Unfettered Blather

Well, next month is the birthday season, starting with my own birthday on November 3rd. Oddly, this is also the month when every company starts flooding the market with games despite the fact that I earn the exact same paycheck every week and I do not suddenly have an influx of disposable income. Note to game companies, if you want me to pay full price for games you should do a better job of staggering your releases. While I am really looking forward to getting Fable II and Midnight Club Los Angeles I do not have the time to play all of these games AND Fallout 3. You’re short-sightedness at targetting the holiday season is what allows me to pick these games up on the cheap next year.

GAME OF THE MONTH Fallout 3
I’ve always been a believer that Bethesda could pull a good game out of their hats when it came to the Fallout franchise, though I would have been perfectly ok with “Oblivion with Guns” had it come down to that. Apparently, Bethesda did not want to phone this one in, and so they developed an interesting hybrid product between Oblivion and Fallout that results in one of the most immersive experiences I’ve ever had. I really do feel the desperation of being a survivor in the wasteland.

BEST OF THE MONTH
	#1 Fallout 3 (X360) Despite some glitches and a few problems, the game more than makes up for its shortcomings by having an incredible expansive area for players to explore and an unparalleled level of immersion. In addition, it truly allows player choice, something most games usually boil down to as “White Knight” or “Puppy Kicker”. There are actually shades of grey and true moral choices, which goes a long way towards making the game feel more alive. This may be the Game of the Year.
	#2 Rock Band (X360) The most fun you can have humiliating yourself with friends and family. The song selection is excellent, the note charts superb, the overall design is greatly improved over Guitar Hero II, and the ability to not only download new songs but include them in standard gameplay is a welcome addition that the Guitar Hero franchise needed badly. After playing this I am unconvinced that Guitar Hero: World Tour will be anything but a pale imitation of this game and will only succeed on brand recognition alone. Ironic since the makers of Rock Band are the ones who did so much to establish the Guitar Hero brand that Neversoft and Activision are so busy destroying.
	#3 Sid Meier’s Pirates (XBX) If you had told me that they could make a modern remake of a game that is 21 years old and then make it just as much fun but also have it run well on a console I would wondered what kind of alternate dimension I had accidentally woke up in. While I’m not sure where I’m at I do like it. I never quite got around to getting the PC version, but since I do so much gaming on the console anyway I bought this as consolation prize. Stupid of me, this game is excellent. There are some frustrations and a few unnecessary additions, but surprisingly they kept the core gameplay of the original game they made in 1987. That might sound odd, but since the original game had some of the best game design we’ve ever seen and is possibly one of the first games I’d refer to as art this is quite an accomplishment. I am glad they resisted the urge to muck with the formula and just give us a modern update.
	#4 Tron 2.0 Killer App (XBX) Repeat viewings of Tron on cable have put me in a nostaligic mood. I had heard great things about Tron 2.0 and it’s X-Box version and finally decided to pick up the game. The overall effect is excellent. The light cycle game is hard as hell but surprisingly fun. I think this holds up that hard can be fun but you have to make it at least appear as though there is the possibility of being able to beat the game. I think a first-person shooter with Tron visuals isn’t as compelling as it might sound, but I like that they did capture the essence of the movie.
	#5 Timeshift (X360) Sierra is clearly stinging from not having Valve anymore as this desperate Half-Life 2 wannabe is far too closely modelled on it to even get away with being a “homage”. Granted, the time controlling aspect of the game is something not seen in Half-Life 2, but since it also lacks a gravity gun or portal gun I think it’s a wash. I can’t help but feel I’ve done all this before, and it’s probably been done better. It’s not a bad shooter, it’s just not a great shooter either and I can see why it didn’t find much of an audience.
	#6 War World (X360) This is a very shallow, simple, and arcade style giant robot combat game. Think Mech Assault but simpler. Fun for what it is but not near the game I hoped it would be. A lot of complaints were thrown at the demo for only being 1 minute in length (NOT KIDDING!) but sadly that 1 minute demo actually captures everything about the game. I enjoy giant robots blasting away at each other but unless you share a similar fetish I wouldn’t recommend it.
	#7 Armored Core 4 (X360) I officially give up on this series. Despite all the improvements and attempts to simplify the game they have actually made it worse than ever. When the game works it’s great and the battles are fast paced and epic. Yet the game mechanics, like flight, are so poorly done and activated almost at random that sometimes I go soaring over the battlefield when I just wanted to go over a curb and other times I am stuck against a wall when the objective is clearly above me and the AI is more than happy to target me despite the fact my robot will not do what I want it to. The customization aspect of this game is an attempt to make it simpler, but it’s actually MORE confusing with the limited information and fewer options. Trying to design your ultimate robot is near impossible as you rarely have the money to get the parts you need and the store is done in a manner where it charges you for options you’ve equipped but may not have wanted. In the end this game is a muddled mess with a lot of great ideas that were executed poorly. I am now convinced that From Software simply cannot make a decent giant robot game because they would have done so by now.

