Games of the decade: Leftovers

In the course of putting together the list of my favorite games of the decade, I omitted several great games. In the spirit of inclusiveness, here are a few that I wish had been on there.

Games that barely missed the cut

Yakuza/Yakuza 2 - A phenomenal series packed with humor, pathos, and bone-crunching hits. News that Yakuza 3 is coming Stateside is welcome, indeed.

Ratchet and Clank (series) - I feel like a lot of people overlook how great this series is, given that Insomniac delivers a fun, visually pleasing game every year like clockwork. That's not easy to do. I'm sorry that I also overlooked it in this list. Tough omission.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - With a terrific single-player campaign and best-in-class multiplayer, or so they tell me, I left this one off mostly out of spite for the sequel. But it is still terrific.

Games that wouldn't have missed the cut if I hadn't forgotten them

Left 4 Dead - An unforgivable omission, and a total brainfart on my end. I love this game. I feel bad. Actually, several times I thought about what to write in the blurb before realizing that I hadn't actually put it anywhere on the list. Dumb.

Fairway Solitaire - Mainstream bias may have hurt Fairway Solitaire here. I just plum forgot about it. But I can't recommend it highly enough.

Games that seem like they might have made the cut if I'd ever played them

Silent Hill 2 - I've enjoyed other Silent Hill games, and tales of sexual repression and self-loathing are always a good time.

Eternal Darkness - Before Denis Dyack lost his marbles.

Beyond Good and Evil - It's so well regarded in certain circles, I feel like I'm missing something big by not having played this.

Deus Ex - I played the demo. It seemed okay.

Faerie Solitaire

Above: Faerie Solitaire

One of the best games I've played in the past couple of years is Fairway Solitaire. It was a version of golf solitaire, which I hadn't realized was a thing, with some incredibly smart design decisions and a fantastic presentation. The replay value is great -- I downloaded it a year and a half ago, and I still play it often, trying to beat every high score. If you haven't played it yet, you really should. You can buy Fairway Solitaire (affiliate link) at Big Fish Games for hell of cheap. Well worth it.

So I didn't need much convincing to play Faerie Solitaire. It's essentially a re-skinned Fairway Solitaire, trading gentle humor for high fantasy. The gameplay basics are identical -- draw a foundation card, then remove any card from the board that's one higher or lower. Try to go on big runs to earn score multipliers. Clear the board for a perfect score. Every game consists of 9 different card layouts to be cleared.

It's pretty straightforward, but Faerie Solitaire, like Fairway, adds several tools to the player's arsenal. By earning money after each hand, you can buy upgrades: the ability to see the next draw card, extra mulligans, or a ring that will allow you to blast one card off the board. Some cards on the board are blocked, either by ice or by a thicket of thorns, and can only be cleared by removing a designated card from the board. There's just enough variation to keep things interesting across all of the levels.

And they are "levels" in this game, because Faerie Solitaire follows a storyline. I'll admit to not being terribly enchanted by it -- a kid wakes up from a dream and follows some faeries all around the goddamn place before defeating a sorceror of some kind -- but the narrative makes for an excuse to visit lots of different settings. The boards include fiery volcanoes, deep woods, and wind-whipped ice levels. The presentation is really good, from the panoramic drawings that makeup the cutscenes, to the ambient sound effects and ethereal background music, which I believe is an original composition.

The replay value isn't quite there. Despite some challenge rooms, which I haven't finished yet, it's easy to whip through the campaign. The bigger problem is that completing a 9-hole level is a matter of meeting a few criteria, usually some combination of filling the combo meter within a time limit, earning a specified amount of money, and getting a designated number of perfects. If you accomplish all your goals by the third hole, then there's no reason not to haphazardly click your way through the next six. In Fairway Solitaire, by contrast, the overarching golf conceit meant that every hole had to be your best. And that's also why I keep playing Fairway.

Still, Faerie Solitaire is quite good on its own merits. It even kept me up until 1 AM one night, something inFamous, Prototype, and Red Faction have all failed to do. I'd certainly recommend checking it out (affiliate link), but only after you download Fairway.

