game. I’m not a big tower defense fan, but the buzz for this game has been o surprisingly positive that I’ll have to go back and have a look at this at some point.

Star Ocean: First Departure
Considering how much people freaked out for the original, and how favourably the reviews are looking at this one, I’m intrigued and want to spend some time with this. I hope the save functionality is bus-friendly or I’ll ignore it.

Persona 3 FES
I played a fair bit of Persona 3, but I lent my copy of FES to my friend Angus as soon as I got it. He’s yet to get it back to me! It’s okay, though, because I hadn’t even gotten that far in P3.

Zoids Assault, Operation Darkness, Spectral Force 3
I love SRPGs, but these ones got such mixed reviews that I just want the prices to drop! C’mon, Atlus, throw me a bone! UPDATE: Apparently OD and SF3 are $20 on Amazon.ca now. Go figure! ORDER’D!

Wipeout HD
When I saw the trailer for this, and it had Kraftwerk in it, and was pretty, I was sad. I don’t regret getting a 360, but man, I wish I could have some of those PS3 games.

Peggle Nights
I haven’t been arsed to buy this one yet, but if I do, it will keep me up to 4am a few nights, at least.

The Last Guy
People stopped talking about this at some point, but I wanted to hear more! An indie title that uses satellite photos of cities to build levels?! Insanity! Do want!

Soul Bubbles
I blame The Quixotic Engineer for my mad jonesing for this game. He made it look AMAZING.

PixelJunk Eden
I still don’t know what this game is about. All I know is that a lot of people love it and it looks pretty. That’s enough for me.

Mirror’s Edge
One of the games I was most excited about, I instead became apprehensive when I heard about its length (and the recession really started hitting me in the wallet area). I regret not yet getting it, as it looks stunning (I adore the clean, blueprint-like feel) and every criticism about the game sounds pretty irrelevant to me (I don’t care if the shooting sucks, I don’t want to do it).

Valkyria Chonicles
Oh, Valkyria Chronicles. You are the kind of game that might have made me buy a console in the past. Why did it take you so long to come out? Again, I’m happy with my 360… but, seriously, I might have considered the PS3 if I had known a masterful, progressive tactical RPG was on the way that had an alternate-history angle to it.

Mother 3
I need to beat Earthbound first, but I am really just sitting on this. It looks so pretty. Must play.

Boom Blox
I think this is the only Wii game in here… but, boy, does it look awesome. I love Jenga, I love knocking things down, I love physics and explosions and cleverly-used motion control and all that. Can’t someone make a Source Engine remake? Maybe I just need to get ahold of a Wii long enough to rent this game.

LittleBigPlanet
Out of all of the knives in the PS3′s drawer, none cut deeper than LBP. Every part of me wants to play this, right now. I want to make things. I want to dress sackboy up in silly outfits. I want to use calculators made out of virtual gears and wire and bits of old tire. This is one game where I just won’t hear any of the criticism; it looks perfect. Or, at least, perfect for me.

2008 was full of awesome things, videogame-related and non-videogame-related. I’ve attempted to put together five memories of the past year that’ve had some significance for me that fit into the former category, at least, a bit; while not all of these things are strictly related to video games (or, in one case, strictly related to me), I hope they’ll all fit the mold enough.

5. Starting this blog

It took me ages. Since I started writing a Livejournal 7 years ago, I’ve gone through probably a dozen different services, looking for the right one for me. What I realized, at some point, was that I wanted to have a webspace that’s all mine. Finally, when we were founding Cikro, I decided to buy my own domain, and the rest is… err… history? I bought an (admittedly expensive) .am domain, stuck a WordPress on it, and started writing. And a few people even started reading it. Then Gamesetwatch linked me and I got really confused (but flattered) and lots of people I respect started reading and linking and commenting. It’s been awesome so far!

4. Getting a PSP

I borrowed my brother’s PSP for a little while, and it was enough to get me to get one. While it’s not the most impressive console I’ve ever owned, setting it up for homebrew allowed me to start emulating old games. This has been really great, as I don’t think I’ve ever had a competent way to play SNES games portably; this has opened up the possibility for me to play a bunch of classics that I missed the first time around (like Earthbound). Plus, one of my top games of the year is on the PSP, so getting a chance to play that was awesome.

