The 30's - Game of the Year

 

Gears of War 3 wins the Video, Gaming at 30 awards for best Xbox 360 Game (that we actually played) as well as the coveted Game of the Year.

There's a lot of good reasons to not pick Gears of War 3 as Game of the Year.  Most publications gave it to Skyrim, but as you can tell from my Day 1 post, I felt that it didn't really deserve such high honors.  There's better online experiences.  There's better single player experiences.  There's something special here, though.  It's something that brought friends together to enjoy a game.

VG30 contributors got together weekly to play through the demo.  Then six months later, we did the same in the campaign, and then Hoard, and Beast modes.  And when we were all done with that, we came back when the Season Pass content hit, and even now we're planning on when we're going to get together next to play. 

That's not something that's easily done for any game.  It took players of all skill levels, of loves of different styles of games, different genres and environments, and brought us all together to enjoy ripping apart baddies with chainsaws.  It was a lot of fun, and it has to be recognized by somebody just how great it is.  Cliffy B, you've got a great team and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 4

Day four is here and we have to cram in everything else that we wanted to make mention of for the year!

Best Game That Could Have Been Even Better

Don't get me wrong here, I liked Arkham City a lot, but it always felt like it was missing something.  The best comparison I can draw here is Assassin's Creed.  Much like Altair, Batman has an open city that he can swoop around and hunt out his prey.  He tries to get from one section of the city to another, except there's an occasional puzzle or boss fight, and in those regards Batman wins hands down.  But the freedom in Assassin's Creed is what Batman is missing.  You can't just wander around the city cleaning up crime in the same sense that Ezio can.  Sure you can fly around, but you kind of HAVE to fly around because there's piles of garbage everywhere locking the sections of the city into smaller manageable pieces that respawn over time, giving you no sense that you're actually accomplishing anything.

Here's what I want to see:  Batman:  Gotham City.  It's the life of Batman, a crime gets committed, and you can go check it out and play detective, and it leads you to the supervillian's lair or heck, just some punk gang that got lucky.  When you're done, you can wander the streets keeping them safe, or retire back to the Batcave and train or upgrade your gear.  Hell, throw some living the life of Bruce Wayne in there a bit if it makes sense.  You can build an overarching story in there, but keep each section it's own special bit.  I know I'd be excited to see this game.

Best Multi-Platform Game

It's hard not to gush about Portal 2, it's a fantastic single player experience that gives fans of the first game more of what they want.  It's also a fun filled multi-player cooperative experience that we just don't see that often anymore.  Valve really delivered here, and everybody needs to play this game.  Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

Best iOS Game

No game got more play time from the VG30 crew than Ascension on the iOS.  We played it at home, we played it at work, we played it at Gencon, we played it in the beta, we played it in the expansion beta, and we're still playing it in the expansion.  Gary Games and Incinerator Studios did a great job of putting everything together, and all of the hard work shows in the finished product.  Still waiting on the hard difficulty though ;).

Just these three awards today, there's just a couple categories left, including Game of the Year, check back tomorrow to find out what it's going to be!

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of our annual award show!  Let's just jump right in today, shall we?

Best Chance at Dethroning WoW

As World of Warcraft enters its 8th year in leading the world's MMO market, the masses of players are beginning to look for something new.  They have been for awhile, but always come back to WoW just because they do things better.  I've given quite a few of them a shot myself, but none of them have held me like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Bioware is flexing it's muscles here, and the game is just fantastic.  It's good to see a new comer to the market, especially one that looks like it'll be able to compete against Blizzard.  Good luck guys, and may the Force be with you.

Best Xbox Download Game

I was in love with Bastion from the moment that I smashed up some boxes, and the Narrator said "The kid raged for awhile".  Yes, a second play through doesn't change much, but what was there was magical, and I can't recommend it enough.  Give this one a try for sure.

Honorable Mention

This is probably my favorite game right now, but I'm playing it on Steam instead of Xbox Live, and it doesn't feel right to name it as PC Game of the year or anything, but seriously, if you like tower defense games, third person shooters, or fantasy castle defense games, check this one out.

Best Game that we wish was still Vaporware

Did any of us really expect anything out of Duke Nukem Forever?  I know I didn't.  There's no way possible that it could live up to what we all remembered from the 90's as one of the greatest FPS games ever made.  The current incarnation of Duke doesn't translate to today's gaming, and it shows in its "reaching for over the top but never makes it" way.  Now, the license is in Gearbox's hands, so what I'm hoping for is that they finished the product so they could try to make back some money and make a worthy sequel to Duke Nukem.  If I had to give them a piece of advice, I'd highly recommend they take a look at the ...

