Thu, January 22, 2009 at 5:33 PM 
Photo by infernoenigma Source: "My favorite picture that I took from the inauguration" I came across this picture from the inauguration whilst browsing the Internet and just had to share. I couldn’t have said it much better myself, random man holding an awesome sign. And good shot on the photographer’s part, too. Awesome moment.
Wed, January 21, 2009 at 12:24 AM Zestful Contemplations Best of 2008 Awards
Way the hell after 2008 is a thing of the past, it’s Zestful Contemplation’s Best of 2008 Awards. I’m not pretending to make my awards comprehensive or unbiased or any of that other pretentious crap. The fact that these awards reflect my own personal experiences, tastes, and dislikes is exactly the point. I haven’t played every game that came out this year and I’m not going to consider a boatload of titles I never played. But I did play a huge number of games this year, and these choices reflect my personal tastes and thoughts about the games I spent time with in 2008.
Contender:
Few puzzle games have ever been able to grip me, for whatever reason, so in 2008 there was really only one puzzle game that mattered to me. That is to say, it is the only puzzle game I can remember playing. Luckily it was a really, really good one, so even if I am fairly ignorant of the genre, I can be halfway confident in stating that this would be a strong contender even on a list that came from slightly more experience than this one happens to.
Braid is a game that could almost be called pretentious, in a sense. I would argue this is not a bad thing. It is almost the very definition of the type of game the snooty games-as-art people bring up when they say that a game can be more than just mere entertainment; that a game can be considered, rightfully and truly, as something with a deeper meaning, purpose, and connection to the viewer.
For the record, I am one of these snooty games-as-art people and that is why I love Braid so much.
It demonstrates with wonderful enthusiasm that games can do so much more than just provide the next summer blockbuster where your fingers happen to be pressing buttons to make things happen every once in a while instead of munching on popcorn.
It has a gorgeous and totally unique art style fit for framing and hanging on the wall. Its story is brilliantly told in a minimalistic fashion that doesn’t get in the way, but is still emotionally meaningful and impactful when the big twist comes your way. It uses its level designs to enhance the story.
Perhaps best of all, it shows how a small development team can create an absolute masterpiece to rival some of the best productions of the big studios (in its own little way) and almost singlehandedly shoves downloadable games into the realm of relevance.
Oh, and it has some pretty good puzzle elements in there somewhere too, now that I think about it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCdL4bNUpTM&hl=en&fs=1]
Fri, January 16, 2009 at 6:12 PM So this silly thing is the result of the final project in a class I just completed today. I had an immense amount of fun making this thing and am quite proud of the way it turned out. It tells the tale of a hero's journey, based on the steps of the hero's journey by one Mr. Joseph Campbell. It is a fictional story set in the world of Fallout 3. Our protagonist, however, might not be what you'd consider a typical hero.... Let's just say we turned the steps of the journey on their head just a bit and had fun with them in a way much more fitting to the world of Fallout 3 than the myths of old told to us by Campbell. The protagonist is a man who is a hero... in his own mind. He follows the voices in his head that tell him how best to serve the world and spread purity to its people. Well, purity or mini-nukes. What's the difference, really? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9E9TH1mkvY]
Fri, January 16, 2009 at 5:59 PM Zestful Contemplation's Best of 2008 Awards
Way the hell after 2008 is a thing of the past, it’s Zestful Contemplation’s Best of 2008 Awards. I’m not pretending to make my awards comprehensive or unbiased or any of that other pretentious crap. The fact that these awards reflect my own personal experiences, tastes, and dislikes is exactly the point. I haven’t played every game that came out this year and I’m not going to consider a boatload of titles I never played. But I did play a huge number of games this year, and these choices reflect my personal tastes and thoughts about the games I spent time with in 2008.