3. GTA IV Midnight Launch

This is the only time I’ve gone to a midnight launch, and it will probably be the last, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. Well, maybe not “fun,” necessarily, but… interesting. It made me realize a lot about gamers that hadn’t really set in yet; gone are the bespectacled geeks of yesteryear, replaced by a new species of weed-smoking, cussing, novelty-shirt-donning jesters. Since I preordered, I got to skip the line, too, which was nice. That’s about it, I suppose.

2. Blipfest and NYC

Only second because the first is so unbeatable, my NYC trip was amazing. My friend Kelvin and I took an epic ten-hour bus down to that stupidly tall metropolis and met up with a bunch of the Destructoid community and saw a bunch of amazing music. I won’t talk too much about it, as I already talked about it at GREAT length, but getting to meet close internet friends like Tiff, Samit, and Zen Albatross, as well as some who I hadn’t had a chance to speak to much online like AnonymousNoob and Cataract, was an unforgettable experience that I’m insanely grateful for. I can’t wait until the next time I get to hang out with all of these kids because even though we were together for a weekend, we felt like old friends.

1. The Ottawa Exodus

This one is a bit roundabout, but hear me out. Two and a half years ago, I moved to Montreal. All of my friends were still in Ottawa. This meant that, while I was still close friends with many of these folks, I was also really isolated. This summer, however, two of my very closest friends also left Ottawa. About five of us always hung out and played games together, and now, I was in Montreal, Angus was in Fredricton, and Andy was in St. Johns, Newfoundland. Despite everyone’s moving away, this brought me closer to my friends, because it meant they could only play games with friends online now. Games like Left 4 Dead allowed me to feel a lot closer to some of my best friends than I had for the two years before.

The Publications

The Round Table: Gender & Games. (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) and the following deluge of further examinations of the subject (too many to list)

While this writing didn’t happen in 2008, I didn’t read it until this year. Furthermore, the dialogue that it spawned bled into the rest of the year and gave everyone a lot to think about. Indeed, there are a few things that any medium needs to achieve before it can claim relevance; one of those things is a feminist voice, and another is a voice that can speak across gender to the human condition. The more we make noise about it on the Internet, the more we might be able to push videogames off the path it’s heading down right now. While I like Jason Statham movies, can you imagine if they were the only option, every time you went to the theatre?

Mitch Krpata’s New Taxonomy of Gamers

The first proper entry for 2008, The Insult Swordfighting series of essays did all but make the terms “hardcore” and “casual” (in reference to gamers) obsolete. Over the course of the eleven-part epic, Mitch introduces some new concepts to the way we think about games. This was important to me in two ways: for one, it gave a vocabulary to issues that I (and apparently others) had with the labelling we give ourselves (I hardly consider myself a casual gamer, but find the term “hardcore” just as ostracizing). While I’m not sure I’m willing to call myself a “tourist” gamer yet, I’m definitely more aware of the inherent flaws in the hard/casual spectrum. But, secondarily, this series of essays opened me up to criticism of other terms used in the industry. I don’t think I would have written (or even thought of) my criticism of the term “retro” if I hadn’t read the NToG, or questioned countless other things that we say (for example, I would have considered the previously mentioned Football Manager a sports title until I realized that it’s really just a turn-based strategy title with a sports gloss).

Actionbutton.net’s Braid Review

Sadly, this review was pulled, and it’s a great shame. It was replaced with the equally brilliant review by Soulja Boy (I’m not being sarcastic or cutting here, I think Soulja Boy might just be the Jonathan Swift of our generation) and I can’t find the original anywhere on the Internet so far. This review really opened my head; Braid was a game that I had many very conflicting feelings about, and this review gave a voice to them. That voice was also petulant, pretentious, contrarian, and base. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever disliked a game (well, partly), AND disliked the ONLY negative review I could find about the game. It also got the ball rolling on a series of discussions I had about the rather misogynist angle the game had. It also made me very jaded with how homogenous opinions seem to get among a lot of tastemakers. It seemed nobody wanted to agree with me, or even discuss with me, that the game isn’t perfect.

