Upcoming: Week of Blogging

About two months ago, a guy I know marked the two year anniversary since he had done a writing project whereby he wrote 100,000 words of fiction within a two month period. Inspired by this, I've been meaning to do my own writing project, though on a significantly smaller scale. What I decided upon was to do a week of blogging in which I would have to do one post a day for seven days. These would be short posts since I have limited time for writing with my normal schedule, but even this will be a challenge since most of my posts take days or weeks to hammer out with plenty of spontaneous ideas and revisions occurring. I don't know exactly when I will start this, but I am thinking sometime around April 30. The topics have already been planned out, which I know is kind of cheating, but I needed to do that in order to have any chance of pulling this off. To be fair, I have not written a single word of any of the posts and will not write any posts ahead of their scheduled days. I'm not sure how this will turn out, but if nothing else it should be a worthwhile challenge.

Gaming Universes

Recently I found myself watching a show on youtube where a group of guys were discussing which fictional universes they would like to live in and which ones they would not want to live in. I decided to run this mental exercise myself with regards to universes found in some of the video games I've played, and came to the conclusion that although there are many that I enjoyed playing through, most video game universes I would never want to actually live in. Below are several of the video game universes I would never want to live in and why.

Batman
Why any sane person would want to live in Gotham City is beyond me. It is more or less guaranteed that you will be mugged, beaten, raped and/or killed.

Mass Effect
There's a lot of cool stuff in the future, but it seems almost all of today's problems still exist. Even if you're born in a good part of the galaxy and enjoy a nice life, all of that will comes to an end when the Reapers show up.

The Last of Us
Why would you ever want to experience the zombie apocalypse, especially one this grim?

Resistance
Similar to the The Last of Us, except the Chimera have crazy guns, alien technology and are actively wiping out humanity.

Halo
Similar to Resistance, but on a galactic scale.

God of War
If you see Kratos, run. If you live in or anywhere near the ancient Greek world, run. Then again, it probably won't save you.

Final Fantasy 10
Living everyday in fear that a giant monster called Sin will come and kill you. Even if you never run into Sin, you still have to deal with all the other monsters that inhabit the land. Come to think of it, a world infested with monsters seems to be a common element in all the Final Fantasy games.

Transformers
As a human, you're completely expendable.

Call of Duty/Battlefield
If you live in a major city or nearby anything that would be cool to blow up, then you're just waiting to die.  Even if that doesn't happen you'll probably be murdered by a child or teenager shouting racial and sexual slurs at you and then you'll get teabagged while you lie dead/dying on the ground.


Now, there are a few video game universes that might not be so bad, depending on the context. Below are a few universes that might be ok under certain conditions.

Assassin's Creed
Since the war between the Assassins and the Templars is hidden from public view, you could potentially live a normal life completely unaware of what was going on. Then again, if you're a Templar you'll probably be quietly stabbed in the back by an Assassin, and if you're an Assassin you'll be forever on the run from Templars seeking your death.

Uncharted
Like Assassin's Creed, you could live your whole live blissfully unaware of Nathan Drake's escapades, other than the occasional sudden drop in the world's pirate and mercenary populations. If you're an ally of Drake, you actually have a good chance of surviving and maybe even getting some cool ancient treasures, although you would probably have a bad case of PTSD from the stress that accompanies Drake's adventures. If you're an enemy of Drake or a mercenary for hire, then you're dead and you just don't know it yet.

Split/Second
Are you in the show or not? If you're just a spectator this could be really cool to watch, assuming that somehow the contestants are not dying every time they get blown up or wrecked. If you're in the show then you better pray that respawns are for real. This line of thinking would also apply to the MotorStorm universe.


Are there any video game universes I would actually want to live in? I'm still thinking that one over and if I come up with any I might do a post on them.

Top 20 Recap

I recently finished the countdown of my top twenty favorite console video games of the PS3/Xbox360/Wii era and it occurred to me it might be good just to write out the list itself in a single post for sake of being easier to read. In retrospect, I probably should have done each game as an individual post rather than in blocks of five, but what is done is done. For an explanation of how I went about choosing the games for this list, see the first entry in the countdown (dated 12/7/13).


20.Wii Sport
19. Batman Arkham Asylum
18. Spec Ops: The Line
17. Flower
16. God of War 3
15. LittleBigPlanet 2
14. The Last of Us
13. Prince of Persia (2008)
12. Red Dead Redemption
11. Transformers: War for Cybertron
10. Split/Second
9. Journey
8. Vanquish
7. MotorStorm Pacific Rift
6. Resistance 2
5. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
4. Infamous 2
3. Battlefield Bad Company 2
2. Uncharted 2
1. Mass Effect 2

Last Gen Favorites, Part 4: 5-1

This is it, the final five in the countdown of my top 20 favorite console games from last generation.

5. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

(Honorable Mention: Assassin's Creed 2)

Calling in the assassin recruits.

The original Assassin's Creed was a promising but somewhat flawed game. Assassin's Creed 2 realized the potential of the series, making significant improvements to the game structure, but for me Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (referred to hereafter as just Brotherhood) is where the series found its strongest expression. While the storyline of Assassin's Creed 2 is a bit stronger, in my opinion Brotherhood is a bit better overall as a game, mainly for a few notable improvements in gameplay. Brotherhood continues the story of Ezio, who is sort of the Renaissance version of Batman except that he kills people. A lot of people. The Assassin's Creed series tells the story of the struggle between the Templars and the Assassins over the course of history, which is actually interesting, but these are games, so I'm going to focus on gameplay when talking about them. Brotherhood was the first game in the series where offense was just as viable as defense in regular combat. The original Assassin's Creed suffered from a combat system where the only times going on the offense was a good idea were when you were making stealth kills, chasing down a target, and a few boss fights. The vast majority of the time you would just wait for enemies to attack you and then counter them. Assassin's Creed 2 made a few improvements to the system but you were still playing defensively at least 90% of the time. In Brotherhood the combat system was tweaked yet again and allowed for more offensive options. The biggest change was the ability to chain together kills, which shortened fights that would have normally dragged out in the previous two games. When you kill one enemy, if another is standing nearby you can immediately move to him and kill him too, and then repeat until either all enemies are dead or you run out of enemies standing close by. Another feature Brotherhood introduced was the ability to recruit and level up other members of your assassin order. At certain points in the game you can find a new recruit and then send him/her on missions to gain experience. Gaining experience levels up the assassin recruit and with each level you could upgrade the recruit's offensive and defensive capabilities. Your assassin recruits can be used in regular gameplay and are handy as both backup in combat and as assistance in pulling off your assassinations. The assassin recruits have shown up again in successor Assassin's Creed games with changes made to the system, but it was Brotherhood's original design that I found most enjoyable. These and other gameplay elements are what makes Brotherhood my favorite game in the Assassin's Creed series. Other games in the series have done certain things better, but for me Brotherhood stands as the best overall Assassin's Creed.

