Decade 201
It is traditional to look back on the previous year, particularly in terms of “best ofâ€. I imagine most gaming related websites have exhausted their commendations already, even though there were still games being released in December (though unlike 2009’s The Saboteur and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, I don’t think 2010 had anything worth major note).
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Yet I shall not be doing such a thing. Not here, at least (my Critical Hit column, on the other hand…). Instead, I merely want to reflect on what I’ve seen and even done this year. To reflect on where entertainment has gone in regards to my interests and where I myself may see my own future heading. Just k eep in mind this isn’t meant to be taken as an objective piece of material. This is purely my opinion, without consideration of what I feel in terms of widespread appeal, good usability, universal writing, etc. It is all me, and not everything will be up to date.
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Video Games
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This year’s Spike VGA Awards drove home my endless pessimism over this industry, though there is always a small glimmer of hope. It is amusing that so many of my friends look at me with utter shock when I say I’ve come to favor Nintendo of the big three, my preference for Microsoft dwindling down beside my less than enthusiastic appeal towards Sony. I may have a love of big-concept games, but above all I just appreciate fun and the desire to be different. With Sony and Microsoft’s biggest moves in 2010 being the release of imitation peripherals, I just cann ot get excited for either one of them. Sony made a big splash in my interest towards the start of the year with Heavy Rain, but ever since I could care less.
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Yet Metroid: Other M rekindled that flame of passion in me, where an hour away from the controller seemed like an hour too long. I could sit down and play the game all day and still hunger for more. It is not the perfect Metroid game, but it is as close to being a perfect game as you can get. That is, if we are ignoring story, writing and voice acting. Donkey Kong Country Returns has come to be a similar experience, bringing back nostalgic flavors of popping the original DKC into my Super Nintendo on Christmas (or its sequel on my birthday a year and a half later).
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I’ve found simi lar bouts of fun in arcade games like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, and looking at the list of releases this year I find myself building a wish list for Live Arcade titles about as long as the one for retail titles. If anything, I feel 2010 is the year of the simple, where the best games abandoned traditional notions of the “hardcore†and instead dove head first into pure, unadulterated fun.
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Unfortunately, this does bring about a concern. It would seem the more a game focuses on good story-telling and other mature matters (and I do mean mature in the true sense of the word), the more it harms the fun of the experience. Take Mass Effect 2 and Alpha Protocol as examples. Each have problematic gameplay, but the writing, stories and evolution of interactive fiction excel where other games fall flat. Metroid: Other M, Punch-Out! ! (a 2009 game, but I enjoyed it this year) and DKC-Returns are simple and, except for Metroid, lack any sense of story, yet they are on the whole more enjoyable games to play.
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Granted, interacting with fictional characters in the manner that Bioware and Obsidian delivered was certainly entertaining in its own right. I merely wonder if a game must be serious and mature, or it must be fun, and any attempt to combine the two will only result in disaster (see Call of Duty: Black Ops).
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The one game that seemed to accomplish both goals well enough this year was Darksiders. It was a joy to play, and though it certainly wasn’t an award-winning story I want to know what happens with the Four Horsemen in the sequel. It succeeded, but unfortunately it pai d for that critical success with mass market failure. That it is getting a sequel either shows how little THQ cares for the big numbers, or it is a Christmas Miracle.
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Film
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I feel as if I’ve forgotten nearly everything that has released before the summer. It is hard to think of 2010 movies without first looking to Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, yet didn’t Iron Man 2 release this May? I think? Here I thought it was only with video games that the months before the holidays ceased to exist when tallying the “best of†awards, but it seems all mediums are susceptible to this fault in human memory.
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Nonetheless, I didn’t really care about the movies this year
until the summer. I have become an avid fan of Christopher Nolan’s work, particularly for his original works such as Memento and The Prestige rather than his Batman films. As a result, Inception was the largest film I was looking forward to. It paid off, being the largest blockbuster this year. It could also prove to be widely significant, as lately Hollywood has been too afraid to make films off of original IP and has instead sought after familiar franchises. James Cameron’s Avatar last year proved that fresh ideas certainly work, but Inception also proves that complex films will still please and delight audiences of all kinds. The film doesn’t need to treat the viewer like an idiot.
