It's the end of the year, which means it's time to reflect on the events of 2008. This week, we fill the podcast to the brim, discussing our favorite games of the year, our favorite pieces of game writing, and a few news stories that didn't make the original cut. Check out the show notes for links to all of the games and articles we reference and be sure to weigh in with your favorite 2008 highlights.
Some discussion starters:
-What was your favorite game you played this year? How about your favorite "gaming moment?"
-Did any game writing or particular blogs make an impact on how you view the medium? What trends do you see forming in game writing?
-Which news stories caught your attention? Were there any important or quirky ones that were overlooked?
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Show Notes:
Run time: 32m 59s
Our Favorite Games of the Year:
Jorge - Left4Dead
Scott - World of Goo
Our Favorite Game Writing of the Year:
Jorge - A discussion of rewarding flawed games, including (but not limited to):
Leigh Alexander, Ben Fritz, and N'Gai Croal
Scott - Mitch Krpata's "A New Taxonomy of Gamers"
Some Overlooked News Stories
-The DS-Purse Deal
-The Fanboy War on Metacritic
-Square-Enix Making a "Brain-Controlled" Game
-Red Ring of Death Class Action Lawsuit
-Fable II Officially a Stoner Game
Music provided by Brad Sucks
I think one of the biggest ongoing stories of this past year is the utter domination of Nintendo in the worldwide market. It's interesting to me that in a year where no Nintendo game is considered among the best of the year (such as Fable II, LBP, Gears 2, etc.), they still remain far on top. They've come up with a perfect two-pronged strategy with the Wii and the DS, both being the most innovative and accessible consoles that I have ever played. The Wii is allowing Nintendo to reach wider audiences than any other console alone has reached, and the DS allows for Nintendo to relive and recreate the glory days of old in very inventive ways. As a lifelong fan of Nintendo, I am very pleased to see and experience their successes. And as an "old school" gamer who considers SNES to be the best/my favorite system, the DS has fed into and borrowed from that love, and has a good chance to become my second favorite console of all time.
ReplyDeleteWe can only hope for another quality year for the gaming world, and continue to prepare for the inevitable war against zombie infected, Resident Evil style Nintendogs.
And I would call it: NintenDead Rising
ReplyDeleteGood show guys.
ReplyDeleteI am actually going 2 buy World of Goo Jorge.
Also, please try to get your guys podcast on the Zune marketplace.
Thanks!
-PJ
Hey pj, We'll look into the Zune marketplace. Have you beaten World of Goo yet?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Mitch Krpata's "A New Taxonomy of Gamers". I liked it very much! It resonates with something I wrote way back in 2006:
ReplyDeletehttp://gamedesignreviews.blogspot.com/2006/07/brain-age-everybody-is-hardcore.html
Also, the term "Tourst" wasn't really invented by Mitch. I think he picked it up from Cyan, the development team of Myst. They discovered that kind of behavior among their focus groups and developed the sequel Riven to accommodate the needs of Tourist Gamers. You can read some (very bief) anecdotes in the quite beautiful (but a bit shallow) book From Myst to Riven
@Eric
ReplyDeleteI think one of Nintendo's more overlooked strategies is the "nostalgia" market they routinely tap into via their Virtual Console and DS remakes. With the re-release of Pikmin for Wii, it seems they are even starting to cash in on GameCube memories
@Krystian
Nice detective work. It's always interesting to examine the history and cross-pollination of big ideas.