Friday afternoon tidbits

I can't remember the last time I've been to a show, but that all changes tonight when the Electric Six comes to town. I have no idea what to expect from those lunatics. Frankly, I'm a little frightened.

-Jeremy Parish has been writing a great series for 1up's RPG blog about Final Fantasy XIII. Everybody who just regurgitates press releases and screenshots ought to look at this series for how to make talking about an upcoming game interesting. Parish brings a lot of knowledge and insight to bear. It's all good, but unfortunately he hasn't tagged the series in a way that would let me link to every part at once. So here, check out part 10, "Sword Beats Gun."

-Important news: You can get Fairway Solitaire for free. Wait, let me amend that. You must get Fairway Solitaire for free. I've written about this game many times before before, and I still play it. It's that good. (h/t Dubious Quality)

-At Offworld, Tom Armitage posted an insightful piece about The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. His main point, which I agree with, is that the game's success is due to its convincing portrayal of its setting and characters as physical entities. Prowling the halls of Butcher Bay as Riddick feels authentic, especially when it comes time to take somebody on in hand-to-hand content. There's heft and weight to Riddick, his surroundings feel sturdy, and the forcefulness of his attacks is surprising.

One more thing I'd note: last year, I was impressed by the physicality of the characters in Far Cry 2, Dead Space, and Mirror's Edge. Riddick beat them to the punch by four years.

-This is awesome. A YouTube user named Underworld23 has posted a ton of classic RPG music, sorted by category: town themes, overworld themes, battle themes, and a lot more. Yes, I spent far too much time listening to these last night.

-I've never read anything more blatantly whorish than Harry Knowles' explanation for why he wouldn't review X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The problem isn't so much that he wasn't planning to write a review. That's his choice. But just read that first paragraph: he recommends that his readers skip the movie, because none of his editors were invited to a press screening! Astonishing.

Further still, Harry says:

I'm more eager to spend my money on a film I do support, which is why I have bought tickets for my third watching of STAR TREK next week, and if I were you - I'd save up to see it twice, rather than have a bad experience this weekend.

Star Trek -- that's the movie that Harry watched at a surprise screening, where he hung out with the film's screenwriters and producer. The one where Leonard Nimoy showed up and his very presence made Harry cry. Look, AICN is a fan site, and it's never really pretended to be anything else. But since we've been talking this week about a lack of scruples in the games press, it's nice to see, at least, that we're not the only ones who deal with it.

The Year in Review: Year-End Superlatives

Above: A winner is you, everyone.

Today through Christmas Eve, we'll be recapping the year that was. Today: year-end superlatives.

Today, we're handing out accolades to the games, systems, and people who made the year so interesting.

Welcome Trend: Downloadable Content for Consoles

Downloadable content is nothing new, but 2008 was the year it matured. If you wanted to play the most interesting and innovative games, you had to download them. The Wii finally branched out from Virtual Console re-hashes and offered original content like the charming LostWinds, the much-loved World of Goo, and Mega Man 9, which I couldn't in good conscience have played on any other system. Sony continued to quietly turn the PlayStation Network into a high-end boutique with games like PixelJunk Eden, Echochrome, and Wipeout HD. And, of course, Xbox Live Arcade was the videogame equivalent of the 1927 Yankees when they released Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2, Braid, Bionic Commando, and Castle Crashers all in one month's time.

Noble Failure of the Year: Mirror's Edge

But we're not talking about this anymore.

PR Knucklehead of the Year: Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard

As quoted in MTV Multiplayer:

The games Activision Blizzard didn’t pick up, he said, “don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we’ll be working on them 10 years from now.”

Not that it's anything we didn't know already, but usually they're a bit more tactful than that. Get ready for more awful Guitar Hero games, everybody!

On the other hand, maybe we should be giving this guy points for honesty.

The Donut Hole Award: Fairway Solitaire

Ineligible for this year's top 10 list because it was a 2007 release, and left out of last year's because I didn't play it in time, Fairway Solitaire was nevertheless one of the most fun and addictive games to come down the pike in quite some time. You really need to try this one. I guarantee that the 60-minute demo will convince you to buy the full game.

