All mod confabs

Another year, another Brainy Gamer confab. This year, I joined the host Michael Abbott and guests Manveer Heir, of Raven Software, and Tom Bissell, author of the New Yorker profile of CliffyB, to talk about our favorite games of 2009.

Listening to it, I thought it came out pretty well, though as usually happens with these things it's a little long. Additionally, I'm rocking some pretty heavy sibilance, which I wish somebody had mentioned at the time so we could have tried to fix it. Even so, the discussion is pretty good, and covers all of our favorites, which were Borderlands, Uncharted 2, and Demon's Souls. Check it out!

This episode, by the way, is part 3 of 4. The last part is yet to be posted, but you can listen to part 1 with Chris Dahlen, Steve Gaynor, and L.B. Jeffries, and part 2 with Leigh Alexander, Nels Anderson, and Corvus Elrod.

Additionally, I've appeared on the Brainy Gamer podcast three times before:

• The confab of confabs
• Confabulous
• Insult Swordfighting visits the Brainy Gamer

Obviously I am running out of "confab" puns.

Year in review: The best games of 2009

Above: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Ain't no rest for the wicked awesome.

We're wrapping up our recap of the year that was. Today: the best games of 2009.

At last we come to it. You can click through to the feature on thephoenix.com to read the blurbs for each game, but for easy reference, and with all the usual caveats, here's my top 10 of 2009:

1. Borderlands
2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
3. Batman: Arkham Asylum
4. Shadow Complex
5. Flower
6. Left 4 Dead 2
7. Red Faction: Guerrilla
8. Dead Space: Extraction
9. Street Fighter IV
10. Prototype

That concludes our coverage of 2009. We're not turning the lights out for the holidays here at Insult Swordfighting, but posting is likely to be light until the new year. As always, thank you for reading. Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!

Friday afternoon tidbits

I think I'm just about done playing games for 2009. Might still download PixelJunk Shooter, and I'll pick up The Saboteur today, but that's all. With so much to do in the next couple of weeks, I'm just hoping to find the time to play more Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2.

-This Rogue Warrior game sounds like a real piece of work. I almost want to play it so I can truly understand how bad it is. And, really, two and a half hours? Seems like it isn't short enough.

-Rich Clark looks for some common threads among the games of 2009. I think everything he mentions is accurate, especially the latter two observations. I think it goes to show you how mainstream gaming is today. That doesn't mean that everybody is playing the same thing all the time (except maybe in the case of Modern Warfare 2), but everybody is playing something. It's easier than ever to find high-quality games that suit you. And we're seeing an erosion of the wall that used to exist between self-identified gamers and non-gamers. When I survey the gaming landscape at the end of the decade, I feel great about where we're at.

-Last week I linked two separate pieces by Chris Dahlen, but if he's going to keep churning out work like this then I'm going to keep linking to it. His Edge column on memory and Assassin's Creed II may be the best one yet. You could write about this game from zillions of angles, but this is one I don't think anybody else has tried, and it's very perceptive.

-At BoingBoing/Offworld, Brandon Boyer picks the year's best games from off the beaten track. Some interesting selections in there, some of which I played, most of which I did not. But I don't really understand how Uncharted 2 fits in with games like Little King's Story and Noby Noby Boy. It was Metacritic's game of the year!

-I haven't even downloaded "The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned" yet, but already MTV Multiplayer has me looking forward ot the next Borderlands expansion, "Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot." I might just stay awake and play this game from Christmas straight through New Year's.

-Kotaku's Owen Good wrote a great story about a gamerscore high achiever, a stay-at-home mom who has racked up over 165,000 achievement points. I would love Kotaku to do more stuff like this, and for it not to be so hard to find among their non-stop regurgitations of press releases. Am I missing much more like it? I have no idea.

To the weekend!

Friday afternoon tidbits

Hard to believe the year's almost over. I've got Assassin's Creed II still to play, and then that's probably it, even though there are several intriguing games I missed from 2009. The year-end period is always hectic and exciting, this year more than most. But there's always time to spotlight some blog posts that are worth reading.

