Another year checked off, and a whole bunch of games played through, it's time to pick favourites yet again. While it always feels like gaming has off-years, 2012 on the surface seems that way, but there were still some excellent games that came out this year (although a few games that I was hoping to be good turned out to sour me quite a bit in the process). Here's run off the list, shall we?

10. Journey

It's not often a game like this gets onto my "best of" list by the end of the year, mostly because I feel like gameplay takes a back-seat to this audio-visual experience designers intend for you to experience. However, Journey was quite something to it, realistically it's just a 90-minute exercise of walking forwards, with an interesting multiplayer idea thrown in there, but I felt it deserved a spot here, as it's a game I feel everyone should play atleast once in their lives, even if they probably won't end up enjoying it as much as others, myself included. It's a hell of a 90-minute ride, I'll tell you that much.

9. Hotline Miami

I'd been avoiding Hotline Miami for awhile after it's release, but a friend practically demanded that I hurry up with whatever the hell I was playing at the time and trek through it. So I did. Hotline Miami is an incredibly weird game just glancing at it from the surface, but when you jump into the game, you fall face-first into a twitch-based, acid-trip of a game with a fucking PHENOMENAL soundtrack guiding you through it's small corridors, making sure to kill guys as fast as you can before you die, or even if you do die, just pressing a button and being right back in the action. If it wasn't so weird, it would probably sell more copies, but it'd also risk losing some of the elements that make it such a crazy experience along the way.

8. Binary Domain

Let's get the largest criticism out of the way, ok? It's a Gears of War clone. It's pretty competent at it, but if you're tired of cover-based 3rd person shooters, then maybe you'd find yourself discouraged from trying Binary Domain. It's a shame though, because the characters, story and little details sprinkled within Binary Domain are the reason I'd recommend you see it through. Big Bo certainly approves.

7. Tekken Tag Tournament 2

I had a fighting game take my nr. 7 spot last year, and as luck would have it, the nr. 7 spot would be yet again reserved for a fighting game this year. Tekken Tag 2 is the most fun I've had with a fighting game all year. It's Tekken in the best way possible. Modes are a bit spartan and there's no real story-mode (although there is an arcade mode where everyone gets an intro and outro), but as someone who's always ended up enjoying the gameplay and intricacies to Tekken, this game does not disappoint.

6. Borderlands 2

Oh hey, it's "More"-der..lands...or something. Anyway, Borderlands 2 is the most traditional sequel I've seen released this year. It alleviates some of the criticisms from the first Borderlands game, feels like the environments are more varied, the world is more alive, and there are weirder weapon combinations out there to screw around with. There's not much to say about it in regards to story and all that jazz (it's kinda eh), but hey, the basic gameplay is still really fun, and that's pretty much all that matters here.

5. Sleeping Dogs

This game was very almost a sequel in the True Crime franchise. What an absolute waste that would've been (although realistically it would've been a bigger surprise I suppose, since this game is actually good). Sleeping Dogs is the open-world game this year to take that sweet hole left by the GTA series, and it does a great job at filling that gap. I genuinely don't really have any complaints about the mechanics in Sleeping Dogs, besides the chase sequences (I don't like 'em), the game feels very well thought out and I had a blast unleashing my inner child on the streets of Hong Kong, action hijacking vehicles while in pursuit, starting fights with random civilians or even just adding a teaspoon of chaos to the mundane lives of the A.I in Sleeping Dogs (you're welcome, fellas!).

4. The Walking Dead

In a year where I feel like there are no good stories in gaming this year, along comes Telltale Games to fix that in a jiffy. As someone who has no investment in the show or comic book this game's fiction is based on, I grew to understand the world of TWD and I absolutely love what designers Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman did in regards to characters and their development, aswell as putting the player in as conflicting situations as possible just to screw with the player and their moral compass. There were 2 moments in TWD that genuinely had tears dripping from my eyes, it just goes to show that proper attention paid to developing the world and story of a game can mean alot to the player. It would be higher on this list but the sad fact is that the actual game elements are a little hamstrung in TWD, which with a bit more gameplay to it could've easily have been my GOTY 2012 for sure (it still wins Story of the Year though, so that counts, right?).

