Forum posters and bloggers for other, less-exciting websites have been saying that 2011 was one of the best years ever for videogames—and they are absolutely, unconditionally right. Let’s look at the facts:

FACT: 2011 saw direct sequels to not one, not two, not four, but three former GameCola Games of the Year: Batman: Arkham Asylum, LittleBigPlanet, and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy. (Yes, somehow we didn’t give Portal Game of the Year back in 2007, despite the fact that it topped our Top 50 Games of All Time list a few years later.) This is completely unprecedented, unless it’s happened before.

FACT: The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise finally broke its years-long dry spell by releasing a game that was, as many put it, playable.

FACT: For the first time in a decade, we got to know Jack. We also got the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a new Chrono Trigger, and the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a Final Fantasy VII remake.

FACT: Some popular shooting games were probably released, maybe.

FACT: Fans of the Back to the Future franchise were delighted to play as Marty McFly once again in a game that in no way involved giant balls of poop (at least, until the inevitable DLC comes out).

We gather here today to celebrate these games. Well, not these games. None of the games I’ve mentioned so far (save for one) actually won any GameCola awards this year. But others did, and we’re here to discuss the crap out of them.

Who are we? Well:

• Matt Jonas, news reporter, reviewer and video-er,
• Kate Jay, author and illustrator of “The Gates of Life,”
• Mark Freedman, reviewer and author of “What the Crap?“,
• Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray, editor as well as occasional reviewer,
• Vangie Ridgaway, author of “Gamer Girlfriend” and occasional podcaster and reviewer,
• Christian Porter, artist, blogger, news reporter, podcaster, reviewer, video-er and organizer, as well as author of “Poor Player’s Paradise,” Top of the Heap,” and “Power Gloves & Tinfoil Hats,”
• Alex Jedraszczak, the podcast master,
• Jillian Dingwall, reviewer,
• Michael Ridgaway, reviewer, podcaster, and former author of “Quantum Geek,”
• Nathaniel Hoover, editor, reviewer, podcaster, video-er, YouTube administrator, artist of “Sprite Flicker” and author of “Flash Flood” and “Impaired Closed Captioning,”
• Daniel Castro, author of “Don’t Be That Guy,”
• And, finally, me.

So join us today in celebrating 2011: the year that was, and, as always, be sure to tell us in the comments exactly where we went wrong. Here, I’ll start:

Where the hell is Gunstringer?!

Best Licensed Game

Batman: Arkham City

Christian Porter: The Batman: Arkham (Progressively Larger Geographic Location) series has been full of surprises. Arkham Asylum not only shirked convention by being a good superhero game, but it was actually an amazing game to boot, winning GameCola’s coveted 2009 Game of the Year title. Now Arkham City shirks convention by turning the sequel into a sandbox without making the game seem crammed with filler, and the game is still just as fun as the original. The same high-quality writing and voice acting also return, with tons of Batman villains around every corner, but somehow not feeling like they’ve all been shoehorned in. It’s an amazing adventure and, any other year, would be a shoo-in for Game of the Year.

Honorable Mention: Back to the Future: The Game
Last Year’s Winner: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Best Remake/Re-release

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Daniel Castro: What else can be said about this game? It’s freaking Ocarina of Time, a game remembered as one of the best games ever made—and now it looks so damn awesome that we won’t feel at all embarrassed showing it off to future generations. It’s not the perfect remake, since there aren’t any new additions besides prettier aesthetics, but I guess not everyone was waiting for newer mechanics or anything else for the game that they cared about and loved so many years ago. And, hey! The 3D effects are gorgeous, it’s portable, and you can aim by tilting your Nintendo 3DS in front of your face, which means I can finally play Ocarina of Time on the bus, drunkenly trying to aim at anything with the slingshot, while other passengers play shitty music on their cell phones. It’s fun!

