2008 was a year of missed opportunities. Companies, as usual, rushed to the holiday storefronts and delivered lackluster products in order to keep them timely. One company did this more than any other: Ubisoft is the winner of the year for Best Games That Were Almost Perfect Yet Still Managed To Have One or Two Fatal Flaws That Ruined the Whole Game for Many People award. Some of these games were released with regular old bugs, some with game play flaws, some with graphic flaws, and one game was released with no flaws whatsoever, but being the type of game that it is didn’t garner that much hype behind it. Either way, here we go, the rest of the best of whatever it was I got my hands on this year!
Resistance 2 — Action games are usually pretty easy to execute, run kill run kill run kill story run kill run kill. Resistance 2 tries to be something more with absolutely horrid results. The game misses a giant, easy to hop onto barge when it comes to it’s story. *SPOILER ALERT* The plot follows the continued adventures of Nathan Hale, a soldier infected with an alien virus. Yeah, it’s stupid, but being the second game we’ve gotten used to the premise and even might have gotten close to Hale. Quickly that closeness is removed with shotty storytelling and phoned-in voice acting (literally, the voice acting sounds like it was recorded on a analog tapedeck, run through a washer, put out to dry and then played over a phone line to a Radioshack microphone). What’s worse is the fact that the story is so easy to tell that you’re constantly slapping your forehead as you play: Man sacrifices self to save humanity. Easy-peasy yeah? You’d think that Sony, a gigantic company could’ve hired at least one writer for this script right? A script about a man that is willing to die for his country, that, in fact DOES DIE FOR HIS COUNTRY. And how did I feel when I got shot in the face and the game ended? Happy. Thank goodness they killed me, I thought, happy days, I thought, but, why? I was just shot and I don’t care at all. Okay, okay, some of you are screaming that action games don’t need plots, you don’t need to care about your character… my only response is that if action games don’t want plots then don’t tack them on, don’t decide early in the game to kill your main character at the end if you don’t want to attempt to illicit an emotional responce from the player. So, the story was bland and uninspired, big deal. But the game was an action-game, and action games are no-nonsense fun right? Not with Resistance 2, apparently. The game doesn’t reward you for learning its mechanics or trying out new methods, it rewards you for dying. It’s this type of trial and error game play that, although interesting and fun in the 16-bit era, isn’t really interesting or fun now. Sure, it’ll get the job done, but isn’t advanced AI, player choice and a sense of intelligence and accomplishment where the industry should be heading by now?
Dead Space — Ah, survival horror, the genre that seems to be lost and confused and unable to rescue itself. Dead Space promised to revitalize the genre, give us back something, something new and exciting, a story, a universe a world a theory a blast. It was so damn close — but lacking in some major ways. The world that we get is created through out of the box movies, comics and shorts, the world exists around the game, but fails inside of it. Unfortunately, Dead Space’s biggest flaw comes from its ambition. It really wants the player to buy into the world with an inventive HUD, System Shock-esque storytelling and in game cutscenes. Unfortunately, they forgot to make the ship that you spend the entire game on believable as a living habitat. I’ll take the world, I’ll accept the twisted Scientology-esque plot line, I’ll even accept the girlfriend-gone-missing-turned-ghost part, but could we get a little bit of trash on the spaceship? Maybe some bathrooms? A kitchen? I wanted to believe in this game, to inhabit its world, but EA failed on one of the simplest parts. Dead Space 2? Trash? Bathrooms? Ducking?
NHL 09 – I love hockey, but hockey games aren’t really a yearly necessity for me. I’ll pick one up every few years, or even as rarely as once a generation. However, NHL 09 isn’t just another sports game — and regardless of your thoughts on the sport or sports games in general, it’s difficult not to love NHL 09 for what it accomplishes. Not only are the animations, physics, game play, modes and controls all superior to prior versions, it also introduces the closest thing to an MMO for sports nuts ever seen in sports game. Full online leagues, 6 player co-op, experience points, tournaments — this is the WoW for people with a crush on Mike Modano, Warhammer for those of us who dance in glee when a game is actually broadcast in HD. Simply put, NHL 09 is the best sports game in recent history.
Prince of Persia — Wow, I haven’t seen a game get hated on, loved on, and talked about this much in a while. For a game so polarizing you’d think people would have more concrete ideas, but even some of the best critics still seem to be a bit confused about whether or not they actually enjoyed themselves while playing. Personally, I just bought the thing yesterday for less than $30 which means that my expectations for the game are a bit lower than people people that paid $60. If I enjoy the game for 6 hours I’d say that I’d have gotten my money’s worth. PoP is one of the examples of Ubisoft missing it’s mark again, regardless of my own playthrough reactions (the other times being Far Cry 2 this year, and Assassin’s Creed last year). The company is getting damn close to a great game, but keeps on falling short. You can read what many, many others have said about Prince of Persia by following these links:
And that’s pretty much it for me. A few DS games popped onto my screens, some downloadable’s, small stuff that I don’t really feel like going to in-depth about. 2008 was, for the most part, a good year, one that showcased the release of a few games with startlingly large ambitions. It’s those ambitions that make 2009 and beyond so exciting. So what do we in Thoronia want to see in the future? Well…
- New IP Price drops — Games like Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge and Little Big Planet would have been better received had they plopped into the marketplace at $40. Game companies need to remember that games, like all medium benefit highly from word of mouth, and if we all chip in to talk about new titles they’ll eventually sell well. Every other media-industry is willing to give early-adopters a price break, why not video games?