Best Way to Get into the Gears of War 3 Beta

I had my doubts about Bulletstorm, but the action plus the writing made for one of the more enjoyable titles that I got to play this year.  This is the type of writing that Duke Nukem needed and couldn't really achieve.  It's over the top, it's hilarious, and it's really well done.  The added bonus of getting into the Gears beta was icing on the cake.

Best PS3 Game (that we actually played)

Little Big Planet 2 came out so early in the year that I think it got a little lost along the way to the Game of the Year awards.  This is a reason to own a PS3.  Little Big Planet is whatever game you want it to be thanks to the tremendous effort that's been put into it from the online community.  My wife and I beat it together months ago, but I still find myself popping in to see what's new.  I've played classic arcade games, zombie horror survival, plinko, pinball, DDR, and a bunch of other games all in this one extremely well done platformer.   If you like platforming games even a little bit, you have to check out this game.  The co-op nature of it is done so much better than any other game that I've played, and it is not to be missed.

The 30's Continues it's award show tomorrow, where we'll take a look at some more categories, the Best Xbox 360 game, the Best multi-platform game, and we'll soon get to our pick for Game of the Year.  We'll see you tomorrow!

Thank You

To whomever finds this, Thank You.  What has hopefully happened is that somebody out there was interested in my writing enough to go through my archives and read my old articles.  There's some stuff there that I'm really proud of writing (and some that I had put up in a frenzy of "I need to do an update tonight").  I'm glad that somebody wanted to read that, and to thank you I want to give you a steam key for Binding of Isaac and it's DLC.  I bought the Humble Bundle 7 and already have it, so I thought the least I could do is to turn it over to somebody who hopefully will appreciate the zelda-esque dungeon crawlers that I do (even if it's a bit on the weird side).  I've included an additional characters to stop bots from picking it up, you'll have to remove the VG30 from the center.

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Thank you for reading, I can't express how grateful I am to have people out there who take the time to read my writings.  Please leave a comment (anonymous is fine) to let me know that you've taken the key.  I'll delete the post shortly after.

- Video

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of our internationally beloved award show.  Once again we take a look at a variety of topics and come to hastily made decisions on what the staffers of Video, Gaming at 30 believed to be the best and worst of 2011.

Worst New Trend in Fighting Games

What the hell, Capcom?  Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds came out on February 15th, and I liked it well enough to not give it too much heat, but then less than a year later, you have ULTIMATE Marvel vs Capcom 3?  This isn't the only horse you're beating to death, either.  Street Fighter is suffering the same fate of having two released in a single year.  That's just terrible moneygrabbing.

Best Thing to Happen to Fighting Games

Capcom, I want you to take a long hard look at what Mortal Kombat put out this year.  I saw this game, and immediately dismissed it as a cash in to the fighting game boom.  I am so glad that not only did I pick it up, but that I was wrong in how great this game is.  The story mode is the single best fighting game story mode ever written.  It takes you through a retelling of the Mortal Kombat 1, 2, and 3 story lines, with all of the characters, and a good chunk of the lore in place.   The game made me want to play, offered me unlocks of costumes and moves for doing so, and just had the complete package.  MK, you keep coming up with original material like this, and you'll be back on top of the heap in no time.

The "Could Have Been Great, But Just Ended Up Being a Money Grab" Award

Atari had something really special going in the early beta of Heroes of Neverwinter, a Facebook game that allowed you to loosely follow Dungeons and Dragons 4e rules and explore Wizard's Neverwinter.  It started off as very unobtrusive, you could do whatever you needed to do without spending money, just manage some downtime, get a few friends to play with, and you were set to go.  Soon, friends weren't able to help you as easily, and sending gifts became cumbersome.  Atari took out methods people used to get the best items without having to spend money, only time, and began demanding that we bring more friends in.  With a level 10 cap, the no new areas to explore, and the top user created dungeons all being variances of how to hit achievements easier, there's little reason to play anymore. 

Best Game for the Wii (that we actually played)

VG30 actually played a Wii game this year.  It was The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and it was one of the purest Zelda games that I've had the pleasure of playing in quite a long time.  The motion controls finally give us the control that we wanted over Link's sword arm, and each enemy is like a new puzzle to figure out how to solve rather than swing wildly.  The final boss fight was a disappointment for me, but I loved how the game sets up the world of Grooseland Hyrule.  If you have a Wii and are a Zelda fan, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.  

That's it for Day 2, come visit us again tomorrow to see what very impressive awards we give out then!

The 74th Annual 30's! - Day 1

Welcome everyone to The 30's!  This is Video, Gaming at 30's annual award show, in which our highly underpaid staff deliberate for what seems like minutes about several categories that somehow have something to do with gaming in 2011.  The rules are simple, for you to be eligible for one of these high prestigious awards, you must have had your product or service released in 2011.  If you are one of the authors of a selected game, you may contact us and we will award you with a lovely printed out certificate.  Now, on to the awards!

