Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. I started with the much reviled second entry inot Bioware’s sword and sorcery franchise. When it first came out, I had made a good faith attempt to play the original, but I failed to get into the game and decided to cut bait after about three hours of my first playthrough. Something about the mechanics of the game just didn’t click with me and I had trouble effectively controlling my party. But after playing my way through the sequel, I decided to give Origins another go-round and this time it all made sense. I purchased the Ultimate Edition with all the DLC included so I went dead to the world for a significant portion of the summer while I quested my Grey Warden from one end of Thedas to the other. That was after I lead my dapper rogue through a tumultuous decade of running around Kirkwall and bedding pirate queens in part 2. Although the recycled level in part two did get old, I loved the setting and characters. This whole series has restarted my long dormant love of the fantasy genre. Thanks so much Dragon Age. I thought I was done with barbarians wielding swords…
Batman: Arkham City. The purest Batman experience is sadly the closest I will ever come to swinging down from a gargoyle and straight up punching a criminal in the face. The open world mechanic worked like a charm and the voice acting was top-notch. The plot was convoluted and some of the action setpieces didn’t quite work out as well as they were intended to, but overall Rocksteady knocked it out of the park with this one.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Not much to add beyond what I’ve already said, but this game was not without it’s charms and suffered from the inevitable comparisons to
Gear of War 3. So the saga of Marcus Fenix and his human meat tank bros finally came to an end this year. I have only played the campaigns for the three games in the Gears of War series, and I found the story of an earth-like world rocking from cataclysm after cataclysm strangely compelling. The background story plays out like the hopelessness of early Battlestar Galactica crossed with the macho posturing and general brotasticity of Predator. The gameplay was hectic and the fine folks at Epic Games know how to put together excellent firefights on a massive scale. The third installment tied up most of the loose ends and while the game failed to achieve anything approaching real pathos, the narrative never shied away from taking risks.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This was easily my most anticipated game of 2011. I absolutely adored the original and its sequel, and I was totally looking forward to immersing myself in the cyberpunk noir future where human augmentation had run amok and tranhumanist philosophy had created a race of nano-enhanced supermen. Human Revolution delivered the goods. The game wasn’t perfect. The boss fights felt tacked on and went against the grain of everything the game’s structure had been pushing toward and the ending(s) left a great deal to be desired but this game had texture, man. There was a grit and a lived-in feeling that permeated every aspect of the game’s world of 2027, from Jensen’s apartment to the neon fever dream that was Hengsha. This game was awesome.
Crysis 2. I did not play the first Crysis, so I am unable to assess its merits in contrast to the first version of the game. I can tell you that this version was a better than average shooter whose sci-fi aliens invading New York city narrative was almost done in by some shoddy A.I. and less than thrilling enemy design. I liked the convoluted plot and the gameplay variations that you get from your nanomachine super-suit, like invisibility, invincibility, and speed but the experience never really gelled for me.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Another sequel that I dove into the deep end without starting at the dawn of the franchise. This version was the first Assassin’s Creed game I ever played, and I enjoyed the crap out of it. The narrative was gibberish, but the stealth and planning elements to each hit were fun. My main criticism came when I realized that it was nearly impossible to actually die. Ezio’s health regenerates just a little that makes it difficult for even a swarm of Borgia goons to actually kill the player character. The challenge, then, comes from the mission parameters and whether you are able to sneak and stealth your way through your objectives without being seen.
Fallout: New Vegas. This one almost didn’t make the list because I couldn’t make it to completion. After around thirty hours of roaming the wastes with my trusty supermutant companion helping out survivors of the last great war and personally assassinating Caesar this broken, buggy, unfinished game went crashed on me and I was unable to load any of my save games. I enjoyed the experience before it came to a crashing halt, but I didn’t have the patience at the time to retrace my steps in the game so I stopped playing. I plan on buying the ultimate edition later this year, which will include all the downloadable content and hopefully a stable version of the game itself. I will give that version another try, but I am worried because war never changes.
Portal 2. Easily the funniest and most well-c0nstructed game of last year, Portal 2 was short, sweet, and to the point. It was funny and I don;t have a single bad thing to say about it.
The Semantic Drift Game of the Year: I played some excellent games this past year. Skyrim kicks so much ass, but I am still neck deep in the Stormcloak rebellion and I don’t want it to end ever. Since I haven’t completed the game and will be slaying dragons for at least the first few months of 2012, the game is exempt. That leaves Batman: Arkham City as the greatest game of 2011.
