The Bestest Videogames of 2010

I obviously haven't played every videogame that came out in 2010. I mean, who does that? But I definitely played more of the videogames that were released this year than I watched new movies or listened to new music, so this really had to be the unimaginative end-of-year, can't-believe-I've-only-posted-once-in-December blog content de jour. Or err, "blog content cette année" I guess.

I'll get on with it, shall I?

Pretty Graphics

If it's true that the cutscenes of the current generation of videogames give a pretty good idea of what the in-game graphics of the next will look like, then it seems we'll be hitting proper photorealism a little earlier than you might have thought:



Slightly astonishing, no? And if you're sceptical about the theory, here's the once jaw-dropping intro to Resident Evil: Code Veronica (released on Dreamcast and PS2), which could now easily be mistaken for an average-looking 360 or PS3 game.

AI War: Fleet Command

So I reviewed AI War by Arcen Games. It's probably one of my worst reviews, but I hope a fairly breezy piece of writing. One day I'll manage to be good at reviewing and sentence-crafting at the same time, and there'll be much rejoicing.

The fun and games in the comments (where Christopher Park, CEO and lead programmer of Arcen turns up to respond) makes me think that maybe I should try to formalise my thoughts on "how much do you need to play a game before you're qualified to review it". Trouble is, I'm not sure I've yet worked out my answer.

Hmmm.

Hungover and Hung Up on Power

Last weekend, Beefjack began a weekly series on "videogames to play when hungover". I sometimes play videogames when I'm hungover, so I volunteered to do the first article for them. You can read it here.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (PS3) - Review

Games with the year in the title are rubbish. That seemed to be the law. Even PES, Konami’s ever-playable football series, fell apart when they decided to put a “2008” after Pro Evolution Soccer instead of a “7”.

Granny's Garden Retrospective

I've written a few words on the true face of terror over at Beefjack. It's also sort-of the story of how I got into videogames, (which basically means it's not very informative on how the game works).

Vinegar & Uranium Flavoured

So I decided the world needed another thousand words on art and videogames. This is the first of a regular column I'll be doing for GAMES? under the secret codename FF(P)S, which basically lets me be mega opinionated but use a "Get Out of Jail Free" card if I ever take it TOO FAR MAN, YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR.

Alien Assault (PC) - Review

It’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong in Space Hulk Alien Assault. Most often it’s one of your Terminator’s space marine’s weapons jamming right at the start of the Genestealers’ aliens’ turn. Sure, you had two heavily armoured dudes covering the other entrance, but they might as well be wearing dresses made from candy floss for all the resistance they’ll put up when attacked from behind.

Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) - Review

Valkyria Chronicles sees you take control of a small military force, fighting a series of increasingly difficult skirmishes against a bunch of evil dudes from the east. It's a turn-based game, meaning that instead of struggling to keep track of what's happening at six different locations on the battlefield all at once, you only have to worry about one thing at a time. Personally, that's how I like my strategy games: thoughtful rather than frantic.

What's Wrong With Games Criticism?

Over the past couple of weeks, Stuart Campbell's been running an excellent series on why videogame reviews don't matter. It's all stuff that chimes with my own concerns about why I should bother trying to write interesting words about videogames, but he leaves the really important questions unanswered:

i) What's causing videogame reviews to be irrelevant?
ii) What can be done about it?

I'll happily admit to being a reviewing novice who still hasn't really worked out how to do it properly, but it seems to me there are three pretty fundamental things that the kids who write reviews for a living already almost always fail to acknowledge:

What Am I Playing At? #3

It's been a while since I last did one of these (see parts one and two), so we've got a lot to cover. Let's cut to the chase:

Heavy Rain (PS3): One of the main reasons I ended up buying a PS3 last month was because I kept seeing descriptions of this that said, "if you care at all about videogames you MUST play this game". And it certainly is quite something: at moments mind-blowing, oftentimes an embarrassment, but nonetheless consistently compelling throughout the first play through. I'm hoping to eventually write something meaningful about it, but think I should probably play David Cage's earlier games Fahrenheit and Omikron: The Nomad Soul before I do.

Heavy Rain: Are we now over halfway through the Uncanny Valley?

Worms Reloaded Review

My original text for this asked no forgiveness for being crude, and used "wank" instead of "you-know-what", but I guess if you start a review with a masturbation simile then you can't be surprised if your editor feels the need to fiddle.

Damn, must get out of innuendo mode.

Here's my first piece for BeefJack.

Fire Action! - Fiasco

Despite shoving it down the throat of most people I've ever met for the past few weeks, I somehow failed to post about this here. Fire Action! made an EP. You should totally buy it. Yes, YOU. From either iTunes or Amazon.

