Blog FeedGames of 2007: A Debate by Mail
Vermouth,
I noticed another thread connecting all of the games you placed on your truncated “Game of the Year” feature: they are all on the Xbox 360. A thread which places me at a disadvantage, I do not own an Xbox 360, so my ability to snipe at your picks is certainly handicapped. However, most of my picks will be on a different system, so I may be able to deflect many of your own critical witticisms.
At something past the outset, I do want to issue something of a meta-statement on all of these “Game of the Year” pieces that pop up around this time of the year. Specifically, crowning one game as “Game of the Year” is madness, for a number of reasons. First, and probably most importantly, no one can play all of the games in a year to completion or a point near enough, to render a critical judgement of the entire crop. Second, and more closely related to you and I, is that two people cannot play enough games to make a credible judgement as to the “Game of the Year.” Finally, why have a “Game of the Year” at all? Different people have different needs and wants from their games and they will also have different games of the year, as we’re going to see.
However, if we adhered too closely to that rationale, there would be no reason for doing any of this, and I do so love to write and share my opinion. Anyway, here we go.
Since you are only offering three games for “Game of the Year,” I’ll do the same. Unfortunately there are a few games that deserve some special recognition, if only as recommendations. I’ll start with those.
The Orange Box (PS3/X360/PC) I, unfortunately, have been unable to play anything from the Orange Box, save a few levels of Half-Life 2 and Episode 1. However, from a pure value perspective, this game…s…is a no-brainer. You have a game that is itself a “Game of the Year” winner from many publications, its pseudo-sequels, a very popular online competitive FPS game with a wonderful style in Team-Fortress 2, and what I find to be the biggest personal gaming lose: Portal. Frankly, anyone who has the hardware to play this game, should go out and buy the game.
Assassin’s Creed (PS3/X360) I only had a short time with the game, but everyone interested in sandbox-style action games should at least rent this game. The combat is tight, despite being limited to one or two button presses, and free-running through Crusades-era Holy Land cities is a lot of fun. Plus, the story potential is pretty wide-open for this brand-new IP. Taking the initial story conceit and extrapolating it out, the story could span multiple time periods, culminating in…well, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but there’s a lot that can be done with this game.
Peggle (PC/Mac) You actually introduced me to this game earlier in the year and I recently rediscovered it. Peggle is a combination of Pachinco and skee-ball and is ridiculously fun. The game can be played in spurts or for much longer sittings than you initially plan. I wasn’t quite enraptured with the game initially, but when you nail that last red peg an the game slows down and zooms in for the dramatic shot and the “Ode to Joy” starts playing…I defy anyone not to be hooked.
Okay, moving on to my “Games of the Year” proper. I hope you’ll forgive this financially strapped gamer for relying on his workhorse Nintendo DS for the bulk of his game picks.
3. Etrian Odyssey (NDS) I put this game at the inverted-bottom of this list, mostly because I’ve been playing it quite a bit. The game itself is quite simply: it’s an old-school dungeon crawler. The main draw of the game is that you use the bottom-screen of the Nintendo DS to physically map each floor of the cavernous 30-floor dungeon presented in the game. I’m not sure I can take your “style-as-substance” argument too far with this game, but the style certainly lends something to the game itself. The character art, while anime-inspired is large and crip and every five floors of the dungeon have a unified visual theme. Granted, each them is generally some variation of a forest, but each pallette is unique and the game switches up before the one you’ve been staring at a couple of hours gets too old.
Ultimately, this game breaks no new ground, but if you like the genre and are looking for something a bit more niche and meaty on the DS, you can’t really go wrong. Again, it made the shortlist because I’ve played it quite a bit more than most other games this year, and really, shouldn’t that be one of the main qualifying factors?
2. BioShock (X360/PC) I really like BioShock. I do. I haven’t been able to play it through to the end, but that notwithstanding, I think it is one of the best games I’ve played this year. Only, I really can’t give it the unadultered praise you’ve heaped on it in the past and currently.
