Features
GUEST Best of 2009
Jim’s Top 9 Games
By Jim Squires - January 3rd, 2010
As a freelance writer with a love of video games, I found it hard to decide where my “best of the year” list should make its home in 2009. Then I stole Shaun’s laptop. A few auto-saved passwords later and the rest, as they say, is history. Without further ado, please enjoy my very own Top 9 of 09!
Best of 2009
Jorge’s Top 9 Games
By Jorge Figueiredo - January 2nd, 2010
These are in no particular order, and some of these actually came out before 2009. However, these are my nine favourite games from 2009, so deal with it!
Best of 2009
Shaun’s Top 9 Games
By Shaun Hatton - January 1st, 2010
Year-end lists are nothing new. It’s a well-known fact that lists are what blog readers love reading more than anything; yes, even more than Professor Layton Deleted Scenes, apparently. While cliché, expected, and somewhat lazy, lists are still a good way of organizing thoughts. With this in mind, our 2009 lists are not necessarily about games that came out in that year, but rather games we played like crazy and loved.
COMMUNITY PROFILE
A & C Video Games
By Filipe Salgado - December 21st, 2009
A guy in a leather jacket and a mop of dark hair enters A & C Video Games while I’m there. His girlfriend in tow, he marvels at a red periscope-like device on the counter. His girlfriend is confused. “It’s a Virtual Boy,” he tells her. He plays a bit of Mario Tennis, but has to soon stop to rub his eyes. He tells his girlfriend that he played one as a kid during a video game expo at Ontario Place.
It’s a scene that unfolds often at A & C Video Games. A customer comes in for one thing, but quickly finds something else, pulled by the riptide of nostalgia. Despite the store’s size, it’s packed. There are stacks of original Nintendo cartridges slotted into shelves, a wall of Japanese imports behind the counter, DS games arranged alphabetically in a display case, bulky Neo·Geo games just slightly out of reach above, a heap of neglected PC games on the floor, and over all this there’s a computer airing old video game commercials while cranking out iconic 8-bit tracks. It’s a lot to take in.
Chang Toy started A & C as a convenience store in 1998. As competition in the area increased, Chang, with the help of his younger brother Gar, started thinking of ways to change the business. “It’s not fun selling drinks and chips,” Gar recalls. After failed attempts to incorporate soccer jerseys and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, the brothers tried to find a niche.
Review
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
By Shaun Hatton - December 7th, 2009
Nintendo’s long-standing franchise, The Legend of Zelda, finds its way onto the DS for a second time, featuring touch-screen and microphone controls, a plethora of puzzles and challenging obstacles, and a good amount of humour, twists, and fun. As expected The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks sees Link on yet another quest to save both the kingdom and Princess Zelda.
However this time around, Link is a budding railroad engineer set to receive his final certification. In a short introduction narrated by Niko (who appeared in both The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass and is now quite old) we learn of an ancient evil Demon King who brought destruction to the land for many years before being defeated by the Spirits of Good. Buried beneath a tower and shackled into place, the Demon King would remain trapped while the good spirits, drained from the battle, left the world to its inhabitants.
Niko’s role of storyteller helps tie the Spirit Tracks storyline to those of the other cel-shaded Legend of Zelda titles, The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. Link, however, doesn’t stick around too long after this story is told, as he’s off to the Castle on his trusty locomotive to attain his engineer’s certificate. It’s at his graduation ceremony that he and Zelda first cross paths and their adventure together begins.
REVIEW
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
By Shaun Hatton - December 2nd, 2009
Although I didn’t necessarily grow up with Mario as many gamers my age did, I have always had a great fondness for him and the characters of the Mushroom Kingdom. Having grown up with a Sega Master System, however, I couldn’t help but feel the bitter tinge of envy any time I would be visiting a friend who had a Nintendo Entertainment System and a Super Mario Bros. game. I’d sit and just be happy to watch them play. In fact, I’d watch a cousin of mine play through Super Mario Bros. 2 from start to finish in a single setting and thoroughly enjoy every minute of it.
I grew tired of not having enough cool game options available to me in the 8-bit era and opted to cross over to Nintendo for the 16-bit era. I made this decision after playing Super Nintendo only once, when Adam first got his. Super Mario World was unlike any game I had experienced before. The world map alone was huge, with worlds of different terrain all traversable if one had the patience to do so. Wandering around this map was fun on its own; its small animations of enemy characters and the herky-jerky trot of Mario only gave it more appeal. The squeaky beep of moving from stage to stage in this respect is a sound I’ll never forget, along with the feeling of utter glee I have even thinking about this game.
I had landed in Super Mario’s world, and I didn’t want it to end. After finishing the game with a 96+star rating (completing the game 100 percent, in other words) on all three of the game’s save slots, I moved on to other Super Nintendo titles. Super Mario World would remain my favourite Mario game, from the franchise’s evolution to 3D and then back again to 2D side-scrolling fun with New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS (though that game hit pretty damn close).
Broken Brothers Deluxe
Developer Michael Todd’s Crazy Busy World
By Filipe Salgado - November 4th, 2009
When I meet up with Michael Todd, he’s quick to point out his rough, overgrown beard. “I’ve been crunch timing for two weeks,” he says. Besides working on his upcoming game, Broken Brothers Deluxe, he also recently delivered a talk at PAX about the virtues of working solo on small games. He’s been busy.
Prior to the development of Broken Brothers Deluxe, Todd realized traditional methods of game development didn’t work for smaller teams. It’s a lesson he learned while working on his game Engine of War.