20 Years of American TV Videogame Reports

Then



Now


SIGH.

(Both vids shamelessly stolen from UK-Resistance.)

Games?

Do do do please check out this hip new online magazine I've somehow blagged my way into becoming a staff writer for. It's all about videogames that perhaps shouldn't really be called games, and it cuts a jib I very much like. I've only got one short piece on Psychosomnium in this issue, but I'm looking forward to getting more seriously involved in forthcoming ones (the publication of which hopefully won't clash so much with my musical commitments).

Anyway, here's a snippet from Ashton Raze's editorial to whet your appetite:

"Sure, gaming narrative may not have reached the sophistication of Shakespeare, and we may not have found our Citizen Kane, but that extra level of interaction, that control we have, the resonance with our avatars and their fates, it's really something else. Games can do almost anything, they can allow us to be almost anyone, they can provide virtually any experience and in time, as the medium grows and matures even further, they will. Games can be anything they want to be, or the player wants them to be, and with GAMES? we intend to show this."

Fire Action! Tour - Day Three (Monday)

Bristol - 12:00

The sun is out again, although not with quite the same force as we felt it in Oxford. I'd have liked to use the next few hours to explore - I hear Isambard Brunel built an impressive suspension bridge nearby - but the cheap shoes I bought yesterday are fighting against my unusually shaped feet and, at the moment, winning, leaving the heels and tops of my feet feeling something like good carpaccio: raw and tender. So instead I'm sitting on a bench just off the High Street, outside a Methodist church that lays claim to some kind of historical significance, while some cheery whistling workmen paint the wall behind me a not completely repulsive shade of lime green.

Fire Action! Tour - Day Two (Sunday)

Oxford - 16:00

Day two of the tour and there's time to kill in Oxford before we drive to Bristol. In an attempt to blend in with the natives I've bought a pretentious Moleskine notebook and taken refuge from the day's scorching heat under a tree in Christ Church meadow. It would probably be sensible to find a more secluded spot than I have - tourists pour down the wide pebble dashed path almost constantly, eager to gawp at the university's golden monuments to intellectualism or the cows in the field ahead of me - but the poser in me quite enjoys imagining I might be a source of fascination to passersby with my furrowed brow and look of intense concentration. Besides, it's not long before the repetitive crunch of footsteps on gravel becomes faintly reassuring- like the sound of rain on a pane of glass.

Fire Action! - White Dress video

Here it is! It's turned out alright, no?


Fire Action!, White Dress from Chris Newcombe on Vimeo.

We're still left with lots and lots to organise: we're aiming for an EP launch at the start of August, to go alongside a one week INTERNATIONAL tour (which will include both England AND Wales).

Obviously, feel free to re-post like kerazy.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

It's very hard to talk about something you think is brilliant without just saying, "it's brilliant!" over and over again, so it's lucky Lewie lets me do more-or-less whatever I like when I write for him on Savygamer. I realise now that in this review of Super Mario Galaxy 2 that got published today, I spend more than half my time talking about the history of the series instead of the game itself, which is probably not the most balanced way of approaching things. Ho hum.

DON'T PANIC

I'm just getting excited about tenuous links to events in my life in the lyrics of old pop songs. It definitely doesn't mean anything.

Also: is the guitarist in this video the coolest ever? Or does he just benefit from standing next to a Paul Simon wearing a white t-shirt tucked into high-waist trousers?

Regardless, I wish I could pull off a hat like that.

How to Keep Busy (part one)

For reasons that for the moment have to be kept hush-hush, wink-wink, shush-shush, pinch-your-ear, look-at-the-sky, no-not-here-over-there kinds of quiet, I need to work on improving my knowledge of the independent videogame scene. The neat little video below of 235 free-to-play indie games has given me a terrifying indication of the scale of the challenge ahead. I've played barely 20 of the games shown. THE SHAME.

Yet if there's anyone capable of staying glued to their PC for hours on end, obsessively twitching at their keyboard, and trying to find the "looks-like-a-bog-standard-platformer-but-is-actually-a-paradigm-shift-inducing-wonder" game among them all, then I hope it might just be me.

Wish me luck.

"...Lit a Fire..."

1. Admire faraway paradise.
2. Start building bridge to farwaway paradise.
3. Spend ten years building bridge.
4. Forget where bridge was supposed to lead.
5. Burn bridge down.

Finally reached stage five today.

