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2007 Cynical Gaming "Awards" WARNING: THIS PAGE CONTAINS SPOILERS! Read at your own risk. I thought it would be rather entertaining (read: depressing) to write up a retrospective page for the mediocre gaming year that was 2007. Yes, I said "mediocre." Unlike big review companies, I'm not going to declare that every year is "a great year for gaming" just because it existed and some games came out. So below you'll find not only lists of all the games I played, but also "awards" for the ones I played and the ones I didn't. Just don't expect any of the traditional "Game of the Year" stuff, because attempting to follow that tedious tradition is like an exercise in pointlessness and futility. Picking a game of the year from all genres and platforms is like picking a person of the year from everyone in the world of all age groups and walks of life. No one's pretentious enough to do that, right? Oh, wait...
Games I played in 2007
Awards for Games I Actually Played (mostly)
Best Music: Just about all the RPGs I played this year had great music. The Witcher's music was tranquil and beautiful... Mask of the Betrayer's music was dark and fit perfectly... and Mass Effect's music was action-packed and epic. But none of these could match up to Halo 3. Why? Because someone got a few brains and decided to take the God-awful drug-addict electric guitar screeching out of the soundtrack. I guess they realized that Benjamin was Broke, Hooba stank, and Incubus was, well... just look at the name. Basically a demonic gigolo. Anyway, back were the awesome, epic, sweeping themes of Halo 1, plus some new stuff, all performed by a full orchestra (or so I hear). I highly recommend the soundtrack (and the Halo 1 soundtrack if you don't already have it). The game wouldn't have been half as epic without it. In fact, with its occasionally cringe-worthy lines and shaky plotline, it probably would have fallen flatter than steamroller roadkill.
Worst Music: This brainless destruction derby game came with my Playstation 3, and I knew (from watching the preview televisions in Wal-Mart) that the graphics looked nice, so I thought perhaps I would defy all tenets of logic based on the basic premise of the game and give the game a try. Then the music started playing, and I thought my ears were getting raped. The only way I was able to play that other game in which you propel small metal vehicles on wheels down a narrow strip of asphalt* at break-neck speeds (read: racing game) - namely, Project Gotham Racing 4 - was because you could choose what music tracks you wanted it to play. Needless to say, I immediately went in and turned off all genres but Classical. Some people race to drug-addicts wailing on an electric guitar. I race to Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." However, I saw no such options in Motorstorm, so I turned the whole game off instead. I have not deigned to play it again since then... although this is in part because of the glaring lack of split-screen multiplayer. *I'm aware that Motorstorm did not take place on asphalt.
Best Expansion Pack:
It's amazing how someone can hone a game down to a factory-like job, and
people will still buy and play it. Hack-n-slash ("action-RPG") titles
are basically just work: you run, kill monsters, pick up loot, sell bad
loot, buy good loot, put on new stuff, level up, and lather, rinse,
repeat. If you do it enough, you enter into a robot-like state, your
vision glazing over, your hand (assuming the game features any control
over your character - some of these practically play themselves) moving
the mouse on its own... But sometimes you come into a jarring bump in
the road, something that shakes you from your comatose state and makes
you complain, "Someone fix this pothole!" Well, Titan Quest: Immortal
Throne fills in nearly all the potholes. Someone should give these people a medal for their
ingenious ideas
on how to make the tedious job of slaughtering monsters for phat
lewtz a bit easier on the player. Like the ability to easily
transfer items between my characters! GOD, I wish I'd had that ability
in Dungeon Siege! That would have been SWEET! But that is, as they say,
the rub: I'd still rather play Dungeon Siege, because it's more fun.
Oh well. *snore*
Best Atmosphere: Hello, serene medieval landsacpes and villages, set against backdrops of beautifully-painted skyboxes. I appreciate you so much more than overly-fantastical, glowing mushroom cities or steam-punk-esque technological locations with buzzing electric lights. You make the game actually believable and immersive instead of just silly. Hello, dirty and realistic villagers who still don't manage to be as ugly as Oblivion ones and actually convey a sense of authenticity as they go about their routines! Hello, arms and armor that look realistic, like you could actually be (and have actually been) used! Hello, hideous and disgusting monsters that aren't stupid enough to be completely mind-boggling like something out of a D&D Monser Manual yet aren't basic enough to be just plain boring old orcs and goblins! Hello, citizens running for shelter as it rains, and birds bursting from the trees and plants as you walk! You were all so missed in games like the rather aptly-named Oblivion! All in all, it's almost impossible to believe that the Witcher runs on the Aurora Engine, the same engine as Neverwinter Nights, which had about as much atmosphere as an asteroid.
