2007: The Year In Review: Video Games Edition
For as much as the two of us felt we didn't really need an Xbox 360, the two or three months since we bought ours have been amazing. It started off by firing the PS3 as our DVD player (the 360 remembers where a disc left off; the PS3 does not, which matters since we watch a lot of anime and TV shows on DVD), and it is at this point the #1 most-used console in the house, with the DSes running second and everything else sitting around blankly going hurr-durr. We freaking <3 the 360.
Not all of the games on this list were released this year, this is just more-or-less a summary of what I played this year. Not everything was worth its own separate listing, but pretty much everything is mentioned in one category or another.
Biggest Waste of an Awesome Title
Ninjabread Man for Wii
He's a ninja! Made of gingerbread! So it's clever, see? And he fights evil killer cupcakes! The cover art is marvelous, the concept is neat, the title is magnificent, and the gameplay is complete and utter shit.
Most Meme-tastic
Portal for Xbox 360
I don't mean on the interwebs; I mean within our own house.
Voted Most Likely to Make Me Say 'This Reminds me of FF9!'
Eternal Sonata for Xbox 360
I mean that in the best possible way, because I really like FF9. Remember the designs of the towns and buildings in FF9, twisty and curvy and wildly fantastical? Eternal Sonata looks like that. It's also a LOT of fun to play. The story has gone weird in the past chapter or two, and we don't really care for some of the characters, but it's so fun. He describes it as a blend of Star Ocean 3 and Valkyrie Profile 2, and I describe it as pretty and fun and full of yay. The music is by Motoi Sakuraba, which means we get awesome tracknames like "The Mediocrity Sought After by Everyone." That's a cheerful, upbeat town theme. No, really.
[Edit 1/1/08: We finished this tonight, and while the gameplay remains super-fun and we're looking forward to the second playthrough encore, from chapter 6 onward the plot buys a one-way non-refundable ticket to WTF-ville, and after watching the 45-minute ending we have no idea what happened and feel like we were absent for several chapters.]
Best Game I've Already Played Fifteen Times
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions for PSP
Where by "fifteen times" I mean on PS1. I love the new translation aside from most of the proper nouns; I love the new scenes; I love the multiplayer co-op; I love the portability. That aside, it's pretty much the same game I've been loving since August 2002, and I'm pretty sure I don't need to reiterate my love for that. You guys know where I stand on this.
Game That Would Have Been the Biggest Disappointment, If We'd Cared
Guitar Hero 3 for Xbox 360
The concept is still fun and all, but pretty much nothing on the tracklist really grabbed us this time. For all three, I've known barely anything coming into the game, but for the first one, I ended up liking a LOT of them, and for the second one there was a good chunk of songs genuinely fun to play, and where you could still actually hear the line you were playing, but the third game, just... not really. I came out of the experience with maybe two songs I cared about. Glad we rented instead of buying.
Best Lawyer Sim
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney 3: Trials and Tribulations for DS
My favorite thing about this entire game was how it kept the pop culture references to an absolute minimum - those were my least favorite thing about PW2. Wrapped up a lot of the series' storylines pretty well, and I liked that so many of its cases were directly related - previous games merely obliquely referenced other cases in conversation but didn't actually involve them directly. We look forward to Ace Attorney 4 even though we dislike the name of the new protagonist. Phoenix Wright in general has increased our general interest in point-and-click text-adventure mystery games. See also Phantasmagoria, Trace Memory, and Hotel Dusk, which is turning out to be lots of fun, if occasionally irritating - at least it integrates the stylus well.
Biggest Planets
Beautiful Katamari for Xbox 360
It's probably time to wrap this franchise up. The first one was quirky, but there's nothing unexpected about them anymore, and that was most of the fun. The quests are neat and I enjoy the new twists on rolling that aren't "as big as possible", but I can't see where there's any room left for the franchise to grow, considering I rolled up the entire solar system in this one. We'll pick this up when it gets cheaper - it's not worth the $40. It was a good rental though.