3. Dishonored

What a delightful game. Inspired by the likes of Deus Ex and Thief, Dishonored is an incredibly well-crafted modern-day equivalent of a stealth game. The combat and movement feel tight, the atmosphere and visuals of the game look fantastic and I honestly really appreciate any game that allows me to get through the entire game without killing a single living soul. Y'all should play it, I absolutely recommend it (unless you've never played Deus Ex/Thief in which case: what the hell is wrong with you?).

2. XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I remember hearing about an XCOM reboot a few years back, and I was excited at the prospect. To my horror, it turned out they wanted to make Bioshock, but with the XCOM name attached to it. I still have no clue what has happened to that project in particular, but you have no idea how many screams of joy were had when I learned the ineffable Firaxis was tasked with making a "true" re-imagining of the classic XCOM franchise. TL;DR - It's a fucking great game, it is everything I expected it to be, and some more. The only reason this game wasn't my GOTY 2012 is because of the rampant amount of bugs the game is riddled with (mind you this is mostly due to me playing on a console, not the PC, but still), which prevents it from taking it home this year. Still play it though, or else realize how terrible your taste in games is.

1. Far Cry 3

If you're shocked that FC3 is my GOTY, don't worry: I'm shocked too. I thought the first FC was an interesting looking game, it certainly did things that were pretty unheard of at the time, but I've never been a fan of Crytek's gameplay mechanics. They make beautiful worlds, they just bore me supremely. FC2 is a game I have the utmost respect for, purely because it was a high-budget shooter that was unlike every single FPS out there at the time. The problem is that FC2 as a game had way too many issues for me to deal with, I believe the specific wording I used to describe it is "It's like a AAA version of STALKER, but shit", and I still stand by that. FC3 however takes inspiration from both the first game and second game, and creates a game world I absolutely adored to be in, from running from checkpoint to checkpoint capturing outposts, to hunting wild animals for their skins, to going out in the world and ACTUALLY enjoying collecting those stupid little collectibles so many open-world games feel like littering their worlds with. It was an absolute blast, only let down by an interesting story premise that completely shoots itself in the foot in the end.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about games that truly truly saddened me over the course of the year. I haven't numbered any of these as I feel it's kinda irrelevant, but I will share thoughts (and perhaps my aggravation) about these games.

Most disappointing games of 2012

Max Payne 3

I've seen people say they really liked MP3, but I just can't get into it. I feel like it was this game that made me realize just how much I hate the writing of the Houser brothers. This game just lost what I liked about Max Payne and Max Payne 2, it doesn't have the Remedy touch to it. I've seen people say "oh it feels just fine to me, dunno what you're on about", but I dunno, I just can't accept this game for what it is. Call it Randy Painymous the Third and alot of elements that bother me would disappear, but then again, the gameplay started feeling a little stale after a while, and I think the writing in general just isn't great.

Mass Effect 3

This year the internet was drama'd out with shit to say about Mass Effect 3, but if you ask me, it's not the ending that sours folks. ME3 suffers from the same problem alot of games in a franchise do, specifically ones that are part of trilogies: it just feels rushed. Mass Effect 1 was not an amazing game, but it was certainly ambitious. Mass Effect 2 sacrified that ambition to create a very solid and polished experience as a result. Mass Effect 3 feels like it isn't going for either, it feels like someone at Bioware really wanted to have things go somewhere, have plot-threads tied properly, but someone at EA (not making accusations, just a hunch) told them they had 18-24 months to make a damn sequel, and they should hurry up with it. There are still some incredible moments in ME3 I feel, as a fan, but it's a shame there are alot of moments that don't really go anywhere. On the plus side, I really like their take on horde mode, it's very fun.

Resident Evil 6

I don't understand this hubris Capcom has been gathering since the start of the "HD generation", but Resident Evil 6 feels like it has recieved the biggest hit as a result of that hubris building up at Capcom. Sure it's got a 20 hour campaign, but it's not very fun. I chastised RE5 for feeling too much like Capcom desperately clinging onto RE4 and trying to copy that as closely as possible, but on the flip-side, we get RE6 which adds a bunch of new mechanics that all don't feel very well thought out. I genuinely feel like if I were to ask the designers "who thought the pill system was a good idea?" and poked around enough, I feel like I'd get back an answer of "I dunno, felt cool to me". This is a terrible thing to say since jobs will be on the line over this, but I'm fucking GLAD RE6 tanked ratings-wise, maybe it'll finally serve as a wake-up call Capcom needs, otherwise that company is going the way of THQ in the next 5 years if they keep this up.