My Dtoid Article, Feel The Hatred: Gamers

Don’t get me wrong, that article was kinda shit. I wrote it in a vitriolic rage, and I didn’t edit it, and I was honestly embarrassed that it got put on the front page of Destructoid. But, it made me realize I like the way blogging works. And that I wanted to write in my own space instead of Destructoid’s community blogs. And that people reading stuff I write, even when it sucks, is fun, because then we get to talk about it. There’s not a lot else to say about this other than that I’m sorry that it was so mad. I’m not actually that mad in real life.

Jason Fagone’s Jason Rohrer Feature

Oh man. I love the games that Jason Rohrer makes, but he’s not really the kinda guy who talks about himself outside of the stuff he releases. This is the feature that I’ve always wanted to see, ever since I played Passage; I want to know what makes this guy so great. The answer: EVERYTHING. I love that there are people making games who aren’t living like everyone else making games. I even remember after reading it that I felt like the being in the city was a bad call and that I should move somewhere with a meadow (I was drunk) (I was also going to NYC in a week, good timing!). Now all we need is people writing with weird worldviews.

Tomorrow: Day 3, The Moments.

The Oldies

Crackdown
I got Crackdown last Christmas from my brother, who bought it at a used game joint for a song (seems everyone got rid of their copies once they got their Halo 3 beta codes). I’m glad I asked him for it. There’s little I can say about the game that hasn’t been said in the past 24 months, so I’ll keep it short: there are few pleasures greater than scaling a building with an SUV in your hand and throwing it ten blocks, only to crush an evil ganger from a distance. That’s entertainment!

Earthbound
I’ve started this game some dozen times, but always got distracted or had issues with emulation and never really got into the good stuff. This year, though, I managed to get some semi-working emulation going on my PSP. Sadly, that emulation stopped working once I got to the part where you get to control the geeky kid instead of Ness, but that was far enough for me to understand that this is, absolutely, a game worth my time. I have since visited my friend Kelvin’s place in Ottawa, and borrowed the original cart from him. I’ll be playing this beauty on my SNES in 2009, and I can’t wait to see the end.

Football Manager 2008
This game took hundreds of hours of my life that I’ll never get back. I don’t want to get started on it, because I’m reasonably sure there isn’t a single reader who’ll care, but I’ll say one thing: nowhere else in games will you find a chaos machine like this. This game has millions of numbers which are constantly running simulations; you make decisions and attempt to direct the flow of chaos in your own favour. I spent months trying to figure this game out, and failed; I merely figured out how to tell it what I wanted, and hope for the best. It’s kinda like real life, in a way; you can never figure out how it works the way it works. All you can do is crack it open a little bit and eke out the existence you want. It figures– the one game I get all deep is the sports management simulator. Go figure.

Pokemon Snap
The N64 was to me once what the PS3 is to me now: the “other” console. I had a PS1 back in the day, and there weren’t many games I coveted. Pokemon Snap was, however, one of those few games. I didn’t care about Zelda, or Mario, or Goldeneye; I loved the concept of a game where you go around taking photographs, and get rewarded for composition and quality of shots. While it didn’t really look at composition as much as it did subject size and centering, I was still really aching to play it (and, I’ll admit, at the time, I kinda dug Pokemon). This year, I got to play it on Wii’s virtual console. I expected it to age poorly, but it was still everything I wanted it to be. Why there aren’t more games like this (pafrticularly for the Wii) is completely beyond me; a non-violent FPS that teaches users how to take good photos seems like the biggest no-brainer ever.

Skate.
Last Christmas, I got two copies of Beautiful Katamari. I traded one to a friend for Skate. I almost feel guilty for this, because Skate is so great and Beautiful Katamari is so, err… well, mediocre. I spent a lot of time playing this game; more than any Tony Hawk game, that’s for sure. It’s what a skateboarding game should be: noodling around in a beaufifully-rendered city and occasionally doing tricks worth seeing– then being able to show those things to the world via the magic of EA’s footage sharing system.

I can think of a few games that’ll probably be on this list at the end of 2009, but I don’t want to talk about them too much; after all, many of those games will be in my “Questionable Mentions” article in a few days.

Tomorrow: Five games-related pieces of writing that were important to me in 2008.