Most Ridiculous Plot
When I first heard about Assassin's Creed, I was really, really REALLY
hoping that someone had finally gone and made a realistic,
historically-accurate medieval action game with no fantasy or sci-fi
elements - something that has NEVER happened before outside the
strategy genre, as far as I know. But then as soon as you start up the
game, you are greeted by weird techno-static and DNA lines flashing all
over the place, surrounded by a drug-like haze, and you wake up in a
weird, washed-out dystopian room, playing as a bummy bartender who's
been abducted by conspiracy buff scientists. Oh boy! The entire plot is
told to you in retrospect via a machine that records your "genetic
memory," and during the gameplay, your medieval immersion is broken
by weird robot voices, bleeping lights, and DNA crap floating across the
screen to give the game's invisible barriers an excuse to exist. As for
the storyline of Altair, the ancestor whose memory we're living in, it's
just as convoluted and ridiculous. At first it seems you're a Muslim
fanatic, because you're fighting crusaders, but it turns out you ALSO oppose Saladin, and then
you discover that you're really just sort of an anarchist because you
hate people who try to control others, but you also want order, and you fight for
peace, but believe that the only way to create peace is by murdering
people, which our hero often regrets but keeps doing with relish anyway!
Your character scolds a dying man for having no faith in God and then
goes back and immediately claims he has no faith himself! So I guess you're an
atheist anarchist? No, because by the end of the game your character is
saying he supports peoples' right to choose their own religions, even if
they aren't true. Which they aren't, according to the game. But they ARE
all based on something that's true, so they are all true sort of.
Right? You don't know? Neither do I. I doubt anyone does. By the time the big ending twist takes place, you can't understand who
is fighting for what or what the game is trying to say. Finally you're
treated with messages written all over the ground in blood in a direct
rip-off of The Da Vinci Code, only a thousand times more complex,
more prophetic, more pretentious... and more pointless. The game's
overall message seems to be: nothing. I guess they just wanted to
overwhelm you with weirdness that is vaguely grounded in "reality" in
order to seem deep and interesting. Instead, it just comes off as inane. When I first started playing Mass Effect, I fully expected it to have an awesome villain. I had already read the prequel novel, Mass Effect: Revelation, so I already knew how badass he was. This villain was Saren, the renegade turian Spectre. In the book, he's a totally ruthless, merciless, uncompromising killer, doing whatever it takes to get the job done and showing no pity to his enemies. And in the game he's pretty cool too... at least until you start having one-on-one conversations with him and he reveals all these soft sides. But overall he never managed to come off as ice cold cool as he was in the novel. Perhaps that was because he was no longer the TRUE main villain.
Enter... Sovereign. Sovereign is basically a sentient starship -
a "Reaper" - a synthetic life form that has existed for millennia. When
you first have a conversation with "him," it's in the form of a huge
glowing red hologram, with his immensely deep voice pounding your chest
with its power as the bass of his musical theme (which sounds
suspiciously like some of the music from Baldur's Gate, but that's
certainly no fault in my book) rumbles in the background. "I am the
vanguard of your destruction," he says. "I... am Sovereign." He explains
that "Organic life is nothing more than a genetic mutation, an accident.
Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither, and die. MY
KIND is eternal. Centuries after your species has vanished and been
forgotten, WE will endure." Sure, it's somewhat questionable why a
machine race that is so far above and beyond anything we could ever
conceive would even bother wasting time spouting lines at you about how
awesome he is and how insignificant you are in comparison, but that
doesn't change the fact that it was awesome. Sovereign himself, when he
attacks the Citadel Fleet near the end of the game, just flies along,
completely ignoring the firepower being thrown at him. A turian ship
tries to block his path, and he just plows right through it like it
isn't even there. Sure, he looks like a giant squid with a few bug legs
attached, but it actually has an awesome effect. He's like a massive
black metal Cthulhu covered in arcs of lightning. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!
Simply put, BioWare successfully created an undeniably impressive and
even intimidating villain in Sovereign. I can't wait to see the rest of
the Reapers in Mass Effect 2, because Sovereign makes Halo 3's main
villain Gravemind look like Jabba the Hutt.
Okay, I know that Shivering Isles was about a plane of pure madness and
chaos, but the badguy was SUPPOSED to be the bastion of order and law.
However, despite his drab, grey, crystalline appearance, he had the name
Jyggalag. Err... when I think of lawful-sounding names that evoke images
of perfect order, a name pronounced "Jigga-Lag" is not among them. I
think of things like Krom or Torm, but not something that sounds like
some kind of quaint folk dance. Indeed, Jyggalag would actually be a
better name for that crazy prince guy in purple who rules over the
Shivering Isles than the main villain. Oh, wait...
