VIDEO GAMES a year in review

Hey!

Hello!

With the newest year nearly upon us I figured what better time than now to reflect on a great year in gaming, which as you may know persists as a common thread between us Dudes of the Lane minus of course being raw fellows of taste and influence also capable of some pretty sweet jumps all things considered (Kyle can backflip without moving his arms, Andre levitates (basically the best one), and I can make the soles of my shoes connect like a leprechaun, but never on ice because that is extremely dangerous). But we don't play games to jump, no. (Except Crackdown, which we have recognized.) We play games to jump and shoot (doing both at once is particularly effective as a Soldier in Team Fortress 2 -- you may jot that down before proceeding to the next sentence; it is cool with us). Indeed, some of the best games we have played are those in which jumping and shooting are integrated flawlessly, or in clever ways. If you play video games you can attest that this is a pretty big deal. You basically play them to shoot things and sometimes jump. 99% of video games are about that.

Why don't they let the baby play? He has owned them before. He will own them again

Looking back we saw some pretty sweet pieces of software hit shelves and wrestled our share of blockbuster titles to the ground. Some we were going to play but didn't. We didn't really play any crappy games so sorry if you were looking forward to reading about those. The last bad game we played was Silent Hill 4 and that's when Kyle and I were sleep-deprived and jobless and so rented a terrible game against our better judgment. It was pretty bad, all with clunky controls and a meandering player path and repetitive combat so we did not finish it. The FMV at the beginning was kind of sweet but you can not play that so it was taken out of consideration pretty much automatically. Anyway with the Internet this does not happen much anymore, and besides playing really crappy games is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, or shooting some kind of generic enemy with unresponsive controls using the same gun that shoots the same adjectives over and over. This year games mostly delivered but some delivered more than others. Those we must salute.

BEST SEX WITH A BLUE ALIEN

In Mass Effect you talk to aliens before you do them (not this one, weirdo!)

Mass Effect

I haven't played Mass Effect but going by Kyle's account and what I have read elsewhere this is one of the best things about the game, and about video games this year. I think it's kind of creepy but if the game does it well, it deserves to be recognized. Get it? Does it. In a few years we will probably have games that let you have sex with all kinds of aliens, but that sort of thing takes time. For blazing this particular trail my hat goes off to Mass Effect. I dare say there is no other game as open-minded.

BEST WRITING IN A GAME (FONTS I MEAN)

With Halo 3 you never have to read anything twice

Halo 3

Halo 3, you did a lot of things wrong, like allowing twelve year olds to play online and scream about violence, but your fonts were not one of them. On any TV they look great and do not obscure the thing you want to do in the game. Nice going, Halo 3.

BEST WRITING IN A GAME (WHEN THE PEOPLE IN THE GAME SAY THINGS)

In Portal even the turrets say stuff about you

Portal

I mean, this is a pretty funny game. When people said Portal was a funny game, I scoffed and scoffed until I started coughing because video games are about shooting people and sports, and those are not funny things unless you make people go flying or spin your car into them or whatever, and besides that's a kind of funny that words can't describe. Playing it was a big surprise because it is pretty funny in a comedy writing way. By that I mean playing the game the evil computer system makes jokes about you (the character you play) dying, and they almost always connect. There are also jokes about cakes and a cube that helps you. Textbook example, people.

BEST JUMPING IN A GAME

If jumping was a game they would call it Crackdown

Crackdown

Crackdown is pretty much the only game where you level up your ability to jump, which says a lot about its focus on jumping. If you so please you can spend your time with the game only jumping, collecting orbs in high-up places, which is kind of a strange way to fight crime (you are a cop in the future), but you can. You can hop from rooftop to rooftop of tall buildings, even if you're carrying a car. In every other game you go two feet off the ground but Crackdown all but lets you fly. Everything else Crackdown lets you do, like shooting and kicking a guy in the head, is done better elsewhere. Basically, except for jumping and letting you play the Halo 3 beta, Crackdown does not have a lot going for it, but anyone who really likes jumping won't care about that. The history of video games will probably not remember you Crackdown, but we will, because you really cared about jumping.

BEST GAME THAT LETS YOU BE A SPY

In Team Fortress 2 the Spy smokes while stabbing people. You couldn't do this in real life because the smell would give you away

Team Fortress 2

TF2 is game that you can only play with other people, over the Internet. There is no story. When you join a server to play you pick a team and a class, or for you old-school types, which guy you want to play as. You can be a lot of people, all of whom have some good lines that they say by themselves based on what is happening (like, "Ow!" or a loud, terrible laugh), and whichever one you play as you can give someone a hurting in defense or pursuit of the given objective (a briefcase or a light you stand on). The Spy is pretty much the best one, because you can disguise yourself as a guy on the other team and break stuff that the other team made. You have a butterfly knife and a pistol (not great, but fancy) and can turn invisible. No other game has all of the things that make being a spy great; only some. This is why it is the best one in this category. TF2 is the Sean Connery of games that let you be a spy.

BEST SHOOTING IN A GAME

Resident Evil 4 has an unlockable gun that shoots cranberries. Just kidding!

Resident Evil 4

I know this is like three years old but damn. It is so cool. You have probably played it. There is less freedom of movement than in a First Person Shooter but it is crisp and you can shoot guys who are running at you in the foot, which is pretty smart. In any other game you have to keep shooting at every part of them until they are dead. In Resident Evil 4 you can go right for the feet. This changes the game fundamentally, because instead of having to kill everything you are given the choice of basically tripping the bad guys in a very painful way. For taking the well-worn premise of Home Alone to a new level, Resident Evil 4 gets my commendation. No other game can say the same.

Thanks for reading (even only this line).