loonyblog.

This year was a little chaotic for me, what with Alice’s world wide debut in February and all, but nonetheless, here are the best games I played this year:

1. Fallout 3 (360): I’m about 40 hours or so in, and I’ve completed just about every major side quest (just two left to do). I’m still only about halfway through the main quest, but since I’m almost at the level cap, it shouldn’t take me very long to zip through that. Anyway, I have some gripes, but this is still very much a Bethesda RPG, and I loves me some Bethesda RPGs.
2. Left4Dead (PC): I don’t really like or play multiplayer-only games very often, but hot damn, this game’s great. I pretty much only play it at the office, but man, when you’ve got four people in a co-op game all in the same room, it’s a ton of fun. Competitive is also fun, but it’s rapidly becoming less so as people get super awesome at the game. Not sure about the longevity of L4D though…in six months it’s probably going to be whittled down to just the super hardcore gamers. Still, right now, this is the best muliplayer game around, and boy does it get all the zombie movie stuff right (even if it does have fast zombies).
3. World of Goo (PC/Wii): Put me down as another convert to World of Goo. The best puzzle game I played this year, this game is smart, polished and awesome. I’m surprised more people weren’t beating me over the head to play this one. If you haven’t tried it, do yourself a favor and do so now. I liked it so much I bought it on two platforms.
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (360): Not much to say. It’s GTA. It’s big, it’s awesome.
5. Rock Band 2 (360): This game is everything I wanted Rock Band 1 to be. With the added awesomeness of the AC/DC track pack, all the tracks from the first game and all my DLC, it’s the perfect music game. So perfect in fact that I haven’t spent more than ten minutes with Guitar Hero World Tour since buying it. Totally didn’t expect that to happen.
6. Too Human (360): I’ve already written a bunch about how I liked this game despite its many flaws, but when I look back at the few games I managed to finish this year, there’s only one I actually played from start to finish twice, and that’s Too Human. Weird, busted and downright insane, this is not really a game for everyone, or even most people. But it sure as hell was fun.
7. Echochrome (PSP): This is a great little puzzle game, and it’s been my PSP game of choice when traveling since it came out. It’s a great game to play on an airplane while listening to music on my iPod. Very cerebral, very relaxing.
8. Rolando (iPhone): The best game I’ve played for the iPhone, this is just a fun, super polished game. I give tons of credit for ngmoco for putting out iPhone games that are all polished, high quality, and actually designed around the limitations of the platform. If you have an iPhone, check out Rolando.
9. Chrono Trigger (DS): I played a lot of DS games this year, but this is the only one I really stuck with for any extended period of time. Yes, it’s an updated version of one of the best RPGs of all-time, but it also happens to be a really, really good update. That glorious soundtrack has never sounded better, and they didn’t really screw with the core gameplay, and that’s all I really cared about.
   
10. Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PS3): It’s basically just more levels for Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, but it actually looks better than that game, since it has the benefit of coming out later and being a standalone game with updated technology. They’re not the most thrilling Ratchet & Clank levels ever, but they are good ones, and there’s just something so perfect about the R&C gameplay formula.

In case you’re wondering, I still have yet to play Gears of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Mirror’s Edge, Call of Duty: World at War, Prince of Persia, Fable II and many other big name games that came out this year. Also, I left off Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (360), but for the first couple of months after Alice was born, that’s pretty much all I played (I played it enough to both finish it and hit the level cap).

All in all, not a bad year for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play some more Fallout 3.

One of those tweaks I kept meaning to add to the site is a mobile-friendly version…now that Wordpress has made plugin installation stupid easy, I’ve finally done that, adding the MobilePress plugin to the site. So if you read this site on an iPhone, Blackberry or other mobile device, you should find everything loads much, much faster, and is generally a better, less cluttered experience.

Enjoy!

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, and Heather (with help from Alice and Tommy, of course), gave me a great gift: a subscription to Marvel’s Digital Comics service. I’ve played with it a little, and I definitely dig it.

I’ve talked a bit about digital comics here in the past with mixed feelings, but I’ve always been a fan of the general concept. Marvel’s service isn’t perfect, but it is a step in the right direction, and I’m actually exactly the kind of person they want to sign up.

Why am I the perfect person? Because as any reader of this blog no doubt already knows, I’m almost exclusively a DC guy. Every week I pick up my Superman and Batman books, along with various other DC books. I do read some Marvel stuff regularly, but that’s pretty much just Fantastic Four (both varieties…I read Ultimate and regular FF).

Now lately (thanks to some questionable events) it’s been pretty hard to be a dedicated DC fan. All-Star Superman aside, Grant Morrison has done more to harm the DCU than help it, and following Gaiman’s two-issue run, I’m planning on dropping all of the Batman books (no small step - I’ve been reading them all every month for about ten years!) in favor of the much more enjoyable Green Lantern titles. And while DC’s books (other than Superman and GL, which are awesome) have been languishing (and late!) my local comic shop guys keep harping on me to read more Marvel books. So now that I’ve got access to over 5,000 comics, I figure I might as well experiment, right?

So I put the question out there: other than more Fantastic Four, what should I read from the house of M? Recommendations from my local shop include Iron Fist (god, I can’t believe that’s a good book…he’s such a stupid character) and Thor (again, stupid character!). I’ve already got the omnibuses (or is that omnibi?) of Brubaker’s Captain America (great) and Bendis’ Daredevil (haven’t started it yet), and I’ve read the first collection of Astonishing X-Men (pretty good!). So what else should I read? I’ve got access to a ton of stuff, so just throw it at me.

One thing I don’t like about the digital service is that they sometimes have an almost complete run of a series…like, they’ll have issues 1 - 5 and 7 - 10, but not #6. If you want issue six, I guess they expect you to run out and pay for the print version. Also, the smart panels system still has some kinks to work out. But generally, it’s pretty good.

So bring on the suggestions. I’ve got ‘em, I might as well try a whole bunch of stuff I wouldn’t ordinarily lay out the cash for.

No, not really.

From Sci-Fi Wire’s interview with Alan Rickman (bold + italics mine):

“I saw Helena [Bonham Carter] and Crispin Glover yesterday,” Rickman said. “They’re a mixture of the two, actually, because there’s Helena in a costume and in makeup, but her head is going to be made three times bigger than it actually is on top of the costume. I think they’re all just blinded by the color green. It must be quite something to be surrounded by that much violent green all day long, but the costumes, one or two I saw, are incredible. I’m sure it’ll be visual genius again.”

Sigh.

It sounds like Burton has decided to recreate the Tenniel style using CGI. Why would you want to do this? Why? This movie is going to wind up a horrifying freakshow.

I really, really, really want this movie to not suck, and I think Rickman is a great choice to voice the Caterpillar. But come on…that style should not be attempted in CGI. It’ll just look creepy. And this movie already has a healthy dose of the creepy.

Hopefully any real Akira remake won’t be quite so horrible…