4. Infamous 2

(Honorable Mention: Infamous)

Going evil.

The original Infamous was a good game. Infamous 2 was a great game. Superhero games have had a checkered history with plenty of turds to accompany the gems, but the Infamous games have truly been gems. Infamous 2 is the story of Cole McGrath, an ordinary guy who, in the first Infamous, was given electric superpowers and then had to decide whether to use his powers to help save his city or to abuse his powers for his own selfish gain. Towards the end of the first Infamous, Cole learns that the reason he was given his powers was so that he might fight The Beast, a god-like being who is coming and will destroy humanity unless stopped. Infamous 2 begins shortly after Infamous ends, with Cole trying to prepare himself to take on The Beast. Unfortunately, The Beast shows up before Cole is ready and overpowers him, destroying Cole's home of Empire City and forcing Cole to flee to the city of New Marais (which is loosely based on the real city of New Orleans). There he hopes to become strong enough to defeat The Beast, who is slowing making his way towards New Marais. Infamous 2 takes everything that made the first Infamous good and improves upon it while fixing some of the problems of the original. The "parkour" (a term I use loosely) system is refined to be more precise and the city has some new items to help Cole more efficiently traverse it. Audio and visuals are also improved, with the in-engine cutscenes looking almost an entire generational leap from the original game. New Marais, like Empire City before it, is alive with friends, foes and civilians alike with ample opportunities for you to flex your hero or villain muscles. Cole's powers are also expanded beyond just electricity, giving Cole new options for combat and traversal. The karma system of the original Infamous returns in Infamous 2 with Cole's decisions and behavior giving him either positive or negative karma. As Cole becomes increasingly heroic or villainous he unlocks new powers that reflect his stance as either a superhero or superjerk. Good powers tend to be more about precision and maneuverability while evil powers tend to be more about brute force and disregard for collateral damage. Your karma ultimately decides which of Infamous 2's endings you get, and a notable change from the original game is that Infamous 2's good and evil endings are very different. Whereas the original Infamous' endings were really just the same situation with different details, the good and evil endings of Infamous 2 are night and day, giving you good incentive to play the game twice and experience both the good and evil paths. I've personally played through Infamous 2 (and Infamous) several times now, and will definitely play it again before I buy a Playstation 4 and the latest game in the series; Infamous Second Son.

3. Battlefield Bad Company 2

(Honorable Mention: Battlefield 3)

For the first few weeks I was the guy on the ground.

One of the marks of a truly great game is that it can be fun even if you're terrible at it. As a general rule, I am pretty bad at online first-person shooter multiplayer games, lacking the twitchiness and quick reflexes needed for success in most of them. But with Battlefield Bad Company 2 (and Battlefield 3) I enjoyed multiplayer so much that I kept coming back again and again, even as I was getting murdered at every turn during the early days. Bad Company 2 (referred to hereafter as just BC2) does have a singleplayer campaign, and a decent one at that, but the Battlefield games have always been a multiplayer first series and they remain the only video game series whose online multiplayer has held my interest for an extended period of time. Part of the reason for this is just how much you can do in Battlefield multiplayer. The open maps and vehicles available to you give you a lot of options for how you choose to prosecute your objective. You can grab a tank and drive straight at an enemy position, or you can take a helicopter to provide support from the air or you can try to sneak around on foot (just to name a few options). Another reason I have enjoyed Battlefield multiplayer is its emphasis on teamwork to win a match. While with games like Call of Duty a single really good player can carry an entire team to victory, in Battlefield a single really good player will certainly gain lots of points, but without working with his teammates he will still lose. Like other Battlefield games, BC2 uses a class based system for the type of soldier you play as and each class has its own specialty that contributes to the team. The assault class hands out ammo, the engineer class specializes in destroying and repairing vehicles, the support class heals teammates and the recon provides long range reconnaissance and sniper support. I found every class enjoyable to use, even the recon class, (I'm a terrible sniper) which I modified from a sniper to a close-quarters specialist who ran around in a ghillie suit with a shotgun (the "wookie with a shotgun" as it is sometimes called in the Battlefield community). BC2 did not have many game modes, but the ones that it did have were about as solid as you could hope for. My favorite was Rush, where a team of attackers trying to destroy a progressive set of targets and a team of defenders trying to stop them. After much time I actually did get decently good at BC2, but not because of any inherent skill on my part. I had learned the maps, studied the tactics and unlocked weapons and equipment; all through many hours of being murdered over and over again but coming back undeterred because the game was just that much fun.

2. Uncharted 2

(Honorable Mention: Uncharted 3)

Just another day in the life of Nathan Drake.