Set 38,000 years in humanity’s future, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine tells the story of Captain Titus and three of his battle bros as they try to hold off an invasion of space orks intent on occupying an imperial weapons factory that takes up a whole world and is key to the continuing perpetual war effort. Warhammer is grim, with the universe caught up in eternal war with several different alien races in addition to demonic forces. With their fanatical devotion to the God Emperor who rules the billion worlds of the Imperium of Man and their (admittedly justified) rampant hatred of every other race in the universe it’s hard not to feel a little conflicted getting behind the protagonists. But their sense of honor and duty are the only things that can get them through the grim darkness of their grim, dark future. Did I mention it’s grim? And dark? Also, there is only war.
It’s impossible to talk about Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine without mentioning Gears of War. The instinct to dismiss this game as a Gears of War 3 clone is strong, and not entirely incorrect. There are many game play elements that Relic (the game developer) lifted whole cloth from Gears, including a class of enemy suspiciously similar to the explosion-prone living land mines known as Tickers and special finishing moves involving chainsaw-equipped weapons. There are also strong similarities in the overall aesthetic as both games involve steering bulky heavily-armored human tanks through a slightly gothic otherworldly landscape in a constant war against monstrous opponents. Warhammer 40,000, as a tabeltop wargame, predates Gears of War by decades so it is easy to argue that Epic Games used the Space Marine look and feel as a source of inspiration. Indeed, my first few forays into the Gears universe strongly reminded me of the Warhammer milieu, especially the heavy ferocity of Marcus Fenix.
But those similar elements can obscure the very different playstyles of the two games. Gears pioneered the heavily tactical, cover-based shooting system (or at least perfected it). Space Marine is designed primarily as a melee game where you wade into a massive crowd of enemies. There is no cover mechanic beyond standing behind something bigger than you. As a genetically altered and Ultramarine with heavier armor than an m1 Abrams, you eschew cover entirely as a tactic for lesser men. Most battles begin by hurriedly taking out enemy gunners so that the field is clear to whip out your power axe or chainsword and start stomping through the enemy. The only way to regain health is through melee combat ending in a finishing move, so the game is constantly pushing you to engage directly with the orks whenever possible. This focus on shifting ranges is immensely satisfying and made the frenetic close quarters combat keep from getting old much longer than it should have. There is a variety of weapons and frequent opportunities to switch between them, changing combat up just enough to keep it fresh.
The fact that I have read a few novels in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and am generally familiar with the setting made the game that much more pleasurable for me. Die hard Warhammer fans probably orgasmed quietly the first time a Chaos Marine lumbered on to the screen, trailing Warp energy behind him. I’m not that into the grim darkness of the far future, but I did get a few thrills at playing through the wartorn landscape. Without that added bonus, the game ranks somewhere in the B+ range. It was fun to play but I doubt I will remember it at all this time next year. There is a multiplayer component to the game, but the smaller number of enemies per map takes away the visceral thrill of the melee combat against hordes of opponents, hamstringing the game by making the unflattering comparison to Gears that much more apparent.
1. Thor smashed me pleasantly in the face with the mighty hammer of its polished superhero/mythological/space fantasy mashup. Thor has never been my favorite character, either in comics or in Norse mythology, but this movie was the real deal. My biggest concern going in was that the Asgardian fantasy trappings would look inherently goofy captured in the real world. Thor works pretty well for me when he’s running around punching frost giants and cracking trolls in the jaw with his hammer. Walking down the streets of NYC, the whole thing can fall on the wrong side of goofy. Kenneth Branagh largely avoids this problem by keeping the Godly sections of the movie distinct from the mortal, except for a few scenes where the Warriors Three strut down the street in full-on medieval garb, but that’s mostly played for laughs. I also loved how much of a Bro they made Thor as he learned his humility. The S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff took up a good chunk of time, but didn’t feel too shoe-horned in. I am salivating for Captain America and the Avengers will be awesome.
2. The Hot Sauce Committee (Part Two) by the Beastie Boys has been at the top of my most anticipated albums list. It rocks. I had kind of forgotten how many sucka MCs are out there, so I’m glad the Firm of Horovitz, Yauch, and Diamond is back to school them all with their blistering similes.
3. Archer is the funniest show on television. I’ve been catching up with the last season on Hulu, and the show is really coming into it’s own. What started as a take on the more self-centered and misogynistic aspects of a James Bond-style superspy has developed into a workplace comedy with just a hint of surrealism. The episode “Placebo Effect” had the eponymous secret agent search out the criminal mastermind who had been selling counterfeit cancer medication (sugar pills and Zima). He insists on a “rampage” of revenge, and ends up interrogating the Irish mobsters behind the scheme while physically falling apart from the real meds he finds and engaging in an elaborate Family Feud homage. Hilarious.
