Hoarr

Like I mentioned, my mom had me get my wisdom teeth taken out during my Christmas break in 2011.  Lucky for me, I was set to get all four of my teeth to be taken out at the same time.  I was never put under during my operation but was given several shots of Novocaine throughout the procedure instead.  This ended up being the worst decision ever made in the history of the world as my top two wisdom teeth were too strong to be pulled out.  The dentist had to take one of his wrench type tools and BREAK my teeth before extracting them.

There I am at seventeen; numb and strapped into a chair while an elder, pear shaped man with a molester mustache shatters my teeth, piece by piece.  He would only pause to murmur obscenities under his breath or to wipe the sweat off his greasy brow.  I can still vividly recall the feeling of pressure building up in both teeth until the inevitable popping noise to signify victory for my pale skinned torturer.  After that, it turns out that my bottom two teeth needed to be surgically removed due to them still being in my gums a bit.  This occurred during the same session, and I remember there being LOTS of blood.
 
I was out of commission for about two weeks straight.  No solid food, only mashed taters and water.

Let’s face it, this is the closest as we’ll ever get to a mature Legend of Zelda game. Epona, bomb plants, the boomerang, the heart containers, the hookshot, the pacing, the dungeons; all of these were lifted directly from Nintendo’s legacy title to be included in Vigil Game’s apocalyptic action-adventure. Mix in God of War’s fighting system, Portal’s matter-bending gun, Mark Hamill, and the Bible, and you have what makes up the world of Darksiders.
 
It’s a strange hodgepodge for sure, but the underlying familiarity is what kept my attention. Find dungeon, acquire the one mega-item inside of it, use said mega-item against boss, get heart piece — wash, rinse, repeat until finished. I’ve been doing this for years in Hyrule, why not try looting an Earth that’s been torn apart by demons and angels during the Apocalypse?
 
Despite having one or two moments of bullshittery (the never ending Black Tower dungeon, the stupid fetch quest that happens after), I still found myself thoroughly impressed with Darksiders. It’s a goofy game that takes from everything that comes before it but presents it in an entertaining way that merits forgiveness for outright thievery. Best fourteen dollars I spent this year!

Turns out companies would rather put out their more valuable arcade games as standalone downloadable titles as opposed to releasing them on Game Room. Seeing Konami’s X-Men and Capcom’s Final Fight/Magic Sword two-pack released this year without any major cosmetic upgrades proves this point, and we were stuck with a selection of titles that weren’t even worth spending our virtual quarters on.

To make matters worse, December 22nd saw the release of Venetian Blinds for the Atari 2600 with a full three dollar price tag. I’ll let Atari Age explain to you why this is a bit screwy:

“As the name implies the Venetian Blinds demo isn’t a game, but a demo that simulates a pair of Venetian blinds! The joystick can be used to raise and lower the blinds by pushing up or down. When the blinds are raised a nicely done sunset is visible out the window.”

“Although Activision never made a game out of this demo it didn’t go completely to waste. The sunset was later used in the background of Barnstorming.”

If Microsoft screwing with you isn’t enough, chew on this one for a bit. Every game you download has a system where accomplishing certain goals in it awards you with medals. These medals you earn tie in directly with Game Room’s achievements. If you would want to get the full 1000/1000 achievement points for Game Room, you’d have to spend a minimum of eighty-one dollars to do so.

I hope you love playing Jungler and Pitfall II, because I sure as hell don’t.

I consider Just Cause 2 to be the ultimate guilty pleasure type of game. It’s nothing more but silly, B-movie shenanigans, and I loved every minute I spent with it. Actually to be more accurate, I loved every one of the 1892 minutes I spent with it (and still only managed to have a 43 percent complete).

With the ungodly amount of tasks to complete, I found the perfect game to satiate my late-night cravings of gaming. Sometimes the cravings would have me play for hours, sometimes only for minutes. Regardless of how much time was spent overall, I always managed to accomplish some sort of goal I set out for myself, and in the end, got one more notch closer to getting a 100 percent complete (which I’m STILL working at).

Whenever I die and get past the pearly gates that lead into Heaven, I don’t hope that I’m shown a book that has all the answers to the universe in it. I want a book that handles the statistics of things I’ve done on Earth in the same manner as Just Cause 2 does.

There was nothing else that came out this year that managed to come close to the electronica-heavy, insanely addicting Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. Even though the game doesn’t take too much from the 1980 arcade classic, it manages to keep a level of simplicity that allows anyone to play. Forget all about making it to the next stage, Pac-Man CE DX is all about getting them high scores! 
 
Since Thanksgiving, one of my brothers and I have been battling it out over who can get the best ranking in the Manhattan level. I was pretty proud of the 137th ranking (in the world) I managed to get one amazing afternoon, until I received a message that he managed to best me. His ranking?

3rd place.

…

Oh yeah, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX has bullet time in it. How strangely awesome is that?

As far as I can remember, I’ve always been a Marvel geek. The Uncanny X-Men, the Amazing Spider-Man, X-Force, and the Fantastic Four all hold a special place in my heart due to a childhood filled with collecting every comic featuring these characters. Superman and Batman were alright (I mostly enjoyed reading older Batman adventures with Jim Aparo at the helm), but Marvel was where it was at.

That being said, I usually tend to purchase any game featuring Marvel characters including the terrible ones (Iron-Man and X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal anyone?). With this one seemingly being handled by competent, skilled geeks, I know that it’ll be a day-one purchase for me.

Also, I absolutely cannot wait for my M.O.D.O.K., M.O.D.O.K., M.O.D.O.K. team to start ripping apart bitches online.

So, so torn on this one. I had to give this award to Fallout: New Vegas as it managed to invoke two particular feelings within me which rarely shows up in gaming.

Fear and regret.

Facing a Giant Radscorpion for the first time ended up shooting a powerful spark of terror down my spine, similar to the feeling you get right before avoiding a car collision. Killing these things were a cakewalk in Fallout 3, so I had no reason to avoid taking them head on. Whenever I discovered that my most powerful weapons didn’t even scratch the creature’s exoskeleton, I employed with the “running backwards while shooting” method of retreat. Getting snagged on a cliffwall and realizing that my virtual life was about to come to an end due to the stinger of this mutant monstrosity caused that aforementioned moment of panic — it made me love the game even more.

Regret wouldn't show up until late in my travels in the Wastleand. While making my second trip to REPCONN Headquarters for extensive looting (my lockpick skill was now 100), I came upon the desecrated corpse of Raul the Ghoul. He was ripped apart by the security robots on my first visit, and I ended up feeling slightly sad for the guy whenever I came across his lifeless body in the wreckage. It was at this moment that I realized that every single one of my companions at that point ended up biting the dust when traveling with me: 

• Boone was torn into shreds by a pack of Night Stalkers after I commanded him to use melee attacks only.
• Veronica was surrounded by a group of Cazadors and stung to death while I ran like hell.
• Arcade Gannon was a pussy that couldn't even handle a Legendary Deathclaw.

Everyone of these deaths all had a common thread amongst them. They all happened due to my own negligence or greed for glory. If I planned things better Raul would still be alive. If I wasn't jealous over Boone sniping every damn thing within a mile before I could, he'd still be annoying AND alive. This feeling of remorse would return during the Fallout: New Vegas end game credits. Reading about the needless demises of my companions along with glimpses of possible outcomes if they survived made me want to start over again from the beginning. These people deserve a better me, and I'm dammit going to give it to them!

Then, I realized I had gotten every achievement and sunken in seventy-something hours already. Sorry guys, looks like I'll just watch your "happy" endings on YouTube.

Fallout: New Vegas -- my favorite game of the year.