BEST SO FAR

1. Fallout 3 (X360)
2. Rock Band (X360)
3. Boom Blox (Wii)
4. Portal (X360)
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (X360)
6. Guitar Hero II (X360)
7. Sid Meier’s Pirates (XBX)
8. Mass Effect (X360)
9. Soul Calibur (X360)
10. Crackdown (X360)

WORST SO FAR

1. Call of Duty 3 (Wii)
2. Road Trip: Arcade Edition (GCN)
3. Carnival Games (Wii)
4. Yaris (X360)
5. Virtual On Marz (PS2)
6. Hexic HD (X360)
7. Pac-Man: Championship Edition (X360)
8. Bankshot Billiards 2 (X360)
9. Fable II Pub Games (X360)
10. Small Arms (X360)

YOU’RE OUT OF THE RUNNING
And now we bid farewell to those games that won’t make either list.

• Armored Core 4 (X360)
  Although considered for the Worst 10 of the year, it falls just short of making the list. A bad game, to be sure, but just not bad enough.
• Endless Ocean (WII)
  Well, I hate to drop this off the top 10 because it is such a unique and well done game but in terms of sheer enjoyment and even novelty there have been better. I still highly recommend this if you can stand having a game that doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping. Also a great game for any budding marine biologists in your house.
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (X360)
  In all honesty I thought this was going to be my game of the year but a lot of my concerns came to fruition now that the franchise is in EA’s hands. They made a lot of bad decisions and spent a lot of time adding features nobody wanted while ignoring some of the most common requests. The first Mercenaries was a brilliant game and remains one of my favorite sandbox games of all time. All they had to do was continue that tradition, add a few new weapons/gadgets/vehicles, and give you a real base where you could store your vehicles instead of constantly having to hijack or buy everything. Hell, even in this game they give you an expansive but perpetually empty garage! The quick-time events were annoying and obviously not play tested extensively or someone would have realized how ridiculously tedious and repetitive they were going to become. I still liked the game but this is the case of the sequel being an inferior follow-up.
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
  I really do see this as a slight graphical update to Super Smash Bros. Melee but it’s still a damn fine game. Still, it has a certain shallowness that keeps it from getting the same hold on me that its predecessor did, simply because the game is so similar. If you own a Wii you should get this game at some point, assuming you don’t own the previous iteration already. However, the list is not just for the best Wii games I’ve played this year.
• Timeshift (X360)
  A mediocre game, possibly even good, but nothing earth shattering. It takes few chances and really even where it differs from Half-Life 2 it simply borrowed from somewhere else. The time control mechanic is actually well done, if a bit stingy, but isn’t enough to get the game anywhere near the top of my list.
• Tron 2.0 Killer App (XBX)
  As first-person shooters go this one is definitely different and well done. The lightcycle minigame, which can be played as a stand-alone minigame, is tons of fun when it’s not keeping you from progressing in the story mode. However, the game suffers from the same linear level design and because of the spartan nature of the Tron world it feels a bit on rails at times.
• War World (X360)
  This game suffers from its own shallowness, which is too bad because even as an X-Box Live Arcade title it could have done more. Not a bad game but nowhere close to great either.

REBUYS
It happens. From time-to-time I trade in a game I wish I had kept or because I needed the money. I wasn’t always as financially stable as I am today and trade-ins often made me able to continue the hobby. Unfortunately, some games I wish I had kept after all. With the older platforms phased out this represents a now or nothing approach to buying some of these old titles.

• Portal: Still Alive (X360)
  I am essentially counting this as a rebuy even though it has more maps. Offered over X-Box Live Arcade, this is a great alternative for people who have not played Portal but don’t want to shell out the money for the whole Orange Box experience. However, aside from having some new challenge maps it is the same core game and so I am counting it as a repurchase. In fact, I have a little buyer’s remorse because there isn’t enough additional content to validate a purchase if you already have the Orange Box.

OCTOBER STATISTICS -
Average Cost: $19.31
X-Box - 2 Titles (25%)
X-Box 360 - 6 Titles (75%)
8 Titles

STATISTICS SO FAR -
Average Cost: $17.06 per game
Gamecube - 5 Titles (4.6%)
PC - 2 Titles (1.8%)
Playstation 2 - 10 Titles (9.2%)
Wii - 14 Titles (12.8%)
X-Box - 18 Titles (16.5%)
X-Box 360 - 61 Titles (56%)
109 Titles

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