-Ben Abraham's Permanent Death series is now available in collected form. Permanent Death - The Complete Saga is a 341-page PDF, complete with screenshots on every page, and a foreword by Clint Hocking. It's a great package, wonderfully presented, and I know it was a labor of love. I'm sure there would be all kinds of legal thorny issues involved with trying to profit off of this, but if you enjoy it there's no reason you can't chip in to fly Ben to GDC.

-Chris Dahlen's best of the decade list turns into a paean to Valve, which the company richly deserves. I agree with everything he says, and I would add that Valve seems to have internal quality-control standards that they ought to be sharing with other companies. Not only has the company never released a bad game, but they've also never released a game before it was ready, and when the waits for their games have seemed interminable, they have always also been justified by the end product. I have to think that's due to the corporate culture as much as anything.

-I enjoyed Brandon Sheffield's interview with Tetsu Takahashi about localizing Western games for the Japanese market on its own merits, but mostly I appreciated it alerting me to Ratchet's giant eyebrows in Japan.

-Jorge at Experience Points writes about the trend of setpieces in games, which replaces continuous, repetitive gameplay segments with shorter, self-contained, and scripted scenes. The setpiece approach is one I always like, even if it does result in shorter single-player campaigns. Also interesting to note is that watching just a minute-long clip of Uncharted 2 provokes an uncontrollable urge to play Uncharted 2.

-I liked a recent Hardcasual post titled "Samus Checks Map Again," but you should also read Chris Dahlen's Edge column about Hardcasual. Strangely, it lacks any mention of my publicly shaming them into relaunching the site last year.

-Tom Armitage pulls a lengthy Dave Eggers quote about the importance of creating art, and the pernicious influence of the critic. I can't argue the substantive argument, that sometimes you should put your nuts on the tracks and have the courage to create something. But there's always an undercurrent to comments like this that criticism serves no useful role, which I don't agree with. More to the point, I get the sense that somebody said something mean about something Dave Eggers did, and rather than deal with it he wants to invalidate the person's right to say it. Especially the part about "do not dismiss a book until you have written one," and so on -- that is the laziest, most kneejerk defense against criticism that I have ever read, and I would have thought that Dave Eggers was too smart to make it. Presumably you're allowed to praise a book even if you haven't ever written one, and specifically Dave Eggers' books.

Games of the decade: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Part of a series of subjective looks at my favorite games of the decade.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
(2009, PlayStation 3)

Trying to evaluate a game's historical significance in real time is not only difficult, it's impossible. Make a grand proclamation and you'll likely be proved wrong. Miss a new trend rushing at you like a tidal wave and you're myopic. Even superlatives of the "best console exclusive yet" are likely to be outdated within a year. No matter what, the most likely outcome with these kinds of statements is that you'll look foolish.

So we won't try too hard to build up the achievement of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. And we shouldn't need to. This is a game whose considerable merits can speak for themselves, thank you very much. A robust single-player adventure featuring a diversity of environments and play types, it also benefits from a streamlined interface and a zen-like focus on the part of its designers. This is a game with nothing out of place. Everything in it is there for a reason, and I have to think that Naughty Dog's cutting room floor is knee high with discarded prototypes that they loved but couldn't fit into the final product without compromising.

Such great gameplay is matched by a great script. Nathan Drake is an appealing lead, although I have to say that his constant quipping didn't endear him to me quite as much as I think it was supposed to. The supporting cast is what really stands out, in particular the two female characters. They're both treated as Drake's equals, with goals and inner lives of their own. Refreshingly, at no time did they get catty in a fight for his affections. The way in which Chloe gives up Nathan as a romantic partner is a mature and honest moment that's unusual for a game. Honestly, if there's one way in which Uncharted 2 does end up influencing future games, let it be this.

It won't be, obv.

More on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves:

• Chart-topper
• The minimalism of Uncharted 2
  

Friday afternoon tidbits

Going to be an interesting weekend. I made the mistake of signing up for National Novel Writing Month, which starts on Sunday. There goes my November.