You can think of the Uncharted games as something like a modern version of the Indiana Jones movies. They tell the story of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who scours the world  for antiquities. In Uncharted 2, Drake is talked into helping his old associates Flynn and Chloe steal an ancient oil lamp from within a museum in Turkey that contains a clue to the lost fleet of Marco Polo. Drake gets the lamp but is betrayed by Flynn and left to rot in a prison cell. Bailed out by his old friend Sully, Drake learns from Chloe that Flynn is working for a psychopathic war criminal named Lazarevic who is attempting to locate Marco Polo's lost fleet. The lost fleet holds clues as to where to find the fabled city of Shambhala and the Cintamani Stone, a treasure that will grant great power to whoever holds it. Drake and company thus set off on a globe-trotting quest to beat Lazarevic and Flynn to the stone and keep it out of their hands. If all this sounds a bit crazy, that's because it is. The storyline of Uncharted 2 (and the other Uncharted games) goes off the deep end at several points, but it is the one of the best told crazy stories you'll experience in gaming. It is said that a good story starts with good characters, and Uncharted 2 proves that maxim with a cast of characters and interactions between them that sell the storyline and keep you invested. Married to the story and characters are strong gameplay mechanics and game design that make you want to keep playing; both to advance the story and to experience everything the game has to offer. You'll go from exploring and puzzle solving one minute, to fighting mercenaries the next and then you'll find yourself on your way to the next locale as Drake tries to stay one step ahead of Lazarevic and Flynn. The timing and pacing of events is near perfect, keeping the story moving forward without giving you combat fatigue or boredom from a lack of excitement or interest. Sprinkled throughout the game are a number of great setpiece moments that the Uncharted series is known for, such as fighting across the rooftops of Nepal while being chased by an attack helicopter and the best train ride in any video game ever (play the game and you'll know what I mean). The locations of Uncharted 2 are all beautifully realized and full of detail. A personal favorite of mine is a mountain village that Drake is brought to after being wounded. After waking up, Drake slowly walks through the village, taking in the scenic landscape and trying to interact with villagers who don't speak a word of English. If Uncharted 2 consisted only of its singeplayer campaign, it would be an outstanding game just for that, but it also includes a small but strong multiplayer suite. I was a bit skeptical when developer Naughty Dog announced that Uncharted 2 would have multiplayer in it, but when the game launched and I had a chance to try it out I found myself quite impressed. The game mechanics of the singplayer campaign have been translated very well into mulitplayer and the game modes, although basic, were enjoyable to the point that I consistently played multiplayer for about a month and a half (which is saying a lot since I normally am a singleplayer-only type of gamer). Uncharted 2 is a masterpiece of a game, and nearly got the top spot on this list. However, there is one game that I liked even more.

1. Mass Effect 2

(Honorable Mention: Mass Effect 3)

Fight for what's left.

There can be only one. I couldn't possibly describe everything that made Mass Effect 2 great in such a small space, so I'll limit myself to just a few items. As a role-playing game, Mass Effect 2 (referred to hereafter as ME2) represents one of the best realized game universes ever constructed with a cast of characters so diverse and expansive it boggles the mind to consider of how developer Bioware thought it all up. Set in the future, the Mass Effect games tell a story where mankind has expanded out into the galaxy, encountered alien races and found its place in the galactic community. ME2 begins with your character, Commander Shepard, getting killed when his ship is destroyed by an unknown alien vessel. Resurrected by a shadowy pro-human group known as Cerberus, Shepard is put in Cerberus' employ and sets off to investigate the aliens that killed him and find out why they have been attacking human colonies. Along the way he recruits a diverse cast of humans and aliens to join his crew and fight alongside him. Underlying everything that goes on is the impending threat of the Reapers, an race of advanced sentient machines who will one day arrive and wipe out all advanced civilizations in the galaxy. As Shepard treks across the galaxy the web of mysteries is unraveled and in the end Shepard leads his team on a suicide mission to take the fight straight to the enemy. For a game that spans the galaxy, ME2 has a fittingly massive cast of characters and lore. Every main character (and many side characters) has their own backstory, personality and aspirations. Every race has its own history, social structure and beliefs. Every planet has its own unique composition, geography and ecology. One of the things I enjoyed most about ME2 is that you're rewarded for exploring the galaxy and getting to know the characters. With each world potentially holding items, sidemissions or characters that can help you with your mission, or that are just interesting find, you'll want to check every area to see what's there. Each of the characters you can recruit has their own sidemission which gives you, on top of the chance to earn more experience points, the fuller details of who these characters are, why they think the way they do and gameplay bonuses. Helping them also makes them more willing to help you, which is especially critical to the final mission of the game. One of the other major features of ME2 is the ability to make choices that affect how the story plays out. Some of these choices have only subtle effects while others have major consequences. Most of the choices revolve around how to resolve a particular situation. How you choose to proceed builds your ranking as either a Paragon or a Renegade, and if you build a high enough ranking on either one you unlock new options for how certain events play out. Other choices are more straightforward and can be morally neutral, but even these mundane decisions have their effects on your experience. One of the most common decisions you make in the game which characters to take with you on missions and who you select has both minor and major consequences. Each character has their own specialty which affects how you play the game and they also have their own opinions on what's going on, meaning you'll get different bits of dialogue depending on who you choose. But perhaps the biggest decisions of all come right at the very beginning of the game. Unless you've imported your save file from Mass Effect 1, at the start of the game you will create your own Commander Shepard, choose from six character classes and decide how the major events of Mass Effect 1 played out. These decisions and the ones you make as you play the game can make each play-through different, and give a serious incentive to play the game multiple times to experience all the ways your choices can play out. ME2 is not a perfect game. There are a few slight technical and gameplay deficiencies in ME2 (and the Mass Effect series in general) but the story, cast of characters and universe are so strong that they overwhelm any nit-picking I can come up with. Mass Effect 2 is my favorite game of last gen and truly a legend.

Last Gen Favorites, Part 3: 10-6

After much delay, I have finished part 3 of my countdown of my top twenty favorite console games from last gen. Today we cover numbers ten through six.

10. Split/Second

Incoming!

I like to think that when the development team of Split/Second sat down to brainstorm their game, someone in the room said "You know what we don't have enough of in racing games? Explosions." The premise of Split/Second is that you are participating in a televised racing league where the race courses are rigged full of explosives. The racing season is broken into multiple episodes with several events per episode. These events range from standard races, time trials, and elimination races to more exotic things like trying to pass large trucks throwing explosive barrels at you and dodging volleys of missiles from a pursuing attack helicopter. As you compete in events you gain points with the goal of winning enough points to make one of the top three spots by the end of the season. The defining mechanic of Split/Second is, of course, the ability to blow up various objects in and along the race course. By drifting, drafting, jumping and dodging hazards you build a meter that can be used to trigger events called power plays, which are split into two levels. Level one power plays cause things like making a parked car explode or having a construction shovel hurled across the track. Level two power plays do more dramatic things like breaking a dam, crashing a jumbo jet on the track and other things that can change the route of the course. Knowing when to use a power play and whether to expend your meter now or wait to build up enough meter for a level two power play adds a bit of strategy to the experience. Whether you play conservative or aggressive with your power play meter, Split/Second is a good time. The sheer spectacle of the racecourse being lit up with explosions and the insanity of trying to drive really fast through the chaos are at the core of what makes Split/Second fun and distinct.

