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FGotY 2009 [Nintendo Wii]

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Now it’s time to get to the Big Three Consoles, starting off with the Wii.

Brock – As much fun as Wii Sports Resort, NSMBWii and Punch Out! were, I’d have to say that my picks for the games I had the most fun with on the Wii this year are a little off the beaten track. I had a stupid grin plastered to my face the entire time I played MadWorld, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, The Munchables, A Boy And His Blob, Little King’s Story and Rabbids Go Home. These games might not have the widespread appeal that the first 3 games I mentioned did but were fantastic nonetheless and had me singing their praises to all who will listen. I’d probably give The Munchables my top pick for FGotY on Wii because it was so reminiscent of the absurdity of Katamari Damacy that I couldn’t stop laughing the entire time I played it.

Nat – It was an off year for the Wii in our household, but some games do come to mind: Excitebots: Trick Racing, Little King’s Story, and Excitebike: World Rally. However, it’s Punch-Out!! that gets my vote for Fun Game of The Year. Nintendo did a fine job of staying true to the games roots, adding some excellent humor, and introducing Mac and his pink jumpsuit to a new generation.

Will – Much like my Nintendo DS, the Wii just doesn’t get a lot of love. I have built up a backlog of games that I really want to get back to, like Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3. With that amount of shame hanging over my head, I can’t bring myself to keep up my collection of Wii games. However, I did manage to add two games this year, which I submit as my candidates for FGotY 2009 [Nintendo Wii]: House of the Dead Overkill and Punch-Out!! I am just as surprised as you are that I picked the former title. The game is very self-aware, which attributes to the its silly nature. It also captures the grindhouse movie style very well. It plays as well as one would expect for a Wii on-rails shooter, with some pretty cool things to unlock (like dual-wielding weapons).

Tony – Another year goes by where we only bought a couple Wii games and rented a couple more. The overarching theme this year for me was definitely “Nostalgia Never Disappoints”. We started out earlier this year with Punch-Out!!, which was utterly fantastic and the kids absolutely loved, but ultimately, the New Super Mario Bros. Wii wins out for me. I love games that I can play with my kids, which doesn’t happen too often. My four year-old boy has played a bunch of NSMB on the DS and he was able to grasp the Wii version almost instantly. He loves to play with me, but he is a brutal co-op partner! He doesn’t understand the concept of “waiting up” yet, so I’ve got to stay on my toes or I’ll get squeezed out of the level. I love the new power-ups (the Spring Mario is still my favorite!) and the levels have the perfect mix of old-school Super Mario with enough hidden paths and power-ups to appeal to everyone. We will be playing this game long into 2010.

FGotY 2009 [PC]

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With the portable games behind us, here’s our list for the Fun PC Game of the Year for 2009.

Nat – I never thought I would say this again but I am in love with PC gaming. Another hallmark year with titles such as Dawn of War II, Demigod, Plants vs. Zombies, Empire: Total War, and Torchlight. Valve should be commended for the strides they’ve made in my personal PC gaming renaissance. I don’t like ties, so I need to pick a winner based on hours alone. Borderlands—even with all it’s console conventions, nit-picky faults, and connection difficulty for a co-op title—is my Fun Game of the Year. At fifty hours and counting it fed the loot whoring monster inside me. Torchlight comes in second. A close second. We’re talking a Michael Phelps victory for Borderlands.

Brock – I’ve only recently gotten back into PC gaming to any real extent but I’ll have to give Plants Vs. Zombies my pick for the most fun I’ve had with a PC game this year. I’ve played through it on two different systems, worked through it again with my son and haven’t even scratched the surface of what is available in the bonus/zen garden modes. I’d also give a huge nod to my runner-up, Machinarium, which is a fantastic point-and-click adventure game that oozes charm.

James – I actually only played the game I chose for a short while but I think it deserves to be listed here. Killing Floor is a FPS horror game. Playing this game was reminiscent of Left 4 Dead in the way you needed the help of your teammates and how much fun it was. I only played it for three days but I am considering picking this up, especially because you can get it cheap on Steam. I never thought I would be able to get along without a cross hair to shoot with, but it works!

Will – I’ve always dabbled in PC games, but I have never had a rig capable of running modern games the way they were meant to be played. This means that the majority of my PC collection is made up of older titles (just look at my list of Steam games to see what I mean). Thanks to Steam, I bought Dawn of War II, GTA IV, Borderlands and Torchlight; all of which are up for my FGotY 2009 [PC] award. I gave it to Torchlight because of the loot monger in me (the one that makes me love Borderlands so much). I haven’t put many hours into it yet, but I feel the hopeless addiction setting in. I was initially turned off by the lack of online play, but I got over myself and bought it and am now loving it. Part of me wants to buy a netbook just to see how it runs on one, and to be able to bring the loot hunting with me everywhere I go.