Assassin's Creed 3

Y'know, I feel like Ubisoft would be focusing all their efforts into making sure their biggest selling current franchise would get a proper new iteration, but hey, what do I know about game development? AC 3 feels like a game where development duties felt even more divied up between the 18 million satellite studios Ubisoft has running. The quickest way of determining what is flawed about AC 3 is comparing it to AC 2. It spends ALOT less time building up characters, the world feels weirdly small and ALOT of the buildings and other environments are flat-out copy-pasted onto the environment, also the mission design isn't very good or well thought-out at all. People will have varying levels of success with it, but I dare anyone tell me how memorable any of the missions in AC 3 are (bar the prologue one, that one was actually well-done).

Diablo 3

Y'know, for a company with such a rabid fanbase and such an unbelieveable pedigree, I don't understand why I didn't enjoy D3 that much. Maybe it's the fact that I don't like playing that game by myself (I know it's always been known as a huge co-op series, but sometimes, I seriously just wanna enjoy games and take my time with them, and at other times, my friends aren't available), maybe it's the fact that the higher difficulties are locked up requiring you to consecutively beat the game on each difficulty before unlocking the higher one, maybe it's the fact that PvP was not in the game and (I believe) is still not in the game, or maybe it's the fact that after recieving INCREDIBLE AMOUNTS of scorn for their proposed DRM solution, Blizzard refused to change it which resulted in the first 4-5 days of that game being out being a complete fucking nightmare. 7-8 years of development well spent, Blizzard. Seriously good job on that. And I don't understand the people flagrantly defending this game, I really don't. Here's my advice: For a 3rd of the price you'd have to spend on D3, go buy Torchlight II instead. Have fun.

So I've been meaning to write this for a while now, but kinda kept getting side-tracked all the the damn time. I'm finally gonna sit down and finish this darn thing! I'll be making a general top ten along with games that almost made the cut. If there's anything else I feel should be mentioned, I'll drop a line about that aswell.

10. Infamous 2

There's always that expectation that the sequel to something has to be bigger, crazier, more spectacular. InFamous 2 kinda wants lightning to strike twice in some ways (I feel like wordplay makes this more readable), because it doesn't really step up that much from the first game. There are more ways to travel the open world and Cole gets a few new powers aswell as "alternative" versions of all of his main types. The overall quality just seems to be the first game however, with a new coat of paint. You still have 3 enemy factions, all the same general enemy types to fight against, and 3 islands which unlock at certain story intervals. I enjoyed my time with InFamous 2, so much so that I finished it twice, but it certainly doesn't feel as exciting as the first game did sadly, which is why I probably agree with Brad Shoemaker's 4/5 review for it that he gave. It just seems like they maybe had grander ideas, but they would've taken atleast 8-12 more months to implement and their deadline was closing in fast. The story overall is a bit more "eh" and there were little things that seem like they weren't properly implemented (example is that there seems to be little ambient sound while running around the city, no real chatter from civilians, car sounds or anything). It still takes Nr.10 for me, but sadly it could've been higher.

9.Trine 2

Notice that number over there next to the name? There'll be quite a few of those since this year was yet another "year of the sequel" in terms of games. Trine 2 shares quite a few things that I said about InFamous 2. It's not really a grander experience, just kinda more of the same. This time around, it seems like they focused more on the visual and audio experience. Visually it's an amazing looking game, with certain moments where you just wanna take a second and have a long look at it all. The soundtrack is pretty good, with there being a few stand-out tracks that I just couldn't get out of my head. Gameplay is basically the same, the wizard seems like he was changed the most, and even that wasn't all that different. This is the first game Frozenbyte have done that has online play, and the netcode seems pretty decent. Trine 2 sadly is the kinda game that you finish once and there's not much reason to replay it other than to grab any collection related achievements. It's a shame, cause I feel like a level editor could do wonders, or atleast some kinda challenge modes. If it ever ends up on a Steam sale, I'd highly recommend dropping some money on it, even with it's general 4 hour playtime and low replay value.