Game Blog of the Year: Hit Self-Destruct

Put simply, nobody else I know of is doing what Duncan Fyfe is doing at Hit Self-Destruct. He's a superb writer, whose narrative approach to writing about games is insightful and often very funny. He can take a subject like the old practice of naming your save files and make it sound both wistful and hilarious, while still making a good point about the player's role as co-author of the gameplay experience.

Publisher of the Year: Microsoft Game Studios

I say this not because of its major console releases, although Gears 2 was very good and an awful lot of people seemed to love Fable 2. In a year when Xbox Live Arcade beat the doors down, Microsoft deserves a little love. They published Braid and Castle Crashers, both independent productions made with a lot of love by their creators. Surely these weren't massive expenditures, but it still shows their appreciation for a creative vision. (Bonus points: Microsoft even put up with Dennis Dyack, which is prize-worthy all on its own.)

Developer of the Year: Harmonix

Rock Band and its sequel are both spectacular right on the disc, but Harmonix is special because of its commitment to supporting their games after its retail release. The breadth and quality -- not to mention the value -- of Rock Band's ever-expanding DLC is staggering. This company treats its property, and its customers, with care and respect.

Console of the Year: Xbox 360

Hey, didn't the Xbox 360 win this last year? Yep, well, there was no clear alternative for 2008. The Wii phenomenon is well beyond the limits of my understanding at this point, but a same-old, same-old sequel and a fitness trainer are not what I'm looking for out of my game console. The PS3 did better for itself than in years past, but its biggest exclusive title was a massive disappointment. Even the 360's exclusives weren't quite as great as in years past, but it did have more of them, and better, too. It continues to be the system you've got to have if you self-identify as a serious gamer.

(Oh hey, remember when the most consistently innovative games were coming out for the Nintendo DS? What happened there?)

Monday: 2008 honorable mentions.

Friday afternoon tidbits

No drinking beer and falling asleep on the couch for me this weekend! I'm going snowboarding. Let me just apologize in advance if I break my wrist and can't type come Monday.

A few items of note before the weekend begins:

-The comments have been great around here recently, so thanks to everybody who takes the time to respond. Blogging should be a dialogue and not a monologue. I always appreciate any considered comments, whether they're assenting or dissenting. Group hug.

-Every time I think I'm done talking about Fairway Solitaire around here, they pull me back in. Bill Harris linked to an interview with the game's designer, John Cutter. It's probably more interesting if you've played the game, such as when you come across passages like this:

"One of my theories about game design is that there is a direct correlation between the quality of an action's feedback and the perceived enjoyment of that experience. So with that goal in mind I was pretty diligent about giving players great feedback each time they "play" a card to the foundation," he said. "I really wanted this action to feel like a golf shot, with a nice solid "WHACK" sound and the card spinning and arcing down to the bottom of the screen."

It's totally true. I can't stress it enough: Fairway Solitaire is an absolute gem. At least try the demo.

-The anonymous scribe behind Magical Wasteland rarely posts, but each new update is always required reading. "In Defense of the Meaningless Video Game" touches upon some of the issues we talked about in yesterday's post on racing games. A key quote: "World of Warcraft means something (to millions of people) because it provides the framework for meaningful occurrences, not because it, itself, contains and delivers meaning." That's true. But the meaningful occurrences people create for themselves are naturally shaped by the decisions of the folks at Blizzard, whether or not either the developers or the players mean for that to be the case.

Without arguing any of the author's core precepts -- that some games are fun for fun's sake, and that most don't need to be overtly relevant to the world we live in -- I still can't shake the notion that every game has some kind of meaning. The reason it has meaning is because conscious decisions had to be made about even its smallest aspects. Yes, you can take this to ludicrous and self-parodying extremes. But think about it: For each design decision made, an infinite number of options was rejected. If you ask yourself why a particular choice was made, then that's where you'll find the meaning -- no matter what the game.

-Today, Game|Life, Kotaku, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun all posted gushing previews of the dystopian Parkour game Mirror's Edge. I agree that it sounds neat. But honestly, people: Have we learned nothing?