“I worked as a team of two for three years before I really got into game design,” He reveals. “The problem was you had to verbalize everything and arguments do exist, and all the penalties of having a team. But then again you only get the benefit of two people. Where [with] ten people you get the same penalties, but, you know, five times the labour.”
After months of development, his enthusiasm for the project dimmed. Inspired by a talk at the Game Developers Conference by Petri Purho, creator of Crayon Physics Deluxe, Todd decided to try a different creative approach.
BEING SAMUS
And Other Metroid Musings
By Jamie Love - June 14th, 2009
Art by Ivan Flores.
Few revelations could have placated the long time Nintendo faithful at E3 this year more than the announcement that another Metroid title was in development. The applause within Club Nokia was instantaneous, and I’m certain the person to my right started convulsing almost immediately; the person to my left added “new Metroid game” to his notes as if he’d forget, but that’s another story. As gamers have absorbed the news, there’s a nagging concern as the knee-jerk excitement gives way to a recognition of what was shown in the footage. The Team Ninja project consists of video sequences focussed on developing a back story for the bounty hunter, presenting characters and emotional elements through externalized story telling tactics. In other words, aspects that are largely foreign to the series. Nintendo told me that the project was about telling a different story in the franchise, and for now that appears to rely on anime-styled cinema to wedge a new entry into the series. I can’t help but think that this has more to do with selling units in Japan, where the series has proved less popular compared to Nintendo’s other storied franchises. Yet there’s more at stake than that.
As Hideo Kojima wisely pointed out at GDC this year, technical limitations played a definitive role in the design and narrative aspirations of early videogames. Designers were forced to find unique ways to tell stories, often achieving fresh narrative approaches by nature of the marriage between what was desired and what was technically possible. While that caused Kojima to create a stealth-oriented genre that continues to thrive today, it also gave birth to a science fiction series that represents the single most symbolically significant franchise Nintendo claims ownership over, linked to the best examples of a genre where the primary goal is to think harder about who we are and where we are going. With technical limitations fading and giving rise to unparalleled design possibilities, there is every reason to be concerned that this most preciously-guarded franchise will be raided and exploited, lessening the significance in the attempt to broaden the appeal.
Byte-Size Review
New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis
By Shaun Hatton - May 28th, 2009
Remember the feeling you had the first time you ever played the Wii, when swinging your arms like mad while trying to return smashes in Wii Sports tennis? Remember the feeling of having sore elbows because of it? Above all else, remember how fun it all was?
For many, the feelings associated with this experience have all but died down. But it’s important that we not forget this, for even the most jaded among us undoubtedly had fun playing Wii Sports at some point, likely before many gaming blogs and their followers decided the Wii was a dust collector. It’s also important to not forget why we play games: there are many reasons, of course, but the main one is because they’re fun.
As an adult, I find it increasingly difficult to find time to game. The obligatory chores of day-to-day life, including work, leave little time for entertainment. This time, in turn, is spent on various mediums: TV shows, movies, music, and videogames (to name a few). At times and, given the fact that I’ve wilfully taken on a role as a videogame reviewer, things can actually get quite stressful. With the amount of games that often pile up on my coffee table, still wrapped and waiting to be played, it’s easy for me to see how so many long-time reviewers have become so cynical and so jaded.
FASHIONABLY LATE REVIEW
MadWorld
By Jamie Love - May 13th, 2009
When discussing MadWorld, it’s important to have a chat about No More Heroes first. Darling of the critical round table, No More Heroes is held high as a game for gamers. The lynchpin of this loyalty is an unrelenting humour, as well as the central theory the game presents, which is that everything in-between the beginning of a sequence and the final confrontation is reliably and largely tedious. The game has been allowed to swagger with a ridiculous “style over substance” stance, functioning and revelling as the great jokester in the room, having arrived to expose the truth like the smarmy, over-educated and under-employed enthusiasts that burn a candle for the accomplishment. Ultimately gamers are invited to join in on the joke, or stand outside in the cold wind with the crowd that didn’t appreciate it, and thereby didn’t get it, obviously.
But once upon a time there was another game far less fortunate with the critics. God Hand swaggered onto the PS2, walking down a path of rose petals, carried by the expectations of Okami. Clover Studios understood a thing or two about the trappings of videogames as well. But where there was the tedium of the stage in between greater conflicts, God Hand offered a deeply rich and evolving fighting system to fill the void, iced with a humour and style that largely remains the sharpest knife to ever cut through popular culture in gaming. Perhaps the best way to frame the game is to suggest that God Hand asked the question, “Why did the gorilla ride the bus?” And the straightforward answer is of course, “To kick your ass!”
Here, it’s important to note that this crystalline realization resulted in most reviewers vomiting the lowest scores imaginable. It was easier to believe that such an accomplished development team had simply lost their minds. It was also very difficult to say all the pretty post-modern words used to discuss the earlier release of Okami, and my guess would be that it was also easier to tear the game to shreds rather than risk belonging to the small cult following that savours the title to this day. Regardless, God Hand accepted several things about the limiting nature of videogames, and pursued any sideways possibility that could make the experience enjoyable all over again.
MadWorld, then, is the refusal to accept the negative response to God Hand — an attempt to continue the experiment, thus pushing the medium forward against the kicking and screaming of the old guard who incidentally find themselves more capable of love this second time around. As the first release from the newly formed Platinum Games, the title frames the company’s desire to achieve more. And really, why else would anyone want to work on a project where that wasn’t the goal? But unlike No More Heroes, MadWorld delivers a tangible experience along with the balls-out approach to game design.