8.Bastion

Bastion is a well-made game. I've heard people try to say it's kinda like Secret of Mana, but that's pretty much down to it being an Action-RPG played from a top-down perspective. It's a really enjoyable experience though. The narration done over the game while you're playing it can be pretty take-it-or-leave-it to some, but I liked it. The combat is very responsive, and the combat arenas they optionally let you take part in are a good place to give your skills a shot and earn some extra experience and money. It's a cute looking game with some interesting storytelling (they give backstory on the world during your travels through levels, and even in the combat arenas), and the music and sound design is top-notch. Bastion is probably the best downloadable game of 2011, well worth the 15$ they're asking for it via XBLA and PC/Steam.

7.Mortal Kombat

For the Nr.7 spot, It was gonna be either MvC3 or MK that would take it, and looking back, I decided on Mortal Kombat. I think MvC3 was a pretty good game, and I won't even hold the whole UMvC3 debacle against it, but stacking it up against MK9, it falls a bit short. Mortal Kombat is probably one of the few fighting games with an actually interesting story (as ridiculous as it is at points), and the amount of singleplayer content they throw at you is really gracious. There's the story mode where you play 3-4 fights as specific characters during certain key points, a general arcade mode with 9-10 fights with separate endings for every character, a challenge tower which is certainly inspired by Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast, which has 300 challenges which range from straightforward "beat this character" challenges to "we've edited this model to have a teddy bear, and there's dialogue where she wants to give it to you as a gift and you're not interested, kick her ass". There are also 4 minigames and a random mode which sets randomly picked status effects both negative and positive on you and the guy you're fighting against. It's silly, and I love it. The fighting system is pretty simplistic, which I'm sure people will look at and go "LOL ONLY LIKE 6 ATTACKS, CASUAL GAME LOLOLOL", but in actuality, it's all about knowing when to use your specific attacks. It just ends up making it easier for people to get into it and get good at it with the way it works. Put into perspective, I've played over 20 hours of both MvC3 and MK9, and I still have no clue how to be good at MvC other than watching youtube videos of people doing combos, whereas I learned everything I know about fighting in MK9 just by playing that game. Overall, I've thrown over 45 hours into MK9, and as someone who's never been big on MK stuff in the past, I'm really excited to see what Netherrealm do next. They've got me onboard at this point.

6. Saints Row: The Third

Saints Row: The Third is silly and a bit random, but it's not "spork" random, if you catch my drift. It all starts with the character creator where you can make an incredibly monstrosity, or just a normal dude or dudette (and give either a male/female voiceover, whichever suits you) and all the voiceover options are really well done. It's impressive, because it kinda shames other open-world games by making your custom character feel like a character, instead of a walking XYZ that doesn't really fit in with anything else (well, maybe if you make Dr.Manhattan that changes, but eh, he might totally fit in, who knows). It's a game about controlled chaos, and it does a pretty good job with it. The jokes are good, the characters are well-done, it seems like other open-world games have a huge bar set for them. The problem with Saints Row: The Third kinda shows up here aswell though. The "open-world" is not the part of this game that's amazing. Running around starting random rampages only goes a short distance in this game, and you can also 100% the whole game in about 12-15 hours, which goes to show that Saints Row sacrifices the general openness of sandbox games by focusing on the specifics more. Even if that criticism holds it back a bit, I'm very impressed by Saints Row: The Third, because for a game as silly as it is and has been marketed as, there were moments that had some magic to 'em (an example is where you ride with Pierce and "What I Got" by Sublime starts playing). If there's anything to take away from SR:TT, it's that sandbox games can have alot of personality to them, developers just need to figure ways to implement it into 'em.

5. Uncharted 3

Being the sequel to Uncharted 2 wasn't an easy task for Naughty Dog, because how do you step it up against a game that went above and beyond the game it was a sequel to? Uncharted 3 aims to be just as good as the 2nd game, in hopes that it doesn't get brought up against it. The end result is a game that is still really good, but you know you've already played it once before. It seems like Uncharted 3 could have been so much more if ND didn't have around 80 of their people working on The Last of Us while Uncharted 3 was still in development. A few other issues popping up such as Cutter (a really great new companion character) having to be cut about 2/3rds out of the story because the performance capture actor was busy filming The Hobbit are a real big shame. For anyone that hasn't play Uncharted 2, 3 will seem like an incredible game still, so it's not all that bad. Just a shame that for all the fans out there, it just seems like they made a by-the-numbers sequel to the last one.

