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• 10 Games Nadia Played in 2008 Instead of Working: Wii Fit

  I'm not speaking to Wii Fit today, as it told me I gained two pounds over the course of 24 hours. But Wii Fit has done so much for me, I can't stay mad at it forever. (Don't tell Wii Fit I said that. I want it to learn a lesson.) Of all the games I've played this year, I have to say that Wii Fit has captured most of my time. You might say, “Well, that's because it's a fitness game and you want to get fit, stupid.” So true, but think about it. Why do people turn their exercise bikes into towel racks by week three? Because there's little motivation to hop on the contraption. You can't feel your ass grow, so you don't have too many reasons to go through the tedium of a daily “ride.” Wii Fit combines three factors that keeps its faithful coming back for more: motivation (through a graph that traces your weight loss, or in my case, gain), variety and timed exercises. It's satisfying to see the minutes you spend on yoga, aerobics and muscle toning get added up in your little piggybank. After thirty minutes have been stored up, the little piggybank does a dance, signifying that you have exercised an adequate amount for the day and may reward yourself by stuffing a cheeseburger in your face. Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 11:21 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, wii, wii fit, nadia oxford, casual gaming, fitness, top 10

• My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Fable 2

  It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next several excruciating days! Please enjoy. One of the major reasons Fable II surprised me with its greatness is that Lionhead's medieval sequel was completely off of my radar until I needed something to play in October.  Before that, the last time I had flirted with any of Peter Molyneux's creations was 1999's Dungeon Keeper II--and many would've agreed that was the perfect place to leave the ambitious developer behind.  But Fable II was a redemption for Molyneux, and one he desperately needed, at that; after nearly an entire decade of disappointments, gamers were getting less and less interested in the shit he'd been shoveling.  Thankfully, Fable II is remarkably less fecal than his 00 output--it's actually damned good. Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: xbox 360, fable 2, peter molyneux, bob mackey, top 10, top 10 of 2008

• Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008 – Part Three

  The official mandate has come down from the top—that it is December, and we all write about games, so we all have to pick some arbitrary number of them that we enjoyed above all others this year. I am taking on this task in the way of our forefathers, using their traditional number (10) and order (from great to most greatest). Games were chosen for this list using a highly scientific list of criteria, including but not limited to dopamine levels, blood alcohol content, darts, and how well the box art fit into my photo mosaic of Satoru Iwata. Today is #4-#2.   4. No More Heroes I don’t think I’ve ever cackled with glee more often at a game than I have at No More Heroes. It’s the ultimate otaku fantasy simulator, and it revels in obsession and bombast. It’s also the ultimate otaku simulator, and it revels in loneliness and sociopathy. Were the clunky town-based elements a bad impersonation of western sandbox design, or a cynical elbow to the ribs of western sandbox design? Is it a legitimately great game or a bad game that’s ironically great, and could it somehow be both? And what was up with that real ending? For No More Heroes, a game that loves and hates itself in equal measure, these questions could be debated endlessly. The most outrageous game of the year, and the must-play of the last twelve months that most people didn’t. Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 11:00 AM by Joe Keiser with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: no more heroes, Grand theft auto 4, rock band 2, joe keiser, top 10, top 10 of 2008

• 10 Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead Of Working: Bionic Commando Rearmed

  Having grown up with two brothers and personally scoring somewhere in the negatives on the official Femininity Chart, you would think that Bionic Commando would have found its way into my Nintendo library somehow. Alas, no. Though I was always aware of Rad Spencer and his important contribution to history (making Hitler's head and secret headquarters EXPLOD), I didn't adopt any fondness for Bionic Commando until I watched my husband do a playthrough. My eyes followed that swaying red-headed soldier like a pendulum. Where do I sign up for the Bionic Harem? (And what did I just say about scoring in the negatives on the official Femininity Chart?) I tried to take control of Rad. When my attempts to make him swing out of the television screen and into my lap failed, I decided I'd at least try to get him through his no-jump adventure. I couldn't get through Area 01. It was an embarassing disaster and Hitler won. I figured Bionic Commando was simply something you had to be born into if you wanted to stand any chance of finishing it. Time went by, stealing a drop of my life with every tick, and there dawned an age (Now) wherein game developers learned the value of nostalgia. Remakes and revamps of old classics, they reasoned, would send twenty- and- thirty-somethings running to Playstation Network and Xbox Marketplace like sows to the trough. Indeed, we sucked it all down, but there's no shame in indulging in a high-quality remake like Bionic Commando Rearmed. Read More... Posted Dec 12 2008, 09:14 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: capcom, bionic commando, 8-bit, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, nadia oxford, top 10

• Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008 – Part Two

  The official mandate has come down from the top—that it is December, and we all write about games, so we all have to pick some arbitrary number of them that we enjoyed above all others this year. I am taking on this task in the way of our forefathers, using their traditional number (10) and order (from great to most greatest). Games were chosen for this list using a highly scientific list of criteria, including but not limited to dopamine levels, blood alcohol content, dice rolls, and the likelihood that the game contains secret spreadsheets full of crime. Today is #7-#5.   7. Mirror’s Edge Mirror’s Edge isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but in terms of adding to the language of the medium it’s probably the most important of the year. Prior to Mirror’s Edge, first-person platforming pretty much didn’t work (Jumping Flash aside); now it does, and it does in a gripping way that ensures it will be badly copied by many first-person shooters to come. But the way the platforming was handled also, perhaps more than any other game ever, made the player feel like they were truly inhabiting the body of the protagonist. Mirror’s Edge has a moment, and only one, where the camera leaves the point of view of Faith. It’s the most powerful gaming moment of 2008. Read More... Posted Dec 12 2008, 01:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: shin megami tensei, mirror's edge, fallout 3, fallout, persona 3, joe keiser, top 10, top 10 of 2008

• Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008 – Part One

  The official mandate has come down from the top—that it is December, and we all write about games, so we all have to pick some arbitrary number of them that we enjoyed above all others this year. I am taking on this task in the way of our forefathers, using their traditional number (10) and order (from great to most greatest). Games were chosen for this list using a highly scientific list of criteria, including but not limited to dopamine levels, blood alcohol content, coin flips, and the rate at which the number of in-game explosions approached infinity. Today is #10-#8.   10. Fable 2 I played Fable 2 during a two-week period in which I saw some significant real-life difficulties, so the game’s emotional moments, being fiction, didn’t resonate as strongly with me as they did with others. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the risks the game took or the choices it forced the player to make. Yet while it went further than most games, it still didn’t go far enough, with punishment for doing the right thing in the face of temptation still being too easy to make up for later. But the game play was there; Fable 2’s shallow but broad mechanics encouraged experimentation while making sure there was always something new to try.   Read More... Posted Dec 11 2008, 05:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with no comments Filed under: fable 2, mother 3, spore, joe keiser, top 10, top 10 of 2008

• 10 Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead Of Working: The World Ends With You

  If my organs don't randomly decide to leap out my mouth and run down the street before I finish my Top Ten Games for 2008, you'll come to notice that I have a lot of Nintendo DS games put down as personal favourites. Could it be that I ride the subway often enough to feel like the kin of the Morlock? Mmmmmaybe.     The World Ends With You was probably the nicest surprise of the year for me. I cared very little for the game when it was in its development stages: one gaggle of Kingdom Hearts fangirls is all it takes to forever spoil your appetite for Tetsuya Nomura. So when I accidentally found myself with the game for review purposes, I threw a sulk in the style of The World Ends With You's orange-haired protagonist. He even started the adventure with an inner monologue about how the world in general could descend into Hell for all he cared, waah waah, Linkin Park. I'm a sullen bitch who bites people on the ankle when they prove me wrong, but it was a joy to discover just how wrong I was about The World Ends With You. Read More... Posted Dec 11 2008, 01:35 AM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: the world ends with you, nintendo ds, japan, square-enix, tetsuya nomura, kingdom hearts, nadia oxford, top 10, shibuya