The Best Kind of Exhausting

I spent last weekend in Norfolk making a music video for the Fire Action! song "White Dress". The band - along with one phenomenally talented director/producer, one so-witty-you-could-punch-him Director of Photography, an unfailingly resourceful and creative Production Designer, and crucially a funny and beautiful selkie - spent two 20-hour-long days filming for the five-and-a-half minute long song.

I cannot begin to describe (largely because I'm still feeling the effects of the sleep deprivation) how excited I am at the prospect of seeing it all put together, so until I get back to the point where putting words in a coherent order is a little more effortless, here are a bunch of photos I took on my mobile phone (click 'em to see 'em in all their high-res glory):

Disregard Females, Acquire Currency

Compared to my last couple of videogame articles (that talked about foolish women and being all gooey-eyed over them) the piece that's gone up on B4HD today about the Playstation masterpiece ISS Pro Evolution is a lot more traditional. Hopefully that means "less self-indulgent", rather than boring.

You tell me.

Shenmue Revisited

This is what academic types might call fetishization. I'd call it an okay piece of writing. Whatever it is, it's my first piece for B4HD, the newly launched retro gaming site. You might wanna have a nosey around the rest of the site if you like that kind of thing...

Players Will Be Players

I'm simultaneously proud and utterly ashamed of the piece that's just been posted on Resolution. It's 87% fictional, which is probably a betrayal in itself, but that 13% is still enough to make it hugely embarrassing for me to re-read.

Anyway, it's here if you want to check it out.

Review of Persona 3 - FES Edition

My meandering review of Persona 3 has now been posted over at Savy Gamer. At 1,600 words it's a slight test of endurance, but on the whole I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Debunkum

Updates here have been somewhere between few and far recently - and I apologise to the very small number of people that might have been bothered by that. However, I haven't just been drinking and playing videogames for the past three weeks.

I don't want to say too much too soon (as I find talking about an idea is often the best way to kill enthusiasm for it) but suffice to say I have given myself "a project". As things take shape I will probably post more details here, but that's all I'm telling for now.

Useless I know, but maybe you can console yourself with this amusing image I've stolen from Passive Aggressive Notes?

Alternatively, start watching the best review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones you'll ever see.



Or go for a walk. Whatever.

Nathan Fake - You Are Here (FortDax Remix)

Generally if I'm writing I have to do it in silence. If I put some music on and it's any good then I won't be able to concentrate on what I'm saying, because my attention is all too easily stolen by a good tune. And if the music is rubbish, then, well, why would I bother listening to it in the first place?

Here though, is one of very few exceptions.



Brooker-tastic.

Women! Wordplay! Scissors!

Yep, if I ever get around to writing a play one day, the whole thing will be premised on this one image.

Seven Lessons of the Stag

In the summer of last year I went on my first proper lads' stag weekend. For some reason I wrote but never got around to posting the following list of lessons I learnt from that debaunched weekend in Nottingham.

Lesson One
Indoor golf is no more fun than outdoor golf.

Lesson Two
Black Jack is not a game of skill.

Lesson Three
Getting 60% accuracy against clay pigeons while armed with a 12-gauge shotgun makes you feel 60% more manly.

Lesson Four
Lapdances are almost worth the asking price.

Lesson Five
A gang of 16 guys have zero chance of getting into a club at 2am.

Lesson Six
You can always find one scummy over-crowded bar that will serve anyone 'til 4am.

Lesson Seven
There's less cruelty involved in the making of a beef burger than a chicken burger.

Unsophisticated Irony

I've developed a lazy habit of capitalising words within sentences for dramatic effect. Used sparingly in a text message or handwritten note I think it's *sort of* okay, but in truth it's probably only crap writing that needs capitals or italics to indicate to the reader where they should put the emphasis. Yep, it's a habit I REALLY hope I can outgrow. Eventually.

Image stolen from the unfailingly distracting Ask A Urinal

It's almost as annoying as the difficulty I have with the difference between "may" and "might", which sometimes my brain will fail to notice until I've re-read what I've written three or four times, and even then it'll take me twenty seconds of deliberation to be confident I've got it right. I reckon there are plenty of readers who may get annoyed by that sort of mistake.

As someone who day-dreams about earning a living from putting words onto a page or a screen, it's terrifying to realise there are common words which I've never properly understood the meaning of, and have been using carelessly for years. "I may" if someone's given permission. "I might" if I'm uncertain. It should be simple. Yet somehow...

Ah yes, the "..."

It's like the "get out of jail free" card for writing. I can imply that I want to say more, but I'm not going to. Is the thing I'm not saying important? Who knows? Certainly not the reader, and probably not the writer either...

Let's not even get started on exclamation marks!