Fairway Solitaire review

You thought you'd heard the last from me about Fairway Solitaire? Fat chance. I reviewed it for the Phoenix, and if you're curious that four-star review equates to a 9.0 in the paper. (Why do the web and the print editions use different scales? Only the Shadow knows.) I am still completely hooked, and as I have about five courses left, that may not last much longer.

Final note on the system stability issues: I emailed Bill Harris to see if he had experienced anything similar, and he said not once. Since upgrading my video drivers, I have had one crash, and again it happened after I quit the game and before the Big Fish games app launched. As a result, I am totally willing to put the blame on the publisher and not the developer.

My apologies for casting aspersions on you, Grey Alien Games. You did good.

Further note on Fairway Solitaire stability

In comments to previous Fairway Solitaire posts (here and here), one of the developers at Grey Alien Games suggested that the problem may been with the video drivers. It's true, my drivers were woefully out of date. I updated them and have yet to encounter trouble in my subsequent play sessions. But I should note that the problem doesn't actually occur during gameplay. The publisher, Big Fish Games, makes you install a Steam-like front end, which is where I've been having the trouble -- usually, I quit the game, their app opens up, and then it all goes horribly, horribly blue. We'll see if this happens again.

Even so, I am still hopelessly addicted to this game. I've been off work the past week, and fully intended to spend my time catching up on some past console games. I managed to put a few hours into Call of Duty 4 (it really is that good!), but other than that it's been all Fairway Solitaire all the time.

In the initial two posts, I hadn't yet discovered the helpful items available for sale in the pro shop. As the game progresses, you can buy items like x-ray goggles that allow you to see the next card in the deck, and one that turns 25% of the cards face-up at the start of a hole. It adds a new level of complexity that helps a lot. I just wish you could buy irons in the pro shop, as well. I've been accruing money at a far greater rate than I could spend it, and I always wish I had more irons. Maybe in Fairway Solitaire 2.

Fairway Solitaire update

It's now crashed my computer three times, or three more times than any other game has in the three years I've owned this computer.

Still awesome, though. Don't let these complaints dissuade you.

Fairway Solitaire

On Bill Harris's recommendation, last night I downloaded a game called Fairway Solitaire, the only computer sim that dares to combine the cerebral thrills of single-player card games with the fast-paced action of golf.

Whoops, I can't help the sarcasm sometimes. It's actually a fantastic game, to the point where the 60-minute cutoff on the demo elicited something like rage. I spent a few hours trying to resist dropping the $19.99 they wanted, but at that point it was essentially like heroin. Fortunately, the publisher is running a holiday special for 40% off. (If you're ordering the game, enter SAVEFORTY in the "coupon code" field. The offer expires on 12/31/07.)

What is Fairway Solitaire? It's set up like a golf game, with several courses to play through and a hilarious, cartoonish presentation that mimics the solemnity of a TV golf broadcast. Instead of hitting a ball, though, you play a modified solitaire game. Each "hole" on a course is a different layout of cards -- some face up, most face down. At the bottom of the screen is your anchor card, which dictates what card you can remove from the hole. If there's a 5 at the bottom, you can remove any available 4 or 6. If you remove a 6, you can then click on any available 5 or 7. The challenge is to go on long runs without drawing a new anchor card.

There are more twists, too. You must contend with sand traps and water hazards, and occasionally you can find a wedge to put in your bag. You can play a wedge as a normal number card without interrupting the run you're on. So if you've tapped a bunch of jacks and tens, but have a 3-iron in your bag, you can start removing threes or twos without penalty -- but then you might not have an iron when you need it later.

Sounds simple, and it is. Still, it's the sort of game you can feel yourself improving at with each successive round. Strategies begin to reveal themselves the more you play. Each hole takes just a few minutes to complete, but with nine holes per course, and dozens of courses, I can see this thing robbing me of innumerable hours of productivity. And I am perfectly fine with that.

With all that said, Fairway Solitaire has twice crashed my system and I've had it for less than 24 hours. Make of that what you will.