4. Dead Space 2

Dead Space 2 is where action-horror needs to look to for inspiration. The last game borrowed heavily from RE4 and built on that to create a good western-style game in it's own right, but Dead Space 2 steps it up in just the right amounts and manages to keep the pace moving from beginning to end. Visually it looks great, the controls feel very responsive and the enemies can be tricky and speedy little bastards to deal with. There are a few moments near the end of the game that can end up being a bit annoying, but it's all forgivable considering just how great the game plays. Visceral have proven themselves a very capable team, and I hope they keep it up on future projects. I should also add that DS2 was the 2nd game this year that I ended up playing twice, just because I was so hooked by it when I was playing it. It's a shame that they kinda screwed up the multiplayer mode, my initial opinion was that if they modeled it after Left 4 Dead, it could've been pretty good, but it seems like they managed to fumble it just enough to where it ended up a "week of release" multiplayer mode to play. The singleplayer is where the meat is at, and that's incredible however, so Dead Space 2 is well worth the money if you haven't played it yet.

3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

They did it. They actually managed to do it. Square-Enix Montreal managed to create a game in the style of the original Deus Ex, which in this day and age seems to be a very difficult task to pull off. I don't know if there's a specific term for it, but I've always called it "non-linear linear gameplay" in that you have specific objectives you always need to take care of, but the way you take care of it is all down to you. The game will run you about 20 hours which is pretty sizable (not to mention I did 2 playthroughs of it), and the story and writing is pretty well handled.There are a few quirks in the gameplay at some points and the voiceacting ranges from good to god-awful, but these are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things. Now one issue however, is that this game has obligatory boss fights, which sadly are not very well implemented. They basically force you to brute force through the bosses, and if you played a fully stealth-based character, then you will end up restarting a checkpoint OVER and OVER and OVER again. I was really impressed with that SE Montreal did here, and knowing they're also doing Thief 4, I can't wait to see how that'll turn out!

2. Batman: Arkham City

There's not too much to say about Arkham City. It's Arkham Asylum with more notable characters from Batman's rogues gallery, a bigger open-world element and a few new gadgets for Batman himself. It still has the amazing combat system, it looks great, it has some suitable music and the writing is probably on-par with current Batman comics. Rocksteady seem to have gone crazy with the Riddler stuff this time around, with there being well over 400 collectables, and WB have gone DLC crazy, with over a dozen different pieces of DLC for the game, ranging from challenge mode characters to outfits for them and Batman. Besides the kinda disgusting amount of DLC that WB threw at this game, there's a sizable amount of content in the base game for anyone interested in shelling out for it.

1. TES: Skyrim

I found myself wondering wheter Skyrim "deserved" to be my Nr.1 on this list. Not only did the same suffer from a huge list of bugs around launch (some of which are still afflicting people), but the PS3 version also suffered a devastating technical issue, where saves with long playtimes were suffering slowdown and increased stability issues for people (apparently the latest patch fixed most of it). Skyrim just seems like an irresponsible Nr.1 for alot of reasons. However...It is still an incredible game. Around launch, I played 80 hours of Skyrim, I was glued to my PC as I traveled the world, doing side-quests and leveling up, grabbing loot and gear from all around the world and becoming an unbeatable god among men in that game. There's something about getting into Skyrim, and managing to waste several hours without even realizing it. I've seen people with over 200 hours already spent on the game, and with the way the Skyrim Creation Kit is integrated with the Steam Workshop and the things being released through that, I feel that the long-term for Skyrim will certainly last a while. It's kinda incredible to see Bethesda go from this small-time RPG super-nerd studio to one of the biggest names in the industry. I certainly think there's a lot devs can take away from Skyrim, as long as it isn't the bugs! So there you have it, my Nr.1 (and probably alot of other people's Nr.1 aswell), it may not come out with this victory without scandal, but to say it does not deserve any praise is certainly being unfair towards it.