Oh dear, this whole thing is eating itself. Quick! Go read Saturday's Guardian piece where a bunch of people talk about their rules for writing (fiction), or more worthily, read Mark Twain's take on the subject.

What am I still playing at?

A post that’s just a list of games I’ve played recently (with a couple of sentences about each), that's perhaps even less interesting than this article about a new model of Barbie.

PERHAPS!

The Internet's ideal woman: computer engineer Barbie

Let’s take a look.

Doom & Gloom

To its harshest critics, the Sunday Papers on hip PC games blog Rock Paper Shotgun is just a clique-ish list of articles from the pens of Kieron Gillen's mates. I reckon that sort of criticism is pretty unfair and untrue, and I suspect those who suggest such things are mostly just envious of Gillen's massive influence over the nature and direction of videogame debate. (But y'know, OBVIOUSLY now that I've defended him on these trend-making pages, I'll be pretty outraged if he doesn't link to something of mine in the next couple of weeks.)

Ahem.

Doom

I'm in a funny mood. As anyone who read my painfully self-conscious previous blog post might have noticed, I was unusually pleased with the last couple of "proper" articles I wrote- one on Arkham Asylum and the other on Mass Effect 2. Yet now a few days have passed and my poor fragile ego has taken a battering from the ZERO total comments posted on them both. Every article I've ever written for A. N. Other game site has, until this point, ALWAYS received at least one comment. Even this dull review of an even duller game I did ages ago. Then I go write a couple of the best pieces I've ever written and no-one seems to give a damn.

What's that about?

Gloom

Mass Effect 2 & Arkham Asylum

Rightly or wrongly (and the answer is almost certainly, "wrongly"), I've always found it easier to write about games that aren't so well known. This is partly because if you're going to bother inflicting your words on the world it's important to try to say something original, and that's a lot harder if millions of people have already discussed the thing that you're writing about. But there's also the less noble reason that if your reader has existing knowledge of the thing you're talking about, you're more likely to get called out for factual errors.

So I'm fairly pleased to have had two things published this week about a couple of "big hitters", and I hope that in both of them I've managed to write combinations of words that aren't totally obvious or boring. On Resolution I've got a piece about Arkham Asylum where I talk about the game in relation to the graphic novel. Re-reading it now I think it's maybe a little slow to get going, and the point I'm making is maybe a little too obscure, but I feel mostly satisfied with how things worked out on the second page.

I think my review of Mass Effect 2 (that's gone up on good ol' reliable Savy Gamer) is a bit more successful. To me it feels like there's a consistency in tone that my writing often lacks. I might almost call it the best review I've ever written.

But jeez, look at the boring writer write about boring writing. You should probably have hit those links already. (Or just the 'close tab' button in your browser.)

What am I playing at?

I play quite a lot of videogames, especially when I have a broken foot and even more time to laze around than usual. I decided today that perhaps I should try to keep better track of what they all are. Who knows? This might even become one of those "regular" features I do a couple of times and then give up on.

In no particularly order, let's start with a lucky thirteen that have occupied varying amounts of my time since 1st January 2010:

Batman: Arkham Asylum (360): Mostly went back to it in preparation for a feature I wrote that should appear on Resolution any day now, but also because I wanted to see what it was like on Hard mode. "Challenging but not overwhelmingly so" is the answer for as far as I've got, although I bet some of the later boss fights will be massively frustrating.

Canis Canem Edit [aka "Bully"] (PS2): I got two thirds of the way through it toward the end of 2009 before getting distracted by something else. Managed to polish it off a couple of weeks ago, and despite being slightly underwhelmed by the ending, it's among my favourite games of that console generation.

Bully: really very smart and very funny.

Mass Effect 2 (360): I bought it on the day of release, loved it, and completed it in a little over 35 hours over the course of four days. You don't have to be a world class mathematician to realise those four days consisted of pretty intensive play. My review should appear on Savy Gamer soon.

Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 (PC): I never played it first time round, so it was only ever going to be a matter of time before I succumbed to that irresistable impulse-buy price of £3 on Steam. I've enjoyed the start of the Marine campaign so far -really very tense- although it has served as a reminder of how much modern games hold your hand compared to the oldies. Also: perhaps the worst voice acting I've ever heard from the marine commander.

Tales of Monkey Island (PC): As already reported, a bit of a chore.

Left 4 Dead 2 (PC): Still hasn't grabbed me like the first one did. I'm just not convinced that any of the additions to the game bring any significant improvement to how it plays. Not blown away by the new maps either. All feels like, "more of the same but slightly different," which is fine, but I'd hoped for more.