Tony – I, too, am having renewed interest in PC gaming, strictly on the strength of Steam. I wish it had entered in my life earlier, but it came just in time this year. I didn’t play a lot of games, but I’m also picking Torchlight as my FGotY for the PC over Plants vs. Zombies. Not only did Torchlight scratch the loot itch, it also eased me in to using Steam and getting back into the groove of using the tried-and-true keyboard/mouse combo. I still prefer the 360 controller to my mouse and keyboard, but it’s been nice to get to know an old friend.

FGotY 2009 [Playstation Portable]

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Rounding up the Fun Portable Games of the Year for 2009 is the Sony Playstation Portable.

Nat – Half-Minute Hero was the only new PSP title I purchased this year. By default it wins. However, if I had purchased some others I still think this title would have one. It was a blast to play and over and over again. The only problem? It was too short. The 30-second timer mechanic in all the games created a nervous sensation throughout. Think the timer going out in the original Super Mario Bros—only through the entire game. Sony really confused their customers this year with the release of the PSPgo. I did acquire some used games, but I purchase only one title from their online store. they’ve got to compete with retail (and themselves) if they want my to continue purchasing and playing new titles.

Brock – I’d agree with Nat. Half-Minute Hero is probably the most enjoyable new PSP game that I played this year. It’s not the only new PSP title that I played, but easily the most fun. I’d disagree that it’s too short though. [edit by Nat: Click] I’ve put in a substantial amount of time (for a game that is ostensibly broken down into 30 second chunks) and am only just beginning the 4th game mode (Knight30).

FGotY 2009 [Nintendo DS]

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Next up on the Fun Games of the Year 2009 is the Nintendo DS.

Brock – This is a tough one. We’ve had several great games on the DS this year with Nostalgia being my pick for old-school JRPG fun, Rhythm Heaven for silly minigame fun and Retro Game Challenge for just oozing charm and respect for a bygone era. That said, I’ll have to play it safe and go with my current love, The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for bringing a huge smile to my face as I toot-toot my way around Hyrule. It polishes the gameplay mechanics of Phantom Hourglass and does away with pretty much everything that was a negative with that title while layering on new items, fantastic music and the awesome fun that is pulling on the emergency brake every time you pull into station.

Jason O – The DS was another late year addition to our house and I think it has exposed that I’m not really much of a portable gamer. Yet the massive library means something has to be there for everyone. For me, the best DS game was Phantasy Star 0. If I were reviewing it on a traditional scale it probably would rate pretty mediocre, but I loved Phantasy Star Online, purchasing it both for the Dreamcast and later the Gamecube. This is essentially Phantasy Star Online for the DS. What really has made the game appeal to me is that it’s a real RPG with just enough Japanese styling to not get in the way but maintain visual appeal. That and the gameplay is essentially Phantasy Star Online right down to the control scheme.

James – Dragonball Z: Attack of the Sayajins: If you ever wanted to play a Final Fantasy game with other characters from a different series like…Dragonball Z then this is your game. I like The Final Fantasy series and having the characters and moves from the Dragonball Z series makes the game all that more enjoyable for me.

Nat – Hearkening all the way back to January, I was introduced to Big Bang Mini. It’s unique style of SHMUP play and catchy music propelled it to the funnest game I played on the DS this year. It’s the only title I know of that is challenging and relaxing. Retro Game Challenge gets props for bringing a huge nostalgic smile to my face.

Will – My Nintendo DS doesn’t get as much attention as I would like to give it, likely due to the fact that I don’t leave the house very often. As a result, the only three games I played that are eligible for the FGotY 2009 [Nintendo DS] are Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure, Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars and Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars (The Director’s Cut). I give the award to Henry Hatsworth because of its blend of platforming and puzzle elements. The platforming sections can be pretty brutal, and switching to the puzzle section gives both a much needed break from the action and useful powerups to take on all the enemies you will face.

Tony – I purchased one new DS game this year, Fire Emblem: Dragon Sword. I had liked previous iterations of the Fire Emblem but had my issues with this game. I hope to explore those issues in a future post, but for now I’ll declare Fire Emblem my FGotY for the Nintendo DS by virtue of it being the only one that qualifies.

FGotY 2009 [iPhone]

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We’ll be starting out our list of Fun Games of the Year (hereafter FGotY) with the handheld games. We’ll start with the iPhone. Let’s get right to the list:

Nat – Wow! I spent $22 this year on the App Store and got 15 games. Every one of them was a winner, but I go between eight of the titles a lot. Bookworm, Monster Trucks Nitro, Space Invaders InfinityGene, bitFlip, Spider, Flight Control, Auditorium, and Muppets Animal Drummer suck a lot of my iPod’s battery. Bookworm I spent the most time with, but it’s Space Invaders Infinity Gene that rocked my world with it’s innovative game play, excellent music, simplistic graphics, and it’s retro feel—pre-1980s nostalgia. This little device got more play time than my PSP and DS this year. I see the trend continuing if Nintendo and Sony don’t get on board with the same pricing and open design philosophy for developers.