- Reviewers need to judge games based on what they do – It seems like the 20-something nerdballs that have become game-reviewers for the major online sites have got the pretension stick so far up their ass that they’ve forgotten that there are hundreds of different types of gamers out there. We all can’t be fit into the two main categories of hardcore and casual. Reviews need to look at a game and what it is supposed to accomplish and judge accordingly. Oh, and online-centric games like Left 4 Dead or Socom need to be reviewed AFTER the launch. I mean, c’mon, how can you review a game without actually playing it? Oh, and on the same topic, reviewers need to finish the games they review. Too many this year have fessed up after the fact that, “well, I’m only on the third level, but I really like it so far…”
- Games need to find their place — We the community and we the gamers need to let developers figure out what they’re doing this year. We need to give them a bit of lee-way as each director and producer learns their place in video game creation. Not all games are going to fit easily into a category and subsequently not all categories are going to hold all the games. In order to expand the medium into something truly special, gamers need to stop crying foul when a developer tries something new. Actually, gamers and fanboys really just need to shut their mouths when it comes to things they don’t understand. I haven’t chimed in on the goofiness of Gears of War 2 for a very distinct reason — I don’t care. So if you don’t, then don’t say anything. The internet is unforgiving, and trust me, when you’re older, and you google your name and find the stupid things you’ve said, you’ll feel, well, stupid.
- DLC needs to go away, patches need to come quicker — Microsoft, don’t be a bunch of dicks. If a game, especially an online based game launches and needs some patching, let the developer do it quickly. And developers (Bethesda, I’m looking at you), don’t charge us the price of another game for expansion packs. Look, Fallout 3 was great, but I already paid $60 for it. Now you want me to spend another $30 on your expansion packs? The ones that easily could have been included on the disc if you weren’t so keen on getting it out for Christmas? No. No. No. This market isn’t going to sustain you’re stupid additions and you need to look at companies like Valve to understand what keeps gamers happy and ready to come back for more. Free upgrades, map packs and patches.
- Trust us, developer’s we’re smart — Game companies and developer’s need to realize that a growing majority of gamers are intelligent and willing to let a game challenge their mind as well as their ethics. We are well read and understand complex concepts, you don’t need to dumb down, or worse, remove idea’s from games because you think we won’t get it.
- Rereleases and sequels — You know how the movie industry is always made fun of for doing stupid things like My Bloody Valentine 3D? Or Spiderman 3? Well, you’re doing that too. Stop. Come up with new ideas or take a cue from a series like Final Fantasy where a game might just exist in a world, or format — we don’t need to continued versions of your already despicable plot lines. Spiritual successors are all well and fine with us.
- Social Components — Not all games have to be online. Not all games need to shared. We, in an era where games are loved for their multi-player to the point of a lack thereof takes points away from a score, need to remember that playing with yourself can be just as fun and relaxing.
- Downloadable Titles — Which is different than DLC, mind you. The three console networks have at their fingertips the picture perfect distribution system (look at Steam console makers). Unfortunately, this has so far been wasted on titles that would be better suited for an arcade than a living room (or again, back to the rereleases: emulation, Dreamcast games, HD upgrades (wherein they make the game kind of blurry and put some artistic bars on the sides of the screen), and a surprisingly large amount of SCHMUPS on the 360). Of course, there are exceptions, but games like Everyday Shooter and Braid proved that a single person could make an amazing game and get it out to hundreds of thousands of people. Sony , now is your chance to showcase your innovation by latching onto more innovative developers. Quick, while Microsoft is busy trying to update Bad Boys to play on the 360, find a help release more games like Flower and Nobi Nobi Boy. Show PS3 users, even if it’s for pretend, that you’re all about the little guys.
- The Cross-Platform Multiplayer Pipedream – It’s 2009, there are three main consoles and PCs. Most games are developed for at least three of these major four. Add onto that we’re also in a recession were few people own multiple systems. Now, I’m not a huge online guy, I prefer a good single player experience. But games like Call of Duty 4 and Left 4 Dead were great life-distractions (if I didn’t have Call of Duty 4 while I was unemployed I don’t know what I would have done with myself). Unfortunetly, I’m a one console person, and it’s difficult to talk friends into buying the PS3 version of games due to the stigma attached to PSN. Now, if PC games can run on a number of systems I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to play COD4 with a XBOX, I realize Microsoft is money hungry and loves charging for all of their services, but I’d be willing to sacrifice a little bit of cash for some cross-platform play, and I’m sure others would as well. But then again, maybe that’s why I’m not working in the marketing department anywhere.