9. Journey

The journey begins.

Named the 2012 game of the year by several video game publications, and ripoff of the year by a friend of mine, Journey doesn't fail to bring out strong opinions from those who play it. Journey is just that, a journey. You play as a nameless, faceless being with a single objective; reach the summit of a mountain in the distance. The reason behind the journey is not important; what matters is the experience of the journey itself. Made by the same developer that created Flower, (#17 on this list) Journey is similar to its predecessor in its lack of traditional game mechanics such as lives and scores. It also has no dialogue, no text, no narration and yet tells a strangely moving and dramatic story. Music and visuals set the mood of each part of your journey. You go from the elation of surfing sand dunes to the fear and despondency of trying to making your way through a cavern while being hunted. Journey is also a strikingly beautiful game. Like the work of a master painter, Journey's visual appeal does not come from an attempt at realism, but in the usage of light, color and texture to bring the world and its magic to life and inspire awe from the things you see (a quality shared with #13 Prince of Persia). The game's breathtaking score compliments the visuals and audio plays an interesting role in the game itself in that your character uses a musical "shout" to do certain things. These shouts stay in tune with the background music and usage of them helps advance you along your journey. The journey itself is fairly short; the game will last you only about 2 hours unless you decide to explore every last nook and cranny. And yet in those 2 hours Journey delivers a stronger experience than most other games deliver in 10 hours or more.

8. Vanquish

Suit up.

Vanquish's story is uninspired, its characters are generic and the dialogue is cringeworthy in a few spots. All that is rendered completely irrelevant by some of the best third-person shooter gameplay ever created. There's some sort of story in Vanquish about evil Russians taking over an orbiting space colony and using the colony's giant microwave energy generator as an massive space cannon to attack America, but you won't care about that because you'll be having too much fun destroying the army of Russian robots in your way. You play as Sam, an agent of DARPA that has come along with the space marines sent in to retake the colony. Equipped with his Augmented Reality Suit, or ARS, Sam has the ability to slow down time and rapidly boost across the field of battle. These abilities, combined with the arsenal of weapons available to you and a strong cover system, are what makes Vanquish's gameplay so strong. You'll shoot some robots, boost across the field to flank other robots, go into slow motion while vaulting over cover to headshot another robot, boost over to another robot to finish it with a melee attack and then dive for cover to avoid the onslaught of bullets and recharge your suit, and all within the space of a few seconds. Vanquish also provides a potent visual treat with its futuristic settings, hectic firefights and even the workings of Sam's own suit. The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second, which is impressive with everything that is happening on the screen. If you really want to see what I mean, a fun little challenge is to enter slow motion during a firefight and try to keep track of everything that is going on while watching all the bullets slowly move through the air. The sounds of Vanquish are fittingly loud like a blockbuster action movie with explosions, gunfire and robots coming to kill you buffeting your ears. Fast, furious and unapologetically over the top, Vanquish is one of those games that grabs you by the throat and throws you headfirst into the fire. Ignore the absurdity of its storyline and just go nuts maxing out your suit's abilities.

7. MotorStorm Pacific Rift

(Honorable Mention: MotorStorm Apocalypse)

Why are we driving off a cliff? Because it's' MotorStorm.

If you hadn't deduced it from my entry on Split/Second, I prefer my racing games crazy. Games like Gran Turismo and Forza that try to simulate a realistic driving experience look cool but have never held my interest. I knew MotorStorm Pacific Rift (referred to hereafter as just MPR) was something special because I downloaded the demo for it and just kept playing it over and over again. After awhile I bought the game and to this day, almost five years now, I still come back to it from time to time to enjoy it. At its core MPR is fairly simple off-road racing game. There are eight vehicle classes to choose from and each one has its own ratings on various characteristics such as speed, endurance and maneuverability. Each racecourse features multiple routes that play to the various strengths of each vehicle class and offer the player a chance to experiment with trying different paths to find the best way through each course. Mud, water, foliage, man-made structures and even lava come together to create varied racecourses that provide both excitement and fair amount of danger. You'll have many close encounters with cliff edges, lava flows, larger vehicles and other dangers as you race across the island, though, as a friend of mine put it, sometimes crashing you car can be as much fun as the race itself. There's no actual story in MPR, and that's completely fine. You're given a context that everything you do is part of a large off-road racing festival that has come to this tropical island, but you don't play a game like this for storyline. MPR is what it is; a crazy and fun off-road racing game that I keep coming back to.

6. Resistance 2

(Honorable Mention: Resistance: Fall of Man)

The Chimeran invasion has arrived.

Alternative history has been something of a fascination for me in media; creating worlds that are similar to our own but with a few important changes. The games in the Resistance series exist in a universe where World War 2 never happened, America became staunchly isolationist and (most importantly) an alien virus lands in Russia, turns humans into alien soldiers called the Chimera who further spread the virus and in turn overrun most of the planet. Resistance 2 continues the story of Nathan Hale, an American soldier who survived being infected by the chimeran virus and in the first Resistance game helped expel the Chimera from Britain. Several years have passed since then and now the Chimera have launched a full-scale invasion of North America. Hale is then thrown into a desperate struggle to slow the Chimeran advance and try to find a way to stop the Chimera for good. The story of Resistance 2 takes you across an alternate history 1950s America to fight a war that is steadily being lost. Thankfully you won't be left wanting an arsenal to fight this war. Resistance 2's developer, Insomniac Games, once again showed off their creativity when it comes to weapons with a wide range of guns and explosives to fight the Chimera with. Each gun also has its own secondary fire option, giving you even more ways to deal out death. And need these guns you will, because the Chimera have no intention of killing themselves and Hale himself is running out of time before he finally succumbs to the Chimeran virus and becomes part of the invasion he is trying to stop. In addition to its strong singleplayer campaign, Resistance 2 featured a very fun multiplayer suite, with my personal favorite being the cooperative missions where you and up to seven others team up to complete a series of objectives which are remixed each time you play. You select one of three classes to play as, each with its own strengths but also dependent on the other two classes to function effectively. This forces cooperative play between the players and ensures everyone has a valuable role on the team. Even though there are only about seven total maps for this cooperative mode, I never got tired of playing it and leveling up my character classes. There is also a solid suite of competitive multiplayer options, with the chaotic 30 vs 30 team deathmatch being another favorite of mine. It's rare to find a game that does many things and does them all well. Resistance 2 is one of those games.