Games that didn't make the cut

Portal 2/L.A Noire

The reason I'm bundling these two together is because they both share the same basic flaw. They both exhibit great writing, sound, visuals and are mechanically very sound games, the gameplay kinda seems to be the most uninteresting thing about both of these games. I wanted to advance in Portal 2 because I wanted to hear more great soundclips from GLADOS, Cave Johnson and Wheatley, I wanted to advance in L.A Noire because I wanted to see how the plot unfolded. It's a shame that sadly the gameplay wasn't the thing that drew me to either game that much. I don't think there's anything "wrong" with the gameplay either, there is nothing that would scare anyone off, it just isn't exciting enough sadly. I'm sure there are alot of GOTY lists that have these games in them, and they certainly deserve to be praised, but my mentality just states that games need to have their fundamental center be just as good as the wrapping around it, because otherwise there would be nothing that states that these 2 games have to be just that, they could probably both be great films or other forms of media.

Catherine

Y'know, I have alot of respect for the Persona team at Atlus. Persona 3 and 4 have some fun RPG gameplay wrapped around some terrific writing, and they stand toe-to-toe with some of the best JRPGs out there because of that. So it's a shame that Catherine doesn't really do all that great a job knowing the pedigree behind it. There's some pretty good writing behind it, and some people do enjoy the main puzzle-game aspect to it, but having heard all I need to about the game, it just strikes me as an experiment which might've worked for some, but left a bad taste for others. I don't think that team needs to make Persona all their lives, so I hope they do try something new yet again, and I hope they manage to pull it off better next time. Catherine was an alright game, it's a shame it didn't try to excel at anything.

Dark Souls

I've seen quite a few people put Dark Souls on their list, and I can see where they're coming from. Sadly I'm not that kinda guy when it comes to videogames. I certainly don't miss the old days where games outright punished you for not knowing what's coming up next. I do appreciate From Software for making something like that, because for as niche as it is, it has found a strong audience who love every bit of it, and I feel alot of developers wouldn't go out of their way to make a game that appeals to such a specific audience.

There were also quite a few games I missed out on this year, including The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3, so hopefully I'll indulge in those sometime in 2012, along with all the games coming out in 2012 aswell. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

  
So i got Demon’s Souls the other day. Before i go into the details of my enjoyment of that game, i’d like to mention that taking advantage of the PS3′s region-free aspect came to bite me in the ass. The funny thing here is that while my current-gen system has no problem digesting NTSC content, my old-ass TV has other plans. Basically, my game is in Black & White, a problem i haven’t suffered from since like 2004. Good stuff.

Demon’s Souls is a pretty enjoyable game. It’s a “sword-and-sorcery” style 3rd person RPG which basically plays like a slicker-moving Monster Hunter, which i’m all for. One thing i always found kinda frustrating about MH was the fact that almost every single animation in that game was so drawn out, and the key reason for many of the times i ended up dying in that game.

Demon’s Souls, while being a bit more ruthless with some aspects, feels much more fair on that aspect, which ends up with me coming to the conclusion that “if i die in Demon’s Souls, it really is just my own fault isn’t it?”. Thinking back to 9/10 of the deaths i’ve had, the problem came from me being careless and underestimating what exactly the enemy can do to me if i let him get to me.

In these situations, the problem isn’t “I’M NOT FUCKING NOSTRADAMUS, I CAN’T PREDICT WHAT WILL HAPPEN 4 SECONDS FROM NOW WHEN MY FUCKING ATTACK HITS”, more just a case of “shoulda pressed the O button, or…y’know, not tried to fisticuff a fucking 8-foot suit of armor with a lance”.

So the base gameplay is very skill-based combat, which feels pretty great when you’re dodging the shit out of enemy attacks and whacking them with that pickaxe you picked up a while back, or just bashing them with that tower shield of yours. You pick up enemies “Souls” which is essentialy the stuff you use to raise stat points and buy items and equipment.

The major risk element is that there is no “Soul Bank”, so picture that you want a new car, but you’re missing like a 1000$ and there’s no other way of getting that money other than getting next week’s paycheck. In this universe, banks don’t exist and you’re not smart enough to just leave it somewhere safe, so you carry everything you monetarily own in your back pocket.