Best Game For Pwning N00bs
Picross DS for, uh, DS
Aside from 300 distinct puzzles, relevant and regularly-updated DLC, and a pretty cool daily mode, this also has ad-hoc and infrastructure modes for multiplayer. Obviously, we no longer use the local multiplayer mode. But I like using the wi-fi connectivity and trying desperately to maintain my 60% win rate against noobs across the world.
Best Game I Played on a Dead Console
Valkyrie Profile for PS1
Aaron loaned me this a while back and I finished it sometime in the spring. Then I teased him that the greatest incentive for him to drive up to Michigan for the wedding was to get his copy of Valkyrie Profile back. I didn't enjoy stressing about having to do everything right to get the best ending, but the customization system and the gameplay were a lot of fun. It captivated me in a way I hadn't been captivated by an RPG in a really long time.
Biggest 'No Seriously I Don't Get This Franchise'
Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX for Game Boy Color
This was my first Zelda. Unless I decide to care enough to finish Ocarina of Time, it's probably my last. The game was fine, I apparently just don't understand the appeal or the rabid fanboyism. I guess NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams and Space Channel 5 belong in this category too, except we haven't even finished those.
Most Likely To Make Me Sing in Front of Other Humans
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Edition for Playstation 2
Oh you just shut up. Of all the karaoke games we have, this one has by far the best song selection. We like it a lot. Singstar, another game we tried out this year, is also a fun franchise (we tried the Rock version, currently own Pop and '80s, and look forward to the DLC capabilities of the upcoming PS3 version), but you have to know the songs a lot better in order to do well in Singstar, and it doesn't have the one-to-one synch-up of word-length to note-length. KR is great at this, and we like the franchise in general, but even for two people who've literally never watched an episode of the show, AI edition is amazing, largely for the tracklist.
Best Gateway Drug Into Casual Gaming
Xbox Live Arcade
In particular, Zuma, Luxor, Hexic, and Jewel Quest, because I'm an enormous sucker for gem-matching games with unique twists. Our affection for this genre was increased even further after we read this paper.
Best 'Just One More Quest Oh Crap Is It Bedtime Already'
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords for DS
See also: being an enormous sucker for gem-matching games with unique twists.
Best Non-Grid Gem-Matching Game With a Unique Twist
Magnetica for DS
I have liked Zuma for a really long time - I don't even mean the full version, I just mean the web-based version where you get four different maps on four different difficulties. When I found out that Magnetica was a Zuma clone - or, to be more accurate, that Zuma was a clone of the arcade game that Magnetica is a direct port of - I wanted. And I got. Not a fan of the various obstacles and traps in this. But some of the twists are cool, and the ending credits are great.
Best Angry Eyebrows >:|
MLB Power Pros for Wii
This is my first management-style sports game EVAR. Also, the only Wii game we own that is not Wii Sports. Also one of the best rentals we picked this year. My little chibi-Tigers are adorable - Pudge has his angry eyebrows, and Maggsie has his hair, and Sheffield's bat-waving is so realistically distracting that the first thing I did when I started the season was bench him in favor of guys who don't irritate me. Yay! This is the record nine times only when playing!
Best Pack-In Game Ever, No Really
Wii Sports for Wii
So, uh, we camped for a Wii one Sunday morning back in April, and a month later my sister bought my parents their own Wii, which was hilarious in and of itself. They've put the disc in a real DVD case now and they labeled it "Wii Bowling." Anyway, we got ours before we got married, so I was just visiting for the weekend. We proceeded to spent a good five-plus hours of that Sunday doing nothing but playing Wii Sports, and despite the fact that we could both feel it the next day, we played for another two hours or so on that Monday before I had to leave. We haven't played it at all lately, because the 360 owns our souls, but it was a really good pack-in, and it was the only Wii game we owned for a really long time.