We're now almost finished. The next and final post of this series will reveal the top five, so check back for the big reveal.

Last Gen Favorites, Part 2: 15-11

So continues my countdown of my top 20 favorite video games of last gen. Today is numbers 15 through 11.

15. LittleBigPlanet 2

(Honorable Mention: LittleBigPlanet)

Play, Create, Share

There aren't many games that can put a smile on your face quite like LittleBigPlanet 2. Everything, from your loveable protagonist Sackboy, to the toy-box and scrapbookesque level design of Craftworld lets you know that you're in for a fun time. Yet beneath the adorable facade is strong platforming game with a extensive level creator that can extend your playtime for months if not years after you complete the main campaign. LittleBigPlanet 2's campaign has Sackboy bounding across Craftworld in a story reminiscent of something out of a children's' storybook. The evil Negativatron is turning Craftworld into a living nightmare, and it's up to Sackboy to save the day. The story gives you sufficient context and reason for what you're doing, but what will keep you going forward is the level design and gameplay. LittleBigPlanet 2 is a 2d platformer, so you'll spend most of your time running, jumping, grappling and sometimes shooting and racing you're way from one end of the level to the other. Each part of Craftworld that you visit looks and feels unique, and the game does an excellent job of slowly but steadily increasing the challenge as you progress. Beyond the main campaign in LittleBigPlanet 2 is the second, and arguably more defining part of the game; the level creator. The original LittleBigPlanet had its own level creator and helped popularized the concept of "play, create, share" whereby you would play the game, create your own levels and then share them with the LittleBigPlanet community for them to play (and repeat the cycle). LittleBigPlanet 2 expanded on the level creator from the first game and added much more functionality to it, even to the point where you could create not just your own levels, but full-blown minigames. While I never put much time or effort into the level creator, I spent quite a few hours playing other peoples' creations and was impressed by the quality of what people were creating. The sheer volume of content that exists beyond the main campaign makes LittleBigPlanet 2 a game truly built to last.

14. The Last of Us

"You make every shot count."

I don't like zombie games. Or movies. Or TV shows. I've never understood the appeal of the whole zombie/infected genre, and it was with a certain unease that I started playing through The Last of Us with a friend of mine. But right when the game started, I realized it was not going to be what I thought it would be. After one of the most memorable openings of any game I have ever played, you fast-forward to the main story of The Last of Us, which takes place in post-apocalyptic America where a fungal infection has devastated the world and turned much of the population into reckless, animalistic freaks (known simply as "the infected") who attack regular humans on sight. You play as Joel, a bitter and tired survivor who is living in a quarantined part of Boston, which is one of the last bastions of what's left of the American government. Joel is contracted by the Fireflies, a mysterious anti-government resistance group, to escort a young girl named Ellie out of the city and the story follows Joel and Ellie's journey across what's left of America. While you get bits and pieces of what happened during and after the fungal outbreak, the story of The Last of Us is not so much about outbreak itself as it is about the relationship between Joel and Ellie. As is fitting for story about survival, the gameplay of The Last of Us is desperate and brutal. There is no regenerative health, stealth kills are not clean, combat in general is quite ugly and utilizing your inventory and crafting are done in real-time, so you better make sure the coast is clear before you take your eyes off your surroundings. Stealth is usually advisable, and while I've played a few stealth games in the past, The Last of Us is the only game I've played where I actually felt tense as I tried to quietly eliminate or slip past foes. Joel's survival usually means someone else will die, giving a certain weight to your decisions, especially since the other survivors are not evil just because they're bad people, but they too are trying to survive by any means necessary. Yet, for all the despair and brutality of The Last of Us, it also has the distinction of spawning the most hilarious gaming in-joke so far in my gaming life, which unfortunately I cannot post to this blog. Have I changed my mind on the zombie/infected genre? No. Is The Last of Us a great game? Absolutely.

13. Prince of Persia (2008)

A beautiful world.

"Why can't our game look like our concept art?" That, apparently, was the question posed by the development team of the 2008 entry in the Prince of Persia series. What arose out of this inquiry was a visually striking Prince of Persia game that broke away from the arc of the past several games in the series and established itself as something truly unique. In Prince of Persia you play as an unnamed protagonist (whom I will just refer to as "the prince," even though we never learn who he is) who has stumbled upon a mythical land that serves as the prison for the evil god Ahriman. There he meets Elika, a woman whose tribe is sworn to keeping Ahriman locked up. Unfortunately, but predictably, Ahriman gets loose and corrupts the land, and the prince and Elika are forced to work together to stop Ahriman from infecting the rest of the world and put him back in his prison. As you work your way through the world of Prince of Persia, Elika will be your constant companion; teaching you the history of each area, using her magic to help in traversal and combat and providing conversation when you just want to talk with her. In fact, Elika is one of my favorite companion characters in any video game. She never gets in your way, is easy to control, has a likeable personality (unlike the prince, who is kind of a jerk) and is always helpful. Elika will even save your life if you miss a jump or are about to die in battle. This particular game mechanic, that, with rare exception, you never die in the game, means much of the challenge of the platforming and combat is gone. I know many people did not like this, but for me this was not an issue, because the lack of death encouraged me to attempt to explore every last corner of the world. The world of Prince of Persia itself looks somewhat like a fantastical watercolor painting, and the desolate but beautiful landscape reminds me of the feel I got when playing one of my favorite PlayStation 2 games, Shadow of the Colossus. Sadly, I must be one of the few people who actually liked Prince of Persia because it did not sell well and there has been no word of a sequel since its release in 2008. There was an Epilogue DLC released a little while after the game came out, but this truly is game in need of a full-blown sequel.

12. Red Dead Redemption

Yes, you can fight bears.