The first thug to get a lucky shot at you and drop you will essentialy have just robbed you of everything you own. You now see why this game has a track record of inducing fury within individuals who get caught in it’s path.

Visually, other than my “colorblind” status, the game looks pretty good and runs alright for the most part. Watching a dragon make a sweeping run at you and torch an entire bridge full of dudes and random scenery looks pretty damn hot (i can’t resist making cheap puns ;>).

The online interaction aspect of the game is “interesting”, to say the least. Essentialy imagine “Ghost Mode” from racing games, but in an MMORPG world. You see pre-scripted messages that players can drop for you, and if someone’s died nearby where you currently are, you get to walk up to their bloodstains and witness their last few seconds alive. There is also a co-op system, but i think it’s limited to both being only 2 players, also both players need to have not yet finished the boss of that level (i suppose it promotes not power-leveling people).

The game feels like if you’re into it’s mechanics (which i’m really digging), there’s tons of replay value to some degree, playing around with the different classes, trying out strategies on enemies…or do what i’ve been trying to do…fists only run.

What else have i gotten down to?:

-Made it to disc 2 of Chrono Cross, ending seems in sight.

-Very close to the end of Deus Ex, from the sounds of it.

-Played a bunch of League of Legends, having fun winning, not enjoying losing .

-Started watching Detective Conan with a friend of mine, really enjoying it, and we’re both gonna watch all the way from episode 1 up to the latest…which is like 2 weeks worth of episodes in “me” terms.

Take it easy, i’m owt.

So i recently decided i'd dive back into Wind Waker after taking a break for like a week or so, and managed to finish it in 2 sittings lasting about 6-7 hours total, also figured i'd watch the Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars since a friend reccomended both to me, and i guess i'll break it down.
 

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Gallery

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Gallery

Summer Wars

Gallery

Some Notes

• Master Sword is a really generic name, yet we all hold a special regard for it nonetheless.
• Makoto, whenever she 'rolled' into the past, were quite possibly some of the best moments i had with TGWLTT.
• Someone really should've thought things through before they decided to allow a virtual infrastructure access to pretty much anything it could ever desire.

So recently, i took it upon myself to check out all the Studio Ghibli films, as i've kinda been in the mood for some animated films i suppose (i also checked out Ghost in the Shell, and got Girl who Leapt through time and Summer Wars). The only film i'd seen of them previous to now was Grave of the Fireflies, which i guess i'll talk about aswell.
 
So i guess i'll kinda describe what i thought about them, not spending too much time on each individual film. Ofcourse i'll be kinda explaining what i took away from these films, and you might not necessarily feel the same way, but feel free to tell me your own thoughts in the comments.
 
 

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

My Neighbor Totoro

Grave of the Fireflies

Kiki's Delivery Service

Only Yesterday

Porco Rosso

Pom Poko

Whisper of the Heart

Princess Mononoke

My Neighbors the Yamadas

Spirited Away

The Cat Returns

Howl's Moving Castle

Tales from Earthsea

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

So there's a little story behind this, let me tell all you wee little lads & lassies about the events that transpired that eventually conspired me to write this blog post.
 
 

It was a Friday, Noon, it was snowy and cold outside and i had some warm socks on....

Before i start, i'm gonna predict what the responses are gonna be like :
 
''lolwut/lulwut/lolwet/lolweiner/any variation''
''Fucking Noob, Took you long enough lol''
''oh wow dood ur not evn a real gamer how u nt fish zelda till now?!!''
''Zelda is Overrated''
''Nintendo is Overrated''
''[Insert Other Zelda Title] is better''
''your blog is shit compared to my blog''
 
So with that out of the way (P.S i know atleast one of the people who's gonna end up looking at this will have one of the above thoughts in his head, don't deny it now ;] ), let's begin.
 
 

Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

• The exploration/Collection aspect of the game is amazingly fun, by the time i had finished the game, i had about 70 golden skulltulas and almost every item you could collect by the end of the game (i didn't have the 50 arrow quiver or the bigger bomb bags).
  
• The fishing minigame alone is something i could see myself booting the game up for, just to play it (it took me like 4-5 minutes to get that 19 pounder!).
  
• As far as dungeons went, my favourites were probably the Shadow Temple and the Spirit Temple.
  