-Brinstar wrote an interesting and all-encompassing look at Uncharted 2. Her comments on the game's portrayal of its female characters are right on. Despite the hyper-sexualized appearance of Chloe, both of the female leads are given actual personalities and motivations. Even better, they act like adults. They're not catty broads who fight over our bashful hero. Brinstar says that "[creative director] Amy Hennig stood her ground on gender issues like this many times over," which certainly wouldn't surprise me, and goes to show how much your game can be improved when you have a diversity of voices onboard.

-Torchlight seems to be dominating a lot of people's time right now. Elysium at Gamers with Jobs writes about the joy of being surprised by a game, which is something I couldn't agree with more. There's some fun in anticipating things, yes, but it always seems like you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you get too excited. Much better to be gobsmacked by something out of nowhere. (Re: Torchlight, it sounds interesting, but I can only accommodate one soul-consuming dungeon crawler at a time, and there's this game called Borderlands.)

-Shawn Elliott (him again?) predicts the upcoming controversy about Modern Warfare 2. I've not yet watched the opening sequence of the game, and in fact wish I didn't know anything about it before playing the game (thanks, Twitter!). Still, I respected the way that Call of Duty 4 coldly regarded the devastating impact of modern military technology, and I would expect its sequel to similarly pull no punches. The notion of killing civilians is, of course, shocking. I suspect that is the intent. Without context, it's impossible for us to say yet whether this serves a greater philosophical point, or, at least, a compelling narrative.

-Congratulations to Ben and the gang at Critical Distance, whose "Week in Game Criticism" roundups are now being syndicated at GSW and Gamasutra. Here's hoping this means a whole new audience for all the great writers Ben spotlights each week. And that he starts including Insult Swordfighting more often!

Chart-topper

Above: There's always a guy with a riot shield.

My review of Uncharted 2 is up at thephoenix.com. (No, that post on Monday wasn't a review.) To add to the chorus: It's great. Really great. This game doesn't step wrong. Like Metroid Prime and the Half-Life games, it's so confident and assured that you may forget you're playing a game for long stretches of time.

Frankly, I think people are overusing the "cinematic" descriptor for this game. I get why they say that, but if anything Uncharted 2 shows some of the ways in which games can be superior to movies for delivering action-adventure entertainment. As for the storyline and characters, okay, those are almost good enough to be called movie-like.

And now your note of caution (okay, cynicism). Uncharted 2 is the kind of game that is tailor-made for the reviewing experience. It's not terribly long, it's linear, and it doesn't repeat itself. That's where my tastes run anyway, but it's worth mentioning. Ordinarily this isn't something I'd stop to consider, but having moved on to the more professionally challenging Borderlands, I long for the halcyon days of last week, when I could sit down and blow through a game in one sitting, reasonably certain that I hadn't missed anything important.

There will, of course, be more about Borderlands to come.

The minimalism of Uncharted 2

Above: You have to listen to the notes they aren't playing.

By now, you may have heard about a little game called Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You've heard how cinematic it is, how lifelike the graphics are, and how large-scale the action sequences are. It's all true. Sony's VP of Big Action Scenes is not lying to you.

Nobody seems to have put their finger on the true reason for the success of this game, though, which is what isn't there. Lots of games have great production values, with shiny graphics and booming audio bespeaking a massive budget. Yet most of them never achieve greatness, and while the reasons are different in every case, often it comes down to one or two root causes. Either the interface is overly complicated or unsuited to the in-game tasks (like Killzone 2, say), or the designers are reluctant to cut things they've worked so hard on even if it would improve the whole product (a good example of this is Prototype).* Naughty Dog nailed both of those things.

The interface would probably still be hard for a gaming neophyte to pick up, but for veterans of 3D action-adventures, it's remarkably elegant. For some reason, other developers force players to hold down a button to make their character run. Not only does that miss the entire point of having analog control sticks, but it also commits one of the buttons to an unnecessary function. Even with all the buttons on gamepads today, they're still a limited resource. By using the analog stick to make Nathan run, Naughty Dog frees up the face buttons for more important uses.

Another thing Nathan can't do is crouch -- at least, not on his own. If the player presses the button to take cover, and the nearest bit of cover is low, he will duck behind that. Again, it's a sensible solution, based on a realistic accounting of how players will want and need Nathan to move. I was a little surprised at first that I couldn't press a button to make him crouch, but after about an hour of gameplay I realized that it wasn't actually necessary. I was grateful to be able to clear that out of my brainspace while I was playing.