Red Dead Redemption is a game that seems almost as big as the American West where it takes place. You play as John Marston, a former outlaw who left his gang to start a family and go straight, but has been dragged back into his former life by federal agents who use him to hunt down his former partners in crime. This sort of setup, with a former criminal returning to his past life for one reason or another, is not particularly original and has even been done in other games by Rockstar, the developer of Red Dead Redemption, (and the Grand Theft Auto series) but the story that unfolds after this somewhat cliche beginning is well worth your time. You'll be taken across the American West and even into Mexico as Marston pursues his former friends, interacts with an interesting cast of characters and explores the massive open world. The world of Red Dead Redemption is an achievement unto itself and probably the game's greatest feature, being both the best depiction of the American West that I've seen in a video game and full of sights, wildlife and scattered bits of humanity. From early on in the game when you acquire a horse, you can look at almost anywhere on the map or in the distance and go there. Without playing a single story mission, you can spend hours upon hours just wandering around and taking in everything, and as you do you'll also find plenty of side missions and random events to be distracted by. As you complete various tasks and missions you'll become increasingly famous, or infamous, depending on what you do, and the world will adapt to this with other outlaws attacking you if you're a particularly upstanding citizen and posses of bounty hunters pursuing you if you gain a large bounty on your head. This ever changing world and all the random encounters and events that go on it make Red Dead Redemption one of the few games that can legitimately claim to have a living world.

11. Transformers: War for Cybertron

(Honorable Mention: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron)

Time to scrap some Deceptacons

Much like Batman: Arkham Asylum was the game that showed just how good a Batman game could be, Transformers: War for Cyberton was the game that showed how awesome a good Transformers game could be. Transformers: War for Cybertron (referred to hereafter as just War for Cybertron) takes you back to Cybertron at the height of the war between the Autobots and Deceptacons.You play as both sides in the story and learn the details of some parts of the Transformers lore that were previously obscure, such as Optimus becoming a Prime, Starscream's defection to the Deceptacons and how Cybertron was ultimately doomed by Megatron's quest for power. Cybertron itself has been beautifully realized as a fully mechanical world, albeit a world devastated by the ravages of war. The various characters of the Transformers universe that you play as have also been given cool new looks that help the game feel like a fresh take on Transformers, but at the same time are close enough to their classic looks that you'll instantly know who they are. But as interesting as the story and visuals of War for Cybertron are, it is the gameplay that really stands out. As you've probably guessed, one of the main components to the gameplay of a Transformers game is that your character can transform back and forth between humanoid and vehicle forms. While we've seen this mechanic in other Tranformers games before, War for Cybertron really outdoes itself in the level of tactical gameplay that the game allows you to pull off. You're encouraged to maximize the respective strengths of your character's forms; superior speed and maneuverability in vehicle form and superior firepower in humanoid form. Stay too long in one form or in one place and you'll find yourself running out of ammo, or worse. That said, even if you played this game in a slower, cover-to-cover style like Gears of War and don't take advantage of what the game has to offer, it is still a good time. Choosing between Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron for this list was extremely difficult and had the narrowest margin of any entry on this list between a chosen game and its honorable mention. In the end, I gave a slight edge to War for Cybertron because I enjoyed its campaign just a little bit more than the campaign in Fall of Cybertron. Both are outstanding games and if you're a Transformers fan you can't go wrong with either one.


With numbers 20 through 11 now covered, we are now ready to crack the highly anticipated top ten. Stay tuned for the post in this series which will cover numbers 10 through 6.

Last Gen Favorites, Part 1: 20-16

With the recent launch of the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, many people have been putting out lists of their favorite games of the last console generation. I'm arriving a bit late to the party, but I thought it would be a good and fun exercise to create my own list. I had originally planned on doing a top ten, but after much agonizing I realized that keeping the list at just ten entries would result in cutting too many games that I loved but just missed the top ten, so I decided to expand the list to a top twenty.

Now, there are a number of parameters that I've decided to impose on this list. From the title I hope it is clear that I am limiting this list to games I played on console (PlayStation 3, Xobx 360, Wii). This is because I haven't done much in the way of PC, mobile and hand-held gaming. I am also not including on this list any games that are currently multi-generational (available on both last gen and current gen). Anything out now that is available on both current gen and last gen I intend to play whenever I decide to buy a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Lastly, I have decided to use only one game per game series, in order to keep certain game series from dominating the list, but I have also given honorable mentions to other outstanding entries series that have games on the list.

One last thing I need to reiterate, in case the title of this post is not clear enough, is that these are not necessarily the best games I have played, (in terms of overall quality) but the ones I enjoyed the most. While all the games on this list are good, you'll note there are a few games in the list that are arguably "better" than the ones above them. This is a reflection of the fact that sometimes our favorite games are not always the ones that would be considered the highest quality in game reviewer circles, but the ones that struck a chord with us for whatever reason.

In the end, of course, this list is completely subjective and means absolutely nothing. With that long introduction finally over, I give you the first part my top twenty favorite games of last gen. We'll start with numbers 20 through 16.

20. Wii Sports

(Honorable Mention: Wii Sports Resort)

It begins.

Starting off this list is the game that kicked off the motion control insanity of last gen; Wii Sports. Packaged with the Nintendo Wii console, for me and many other people Wii Sports was our first gaming experience on last gen. A simple package of just five minigames, two of which that didn't even work all that well, Wii Sports became the go-to game for party play and some epic gaming sessions. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Wii Sports is that it is arguably more a tech-demo for the Wii's functionality than a full-fledged game. Although Wii Sports Resort made a number of improvements to the formula and added many more minigames, I have decided to give this spot to the original Wii Sports for being the spark that set off many days and nights fun party play. Many other games would come and go on my Wii, but Wii Sports (and its successor) was the game my friends and I kept coming back to.

19. Batman: Arkham Asylum

(Honorable Mention: Batman: Arkham City)

It's going to be a long night.

A great Batman game that actually makes you feel like Batman? Up until the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, most people would dismiss such as thing as a myth. Batman: Arkham Asylum starts with Batman having captured Joker and bringing him to Arkham Asylum for imprisonment, only for Joker to turn the tables and take over Arkham Asylum. Batman must then uncover and thwart Joker's plot, and along the way he crosses paths with several members of his famous rouges gallery, including Scarecrow, Bane, Poison Ivy, Zsasz, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn and (indirectly) Riddler. With so many bad superhero games out there, it is impressive how well Batman: Arkham Asylum works: combat is simple but gratifying, Batman's gadgets are cool and fun to use, the "predator rooms" (where Batman must stalk and take down gun-wielding thugs) provide interesting and challenging puzzles, Batman and Joker are voiced by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, respectively, (the same persons who voiced the characters in the iconic animated series in the 90s) there are plenty of collectibles and the art and level design of the asylum evokes a dark, Gothic ambiance, which is fitting for the Batman universe. This is game made for Batman fans, and even if you're not a Batman fan it still a great game.