• My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Grand Theft Auto IV

  It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next several excruciating days! Please enjoy. While reading the latest GameSpite update, I couldn't help but nod my head in agreement at Spite King Jeremy Parish's trenchant comments on the modern gaming blockbuster.  Especially this: It makes me angry that reviewers actually called GTAIV's narrative "Oscar worthy," because (1) no, it really wasn't and you guys seriously need to go and watch a good movie, OK?; and (2) that kind of empty praise is just going to encourage Rockstar to keep focusing on the sloppy, poorly-written pulp noir aspects of their creations to the detriment of the part that actually makes GTA unique and fun: the gameplay. And yet, GTAIV still made it onto my favorite games of 2008 list.  Have I lost all credibility?  Did I ever have any?  Don't fret, dear reader; GTAIV is one of my favorite games of the year by virtue of that fact that it occupied so much of my carefree summer (god how I miss it).  When you make twenty attempts to beat a game's final mission, there's gotta be some love there, right? Read More... Posted Dec 10 2008, 09:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: rockstar, bob mackey, gamespite, top 10, gtaiv, top 10 of 2008

• Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008 – Special Jury Prizes

  The official mandate has come down from the top, as you have seen—that it is December, and we all write about games, so we all have to pick some arbitrary number of them that we enjoyed above all others this year. This is an arduous task that we have all figured out ways to cheat at, and I am no different. Though I will pick ten games, exactly, and present them in order from #10 to the best game of the year, I will not be starting that list today. Instead, here are my special jury prizes for the year. These games would have made it into my top twenty. They all did one or two things pretty well, and many deserve more recognition than they ended up getting.   Best Games to get Your Girlfriend to Play Games – Wii Fit and Echochrome: A tie here, for two otherwise incomparable games. Wii Fit is an obvious one, as it has been specifically targeted at women and is barely a game at all—it’s really just a charmingly presented tool. Echochrome is much more interesting, because it’s a gamer’s game through and through. Despite being maybe the most abstract game released this year, it’s actually surprisingly easy to get the layperson to understand it—“the M.C. Escher game” is a fully illuminating description that almost anyone is at least intrigued by. That both of these games were technically ambitious (Wii Fit in hardware, Echochrome in software) is not a coincidence, as this is the kind of lateral thinking that grows the scope of the medium. Read More... Posted Dec 10 2008, 04:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: wii fit, dynasty warriors, echochrome, yakuza 2, joe keiser, top ten of 2008, top 10, viking

• Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 2

  Missed part 1? Click here! 9 - Space Invaders Extreme (DS/PSP): One of the most iconic arcade games of all time crossed its 30th anniversary this year, and to celebrate they reinvented the whole damn thing. We've seen this before, but Space Invaders Extreme was different. How? It was flippin' awesome this time. Bright colors and flashing lights, sound effects that sync with the club-ready music, new power-ups and new aggressive enemies, Space Invaders Extreme turned the arcade classic into an underground rave of interplanetary destruction. And, as I already said, its flippin' awesome. I prefer the DS version, but both are great, and for the bargain price of $19.99 there's really no reason not to pick up this addictive portable reimagining. Read More... Posted Dec 10 2008, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: boom blox, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, wii, psp, space invaders extreme, space invaders, iphone, newtonica, top ten of 2008, top 10, professor layton

• 10 Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead Of Working: Super Smash Bros Brawl

  My games writing career saw a healthy boost in 2008. Ironic counter to my success: a subsequent decline in personal opportunities to sit back and play games for my own enjoyment. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to me. I often get hissing telephone calls in the dead of night from writers and editors at 1UP.com, IGN, Gamespot, etc: "One of ussss, one of ussss. Hey, have you played Fallout 3 yet? Didn't think sssssso." My obligatory "Best Of" list is a little malnourished as a result. I had a lot of review titles shoved down my throat and now my liver is a quivering, delicious mass. I mean, nothing was wrong with Ninja Reflex DS, but--yeah, I'll stop here (it did get me through a long wait at the passport office). Still, it's not like my favourite hobby has transformed entirely into stylus-poking drudgery. I still had some good times. There is a story behind my acquisition of Super Smash Bros Brawl. It involves the worst winter I've ever experienced and the worst snowstorm that capped that worst winter. I smashed, so to speak, through some belly-high drifts just to attend the game's damnable midnight launch. I'm too old and crotchety for midnight launches in the best weather; rest assured it was all my husband's idea. Read More... Posted Dec 10 2008, 09:56 AM by Nadia Oxford with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo ds, wii, super smash bros brawl, nadia oxford, 2008, top 10