Best Platforming Game
Contenders:
The platforming genre is not as strong as it used to be, which is saddening for me as it has always been one of my personal favorites. Still, even though there weren’t many entries this year, the ones that did come around delivered some pretty amazing gameplay. So while we might be lacking in quantity, we certainly had quality this year. Before anyone asks, yes, I think Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts belongs in the platformer genre. Just because you’re platforming with cars and boats instead of the feet of a fuzzy bear doesn’t mean you’re not still platforming. The methods have changed but the genre ha stayed the same. Though it couldn’t quite compete with the big boys for the ultimate award, I would like to give a shout out to LostWinds here. It proves what great things can be possible with downloadable games and remains easily one of the best things available on WiiWare. Nuts and Bolts and LittleBigPlanet have some interesting parallels. For one, they both have control issues that produce a few frustrating moments but manage to be incredibly fun despite this. For two, they both emphasize creation of content by the user. For the big prize, I had to give it to Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. It was a tough decision, but here’s my reasoning. What made LittleBigPlanet fun for me was its environments, its creativity, and playing other people’s levels, not necessarily its gameplay. In fact, the core mechanics of the game are some of its biggest drawbacks. Imprecision is an unfortunately common accomplice during play. As such, Nuts and Bolts does the core of what it sets out to do better. Sure its control is plenty wonky, just like LittleBigPlanet’s, but that can usually be mitigated somewhat by altering your vehicle. This integration of creation with gameplay is the other thing I really admire about it. While it’s entirely optional to create your own levels in LittleBigPlanet, it’s absolutely necessary to create vehicles to succeed in Nuts and Bolts. Making the creation aspects not only easy enough that anyone can use them but also vital to success is an ingenious move that is highly satisfying to the player. So as much as I adore LittleBigPlanet, the prize goes to Banjo.
Fri, January 16, 2009 at 5:30 PM Zestful Contemplation's Best of 2008 Awards
Way the hell after 2008 is a thing of the past, it’s Zestful Contemplation’s Best of 2008 Awards. I’m not pretending to make my awards comprehensive or unbiased or any of that other pretentious crap. The fact that these awards reflect my own personal experiences, tastes, and dislikes is exactly the point. I haven’t played every game that came out this year and I’m not going to consider a boatload of titles I never played. But I did play a huge number of games this year, and these choices reflect my personal tastes and thoughts about the games I spent time with in 2008. Best Action Game Contenders:
Talk about a hotly contested category. Just about every game in existence could be slotted into this space without trying all that hard. Still, when you break the categories down as much as I have in these awards there are relatively few true contenders for this title among the games that mattered to me this year. God of War: Chains of Olympus was incredible, but nothing we haven’t seen before (plus the needlessly difficult ending seriously turned me off). No More Heroes was brilliant in story and graphics, but the gameplay, as good as the majority of it was, spent too much time in its tacked-on and horribly done “open world” bits to compete for this award. Castle Crashers was a good little blip of fun, but, while I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it as replayable and addicting as most seemed to. No, as anticlimactic as it may be, the gold has to go to Grand Theft Auto IV. As much as a part of me wants to see something else win because everyone under the sun is giving innumerable awards to GTA IV and it would be fun to be different, there’s a reason why GTA IV is hording the awards for itself this year. GTA IV is essentially a reinvention of its franchise that is a lot different than what many were expecting (much like Prince of Persia). With this in mind, I think GTA IV pulls off the change the best. I won’t ramble on for hours about its obvious strengths (although I could), but in short: the graphics are amazing, the world is incredibly detailed, the story missions are actually fun this time, the story is worth caring about, it has a great cast of characters and great voice acting, it has its own damn Internet, etc. This is the first GTA game I have actually gotten to the end of before getting really sick of it. I didn’t even feel the need to screw around and pointlessly kill hapless passersby either, although I did sate that urge on occasion. The main package was strong enough this time that it didn’t need all that pointless haphazard nonsense to succeed, although it was still mostly available if you wanted it. Niko’s tale was emotionally gripping, enthralling, and fun, making it the best action game of 2008.