Honorable Mention: No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise
Last Year’s Winner: Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge

Best Use of Motion Controls

Child of Eden

Jillian Dingwall: Child of Eden is an arcade-style shooter in which you use your hands to target and destroy various enemies. It’s set in space, and the object of the game is to rescue a super-hot fairy girl who has been eaten by what appears to be the Internet.

This game is HARD. It’s quite confusing to begin with, and the enemies come flying at you from all angles resulting in flailing arms, sweaty armpits, unattractive facial expressions and frustratingly continuous failure. As a “game,” it’s not that great; however, you can switch off the super-death mode and play the game in the much less challenging  ”Feel Eden” mode (Eden being the name of the environment, not the fairy—that game would be called Child of Molestation), and this is where you begin to appreciate the genius of the game’s concept.

Child of Eden combines its  surroundings, music and motion controls beautifully, and when you remove the fear of death, the game becomes a highly enjoyable, exciting and ethereal experience. Shooting different enemies produces different effects which blend together seamlessly to create your very own, unique sound. The motion controls are impressively responsive and make you feel as though you really are in control of the celestial surroundings. I agree with those who feel it may not be the best game in the world, but as an experience, it’s definitely a worthy winner. Motion control is still in its infancy, but if Child of Eden is anything to go by, we have a lot to look forward once it hits puberty.

Honorable Mentions: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword; The Gunstringer
Last Year’s Winner: N/A

Best New Character

Wheatley
(Portal 2)

Christian Porter: Homer Simpson, Rose Nylund, Jenny McCarthy—everybody likes a lovable moron. In Portal 2, Stephen Merchant fills the moron shoes perfectly. (I mean that in a good way.) Valve really hit the nail on the head by letting Merchant ad lib to his heart’s content, with some of the best comedy in the game coming from standing around and waiting to see what Wheatley will say next. No matter how many awful situations his rampant stupidity gets you into, Wheatley is simply impossible to hate.

Honorable Mention: Cave Johnson (Portal 2)
Last Year’s Winner: Sheep Man (Mega Man 10)

Most Innovative

Bastion

Alex Jedraszczak: To say that Bastion is the most innovative game of 2011 is a little odd. The game itself is a pretty solid action/adventure type game, but that genre has been around long enough to be fairly finely tuned. The innovation is all in exploration and storytelling.

The world literally drops from the sky as you explore. More than a cool visual effect, this leaves you always knowing when you’ve been someplace before. It’s pretty obvious where you’ve been, and this guides you where you need to be without needless exposition.

The game’s main claim to fame, however, is the storytelling. Rather than reading through boring text before getting to play the game, the story is told as you’re playing. The end result is a game that flows very well, and can be pretty entertaining when the narration is tailored to your in-game actions.

Honorable Mentions: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective; Catherine
Last Year’s Winner: Heavy Rain

Best Story

Portal 2

Portal 2

Nathaniel Hoover: Hmm…Portal 2, you say? Is it really the funniest game of the year? Absolutely. Unless you’re adopted. Or obese. Or a sympathizer to either demographic, for that matter. However, we here at GameCola are horrible, insensitive people, so we think it’s pretty hysterical. Eminently quotable. From the mad ramblings of Cave Johnson to the moronic assertions of Wheatley to the sarcastic barbs of GLaDOS, there’s no shortage of creativity in the humor. Throw in a prophetic talking turret, legions of its dimwitted cousins, a droll male computer, outrageous personality spheres, a few wonderful sight gags, and all the hilarious situations afforded by portals, springboards, and bouncy goo—especially in (un)co-operative multiplayer—and you’ve got pretty much the only game we could have voted for this year.

Honorable Mention: No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise
Last Year’s Winner: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Best New Peripheral

3DS Retractable Stylus

Paul Franzen: Oooh. Oh, baby. Come here, my baby. Let me slide this thing in. And slide it out. Slide it in. Slide it out. Over and over. Aren’t we having fun, my baby? You can touch it, if you’d like. Just don’t scratch up the screen; this thing cost me $250 and still doesn’t have any games.