Sure, it is one of the best examples of your “style-as-substance” argument, but what eaxctly does it do for the game? Every media outlet that has an article about this game makes a huge fuss about how cohesive the art style is. Specifically, the “Art-Deco” look that so pervades every area of the game. Yeah, it looks fantastic. Art-Deco is cool. Many of the famous buildings in New York City are, at least, inspired by the art-deco movement. People like it and apparently the look certainly resonnates with anyone who watches the game.
However, what does the design do for the game? Atmosphere? Okay, I can give you that. Does the art-deco minimize the fact that the game is fundamentally broken? Between having a Vita-Chamber every ten feet, making death a mere annoyance and the central tenet of the “emergent” gameplay, plasmids, being limited to a few useful combinations, the art-deco makes the game look great, but can’t cover the flaws.
Again, I love the game, I do. I really appreciate BioShock’s ability to capture the imagination of a vast number of gamers and introduce them to a style of gameplay that they may have missed. I am, of course, referring to the RPG/FPS hybrid pioneered by the original System Shock, and near-perfected by BioShock’s spiritual predecessor; System Shock 2, and my personal “Game of All-Time” Deus Ex.
Unfortunately, the fact-of-the-matter is that BioShock is in many ways an inferior game to the three mentioned above and while the art-deco look is great, I simply cannot see how that can so overwhelmingly supplant the flaws found in this game.
Now, I cannot critique you for finding so many things to like in the world BioShock creates. Whatever powerful thoughts and emotions BioShock elicitsin your mind are your own and that is something beyond reproach. However, I still remember playing through Deus Ex and thinking and feeling many of the same things about the disparate groups represented in that game and Andrew Ryan in this game. I also remember feeling really bad about killing that first NSF troop on Liberty Island. I mean, I had a tazer available to me, and yet, I still shot him in the back of the head. You want to talk about saving or killing the Little Sistersand what that says about the person playing…what does it say about someone who chooses to use a weapon with a real-life analog on a human simulacra, as opposed to some bio-engineered thing to consume a sea slug from a zombified Shirley Temple? Probably the same thing, but Deus Ex did it years ago.
I suppose the real problem I have with BioShock, and again, I love it, is that I cannot place it within its own context of 2007. There hasn’t been a game like this since Deus Ex and coming in the midst of the current group of next-gen games, it is a revelation. I only wish I had nothing else to compare it to.
1. Puzzle Quest (PSP/NDS/Wii/PS2/X360 Arcade/PC/?) What? I picked a colored-jewel matching game over BioShock? Over the Orange Box, over Halo 3, over Mass Effect, over Super Mario Galaxy, over Assassin’s Creed, over Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, over…okay, we both get the picture. See my just-after-intro and re-read why picking a “Game of the Year” is an exercise in futility.
What is there to say about Puzzle Quest? It is what it is: a colored-jewel matching game. Match three colored-jewels, they disappear and the ones resting above drop down. Matching four and five colored-jewels add bonuses and effects to the gameplay, but that’s basically it.
However, in the “style-as-substance” argument, there are few games that come as close to this one to proving your point. Puzzle Quest is a jewel-matching game with a high-fantasy paint job that is also, obstensibly, an RPG. After each round of jewel matching, your character is awarded experience points and you can equip armor and weapons that have a small affect on the gameplay.
That’s it. However, that’s also a pretty charming package that kept me coming back for more hours than any other game I’ve played this year, and for far many more hours than any jewel matching game found on PopCap or its ilk.
The style of Puzzle Quest adds such a game-defining characteristic that it simply cannot be anything other than part of the substance of the game.
Puzzle Quest: between the gameplay, both style and substance; number of hours played; the fun I had with it; and despite having written nearly twice as much about BioShock, is my “Game of the Year” for Anno Domini 2007. I’d be shocked and horrified if it is for anyone else.
- Head881