The Social Network. I am an unabashed fan of Aaron Sorkin, from the heights rapid-fire walking and talking he reached with The West Wing to the swiftly forgotten self-aggrandizement of Studio 60 One the Sunset Strip, I have enjoyed them all. I’m also partial to David Fincher. Trent Reznor’s instrumental work basically got me through studying for law school finals with its dark ominous tones. So why did I avoid a movie that puts all three together while it was in theaters? I have no idea. Something about The Social Network failed to grab my interest. I thought it looked good and made vague plans to Netflix it eventually, but I never worked up the energy to see it during its theatrical run. Not even the Oscar buzz for the film could get my ass in the seat. Something about the subject matter just didn’t appeal to me. But having finally watched it, I have to ask myself: What took so long? This movie was awesome. Well written, directed, and acted. The most compelling part of Facebook’s creation myth was the portrait it paints of Zuckerberg: ruthless genius and profoundly sad dude, a Charles Foster Kane for the Internet age. I especially loved the framing device of present-day depositions taking us back to the early Harvard days of the social networking behemoth.
Portal 2. This game makes my head hurt. In a good way. I’m still puzzling my way through the single player campaign, but I can already tell that Valve have hit this one out of the park. I’m almost completely desensitized to the simulated sensations of video games. Rarely do I get a visceral thrill. But the dizzying possibilities set up by the simple mechanic of creating a portal between two points in space often leaves me feeling slightly breathless. The voice acting is great as well. I could listen to Steven Merchant read the phone book, but the voice of the robot Wheatley is hilarious.
The Economist. I am a long time subscriber to the best weekly magazine in the history of the printed word, and their recent release of the iPad app has opened the magazine up for me in new and more convenient ways. My chief issue with the paper is the sheer deluge of information it rains down on my every week. Classically liberal, but intensely focused on taking the long view of the weeks news stories The Economist delves deeper and takes a wider scope than any other paper. This week’s edition goes deep into the dysfunctional workings of Californian politics with a special report on the failings of “extreme democracy”. It’s more riveting than it sounds. Plus, infographics!
I have a strange relationship with the fantasy genre. From roughly age 10-13, my literary tastes tended toward books with barbarians on the cover. I’d always been a voracious reader, but something just clicked when I worked my way through the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander and almost without meaning too, I found myself mired in various epic battles. Seventh and eighth grade were when I discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and though I only played the game on a few sporadic occasions it opened the door to the morass of tie-in novels. R.A. Salvatore and company lead me through the hormonal soup of my early teen years. I spent more time reading about dwarven gold and elven longbows than I probably should have.
Eventually I drifted away. I started reading selections from the canon in my A.P. English classes and Kerouac or any other book I thought might make me seem cool to disaffected young women. From there, I became an English major and my focus tended to the more literary, proper fiction. Part of me never lost sight of the genre. I would occasionally pick up the latest in a series I had followed in my younger days, but I never returned to the level of fervent fandom my 12 year old self felt when he would stay up all night turning the pages of slightly yellowed David Eddings paperbacks.
As much as I like to think of myself as a rebel nonconformist who does what he pleases without a care for what people think, I know deep down that the stigma of being a geek had something to do with my shift. I did consciously decide that at some point I wanted to have sex, and maybe walking around with a dog eared copy of The Might of the Dragon Emperor’s WarKillers: Tales From the Kingdom of Le’ve’n'ti’ri’a wasn’t the best way to accomplish that particular goal. The girls I wanted to woo needed to hear me drop knowledge about the sensitive and the weird, not relay the latest doings of lavender-eyed dark elves. This applied doubly to the cute girls behind the counter at Barnes & Noble and the art student with horned rim glasses who I took German I with.
I know it’s shallow, but I felt vaguely embarrassed to be seen reading fantasy literature. But I never entirely lost the urge. How do I know? Because as soon as I got my Kindle last year I immediately began downloading cheesy fantasy novels. I have made peace with my geekdom since my late teenage rebellion from it, but there’s still a social cost to reading trashy fantasy novels on the bus or train that I don’t know I am willing to pay. The Kindle removes that social cost. I can download the books without anyone seeing the covers. Since I’ve gotten it, I’ve still read literary fiction. I’ve read a few nonfiction books. But I keep returning to the apostrophe-filled prose of the fantasy genre. When I read them, no none around me knows that I’m not reading Cloud Atlas. The Kindle strips my nerdy tendencies bare. It turns my homescreen into an inescapable reminder that I am a huge nerd.