• Traveling the overworld has this almost tranquil feeling at times, with the nice music setting the pace, riding on your horse, just kicking back, looking for Big Poes to hunt down and bottle up.

• The music, which is probably the most key part of the game, is simply amazing and albeit it sounds a bit basic on the N64 sound chip, it had me humming and chiming along to it for most of the game.

• The Water Temple alone is a huge headache for me. It's not so much 'difficult' as someone pointed out to me, but it's more that you have to visit the menu alot in the dungeon, and i don't know if this is the case with the N64 version, but on the GC disc which just runs the game in an emulator basically, it takes like a second to get into a menu, then i gotta equip/un-equip the boots, then i go out of the menu, which takes about a second to load. It's just super annoying, and from what i hear, other Zelda games have tweaked it so you can have equipment on a toggle button just like items.
• The Gerudo Fortress. If There ever was a game that DID NOT NEED a stealth section, it's this game. It's the prime example of why games where stealth is your only option, and 'one-strike-your-out' logic applies, are not fun. Now i know there's a stealth section in Zelda's castle near the beggining, but it was a bit more manageable and shorter compared to this.
• Some of the Control is a bit off, it's one of those games that reminds you why having camera control is taken as such a given these days (the developers have said they didn't want to really give you much camera control for 'cinematic' reasons) and there are times where i messed up and usually if it's my fault, i'll concede to that, but here it just felt like the game was at fault sometimes.

Getting to Level 60 in Mass Effect 1, Finishing Persona 3, Dragon Age, Playing Through Oblivion Again. There's also a bunch of Console Stuff that i haven't gotten a chance to play, but i might check out later in the year.
 
Still looking forward to all that's new, but i've got plenty on my plate that i need to finish as is.

I don't mean it that way (or did i?). But there has been some Blueness related to my recent doings, so i might aswell dump it on all of you while i'm at it.
 

Avatar (The Last 3D-Bender)

• The CG stuff looks pretty good, there are some neat 3D effects they have in place, and i thought the start of the film awed me the most when it came to showing off all that fancy hardware.
• The Na'vi, they didn't exactly convince me when they showed 'strong' emotion, but i really did find a reason to root for them in the film, not just for the sake of the narrative. They got the job done, albeit awkwardly.
• James Cameron still knows how to make some powerful action scenes, most of them revolving around the second half of the film. There's one in particular i really wanna mention, but i feel it'd spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

• Plot is quite predictable, but it didn't hurt the movie, didn't exactly make it seem like quite the revolution some people make it out to be though. If you don't throw too much thought into all of it, you can accept it for what it is and let it guide you through the almost 3-hour long film.
• I get the feeling that seeing it in Theatres, in 3D, Full Surround Audio and all that jazz is what made it quite an enjoyable film to watch, i don't think it'll convert that action as well into Blu-Ray/DVD (Unless you have a mad Home Theatre set-up)

Mass Effect (Embrace Eternity!)

• The Writers at Bioware either come up with new ideas constantly, or they've always wanted to re-create Star Wars in their own image, as Mass Effect (and alot of other Bioware games that aren't licensed) is jam-packed with Races, Planets, Technology, Terminology and masses of other things. It's really quite good stuff, and considering this was only the first in a series of 3 (or so they say), that's quite alot to take in (in a good way).
• The Combat felt a bit janky and stale after my first run was done, but then i picked a Biotic (first run was Soldier), and man...I'll just say this: Don't just play Soldier. You'd be missing out. (Combat is still a bit janky, but i'll forgive it)
  
• The Renegade/Paragon stuff feels pretty good, it's much less a case of straight up 'I'm Evil/I'm a Pussy' choices, or atleast it manages to give a damn good illusion that it isn't (My main character was morally very Grey, as he did enjoy punching people and watching evil space tenctacle monsters die).
• The Mako controls pretty badly, but it's something you (have to) get used to. The last Mako segment alone almost made me lose my mind the first time i played it.

Been playing Mass Effect (finished it twice, might go in for another go!), Last Remnant, Finished Borderlands in Coop with a friend (finished it solo a while back), Playing through Persona 3 and then onto Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga. Also been playing Devil Survivor, Bowser's inside Story on the DS and i still need to finish Dragon Age on PC.