My Top 10 Games of '08 - #8

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is probably one of the sleeper hits of this year. There weren't a lot of expectations coming from this game, unless you knew about its Japanese release already, you weren't aware of how good this game is. Granted, it wasn't one of the most revolutionary concepts of the year (basically 120+ puzzles and brain teasers), it sort of reminded of us of something: Those old brain teaser books were actually kind of awesome.

Now, the game could've settled for that, 120 puzzles that stumped both kids and adults alike is nothing to sneeze at, but it had to squeeze in a story. It's nothing special, but it's actually a passable mystery story, as you uncover clues about what's happening through the completion of these various puzzles, and once you get caught up in it, you'll want to do those puzzles half out of getting the satisfaction of doing them, and half out of wanting to see the story through.

Professor Layton isn't trying to be impressive; the graphics are all well-done 2D sprites, and it could hardly be said that they're pushing the power of the DS, with the presentations being as simplistic as it is. It's this simplicity that makes it so great though. It isn't trying to be this great, ambitious project that will change the way we think about games, and it isn't something that is really proving anything, except that simple doesn't mean bad. It can often enough mean good, and doing something small, that everyone can enjoy, is something to commend.

My Top 10 Games of '08 - #9

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is prime example of expectations versus results. I have to admit that for a whole year I was completely engrossed in its hype, followed the games' officical blog religiously. I reveled in message boards that would trickle out information (whether it was true or not). I fantasized about what characters I would like to see. So high was my anticipation that the two delays that befell the game were painful. The game had me completely engrossed.

With expectations of the completely-perfect-in-every-way game that I had imagined, the final product could only dissapoint. The character roster was nowhere near as large as I had imagined, the game was sprinkled with flaws that seems outright mean (tripping), and the online service that I had been looking forward to was treated like an afterthought. Nothing suprised me because before I had the game in my hands, I knew everything about it.

While I am saying that the game could not live up to its hype, this is not indicitive of it being bad. The reason that it failed to meet up to hype was because the bar for it was set unrealisticly high, and when those expectations were not met, the game was met with negative senitment.

The flaws that I first pointed out were only there because of the gap between what I wanted the game to be and what it really was (with the exception of the online and tripping). The roster was fantastic, the fighting system was better than in melee, (though I'm sure people would disagree with me), the game was more fan service than any game could ever hope to be, it was feature-rich, and the overall fun (gasp!) that could be had with the game was far above anything else released at the time. In short, it was an amazing experience despite my expectations.

Looking back on it now, the game did have its flaws, but they were not as game-breaking as I had first imagined them. The game is not fun for me on tournament level fighter, something that I thought was a shortcoming of the game; it was fun for me as party game, a great way to have fun with friends. Seeing it through that light raised my opinion of the game from "okay" to "great", and if you have a Wii, you most definitely need to pick this up. This is one of the best games of this year.

My Top 10 Games of '08 - #10

Sneaking in at #10 is Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. This may be one of those games that you may have forgotten about, seeing as how it came out back in January. However, that doesn't mean you should have. While the franchise itself is several years old now, DOR is interesting in that it's basically a reset of the franchise, something that people form the GBA era have yet to see.

However, while the changes are mostly aesthetic (darker tone of art and story), there were several gameplay changes as well. Costs of units changed, certain untis were replaced, new ones were added, and most importantly of all, the CO Powers, which, in previous games, were tide-changing super abilities that somewhat underminded the startegic elements of the games, were nerfed extensively, in that they were only effective in certain area within the unit your CO is commanding (another new feature), and even then they weren't very powerful, with a handful of exceptions. The last change was the ability for units to level up and become stronger, which is something that is suprisingly balanced, because the changes are so incremental.

All these changes are also compounded by the Advance Wars traditional gameplay, which was near-flawless to begin with. Additionally, the story is also better than in previous entries. Before, war was treated in a very friendly way, the gravity of the given situation was there, but combat itself was very light-hearted. It wasn't something I had a problem with (it gave it a disctinctive style), but DOR treats war (and the whole 90% of the population being wiped out) with the gritty realism that war deserves.

It wasn't as feature-rich as Dual Strike, and perhaps the stylistic changes aren't for everyone, but its balancing of the gameplay is a bold move that the franchise may have warranted, and all that in addition to a formula that is rock-solid is enough to warrant it this spot on the list.