Game of the Year
Portal for Xbox 360
Just... yes. Portal consumed us, a devouring about which we have no complaints. Penny-Arcade called it a "first-person puzzle comedy." They are right. Pretty much everything about this game is freaking PERFECT.
Not all of the games on this list were released this year, this is just more-or-less a summary of what I played this year. Not everything was worth its own separate listing, but pretty much everything is mentioned in one category or another.
Biggest Waste of an Awesome Title
Ninjabread Man for Wii
He's a ninja! Made of gingerbread! So it's clever, see? And he fights evil killer cupcakes! The cover art is marvelous, the concept is neat, the title is magnificent, and the gameplay is complete and utter shit.
Most Meme-tastic
Portal for Xbox 360
I don't mean on the interwebs; I mean within our own house.
Voted Most Likely to Make Me Say 'This Reminds me of FF9!'
Eternal Sonata for Xbox 360
I mean that in the best possible way, because I really like FF9. Remember the designs of the towns and buildings in FF9, twisty and curvy and wildly fantastical? Eternal Sonata looks like that. It's also a LOT of fun to play. The story has gone weird in the past chapter or two, and we don't really care for some of the characters, but it's so fun. He describes it as a blend of Star Ocean 3 and Valkyrie Profile 2, and I describe it as pretty and fun and full of yay. The music is by Motoi Sakuraba, which means we get awesome tracknames like "The Mediocrity Sought After by Everyone." That's a cheerful, upbeat town theme. No, really.
[Edit 1/1/08: We finished this tonight, and while the gameplay remains super-fun and we're looking forward to the second playthrough encore, from chapter 6 onward the plot buys a one-way non-refundable ticket to WTF-ville, and after watching the 45-minute ending we have no idea what happened and feel like we were absent for several chapters.]
Best Game I've Already Played Fifteen Times
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions for PSP
Where by "fifteen times" I mean on PS1. I love the new translation aside from most of the proper nouns; I love the new scenes; I love the multiplayer co-op; I love the portability. That aside, it's pretty much the same game I've been loving since August 2002, and I'm pretty sure I don't need to reiterate my love for that. You guys know where I stand on this.
Game That Would Have Been the Biggest Disappointment, If We'd Cared
Guitar Hero 3 for Xbox 360
The concept is still fun and all, but pretty much nothing on the tracklist really grabbed us this time. For all three, I've known barely anything coming into the game, but for the first one, I ended up liking a LOT of them, and for the second one there was a good chunk of songs genuinely fun to play, and where you could still actually hear the line you were playing, but the third game, just... not really. I came out of the experience with maybe two songs I cared about. Glad we rented instead of buying.
Best Lawyer Sim
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney 3: Trials and Tribulations for DS
My favorite thing about this entire game was how it kept the pop culture references to an absolute minimum - those were my least favorite thing about PW2. Wrapped up a lot of the series' storylines pretty well, and I liked that so many of its cases were directly related - previous games merely obliquely referenced other cases in conversation but didn't actually involve them directly. We look forward to Ace Attorney 4 even though we dislike the name of the new protagonist. Phoenix Wright in general has increased our general interest in point-and-click text-adventure mystery games. See also Phantasmagoria, Trace Memory, and Hotel Dusk, which is turning out to be lots of fun, if occasionally irritating - at least it integrates the stylus well.
Biggest Planets
Beautiful Katamari for Xbox 360
It's probably time to wrap this franchise up. The first one was quirky, but there's nothing unexpected about them anymore, and that was most of the fun. The quests are neat and I enjoy the new twists on rolling that aren't "as big as possible", but I can't see where there's any room left for the franchise to grow, considering I rolled up the entire solar system in this one. We'll pick this up when it gets cheaper - it's not worth the $40. It was a good rental though.