Brock – I played the “I wish I had an iPhone” game this year. It wasn’t fun, especially after seeing how much fun Nat has had with his cheap yet awesome games. [count me on this one, too – ed.]

Will – Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 update has pretty much made my iPhone 3G unsuitable for its basic tasks (like phone calls, emails and text messages), so playing games on it can be a challenge. For that reason, I give my FGotY 2009 [iPhone] award to the Zune HD’s Audiosurf Tilt. It plays very much like the PC game’s Mono avatar. I enjoy the very simple controls: tilt the device to the left to go left, and tilt right to go right. All you have to do is avoid the roadblocks and collect as many of the colored blocks as possible. This very simple game is a lot of fun, and whenever I listen to music on my Zune HD, I have a hard time not listening to it through that game.

Weekend Gamer

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Welcome to the first Weekend Gamer of 2010! This should be a great weekend for everyone. This afternoon is the Granddaddy of them All, the Rose Bowl with my Ohio State Buckeyes against the Oregon Ducks. Afterwards I’m hoping for a big weekend of gaming. I’ve got three new FPSes: Left 4 Dead 2, Halo 3: ODST and Modern Warfare 2. I’ve had a little time with all three, so I’m not ready to make any judgements of which is the best, but I’m looking forward to playing all three.

I’m also looking forward to kicking off out “Fun Game of the Year” posts for 2009. We’ve got all the bases covered and these posts should be going live soon. We hope you enjoy them and add your own additions to our lists.

So what will you be playing this weekend? What are you looking forward to in 2010?

The PC Gamer’s Manifesto

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Having recently come into possession of something I can only classify as a “gaming PC”, I realize it would be silly to own this thing and not use it to actually play games. Certainly it is very capable of doing my usual Facebook and blogging updates, but it is capable of so much more. However, I also remember quite clearly that it was not a lack of hardware that has turned me into a near exclusive console gamer in the past few years. I’ve still played the occassional PC game, but only as a rare foray since the PC was the obvious or only platform of choice.

Powerful hardware or not, I will turn this machine back around and make it some of the most powerful hardware used to poke people on Facebook if the PC gaming industry doesn’t start to shape up. I’m willing to be enticed away from consoles again, but here is what it will take to get me back as a regular PC gamer.

1. Your game will install easily and work the first time
I am sick and tired of installing games that don’t work, that want me to update my drivers, or doesn’t actually run on hardware that the box claims it supported. I dealt with the old days of trying to switch between expanded and extended memory and constantly trying to keep from getting the two mixed up. Oh how I would love to go back to that problem compared the what the average install has become. In the past two years I have had more games with install problems than not. If anything it seems like this is getting worse. PC games are not a new phenomenon, this should not be hard! Your chief competitor only requires someone to pop in a disc and start playing. I’m not asking for that level of simplicity, but I think asking for an install process that works is not unreasonable. These are games, not enterprise level business applications.

2. You will design games for systems people actually own
I hate the claim “The PC is the largest platform base”. It’s not true because there is so much hardware and operating system variation that is lumped in under “PC”. Laptops typically have integrated graphic cards that are nowhere near the capabilities of what is inside a dedicated desktop gaming computer. Somewhere along the way you must make a business decision as to what kind of market you will support. I hate to point this out, but more and more people are going the laptop route, which means you desperately need to figure out how to support those “lousy” integrated graphic cards or lose a huge chunk of your market.

3. Your copy protection will not keep me from playing the game
I paid money for your product. I kept my end of the bargain. Your end of the bargain is to give me the product you advertised. When I can’t play your game because your stupid copy protection scheme has some issue with my system settings, chosen install location, or some random occurrence based on the position of the stars we have a problem. If I can’t get my money back, chances are good I will not buy a game from you again. Even if I can get my money back, the process of trying to return software is so egregious that I’m unlikely to risk putting money down on your products in the future.

4. Your copy protection scheme must have no impact on the game
I often hear claims about how cracked games have often run better because they’re not running the copy protection software in the background. I’m willing to let that go as hearsay evidence at best, but I also know enough about software to understand those claims are entirely plausible. If your copy protection is making the pirated version of your product the superior choice then you’ve created a self-defeating process. If I see system processes kicking off in conjunction with performance problems while running the game, it won’t take much for me to figure out if its some stupid scheme you’ve got running in the background. If this happens I will avoid your products in the future.