My Top 10 Games of '08 - Disclaimer

Now, this is a short prelude to the nexxt 10 posts that you might be seeing from me. This is basically a post telling you that I have not played everything out this year, but I have played enough games this year to merit the list (which is much more than 10), so I really can only make this list from what I've played, so keep in mind that if you don't see a game that you thought you should've, I probably have not played it, or maybe I just didn't like it.

Never thought I'd see the day...

I was quite aware of the Starcraft competitive scene over in South Korea, and had heard that Magic had been on ESPN or some such nonsense, but I was never aware of what it could mean. The eccentricism, or niche, or whatever that this has created is astounding, really.

If only I lived in Japan...

I could've gotten my hands on the RE5 demo early!... Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to wait it out, like people in Europe seem to do so often...

A healthy junk of reading.

Jeff Gerstmann wrote a fantastic article on game reviews that I think you should read. And he thinks you should also read the article he mentions, and so do I.

My two cents:I'm not a fan of things like metacritic and gamerankings. Reviews are, in essence, opinions, and like all things there are opinions that matter more to you than others. If you've read several reviews by the same person and relate to their tastes, then you're more likely to value that person's opinion. You shouldn't look at all the reviews to gauge the quality of the game, simply the opinons of the people behind them. sure, we're more lucky in the video game industry to have mroe glaring flaws to find (i.e. graphical tears, bad animations and the like), and more often than in other mediums there is a consenus, but when you get into games that don't have such easily identifiable flaws, opinions start to change from person to person. The bottom line is you can't just take the sum of all the reviews and say "this is how good this game is", but instead take in the opinions of people you value. I value GB's opinions on games because I've read stuff by them for a long time now and I relate to their tastes. When they give a review, I take their review into consideration when I'm thinking about buying a game, but I also value opinions from other websites as well. Take into consideration reviews of the people whose opinion you value, because reviews are two things and two things only: an opinion and buyer's guide, although at times people take them as much more than that.

You'll notice this a comment on the article. Guess who I am?

Edit: I just noticed that typo near 'glaring flaw'. I'm going to leave that there for irony.

Music!? What the hell is this!?

I've added a new blog to the list. It's a radio show done here in Nebraska, and in my opinion, the best radio show we have. If you're in the area, check it out on 89.7 from 9-11. The blog gives the complete song list, so if you can't listen, I suppose you could listen to the show anyway if you put those songs in order, and every once in a while you'll find a gem. Right now, it's Toe Jam by the BPA.
Have fun and good hunting!

Why Engineers are the baddest mofo's around.

I've never been one to agree that the so-called "horror games" are about what conditions you're playing the game in. Of course, I play them in the dark, for fear of losing content of the game that is in there but you somehow lose if you play it with the lights on. If I've learned anything from playing Dead Space, however, is that atmosphere is fundamental.

Dead Space is about a man named Issac Clarke, and the crew that is sent to repair the USG Ishimura in the depths of space (hey, that sounds sorta familiar). Issac wants two things out of this journey: To repair the ship and get his (space?) paycheck, and to see Nicole, the darling love of his life. Things quickly go awry, and you end up having to run around the Ishimura, getting problems fixed, killing enemies, and apparantly getting scared doing it. I won't spoil anything for you, but the game dives off into some weird stuff later in the game.

Stories in horror games aren't inherently important, but overall the story is a competent way to get the stuff thrown at you into some form of context. The story never compelled me to care for any of the characters too much, as most of them are pretty much your run-of-the-mill characters in a horror flick, but they did a much better job at delivery here than just about all horror flicks do nowadays. When you're doing something (like a quest, fighting a boss, etc.) you know why you're doing it. You'll get most of your story content out of things like text and audio logs, (similar to Bioshock) as well as video conversations you'll have with the crew as the game progresses, and the good thing is that these never take you out of the game, which keeps the atmosphere of the game going. There are a few cutscenes, but they all play in game, and in most of them you're free to move about as the story skips along.

The Gameplay in Dead Space most people should be familiar for most people who've played third person shooters, and this is especially true if you've played Gears of War. However, if you're used to the pace of third person shooters, you might want to rethink your strategy for Dead Space. It is a much slower game, and if you run in guns blazing, you either won't get out alive or you'll end up using all your ammo up.