"When we said that we would not be monitoring you in the previous room,
that statement was an outright fabrication." At first she's just a weird
voice over the speakers making quirky comments, but as you proceed
through the game, you realize that the omniscient artificial
intelligence program that provides all the narration for Portal has a
character uniquely her own. She continues making bright comments to
encourage you on your way while at the same time making cold jokes about
your often imminent death. In fact, the whole game is really about
her... and without her, it wouldn't be half as fun. In this way, she's
like the anti-Alyx (I'll get to that below). Her importance to the
game's entertainment value is easily observable by trying some of the
advanced levels and challenge levels that are available once you've
completed the game. Sure, experimenting around with the portals can be
fun and mind-boggling, but without GLaDOS's commentary, the game has no
soul. Which is strange, considering she's a robot who probably doesn't
have one herself. Indeed, by the time the game reaches its climax, the
borderline insane AI has become such a lovable character that you almost
feel sorry for her... almost. Of course she is "still alive," so
hopefully she'll return in another game at some point. Valve wins best character for GLaDOS and worst character for Alyx Vance. Where GLaDOS makes an okay game great just because she's there, Alyx does exactly the opposite, making a perfectly fine game nearly unbearable every time she is present. I never cared much for the character when she saved our lives in Half-Life 2 with her apparent super-powers, and I really started to hate her when she ran up and hugged us in the first-person in Episode One. I summed up some other reasons I hate her in this comic, but Episode Two adds insult to injury, further confirming the fact that she's pretty much the main character of the entire series now. After multitudes of long annoying car rides with her smiling creepily at you in the passenger seat and ruining the atmosphere with her cheesy comments, as well as a long sequence where you run around gathering magic herbs to save her from the evil sleeping sickness, it is then revealed that the G-Man pretty much declared her a "chosen one," just like you! That's right; she's practically the new Gordon Freeman! Bad enough that the game has to revolve around her; now I'm just waiting for them to release a game where you play as her. But no, they wouldn't do that, because the developers want you to be able to look at her ugly green face and hear her talk for some reason. Gordon Freeman doesn't have a voice or even an actual three-dimensional model present anywhere in the game's files. He might as well not even exist. Actually, now that I think about it, a game featuring a silent, unseen Alyx would be a big improvement... Honorable mention: Dr. Arne Magnusson, however, was awesome. Everytime he walked in and laid the smack-down on one of Alyx/Eli/Gordon's smiley-smile feel-good sessions, I grinned. "Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt tea-time!" Also, he seems to be just as smart and just as good an inventor as Eli Vance - who up 'til now seemed to be "Mr. I Invented Everything." I kept expecting Magnusson to turn out to be evil or something lame like that, but thankfully Valve didn't fall into that cliché. Hopefully they won't, because I for one like to have a goodguy who isn't a huge softie for once. Magnusson is awesome.
Most Fun Game Hey, I had to award it something. You all know I love LEGO. But really, this spot is split between Halo 3, Mass Effect, and Portal as well.
Most Boring Game
I actually considered making some kind of ridiculous award in order to
mention Elite Commander Dostya, the only cool character from
the rather dull strategy game Supreme Commander, but I hear they killed
her off in the expansion pack. Those ass-clowns. Now I'm officially
never buying the expansion. Not that I was planning to anyway, since the
game bored me into a coma. Much like StarCraft, the game features three
different factions with their own unique storylines and CGI cutscenes.
But unlike StarCraft, all of these factions are basically the same in
terms of operation, all
of the campaign storylines are basically the same d^$@ story over again,
and every single faction plays almost exactly the same way. There is
nothing unique ore interesting to be found; even the terrain is pretty
much always the same bland, flat areas. Much like Titan Quest, some of
the stuff looks pretty cool, and the IDEAS seem to be okay, but the gameplay just doesn't hold up. Boooring.
Awards I Have No Right To Give But Will Anyway
Game I most Wished People Would Shut Up About:
Would you kindly... shut up?
God, I hate Final Fantasy.
No, seriously, this game exists. Look it up. Apparently it's about
making potions or something (I didn't even know Fairy Godmothers were
directly related to potions - I thought they usually just made pumpkins
into coaches and crap). This makes you wonder why it wasn't called
Alchemist Tycoon, but that's beside the point. I mean, I knew there were
some ridiculous Tycoon games, but... wow. I guess if I cared at all about music this might be a different story, but somehow I doubt it, considering the images of the ridiculous-looking cartoon punk characters on the front of the box. Every time I see this game or hear someone mention it, I reflexively roll my eyes. I just couldn't care less about it, and the fact that it's considered a video game annoys me even more than Dance Dance Revolution did prior to its existence. But yes, I'm sure you love music and totally disagree. In that case, just pretend I'm talking about High School Musical: Makin' the Cut! instead. Then everybody suddenly agrees, and all is well.
Well, that's it for this year! Yeah, I might just make this into a
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