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Simultaneously, I’m a huge fan of Edgar Wright and thus sought after information on
Scott Pilgrim before I even knew what it was. Now I’ve found myself a collector of the comics, the game and (when I can find the time and money) the film. I’ve become a complete fanatic of the series, and have been charmed to death of the fictional representation of a geekier Toronto. The film is not only an excellent blend of special effects and cinematography, it’s hilarious and can be viewed on both a deep and a shallow level.
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The rest of the year has failed to live up. The Expendables was, on the whole, pretty damn lame. Red was fantastic and proved to be what The Expendables ought to have been, but it just didn’t have the same pizzazz. Tron: Legacy was a fantastic revival of an old franchise, but it still proved to be rather corny and have story and pacing issues (as well as an ending that I’m not sure I liked). This is no surprise, however. What sets Inception and Scott Pilgrim apart from other films this year, and even Avatar, is that they are so unorthodox. Inception is the most impressive cinematic film this year, largely due to Christopher Nolan’s reluctance to use computer generated special effects (a reluctance I am thankful for). Meanwhile, Edgar Wright took the visual styles of video games, comic books and anime and blended them into reality so seamlessly that it feels natural. None of the special effects leap out, becoming an eye sore that screams “look at me!â€. They merely enhance what the viewer is watching, and thus transcends it into more than “just another comedy filmâ€. It is a subtle special effects extravaganza in comparison to a film like Avatar, which keeps throwing computer animated models and green-screen imagery at viewers as if to say “look at ou r expensive artwork and be amazed!â€
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Films like Inception and Scott Pilgrim will bring about nostalgia for the year 2010 just as Back to the Future does for the year 1985. Or so I predict.
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Books
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Unfortunately I haven’t “read much†this year, and in fact haven’t been able to read like I had back in College. In fact I’ve had to give up on reading Otherland by Tad Williams since it has been so long since I last perused one of its pages. Yet plenty of reading has been done nonetheless.
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I finally got around to the classic 1984, a book which overwhelmed me in how much everyone simplifies it. I’ve heard endless numbers of people refer to the whole “Big Brother is Watching You†concept, and yet that is only a minor piece of the story. George Orwell’s future is a depressing one not because people are controlled, but the manner in which they can be controlled. People are not merely killed, they are broken. Every sense of value is completely and utterly destroyed until they are nothing more than a husk, betraying everything we believed to be pure and right.
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In addition the book covers a lot of theories of politics and society, including that of the constant emergence of lower, middle and upper classes. Each society eventually crumbles as the middle class rallies up the lower class and destroys the upper crust, but in the end society just reverts back to an upper, middle and lower once more. It is doomed to repeat itself, and 1984 is a study on how this repeating action throughout history can be controlled and redirected. Yet it is these ideas, and so many more, that are often looked over. The book is taken at face value, and the only face seen is that of Big Brother in the first dozen or so pages of the story.
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Yet the real consumer of my time was George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, or at least the four books currently released. Inspired by my favorite fantasy series Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (also by author Tad Williams), the books try to take the childlike wonder and fairytale awe out of fantasy and return it to a more mature and realistic realm of fantasy. Magic is present, but it is subtle and hardly ever seen. It is an epic, but not in the sense that there is one party of characters going to tackle the big bad villain.
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In fact, it is most interesting that in four books the reader doesn’t really come into contact with the true villain and threat of the story. It isn’t like Sauron, a big bad foe looming in a dark tower. It is an inescapable force of undeath marching in the North, but too far for the rest of the continent to be concerned or view it as anything more than myth. As a result this threat looms in the background, creating a steady sense of oncoming dread as the entire kingdom is instead caught in the political squabbling over who should be rightful king.
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This is a story where there really is no one choice hero, though you can guess. In truth it’s a story about many characters on all sides, none of them necessarily good and none of them necessarily evil. They are human, and some are selfish while others are selfless. It is an epic closer to The Iliad than with Lord of the Rings, and the drama is just as raw and ab sorbing as the blood and guts strewn across its pages.
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Looking Ahead
2011 should be an interesting year, though more on a personal level. I have a job now! I can afford to actually get games on time, though the time to play them is a different story. I want to make changes to the site and take on other projects, but I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do yet. Ultimately, however, I strive to do a greater job with this site than ever before. I want this place to be great for you to return to and read, I want it to be updated regularly, and I want you to find something here worth sharing with friends.
Somehow I also plan on building the community as well. The forums are desolate and front-page comments were implemented too late in the previous design to make any difference. I could really use the help of my readers in this department, but on the whole I seek to just advertise and get my name out there.