Nathan does a lot of climbing, swinging, and shimmying, which always has the potential to be a bear. Some games have done this stuff better than others. Although a lot of people liked the magnetic approach of inFamous, I thought it was intrusive. Uncharted 2 has a little bit of auto-assist too, but it's much more subtle. Nathan will turn and grab a ledge if you walk off it, but not if you run or jump off. Instead of being sucked toward grabbable objects in mid-air, most of Nathan's jumps are directed in such a way that you can't help but move in the right direction to begin with. This is the advantage of the linear, scripted approach over a more open world.

Those are some of the smaller things that Uncharted 2 does right, and they have an outsized impact on the experience. For the most part, you can forget you're even holding a controller while you're playing this game. But Naughty Dog made more brave choices with the gameplay, and I don't think they're getting credit for how much they left out.

I can only imagine how hard it must be to design video games. Imagine that some members of your team are working solely on your game's water. It needs to look right: it should reflect the light, be capable of different levels of transparency, maybe have some sand swirling around. The fluid dynamics need to be programmed just right, too, because you have a fantastic idea for a boat level. So your artists and programmers bust their asses for months, and they create the best water ever seen in a video game. What do you do?

You put water freaking everywhere.

After all, you can't let their hard work go to waste! Sure, it doesn't make sense to have water mains bursting in every single level, and that boat chase you had in mind didn't really work out, but you'll be damned if you don't share this wonderful water with the world!

That's all wild speculation on my part, but surely you've noticed things like this. Yes, it can be very hard to let go of things you've done. Unfortunately, this mindset often results in games repeating themselves. Things that are fun at first get old. Things that aren't fun at first become obnoxious. And things that don't belong in the final product are still there, because nobody had the courage to let them go.

There's not an ounce of fat in Uncharted 2. Most interesting things only happen once. Sure, there are your standard rooms full of crates to duck behind while shooting at dudes, but the shootouts never last very long, and they're often a waypoint en route to something more interesting. You hurtle forward, never getting bogged down. Enough wrinkles are introduced that the vanilla gunfights really do feel different from the ones on the train, which again are different from the ones in the trucks. The same is true of climbing sequences. Some are slower paced, allowing you to enjoy the environments, while some are more about racing against crumbling infrastructure. You don't typically repeat anything.

I don't doubt that Naughty Dog had to leave some stuff on the cutting room floor, some of it probably quite good. Somebody there must have had a laser-like focus on the final product. They took out all the right things.

*I should clarify that I liked both Killzone 2 and Prototype, the latter quite a bit. That's why they're instructive comparisons to Uncharted 2: They're well made, big-budget games that are fun to play, but are flawed in ways that could have, and should have, been addressed early in the process.

Quiz: The year in swooning

Match each of these games with the breathless excerpt from its review.

1. The Beatles: Rock Band
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum
3. Killzone 2
4. Resident Evil 5
5. Red Faction: Guerrilla
6. Street Fighter IV
7. inFamous
8. Brütal Legend
9. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

A. "...one of the most memorable video games ever created. Not because it is particularly innovative, but because the mixture of shooting, climbing, creeping, thinking, laughing and simple astonishment works perfectly."

B. "There are very, very few games which truly make me sit back and go 'wow'. Among the slew of games that I’ve reviewed this year, there are only a couple that I really enjoyed playing, and continue to do so. [This] is one such game – even though I aced my Public Speaking and English Literature classes, words only slur together when I try to describe this game."

C. "This is simply a superb genre defining experience with two unforgettable endings."

D. "This action-adventure is so smart, so well-written, and delivered with such an obvious love for its source material, I daresay it is both the best licensed game ever made, and arguably the best game of its kind in our current console generation."

E. "...provides a transformative entertainment experience. In that sense it may be the most important video game yet made."

F. "The gorgeous graphics, the superb sound, the great (if sometimes twitchy) AI of your partner and the jaw-dropping gameplay take everything that was brilliant about [its predecessor] and ramp it up to the next level, making for one of the best gaming experiences ever!"

