2008

Here is my 08 review. It is very very unorganized. I have quite a lot to say. I think.


There is No Game of the Year


No games that came out this year stood out above all else as so much better. Not completely, really. Part of the problem is that there was such a wide variety of different games with different purposes and audiences. At the same time it felt like there were so many games that just bogged down the shelf with the same old shit over and over again. I am reading a book about puritans.

Vultureman was a 'tard


I don't play my DS on the bus or outside of my house at all, usually. Is that odd? Do most people play their DS (or PSP) on the go, as was intended by the creator? I don't know. I don't really think so, honestly. It's not like this is Japan, where everyone takes the train. The best DS games I played this year were either completely portable in that sense, or completely not. Space Invaders Extreme allows quick and easy, pick up and play action, no bogging you down with story or any of that shit. It is the Ripcord Gogger 2008 Portable Arcade Shooter Remake with wonderful enhancements Game of the Year. I thought Space Invaders was the most boring franchise in classic games. Even Pong was more fun to me, somehow. Probably because it is so simple. But Space Invaders, though, that was a tough one. It's slow, unchanging and utterly dull. Space Invaders Extreme deserves the praise though. They have taken something so old, so completely outdated, and made it absolutely new. It is one of the cornerstones of this year's "neo-retro" movement. It gets 46 out of 53 stars from me.

Also on the DS was Professor Layton and the Curious Village, also known as Professor Lipton and the Curious Village. It is delightful. If you like logic puzzles. It is playable in minute chunks, if necessary. I let someone borrow it and need to get it back, but it was certainly the Ripcord Gogger 2008 Puzzle-y Brain Teaser with a Vaguely European Style Even Though it was Made in Japan Game of the Year. If you like seperating things into categories, this is the game for you. 180 out of 195 pumpkins.

Finally, Chrono Trigger. My god, Chrono Trigger. It is exactly the same, aside from the differences (added stuff). I am glad I did not have to pay $80 for a game that is not even that rare, just very in demand. It still has a robot and a cave-woman in it after all these years. Ripcord Gogger declares it their 2008 Totally Vanilla but Still Great Because the Game is Great SNES RPG Port on the DS game of the year. It remains totally difficult to play on the go, as it features the completely outdated "save point" system. But I don't care. 48,000 out of 48,001 thumbtacks.

The 100 Greatest Detectives of All Time


PS3 is the most powerful console currently available for purchase. It is almost impossible to tell. No one can seem to develop for this thing, or if they do, it is an after-thought. MGS4 and Little Big Planet are arguably the 2 most high profile releases for PS3 this year, and they are also arguably the best games of the year. I have played neither. What I have played is CONAN. It is not very good. On my patented "thumbs up thumbs down" approval scale, it gets a thumbs squarely in the middle. I like to kill stuff as Conan, he's my favorite Barbarian. The best games I actually did play on PS3 this year were multiplatform. Fallout 3, NHL 09, Burnout Paradise and Rock Band 2 are all excellent. I would probably go so far as to say they are the Ripcord Gogger 2008 Multiplatform Multigenre Multimedia Multicultural Multiplication Multiplayer (except Fallout 3) Multicolor Multimillion-selling Multiplicity (the movie) Games of the Year. They get a respective A-, A, A, and A- and a collective "Buy It" on my patented "Buy It, Rent It, Trash It" scale. Unless you don't think you'll like them. Then go get Conan. Conan gets a 7.3 out of 10. The .3 is for nudity.

I Got a Suicide Girls Magazine in the Mail Yesterday and I didn't order it at all, but I still looked at it!


The real star attraction of 08 for me were the downloadable games. They blew me the f away. At least Capcom's efforts did. And the demo of Braid I played on someone else's Xbox360. Seriously though. Mega Man 9 is maybe the best Mega Man game to come out since Mega Man 3. It is crazy, crazy good. My official Review: OH GOD OH GOD ITS MEGA MAN. I also really liked Super Street Fighter etc etc HD Remix. It's a great update of an older game and is the best online fighting game to be released. Mainly because it doesnt have Kilik in it. These two games are the Ripcord Gogger 2008 Capcom Downloadable Games that Totally F Your Skull but Still get Somehow Out-Classed of the Year. I give them 89% of a Twix bar.

The real downloadable attraction this year was Bionic Commando Re-Armed. A remake of the NES game, but rebalanced and rewritten with amazingly awesome jokes. Plays smooth as silk, looks GREAT. In my opinion, this was the best looking game of the year. Better than MGS4 (not really) or Gears 2 (ok thats a stretch). I have absolutely nothing but admiration for this game. Seriously. My review in 8 words is this: Bionic Commando Re-Armed is better than you deserve. It is the Ripcord Gogger 2008 Official Game of the Year. Which I said there was not one of, but I lied. I totally lied to everyone. It's the best game of the century. So far. On my scale it gets 100 out of 50 stars.

GTA4 was pretty goddamn boring and also I think the Watchmen movie is going to make me sad

08 is the last year that I can recall happening. 09 seems to be the year where everyone is predicting to worst. So far, the worst is coming true. There is a war. The economy in the US is in the pot. A new Tenchu game is coming out. Perhaps the saddest thing on this day is the takeover and dismantling of the 1up network and EGM by the Hearst Corporation and UGO.com. EGM, one of the foundations of videogame writing in the US has been cancelled, and most all of its longtime employees have been fired. 1up.com has also layed off the majority of its staff and it undergoing a merge with the UGO network. Nothing at all good will come of this, not the least is that the editors and writers from 1up and EGM now have nowhere to work. EGM has always had an extreme amount of integrity and a large number of very talented writers. Their opinions were always backed up well, and as a result, I put more stock in an EGM review of a game than any other source (except Tim Rogers)(j/k)(lol). I am sad to see them go. It feels like the entire game industry has stopped in a way. Who will pander to Sony now if not Shane Bettanhausen? Who will get bored with games and declare challenging things terrible if not Garnett Lee? Who will score every god-damned game an A- as long as it has some artsy fartsy qualities if not Nick Suttner? It is an injustice to the whole concept of games writing that EGM is axed while Game Informer will probably continue for years, as long as gamestop keeps forcing it on people.

EGM would have been 20 in February.

Hopefully 09 gets better from here.