Super Mario Sunshine (GC): The lukewarm reviews it received when it was released always put me off trying it out sooner, and after giving it an hour or so I couldn't find any good reason to keep playing. A dull Mario game is pretty unforgivable.

Super Mario All Stars (SNES): After the disappointment of Sunshine I decided to touch base with the original Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. The invention on display in both games is still remarkable, and it's almost a ritual for me to check in on them every couple of years and make sure I can still find "the zone" and hold my own.

I'm nearly at the point where I can complete this game's first level with my eyes shut

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES): My flatmate told me how the only time he ever played this was on a Virgin Atlantic flight when he was very young, and he never even made it into Hyrule castle. His tale of woe inspired me to take a second look, and with two out of three pendents collected I'm really enjoying playing it through again. It's also nice to have half-way challenging boss fights- something the newer games have fairly consistently overlooked.

Football Manager 2009 (PC): In my fifth season after starting the game unemployed, and managing Huddersfield in the Championship. I'm now getting to the point where I realise my total play time is out of proportion with the amount of joy the game is bringing me, and so will probably swear off it for a bit.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS): I picked this up shortly after it was released and then neglected it. I found it all a bit fiddly at the time. Reading about the recent iPhone release made me think I should go back to it, and I'm glad I did, although it does all get a bit hectic on the small screen. I dread to think how busy it must feel on the iPhone with your fingers obscuring the action.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl  (PC): A seminal classic which my PC was incapable of running at the time it was released. Since upgrading last summer I've been playing using the "Complete" mod, which makes everything look much prettier, fixes nearly all the bugs, and even adds a few helpful tutorial boxes. Love the atmosphere, but wonder if the environment is just a little too harsh at times.

Civilization 4 (PC): There's a very good reason I called this the greatest game of the past decade, and one day I'll get around to writing something a little more in-depth explaining exactly why. Sadly there's still no news on when to expect Civ 5.

More later this week. Probably.

The Sounds of the SNES

It's been said that contraints often liberate rather than limit creativity. Give a musician a state of the art recording studio and he'll come back to you with an over-produced and boring piece of music. Give him the SNES's sound chip and he'll write some of the greatest melodies of all time.

Koji Kondo - A slightly sinister looking genius

Hit the break for a walk down memory lane, and maybe feel a little despair that videogame music today isn't quite what it used to be.

Tales of Monkey Island Review

My review of Tales of Monkey Island has now been posted on Savygamer, and you'll see I had less fun with the game than most other reviewers. Im hoping that's because I'm the only reviewer whose judgement wasn't impaired by nostalgia, rather than the seemingly more likely explanation that I've been too harsh. Hmm. Have a read and decide for yourself.

Tim Roger's Top Games of 2000-2009

Exactly a month after my half-hearted attempt, Tim Rogers goes into mind-boggling detail over on Kotaku on his top games of the decade.

Go try not to be awe-inspired.

2010 Hype-o-meter

Don't you just hate the way the videogame press hypes forthcoming releases while knowing next to nothing about how they're actually going to play? Me too! So here are the games I'm most looking forward to playing in 2010:

Red Dead Redemption

From the creators of Grand Theft Auto comes what might be the first great videogame Western.

Mass Effect 2

A delicious nerd-fest.

Alan Wake

I'm a sucker for this kind of eerie, moody, plot-driven adventuring.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

If it's half as good as the first it will be amazing.

Brink

Mirror's Edge style controls bolted onto grand-scale objective-based team-deathmatch should result in something truly ground-breaking.

Heavy Rain

Perhaps the game that finally turns the PS3 into an essential purchase for me. Or bloated gameless crap. We shall see.

Goodbye

I'll be away for the next week. Perhaps you should take this opportunity to brush up on your maths:

World of Stuart Blog

Stuart Campbell (perhaps best described by Kieron Gillen as "videogame journalism's answer to Al Qaeda") has started blogging. He's probably the greatest polemicist there is and might ever be in games writing, and the vast number of Internet hate groups that have been set up against him over the years are a tribute to his success. No-one divides opinion quite like he can (except perhaps Tim Rogers), but even when I'm vehemently disagreeing with what he's got to say, I never doubt that he's among the most entertaining, original and informed people you can read.

His blog is particularly exciting because there's been so little new content on his main site for the past three years (even for those willing to pay £2 /month for access to his subscriber features). On the WoSblog there have so far been 16 posts in the space of less than a week, including this quite inspired spin on those over-exposed "Game of the Year" features. This compares with a total of 21 posts over all of 2009 on the regular World of Stuart.

Wherever he decides to put his words, long may his prolificity prolificness continue.

Fire Action! - Lucy Fang

On this I'm playing the bass AND the washing up tub.