18. Spec Ops: The Line

This is all your fault.

Do you feel like a hero yet? There are very few games that question your character's motives and morality as effectively as the criminally under-played Spec Ops: The Line. Although on the surface, Spec Ops: The Line appears to be a generic, military-themed third person shooter, it actually follows the descent of Captain Martin Walker into madness as he and his squad pursue his former commander through a sandstorm-ravaged Dubai. Based on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, Spec Ops: The Line slowly gets into your head and asks if what you're doing is really the right thing. As you progress, you are confronted with the fact that Walker is a deplorable human being whose attempts to right the situation in Dubai have only made things worse, and that his obsession with finding his former commander has lead the the horrific deaths of everyone around him. Every decision Walker makes results in something bad happening and ends in regret. Lots of games have you committing acts of violence, but Spec Ops: The Line forces you to face the reasoning and consequences of your actions and asks what it all means. In doing so, Spec Ops: The Line does what few video game has done; it makes violence meaningful.

17. Flower

The field of dreams.

Sometimes you don't want to kill aliens, solve puzzles or go on epic quests. Sometimes you would rather relax and escape the stresses of life. Flower has an incredibly simple premise; you control the wind and collect flower petals and then guide them to the end of the level. The game takes place within what you might call the dreams of flowers, strange as that may sound, and it tells a surprisingly emotional tale, even though there's not much of what you would call a story in it. There are no lives, no deaths, no score, no time limit and no way to fail. You only use one button to blow the wind and you control the direction of the wind by rotating the controller. This lack of traditional game systems will turn off some, but for others like myself it provides a unique and enjoyable gaming experience. Actually, experience is probably a more fitting description of Flower rather than a calling it a game. Flower is one of those things that is hard to describe to others and people who play it tend to either love it or not understand what others see in it. Whatever you think about it, you won't find many other experiences like it in gaming.

16. God of War 3

Kratos vs. Poseidon.

Disemboweling his way onto this list is our favorite rageaholic, Kratos. God of War 3 brought a satisfying conclusion to Kratos' blood soaked quest for revenge as he murdered his way through Greek mythology. Continuing the tradition of focusing on gameplay, graphics and mind-blowing spectacle, God of War 3 takes the God of War formula and refines it yet again to create an extremely polished experience. Combat is stellar, as always, and the added ability to cancel out of almost any combo to either block or roll allows you to fully integrated offensive and defensive maneuvers into a beautiful dance of death. Every hit is gratifying, every weapon is useful and every finisher is satisfyingly brutal. Boss fights, a perennial strong suit of the God of War series, are as epic as ever, and you never go too long before you have another one. Every God of War game has opened with an epic boss fight, but God of War 3's opening battle with Poseidon is my personal favorite opening boss fight in the entire series. With great gameplay, over-the-top boss fights and graphics that are still good even today, almost four years after it was originally released, God of War 3 set a standard for actions games that others in the genre are still measured against.



So begins my top 20 favorite games of last gen. My next post will covers numbers 15 through 11.

"I need my hours"

A few days ago I was at the Walnut Cafe while my car was being worked on. I was sitting by myself towards the back, near one part of the kitchen where I think their dishwashers and coffeemakers are located. While eating and reading through that week's edition of The Economist, I overheard one of the kitchen staff speaking with a waitress. He was telling the waitress about his financial difficulties and the various jobs he worked to make ends meet. When asked if he was going to be working a full shift that day, he told the other staffer yes, and that "I need my hours." This set in my mind a quick thought of my own financial circumstances how God had worked in my life through individuals, circumstances and His Word to put me where I am today. I am incredibly blessed to be both debt-free and living a life that could be financed with part-time work. Yet despite this, I am not always grateful for the blessings God has bestowed on me. One area in particular that has long been a problem is my job.

Those of you who know me know that I have a rocky relationship with my job. It's ok overall, but there are a number of things I don't like about it and there have been a few times where I've been disgusted with decisions made by the owners. Needless to say, the thought of quitting has come up on occasion. And yet, over the years God has been working in me through this job and showing me that it is a blessing, in spite of whatever petty grievances I may have about it. He has also shown me, particularly over the last few months, how He has been working through me to bless some of my coworkers. As I inch closer to some major life changes, I can see now that God has been working through my job to prepare me for the next phase of my life and beyond. At some point in the future I will leave this job, but I can honestly say that I am better man because of it.

My job is a blessing. Even if it had more of those things I disdain it would still be a blessing. It comes from God, just like every other blessing; from the standard of living I enjoy to every last breath He allows me to take. How can I not thank Him?

Tejeringos

It's only taken me a full year, but I finally have another recipe to add to the blog. This one is for tejeringos, which are more or less the same thing as churros, but perhaps a bit smaller than your average churro. I learned this recipe from a book about a culinary journey through Spain, though I've slightly modified the recipe.

Ingredients/Equipment needed for this recipe:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon sugar, plus about 1/3 cup for dusting
Pinch of salt
1 & 1/3 cup flour
3 large eggs
1 cup water
Approximately 50 Fl Oz or about 1,500 mL oil for frying*
Pastry bag with large star-shaped tip**
Tongs
Bowl
Saucepan
Large pot
Paper towels
Stove top

Optional items for this recipe:
Latex/non-latex gloves (for protection against hot oil)
Funnel (for cleanup)
Strainer (for cleanup)

* I have made this recipe with both extra virgin olive oil and canola oil and have not noticed a significant difference in the resulting flavor of the Tejeringos. At some point in the future I will make this recipe again with other types of oil and will then update this post. As for the amount of oil, the important thing is that you have enough for the oil in your pot to be at least 2.5'' deep.
** The star-shaped tip I used was about 1.4'' in diameter at the base, about 0.75'' in diameter at the opening and 2'' tall. It was an Aetco Pastry Tube - Star - Size 9. I bought it on Amazon at the following web address: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000VLEFE/ref=pe_385040_30332200_pe_309540_26725410_item


Below is a photo of most of the required items.

One more note on this recipe: while this can be done by a single person, there are a few points where it is helpful to have a second person assisting. If you have a friend or family member who is willing to help you out it will make this recipe a bit easier.

Ready? Let's get started.


