Tony

Well, I’ll have to do this while the new Iron Chef America is on, because I won’t be able to pull myself away from RE 4 after it’s over. So here are some notable going-ons for the past week. (Great, Blogger just lost my post. I suddenly lost interest to finish this post, but I’ll carry on.)

So we had Gatmog from Tales of Schorched Earth giving his top ten for 2004, with Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines as his top pick. I’ve heard alot of good things about this game, I’ll have to give it a try.

Kyle at VGO wonders who he would run a video game TV station. He’s been talking a lot about G4/TechTV (I guess just G4 now) and I think he’s got some good ideas.

I started working on a translation cheat sheet for all the Spanish phrases you’ll here while playing Resident Evil 4. That games is absolutely amazing. You can find the guide here.

I’m thinking about maybe making the “Week in Review” into a biweekly or monthly thing. I also am working on my list of “new” gaming blogs I come across. Things are always evolving here at ButtonMashing.

Here we are for the first Week in Review for 2005. Let’s get right to it.

First, from Kotaku is a link to a story about a professional Halo 2 player. We all dream about making money playing video games. It’s crossed my mind before. In fact, I can say I have made a little scratch playing Diablo 2. I’ve sold a handful of charactes and items on eBay, pulling in about 300 bucks. While it pales in comparison to this guy, it’s better than nothing. But working out how much time I put getting those items works out to about 15 cents an hour certainly not earth shattering.

Age of Empires, I love thee. Let me count the ways. One, Ages of Empires. Two, Age of Empires, Rise of Rome. Three, Age of Empires 2, Age of Kings. Four Age of Kings, The Conquerors. And now five (and probably six), Age of Empires III.

Bad reporting and pirated games – a poor little ground playing a Disney-based game on her GBA. See Video Game Ombudsman for the full story.

Of course, this past week also ushered in the new year (sort of), so here’s a run-down of some of the blogosphere’s Top Ten/Year in Review lists.

At Render, there isn’t a top ten list, but this sounds like a Game of the Year to me.

Half-Life 2: Simply put, this was the most compelling gaming experience I’ve ever had. Plus, Counter-Strike: Source. Worth the wait, and the sixty bucks.

Mike at the-inbtween has more than just the run-of-the-mill awards. I really like this one in particular:

The “It Has Vin Diesel In It And I Don’t Absolutely Hate It, How Did That Happen?” Award:

Chronicles of Riddick

Mike at Pixel du Jour had a “Top Two” of popular culture, including games. #1 on his list (on many others, I’m sure) is WoW.

World of WarCraft, in particular, has devoured my soul. I’m usually the first to criticize the MMORPG genre for requiring little to no skill to play, but I cannot help but trounce around Azeroth for hours at a time, alone or with friends. I don’t even fully understand the game’s appeal. All I know is that I feel an undying desire to make it to the next level and improve my characters.

Of course many of us look toward Penny Arcade for the thoughts. I was surprised that Halo 2 didn’t make the cut but I was proud that Metroid Prime 2 did. Penny Arcade crowns World of Warcraft, as well.

It’s called World of Warcraft, but the addiction profile is really more along the lines of Diablo.

That’s all I need to hear to know I must avoid it like the black death.

Update (1/9/2005) – Posts on Sunday always fall into the ether when I do my week in review, but I just read this on the-inbetween, which looks at different pictures posted of Flickr with tags like “Videogames”, “Nintendo” and others. There’s a lot of pictures to wade through, but there are some interesting pics there.