…Wait, what? What did you think I was talking about? I’m talking about the new stylus that comes bundled with the Nintendo 3DS! It’s retractable! That means you can make it whatever length is most comfortable to you! Stop it; there’s nothing sexual about that. And it’s fun to play with, too, while you’re playing with yourself. I mean, playing games! With yourself. Phew. I can’t believe I got through this whole thing without any innuendo.

Honorable Mentions: Wappy Dog; Pop Star Sparkle Gloves
Last Year’s Winner: Pokéwalker

Best Multiplayer

Portal 2

Vangie Ridgaway: In the Portal 2 co-op mode, GLaDOS has finally found a more self-sufficient mode of conducting her scientific testing at Aperture Science. Her latest creations are P-body and ATLAS, a modified turret and personality sphere, respectively, who are now possessed of arms, legs, and portal guns of their own. Together, the two of them explore a completely new set of testing areas, which are specifically designed for two players, and require both guns (meaning a total of four active portals!) to complete. The new puzzles require a fair bit of cooperation on the part of the players, which ironically seems to annoy GLaDOS, as she is constantly trying to set her two new testers against one another through her unique brand of “encouragements.” Expect more cleverly designed puzzles, a fun twist on the original portal gun mechanic, and more of the humor that the Portal series has become famous for.

Honorable Mentions: Trine 2; Gears of War 3
Last Year’s Winner: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Best Indie Game

Bastion

Michael Ridgaway: I could go on and on (and have) about Bastion’s fun Diablo-style gameplay, its beautifully vivid graphics, the poignantly shattered apocalypse it centers around, the amazing use of narration in the storytelling, or the awesome soundtrack that I find myself listening to at least once every few days. I could talk about those things, and they’d all be true, but for the moment I want to focus on how earnest the fans are and how keen Supergiant Games is to return that affection. For instance, one gentleman wrote to them asking for help in making his wedding ceremony extra special, and they delivered. A soldier in Afghanistan was not able to get a digital version of the game, so they specially made and sent him a physical copy of the game. Bastion really is the full package here, folks: an awesome game with awesome people behind it.

Honorable Mention: Orcs Must Die!
Last Year’s Winner: Super Meat Boy

Best PC Game

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Mark Freedman: If someone says the name Elder Scrolls to you, and all you can think of is your grandpa trying to figure out how a mouse wheel works, it’s time to get on the Skyrim bandwagon. I can’t think of any other game where, after playing 60 hours, you can still feel like you’ve only scratched the surface. Compared to other open-ended worlds, this game has the scale of an entire galaxy. Even if you’re not interested in combat, there’s so many beautiful mountains, lakes, caves, and forts to discover. With over 60,000 lines of dialogue and hundreds of hours you can spend playing, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth here. Kill some bears, craft your own armor, learn some spells, betray some townsfolk, or reanimate the dead…it’s all up to you. Despite its many bugs, this is truly a breathtaking adventure.

Specific to the PC version, some really great mods are finally coming out that make it feel more like a PC experience. There haven’t been a whole lot of beards in videogames, but Skyrim majestically integrates the tenacity and allure of beards in to such an epic quest as ever you’ll see.

Honorable Mention: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Last Year’s Winner: Mass Effect 2

Best Console Game

Portal 2

Kate Jay: The original Portal made its mark on the gaming world with its witty dialogue, innovative concept, and fast-paced gameplay. Fans asked for a sequel, and Valve gave us everything we asked for and more: Portal 2 took that theme and ran with it, releasing with a fully-fledged story with actual character development, backstory, and, of course, more snarkiness. Playing through Portal 2, we learn more about the history of Aperture Science and the men and women who made it what is was (before GLaDOS killed everyone, that is). Valve added new Aperture Products, including three types of gel, robots for the multiplayer levels, and defective personality cores. To add more frosting on this delicious, theoretical cake, Valve also provided players with plenty of free—yes, FREE—downloadable content for the multiplayer and single player campaigns. Portal 2 is clever, quirky, and charming, and it most definitely takes the cake.