Cut the stick of butter into about 7 or 8 pieces. Then combine the water, butter, the tablespoon of sugar and the salt into the saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir the mixture occasionally until the butter has melted and everything has combined into a single substance.

The butter in the saucepan.

The butter, salt, water and sugar all together.

Starting to boil.

Reduce the heat to low, add the flour (in one shot), and stir vigorously until the mixture solidifies into a single mass.

Remove the saucepan from the heat, but don't turn the heat off. In fact, I would suggest turning the heat back up to medium (you'll see why later). Add the eggs to the batter and stir vigorously. You can either add them one at a time, or you can mix them beforehand and add them all at once; I haven't noticed a significant effect on the final product between using either method. When you add in the eggs you'll notice that the batter will break up into lots of small pieces. Don't worry about this and just keep stirring. After a minute or two, as the batter slowly absorbs the eggs, the batter will come back together into a single mass of dough.

The dough after it has completely absorbed the eggs.

Once the dough is back to a single solid mass, transfer it into a bowl and place it in your refrigerator for 10 or so minutes.

Meanwhile, pour your oil into the large pot and place it on the stove top. If you kept the heat on as I suggested earlier, the burner will still be warm/hot and it will take less time to heat up the oil. Heat the oil to about 365 degrees. I do not have a cooking thermometer, so I set the burner to 7, which on my stove is at about the 4 o'clock position. I have also successfully made this recipe on the 6 setting, so if you don't have a cooking thermometer set the stove top to somewhere around there.

The oil heats up. In this case it is extra virgin olive oil.

While the dough is cooling in the refrigerator and the oil is heating up, get your pastry bag and fit the star-shaped tip into it. You'll need to cut a small amount of the end of the bag off in order to fit the star-shaped tip into. If you're not sure how much to cut just take a small amount off and then see if you can push the star-shaped tip into it (from the inside of the bag). Keep cutting small slivers off the end of the bag until you can get the star-shaped tip to fit snugly into it. Also set out some paper towels, which you'll need later to drain the tejeringos when you take them out of the frying oil.

In this photo I am using a large, industrial pastry bag. Feel free to use another type.

A closeup of the star-shaped tip.

The pastry bag with the star-shaped tip fitted into the bottom.

After the dough's time in the refrigerator is done, bring it out and transfer it into the pastry bag. You'll find this is one of the times where it is easier if you have a second person holding the bag open while you move the dough into it. Though not required, I like to knead the dough just a little bit while it is in the bag before I start to pipe it out into the frying oil. I really don't know if this does anything, but I like to do it.

The pastry bag with the dough loaded into it.

If your frying oil is hot enough, you can now start frying the dough and making tejeringos. Judging how hot the oil is without a thermometer can be tricky, but you'll find out very quickly if it's hot enough when you start to pipe the dough into it. If the oil becomes very bubbly when the dough goes into it, then it is hot enough. If it's only a little bubbly then wait a few more minutes for the oil to heat up.

Now, before you start adding the dough, I would suggest putting on a pair of latex or non-latex gloves. This is just to protect your hands from drops of hot oil that might splash up when you are adding the dough to the oil. This is not mandatory and if you're allergic to latex don't feel compelled to do this.

Pipe 4-inch-long strips of dough into the hot oil. The strips will tend to crowd together, so don't put too many in at the same time. Use your tongs to keep the strips from bunching up as they fry. Cook the tejeringos for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until golden brown. The longer you cook them, the crispier they will be. The less you cook them, the more doughy they will be. If you're going to make this recipe more than once, try frying one group of tejeringos for longer and another for less and see which ones you like more.

The tejeringos tend to bunch up if left unattended in the oil.

Use your tongs to keep them separated.

When the tejeringos are done frying, use your tongs to remove them from the oil and place them on paper towels to let the excess oil drain off. Pipe more dough into the oil and continue the frying process until you've used up as much dough as you can. When you're completely done frying, turn off the heat on the stove top and move the pot off the burner so the oil can start cooling.

A batch of tejeringos draining on some paper towels.

Lastly, take your sugar and dust the tejeringos with as much or as little sugar as you like. If you have someone helping you, they can start dusting the tejeringos as you're taking them out of the oil (of course, give them a few seconds to drain on the paper towels). I used 1/3 cup of sugar for dusting, but you can use more or less to suit your personal tastes.

I used a plate to help with the dusting. Feel free to use whatever works for you.

Place the finished tejeringos on a plate or in a bowl, and then serve them as soon as possible. These little guys are delicious, but will go floppy (like microwaved bread) after a few hours, so no leftovers allowed!

ENJOY!

Cleanup
Since we're working with oil, I thought it would be good to add a little section on the cleanup you'll need to do for this recipe. While most of your equipment can be cleaned like normal, the leftover oil requires some special consideration. DO NOT DUMP THE OIL IN YOUR SINK! You are likely to clog it as the oil solidifies and hardens as it sits in your pipes (in case you didn't notice, oil does not flow like water). Below are your two main options for dealing with the leftover oil:

* Storage and Reuse
Depending on what type of oil you used for frying, you may be able to store and reuse it for future cooking. To store the oil, first let it cool completely. Then carefully pour it into a container for storage (a funnel helps). If you have a strainer, be sure to use it to filter out any food particles that may have gotten into the oil while you were frying. The container you use can be a jar, bottle, the original container the oil came in or whatever you want to use. Store the oil in a cool, dark place (light will accelerate the oil going bad). Extra virgin olive oil tends to become rancid faster than other oils, while Canola oil can last awhile if stored properly. Before you reuse any oil be sure to give it a smell test (and taste test if you're willing). If it smells nasty, then it's gone bad. When reusing oil, be sure to use it on similar foods that it was originally used to fry. For example, you can reuse the oil you used to fry the tejeringos on pastries, but don't use it on vegetables or meats. Oils often take on flavors from the foods they cook, so using the same oil for different types of foods can mess up your cooking.

* Disposal
If your oil has gone bad or you're just not going to use it again, you need to properly dispose of it. Again, do not dump the oil in your sink. After the oil has cooled, pour it into a disposable container (such as a milk carton) and close/seal the container so it does not leak. Some towns have an oil disposal program/service, and if you have access to one try to take advantage of it. Otherwise, place the sealed container in your dumpster, and perhaps label it so your local dumpster-diver doesn't make a mess.