Best Game For Pwning N00bs
Picross DS for, uh, DS
Aside from 300 distinct puzzles, relevant and regularly-updated DLC, and a pretty cool daily mode, this also has ad-hoc and infrastructure modes for multiplayer. Obviously, we no longer use the local multiplayer mode. But I like using the wi-fi connectivity and trying desperately to maintain my 60% win rate against noobs across the world.
Best Game I Played on a Dead Console
Valkyrie Profile for PS1
Aaron loaned me this a while back and I finished it sometime in the spring. Then I teased him that the greatest incentive for him to drive up to Michigan for the wedding was to get his copy of Valkyrie Profile back. I didn't enjoy stressing about having to do everything right to get the best ending, but the customization system and the gameplay were a lot of fun. It captivated me in a way I hadn't been captivated by an RPG in a really long time.
Biggest 'No Seriously I Don't Get This Franchise'
Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX for Game Boy Color
This was my first Zelda. Unless I decide to care enough to finish Ocarina of Time, it's probably my last. The game was fine, I apparently just don't understand the appeal or the rabid fanboyism. I guess NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams and Space Channel 5 belong in this category too, except we haven't even finished those.
Most Likely To Make Me Sing in Front of Other Humans
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Edition for Playstation 2
Oh you just shut up. Of all the karaoke games we have, this one has by far the best song selection. We like it a lot. Singstar, another game we tried out this year, is also a fun franchise (we tried the Rock version, currently own Pop and '80s, and look forward to the DLC capabilities of the upcoming PS3 version), but you have to know the songs a lot better in order to do well in Singstar, and it doesn't have the one-to-one synch-up of word-length to note-length. KR is great at this, and we like the franchise in general, but even for two people who've literally never watched an episode of the show, AI edition is amazing, largely for the tracklist.
Best Gateway Drug Into Casual Gaming
Xbox Live Arcade
In particular, Zuma, Luxor, Hexic, and Jewel Quest, because I'm an enormous sucker for gem-matching games with unique twists. Our affection for this genre was increased even further after we read this paper.
Best 'Just One More Quest Oh Crap Is It Bedtime Already'
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords for DS
See also: being an enormous sucker for gem-matching games with unique twists.
Best Non-Grid Gem-Matching Game With a Unique Twist
Magnetica for DS
I have liked Zuma for a really long time - I don't even mean the full version, I just mean the web-based version where you get four different maps on four different difficulties. When I found out that Magnetica was a Zuma clone - or, to be more accurate, that Zuma was a clone of the arcade game that Magnetica is a direct port of - I wanted. And I got. Not a fan of the various obstacles and traps in this. But some of the twists are cool, and the ending credits are great.
Best Angry Eyebrows >:|
MLB Power Pros for Wii
This is my first management-style sports game EVAR. Also, the only Wii game we own that is not Wii Sports. Also one of the best rentals we picked this year. My little chibi-Tigers are adorable - Pudge has his angry eyebrows, and Maggsie has his hair, and Sheffield's bat-waving is so realistically distracting that the first thing I did when I started the season was bench him in favor of guys who don't irritate me. Yay! This is the record nine times only when playing!
Best Pack-In Game Ever, No Really
Wii Sports for Wii
So, uh, we camped for a Wii one Sunday morning back in April, and a month later my sister bought my parents their own Wii, which was hilarious in and of itself. They've put the disc in a real DVD case now and they labeled it "Wii Bowling." Anyway, we got ours before we got married, so I was just visiting for the weekend. We proceeded to spent a good five-plus hours of that Sunday doing nothing but playing Wii Sports, and despite the fact that we could both feel it the next day, we played for another two hours or so on that Monday before I had to leave. We haven't played it at all lately, because the 360 owns our souls, but it was a really good pack-in, and it was the only Wii game we owned for a really long time.
Game of the Year
Portal for Xbox 360
Just... yes. Portal consumed us, a devouring about which we have no complaints. Penny-Arcade called it a "first-person puzzle comedy." They are right. Pretty much everything about this game is freaking PERFECT.