2009 - Chopemon's Year In Review

This may seem early for a year in review post but I know that my Christmas and New Year is going to be mad busy so since I am sitting on the train listen to some guy loop music, I may as well get it done now.

So, wow. What a year huh? Certainly a stunning year for game players and makers all round as genuinely amazing games set the bar increasingly higher. The year started on a high with the return of the Street Fighter series and ended with me discovering that the iPhone held one of my games of the year.

On a personal note my year has been crazy. I have found ‘the one’ and fallen madly in love, I have had three games released (one of which became a small gaming pop culture meme) and have learnt a tremendous amount about myself and my abilities in life. It has been a refreshing year in that it started single and happy, neither of which I had been for a while. After being unhappy for a couple of years I finally had some space where I wasn’t derided for various things in my life by the person I was living with. I had space to grow and learn both about what I want and who I am and also about the world I live in. I then met the most wonderful girl in the world, my darling Rachel, felt a love I had never known before and have discovered that my soul mate DESTROYS me at Tekken. I also went to PAX and met two rappers that changed my life and then met MC Lars (who also changed my life) later in the year.

For the first time in a while I can see a new year ahead that is full of promise, wonder and excitement. I mean genuine, unbelievable excitement. MC Lars is playing Nottingham in March for God’s sake! The feeling of having a proper partner to start a new year with is life fulfilling.

One more quick thing before we get on to talking about games, it has been wonderful to explore some new music over the last few months. Realising that you have lived a life without Jay Z in it makes you realize you should never dismiss something out of hand again.

On the games front it has been a year of continual highs. I don’t want to go through every game as I’m sure all the major sites will cover you on that but instead I want to talk about the games that have personally effected me.

The year started off incredibly. Many years ago a friend of mine blew my mind with a little game called Street Fighter 2 Turbo. From the moment I played it I thought about nothing else until I got my own (hard earned) copy. A child’s pocket money doesn’t buy many Mega Drive games so by god I hammered that cart. Even though I only had a three button pad and was at a distinct disadvantage I could hold my own against all my friends and fell in love with all the characters and the game has become a yard stick against which I judge an awful lot of things. When Street Fighter 4 hit it was like a dragon punch to my mind. The game is simply incredible. It looks amazing, it runs like a dream and the fighting has a perfect balance of accessibility and strategy. I am not a good SF player. I can destroy pretty much everyone I know except a colleague’s Blanka but I know that as soon as I step into the real world of Street Fighting, I am out. I love it though. Everything about just feels right. It controls and plays with the right speed and weight. Every time I lose I can see what I did wrong and it feels great to learn and grow within my character. Seth and the lack of proper lobbies and matchmaking issues stop it from being perfect but my God they came close.

As a side note, someone of indeterminate location on the train is playing a game that sounds incredible. Is the game actually awesome or are the sound effects and me not knowing what it is elevating it in my mind?

February also yielded Halo Wars which once again brought Team Awesome together and provided a venue for us to rock out and socialize. We still continue to play the game and much like Street Fighter, when we roll up against opponents that take us apart, we learn an incredible amount and go into the next match as wiser generals. The game didn’t review as well as I would have liked and I think this is down to a view that a traditional RTS game like Halo Wars must somehow be as complicated or fast as Starcraft. That is an impossible dream while Microsoft still shackles us to a controller but Halo Wars does an excellent job of taking the essence of a RTS and making all the necessary changes to make it work on a console. It does however cause friendship problems when SOMEONE pre orders it and has awesome flames on their Warthogs and I don’t.

February was a strange month for me as both Shellshock 2 Blood Trails and 50 Cent Blood on the Sand came out. I worked on both of those (6 months on 50 Cent and over a year on Shellshock) and they were both received very differently critically. Shellshock 2 had a lot of problems during development and one day I hope I can talk about them in an academic way, which is to say that rather than it be a war story I’d like to use it as a case study about game development. There are things to be proud of in everything you do and I can point these things out in Shellshock but I’d far rather talk about me riding on the coat tails of the guys and gals of Swordfish.

I worked on 50 Cent for 6 months and it was an experience where I learnt a lot about myself. Swordfish (now part of Codemasters) was an amazing studio with genuinely talented and amazing people. 50 Cent went through some tough times during the Vivendi/Activision thing and that game only came together due to the great team in the studio as it bounced between publishers. People look down on the game because it has 50 Cent in but it is a super fun shooter with a lot of “heart” (Jeff Gerstmann). That game needs your attention as it is really enjoyable and shows what can be done with a questionable license. What was really nice to see was that levels and decisions I’d made as part of that team were still in the game and the guys did a great job of finishing off the levels I’d worked on.