Best Thing to Happen to Fantasy RPGs in Years 

Have I played Skyrim?  Nope.  I don't need to to know what it is, as I've played the last three Elder Scrolls games.  The combat is unwieldy, the world is almost too open, and I've never liked their level up system, but that seems to have been improved on.  Skyrim isn't winning this award for being awesome or anything like that.  Skyrim is winning this award because it brought fantasy RPGs to the attention of the masses, and let developers know that we are interested in a genre like this.  I want to see the combat improved next, guys, and then I think you'll have something truly amazing.

Best Security

It was a landmark year here at the VG30 offices, as nearly every single system that our staffers have an account on was in some way hacked over the course of the last year.  Two contributors lost their Xbox Live accounts, one fell victim to the PS3 attacks, one had their email account hijacked, one had their Twitter account hijacked, 4 were hit by Trion games' recent attack, 2 were on Steam, and finally three credit cards were compromised.  Congratulations, Blizzard, you win by default.

Best Community

I have been a proud reddit lurker for a year now, occasionally submitting new articles which have been checked out by the MTG and Board Game communities.  Thanks to them, traffic found new highs, especially during the GenCon 2011 coverage.  Thank you so much everyone, and please keep coming back to check out what we've got.  You know, when we actually make posts.

Best Show That We're Convinced Actually Reads Our Blog

Xplay, it's one of two things.  Either you're reading the blog and taking some of my material, or your writers and I are very like minded.  As much more likely the second is than the first, I like to believe that Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb occasionally sneak a peak at what I'm writing to see what the word on the street is.  We may not always agree, but I highly value your opinions.  Just let me know when you've got a job opening available.  And no, I won't be an intern.

Biggest Mistake Nintendo Could Make (since their last hugely successful money making mistake)

I've always been a Nintendo fan.  When it first came out, I played with R.O.B.  When the lines were drawn between Blast Processing and Mode 7, I chose Mode 7.  In fact, I still believe to this day that the SNES was the greatest gaming system ever created, with the single greatest gaming library ever conceived.  

With those words of praise, I have to speak out against the Wii U.  Nintendo used to know what they were doing.  They used to be the leaders and innovators.  They gave us the first controller with shoulder buttons.  They introduced the world to a 3D environment which was copied and recopied hundreds of times.  They ruled over portable gaming with an iron fist.  Those days are just about over.

In June, Nintendo unveiled their new system, the Wii U, which was due next year in 2012.  It will bring the Nintendo's graphics and power into the current generation, while further giving them more control capability to allow the game that appear on other systems to be controlled on their latest.

There's several problems with this, namely that by the time that the Wii U hits store shelves, both Sony and Microsoft will have officially announced their latest platforms, and those will be once again the systems that the developers flock to.  They'll have more power, and better performance than anything that the Wii U can dream to achieve.  Nintendo had the opportunity of a lifetime here, to announce the newest most powerful gaming system a full year before their competition, which worked nicely for Microsoft.  

They blew it.  Instead proclaiming that the fall's big hit, Arkham City, would be a release title.  Next year.  Months after any gamer who really wanted it had already purchased it, all the DLC, and sold it back to Gamestop.  This one is going to be an uphill battle for the big 'N'.  I think the novelty of the Wii is gone, guys, and  your 3D offering didn't do so hot, either.  I've said this before, but I think you need to take a look at Sega right now.

We'll have more tomorrow, starting with the best games (that we actually played) for each system.  We'll see you then!

Merry Christmas!

From our gaming family to yours, Merry Christmas! Make sure to dig out some family friendly games and enjoy some time with your loved ones this weekend.

The Ones to Watch - December 2012

December is here, Christmas is around the corner, and any game worth it's salt has been released months ago to capture as many holiday sales as they could muster.  So what have we got to look forward to in December?  What could we possibly need to watch for?  One game, and one game only.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - PC - 12/20

I was a big big fan of Knights of the Old Republic, and 90% of its rushed to market sequel (players who made it to the end understand why), so I've watched with much interest as Bioware prepared to launch it's first MMO.  The original Star Wars Galaxies met with much failure, could a reboot do any better?

The answer is yes.  Very yes.

Star Wars: TOR has watched the rise and fall of other MMOs and has been able to, let's say, "borrow" ideas from them to build their own.  It's hard not to compare it to the best selling MMO of all time, World of Warcraft, but it holds its own quite well.  Players looking for a break from WoW will feel right at home here, but in a new alien galaxy to explore. 

I don't know if SW: TOR will be able to topple the massive juggernaut that is WoW, but I think it will be able to go toe to toe with the aging franchise.  Time will tell, but Bioware, I think you've got a winner on your hands.