5. You will not treat your customers like criminals
Call me old fashioned, but I prefer physical media and I don’t mind a bit having the disc in the DVD-ROM while playing even if the game is entirely installed on the hard drive. That said, if I own authentic physical media then we should be done. I should not have to verify my identity, be forced to register, or do anything that involves some external process to prove that I paid for the game. This is a huge public relations problem. We already live in a world were many valuable products are locked away until some underpaid struggling college student comes to unlock it for us. We go through security scanners, have security tags removed, and receipts verified all too often for my comfort. When I get home I feel like my domain is sacred. Having your product then come up and ask for identification is a slap in the face.

6. I should not have to mod your game to make it playable
I do not pay for unfinished software. Every piece of software has bugs, every piece of software has issues. The more complex it is, the more problems it has. See, I get it. I’ve been in software development for over a decade. I know what you go through to get a product to market. I do. However, there is a reasonable level of expectation that says I am buying a finished product that will work as advertised. In my world that’s “works as documented”, but it’s the same thing. We don’t want bugs in software, they’re just nearly impossible to avoid. I hate it when I complain about a game and the first response is “You need to download mod [X]”. WRONG! I paid for the game, I installed it, I may have gone through who knows how many convolutions already just to get to this point. Now I have to go spend additional effort researching, downloading, and installing something else? Probably something being offered for free? Mods are not a crutch and should not be required. Having mod support is a nice feature, but the average Joe and Jane are not going to do anything further to your software. Instead they will just perceive an inferior product. As for me, the not-so-average Joe, what I see is a poor effort turned in with expectations of access to my wallet. I have every right to be offended.

7. Your game should not crash at random
Games crash. Software crashes. Even some console games have the occasional glitch. Like I said before, every piece of software has bugs. Even knowing that, you should have a graceful way of handling errors. You desperately need to address memory leaks and not just hope the game’s garbage collection handles it before it crashes, assuming you even bothered to do enough memory management to actually implement garbage collection. It’s one thing to have a workaround to a problem, it’s an entirely different matter to suddenly find yourself back at the desktop for no reason. That doesn’t feel good to the consumer, especially if they were in the midst of an epic battle.

In short, what I’m saying is that your product needs to be usable. I need to be able to judge a game based on how well it plays. Unfortunately, I’m having to surmount many obstacles just getting to the point of being able to even play the game. By that time I’ve already soured on your product. I used to enjoy PC gaming, but what turned me off wasn’t the increasing abilities of consoles but the passive-aggressive attitudes of PC game developers towards their customers, a constant refusal to adapt to the market, and increasing difficulty in actually getting games to work on hardware that was fairly standard.

If you want to call yourself a PC game developer then quit treating your customers like the enemy and give them the products they paid for. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Take Two in the ditch

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So everytime I worry that I’m being too harsh about this recession, how it impacts my hobby in particular, I find a new piece of information that only helps reinforce my apparent pessimism. Take Two has announced more losses. Their new strategy is essentially “We’re going to be just like Activision and EA”, which is disastrous.

I swear this isn’t a segue, but am I the only one who remembers the dotcom days? How about the days when everyone was going to beat Microsoft at their own game? How about the days when everyone had the new “Doom killer”, “Diablo killer”, or their product catalog had some kind of upcoming Real-Time Strategy title? Am I the only one who remembers how that played out for most of the people involved?

The big problems with the game market right now is a lack of diversification. As more people jump on the bandwagon they’ll quickly realize there isn’t enough room for everyone. That means someone has to fail. Since Call of Duty came on the scene, the Medal of Honor series hasn’t done so hot. Brothers in Arms made a brief foray, but they’re largely getting dominated by Call of Duty as well. In other words, their just isn’t a huge market for quality World War II shooters. Ironic considering Infinity Ward doesn’t even make World War II games anymore. Likewise, games keep trying to be like Halo and keep finding out, the hard way, that we already have a perfectly good Halo.

I imagine that this may be Take Two’s swan song. I can’t see their being enough demand for three mega-publishers all pushing AAA titles. The problem with the “AAA” concept is that it only works when a handful of these super expensive heavily marketed games are competing with each other and a large number of non-AAA titles. If every title is “AAA” then what that really means is that a lot of money is going to be pumped into failure. In a way that’s good news because it will only kill this failing business model faster. The game industry has always had big releases, we’ll always have “big” games. What we cannot have is nothing but AAA games. There will be no sleeper hits, no innovation, and no risk. Either consumers will flock to one franchise or everything will fail as people lose interest.

So now I’m wondering if 2010 is the year gaming loses the mainstream? Actually, that will probably be 2011. If game publishers fail to move their business forward they’ll lose the public. Some gamers might think this is a good thing, but I think we’ve benefitted by having mainstream status.