While the gameplay itself if similar to TPS's, just about everything else about has the horror template attached to it. you start the game out with plasma cutter (which means pistol in space), and not much health to go on. You collect items and cash from enemies, but you have a very limited inventory to manage, especially early on. There is no way to heal yourself aside from med packs, as well as no way to refill your ammo aside from the ammo you find strewn about the ship. Enemies deal a good deal of damage per attack, things creep up from you behind, and stasis (something that is both essential to puzzles and to stopping some of the faster enemies), if not used sparingly, will run out when you least want it to.

However, this doesn't mean that the game doesn't have a good couple of layers of an action game sprinkled in as a cuddle to less hardened players. Money buys you more ammo, weapons, med packs, and anything else you might need, though it doesn't come cheap. You can upgrade your various instruments (which range from a wide line cutter to a flamethrower) and armor by using nodes, rare items that are scarce throughout the game, but can also be purchased. Save points are scattered everywhere so that when you die you don't go too far back, and if at anytime you should feel lost, you can press a button to see a light that guides you to wherever you need to go, meaning you don't carelessly spend time looking for anything. These additions make the game somewhat easier in the end, and while it's appreciated, it lightens the atmosphere that is so important to getting scared, because there's never that sense of urgency in any given fight. If you die, you'll go back to a checkpoint, even if you didn't save, and if you run low on health or ammo, you can almost always retreat to the nearest store.

Just because you have all these options open to you doesn't mean you can just wipe out every enemy in a given room, no problem. There are a variety of enemies to kill, ranging from your average zombie-looking thing to fat ones that spew tiny things at you, to super-enhanced soldiers, who are very, very fast. If you want to heal mid-fight, do it fast, because no menus aside from the pause menu (including stores and upgrade benches) can stop enemies from attacking you. Additionally, the game encourages that you not aim for the head with a dismemberment system, in which you'll waste less bullets if you aim at the limbs of enemies, and the guns allow you do so in various ways. Enemies will overwhelm you (especially in later parts of the game), and using stasis will become more and more useful.

Puzzles also make themselves known here, but really, they're not puzzles as much as enviormental obstacles to be overcome. You have your basic put-this-there puzzles, but the stage of space allows for two other kinds of experiences. The first are vaccums, which will puts your oxygen tank into account. You'll only have so much time to do something in these areas whether it be getting to the other side, or changing someting in the area in order to progress. The other is Zero-G areas, which are somewhat dissapointing due to them amounting to jumping from one flat plain to another, and you can't actually stay in an area with no ground beneath you. Had you been able to actually float in space, that could've made for some intresting areas.

Regardless of whether the game is more action or fear, it's hard to argue that this game isn't beautiful. The overall presentation is nearly flawless, with the only bug I've seen being that of light-weight bodies, but other than that everything works perfectly. Issac's movements are perfectly mo-capped, the voice acting is done well, and animations for all the creatures are done wonderfully. The textures and models also look wonderful, from Issac's suit to the ground and walls and all the digital menus.

The last great feature of the presentation is the lack of any HUD in the game. Your health and stasis are displayed on your back, you only see your gun's magazine when you aim it, which makes the game feel more cinematic. As mentioned earlier, no menus aside from the pause menu take you out of the game, meaning that even in buying things at the store and organizing items carry that tension that you will be attacked from behind unexpectedly, and it definitely adds to the atmosphere of the game.

A sever reduction of closet monsters and too much of a focus on action over horror means that this game might not deliver the chills of a horror movie or even some of the scarier horror games doesn't mean that it's not scary. The atmosphere is the lead here, and with monsters crawling on vents but not always showing up, the tension that comes even from selecting items, and the story that augments the feeling of the game quite well, Dead Space delivers the scary in a new and original way.

Two quick things.

One, following up on what I wrote earlier about the new DS, I guess I was sorta right? Personally, the biggest hit my crying wallet is going to take here is the battery life. I've had way too many long play sessions of Advance Wars and Tetris to have the battery life to be cut down to 9 to 14 hours at the lowest setting. The multimedia stuff is great (listen to music, download Virtual console games, take pictures), but I think I'll not sell my lite, good sir.

Second, this is old (by internet standards, anyway), but I felt it that anyone with any intrest in PC gaming should read this one. Heck, even if you don't play it, this stuff may apply to you some day as well. It's very well written, and I think everyone should take a look at it.

Peace