G. "This game deserves a place on everyone's shelf, from the most casual fan... to the most hardcore. No matter your personal skill level, you owe it to yourself to buy this game. [Its] incredible art style, rock solid gameplay, and infinitely compelling multiplayer make it stand out as one of best games of this generation."

H. "A fantastic game that sucks you in and doesn't let go... a seamless merger of technology and story telling that raises the bar for the industry."

I. "...the best console first person shooter ever. It will be bested one day, and that is as it should be, but this game has set the proverbial bar so high we reckon it'll be the king for a good long while... Hail to the king, baby."

1. E (New York Times)
2. D (Gamespy)
3. I (Playstation Official Magazine Australia)
4. F (AceGamez)
5. H (Gaming Nexus)
6. G (ZTGameDomain)
7. C (Play)
8. B (MEGamers)
9. A (Cynamite)

Fall games preview

Above: A game whose promotion you are already sick of.

It's September, so it must be time for my fall video games preview in the Phoenix. Given that you use the Internet, I imagine there is not much news in this piece for you. It's a snapshot of the biggest games coming out this fall, at least as I interpret them from looking at Gamespot's "new releases" section. That means it's tilted more toward big-budgeted titles whose art will look good in the paper. I'm not passing any kind of value judgment here; I'm just telling you what it is.

The fun for me is finding out which game gets delayed immediately after the preview goes to press. One year it was Bully, and one year it was Super Paper Mario. It's also enjoyable to see what game I overlook that ends up knocking my socks off. In 2007, I failed to mention Call of Duty 4; last year, I couldn't spare the column inches for Far Cry 2.

There's no doubt that this year is lighter on big names than some past years, but I've been doing these previews since... 2005, I think, and only in 2007 was I genuinely enthused about the selections. (With good cause, as it turned out.) I still think it's a blessing in disguise that so many games have been delayed, giving us more time with the games that do come out this fall. There's plenty to be excited about, too. I'm always up for first-party Sony titles, Valve has never stepped wrong, and it's an Infinity Ward Call of Duty. I mean, come on.

Still, I look forward to the real work, which will be playing and reviewing these games. That'll be much more fun.

Game informing

Selected closing sentences from several previews in the latest issue of Game Informer, presented without comment:

Splinter Cell: Conviction -- "Let's just hope Sam doesn't sneak past his fall release, because we've been waiting long enough to play what's looking like one of the best games of the year."

The Last Guardian -- "With the PS3 breaking down technical barriers, the possibilities with Team Ico's next masterpiece seem to be endless."

God of War III -- "With the massive titans waging war, more gods entering the fray, and Kratos determined to topple Olympus, God of War III will be packed with jaw-dropping moments worthy of passing into legend."

Assassin's Creed II -- "We'll know more about whether our high hopes are justified as we get hands on time with the game in the coming months."

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves -- "Our time with the game left us confident that Drake's second big journey may be just what Sony needs to draw in PS3 doubters."

ModNation Racers -- "If the gameplay shows even half the potential of its customization tools, ModNation Racers might be the game that finally drags the kart-racing genre into the 21st century."

New Super Mario Bros. Wii -- "There definitely were bigger, more graphically impressive games at E3, but we'll be surprised if many of them are as anticipated as New Super Mario Bros. Wii."

Dirt 2 -- "We're eager to see what other cities Codemasters has transformed into rally circuits."

Heavy Rain -- "We can't wait to meet the remaining protagonists in the upcoming months to see if they, too, can dodge a grisly end."

Alan Wake -- "While we still have nearly a year before this spooky narrative finally hits the Xbox 360, it looks like the title will be worth the long wait."

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow -- "But if the final game can live up to the excitement caused by the trailer... Lords of Shadow may finally give gamers a 3D action title worthy of the Castlevania name, even if some series staples are missing."

Borderlands -- "With fast-paced action, strong co-op, and this much variety, we can't wait to gather some treasure hunters and start exploring this promising wasteland."

Homefront -- "Though it wasn't shown or talked about in detail... what little we've seen of Homefront looks good."

League of Legends: Clash of Fates -- "We've spent a lot of time with DotA and other games, and League of Legends is clearly the most exciting title in the sub-genre to date."