I can now tell you that it is Zelda. I should pick that game up.

Moving into March, Phil and I got stuck into Resident Evil 5. This was another game that I thought was exceptional but seem to be in a minority about. The way people judge games never ceases to amaze me and the bizarre and arbitrary ways people determine what a sequel is puzzles me. Regardless, Phil and I dived into treasure hunting and not-zombie hunting and played through the game multiple times on harder difficulties and with game breaking weapons. The draw of leveling up weapons and farming treasure kept us coming back and the game remained tremendous fun despite us knowing exactly where and when the lickers were going to jump out. I also have a total crush on Sheva.

Let’s skip ahead to August and the brilliance of Batman Arkham Asylum. Good God that’s a good game. Rocksteady really know how to make a good game that fully embraces the license. Batman has been talked to death in the press but let me offer a pro tip: hit up their Urban Chaos game in either PS2 or Xbox flavor. That is an excellent game and I always enjoy seeing how a studio has matured in its design theory.

Speaking of which, I thoroughly enjoyed Grin’s Bionic Commando and I think I’m one of only a handful of people that really did enjoy it. I also played Terminator Salvation by Grin and despite its short comings; it was really interesting to see two games by the same developer in such a short space of time.

Jumping to October/November things remained excellent but familiar. Many of the games that came out in the ‘Fall season’ were known quantities. Last year we had several new franchises or re-imaginings that were different enough to be almost new franchises and this year held very little of that. Last October and November gave us Dead Space, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3 and Mirror’s Edge which were all incredible games and as they were all new in concept or style it was a genuinely exciting time. The excitement and fervor in the press and gaming community was palpable and thrilling. This year the big games have been Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. A lot of 2s there.

These are all excellent games but the level of excitement just hasn’t been there. Or maybe it is a different kind of excitement. It was electrifying to be going into the unknown territory of last year but this year we know exactly what each of those games are. They are iterations of things we love and while that is exciting in itself, it is not the excitement of not knowing exactly what a new IP holds. I’m not one of the bitter forum dwellers that complains about the lack of innovation in games but I just missed that excitement that I felt last year. In fact, the only game that gave me that feeling to any degree was Borderlands.

Borderlands was full of surprise and outright fun. It is excellently balanced and crafted and a joy to play. I am playing through with Phil and after one playthrough plus the DLC, we are heading in for a 2nd playthrough to hit level 50. Plus I have a crush on Lilith. I see a pattern.

Cooperatively working through stuff has been a theme of this year as Phil and I are partway through the masterpiece of Saints Row 2 and I have been doing Xbox LANs with work colleagues to get through Operation Flashpoint 2 on the hardest difficulty. I never thought restarting an hour long level when you die right at the end would be fun but it is. It helps that we are bro-ing out together while doing it I guess.

The only other game to mention (these aren’t all the games that I’ve played. I can’t even put a number on the amount of things that have either entered my disk trays or been downloaded) is Canabalt. I’m a bit worn out of writing about Canabalt because before writing this I wrote a review of it but suffice to say that it is the only game released this year that I would call perfect. It is a one button platformer and the art, fiendishly clever gameplay and music all combine to make it perfect. There is no other word to describe it.

Oh and Rogue Warrior came out and I worked on that. If you pick it up, tell me what you think of the multiplayer maps. Or hit me up if you need someone to play it with.

Looking into next year, the gods have smiled upon me and are giving me a new Street Fighter. And Resident Evil 5 DLC. So it might be something of a re run of this year. We also get a new Splinter Cell (GOTY already decided), Bioshock 2 (award for having the most potential to get it wrong), a new Army of Two (fist bumps and M4s with drum magazines) and Halo Reach which I imagine will blow my mind. Next year has the potential to be an outright great year and I can’t wait.

The only potential downside might be the persistently annoying preorder nonsense which has been so prevalent this year. I don’t want to choose between retailers or make sure I preorder something to get the full package. I want every new copy of a game to be complete. Make gold guns, and bonus maps something for every customer rather than punishing customers that value one retailer over another. Next year EA are giving away a preorder only game mode in Army of Two and if you buy the limited edition of Bad Company 2 you get the best weapons and a homing rocket launcher. Wicked. Can’t wait.

With that I’m done. I think the guy opposite me has stopped mixing electronica and after 2 reviews and all this nonsense, I’m done. Time for Advance Wars. I think you’ll agree that it has been a good year for games. It has been a personally stunning year and life is looking pretty rosy from here on out.

Stay tuned for my Game of the Year list in the coming days.