Honorable Mention: Batman: Arkham City
Last Year’s Winner: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best Portable Game

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray: What if you were dead, but you didn’t know how or why you died, and you couldn’t remember who you were? And then what if you found out that you could manipulate objects in the world, and even go back in time and save other peoples’ lives? And what if you learned of a mysterious conspiracy tied somehow to your murder, and you had only until dawn to figure everything out before you disappeared forever? Then you’d be the main character in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective!

Ghost Trick is a new game from the creator of the Ace Attorney series (and we all know how well-loved those games are here at GameCola). Fortunately for all of us Phoenix Wright fans who were hoping for another great portable game, Ghost Trick delivers in full. The characters are quirky and well-developed, the graphics and music are awesome, and the mechanics are unique, challenging, and fun. But, like the Ace Attorney games before, the thing that really made Ghost Trick stand out for me was its story. Many times, I’ve played a game and found myself disappointed because it didn’t surprise me in a big way—sometimes I feel like the ideas I have and the guesses that I make while playing a game are more interesting than what the writers actually do. With Ghost Trick, though, I had the exact opposite experience. I didn’t come close to guessing the ending, but beyond that, the story went places that I never saw coming, and that was a great thing for me. Plus, the story’s just really cool!

With awesome characters, a compelling story, only a couple of annoying puzzles among the many good ones, and probably my favorite graphics on the DS to date, Ghost Trick is definitely a winner.

Honorable Mentions: Pokémon Black/White; Super Mario 3D Land
Last Year’s Winner: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Best Downloadable Game

Bastion

Kate Jay: It’s not often that I download Xbox Live games, but then, it’s not often that games like Bastion come along to entice me. At a glance, this indie games seems like your typical RPG: a young hero sets out to save his world from destruction. However, Bastion takes a different approach to the whole “rebuilding the world” theme—the world literally rebuilds itself around you as you move around the richly colored isometric map. To make the experience even more unique, your adventure is narrated blow-by-blow in the mellow tones of Rucks, an NPC voiced by Logan Cunningham. Gameplay is fast paced, if a little repetitive, but the story moves pretty quickly, keeping the experience fresh. A sensational soundtrack rounds out this refreshing game, making it a must-buy for any RPG fans.

Honorable Mention: Trine 2
Last Year’s Winner: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

GameCola Staff Member of the Year

Alex Jedraszczak

Paul Franzen: A lot has changed since Alex (real name: Jeddy) first won this award in 2007. GameCola changed formats, from a monthly e-mail newsletter to an actual Internet website. All of our writers decided to grow magnificent beards. Our site started having actual fans. But while he won last time because he was the only person who consistently submitted his articles in on time, this year, he won because he helped bring GameCola to an all-new level in 2011—and the fact that we have actual fans now is due in no small part to him.

The GameCola Podcast, under the Jedraszczak regime, has way more listeners now than ever it had before. I mean, it has actual listeners now! Listeners who send us e-mails, ask us questions, record covers of our theme song on their saxophones, and draw pictures of us as the cast of Phoenix Wright. (Note: This hasn’t actually happened yet, but here’s hoping.) Kevin Leacock won this award last year for making the site much more accessible to new fans; this year, Jeddy’s winning for drawing those new fans to the site. Whether he’s role-playing as Metroid, singing the theme songs to old Nickelodeon shows, or just sitting back and letting us argue the merits of Ace Attorney Investigations, you can bet that, if you’re listening to a Jedrazcast, your next hour is going to be awesome.

And he still gets everything in on time, too. You can set your calendar by it.

Honorable Mentions: Matt Jonas, Christian Porter
Last Year’s Winner: Kevin Leacock

Game of the Year

Portal 2

Michael Ridgaway: Man, what was it with 2011 and awesome storytelling?

Portal 2 refined and added a lot to the platformer/puzzle elements from the first game for yet another amazing quantum-tunneling exploratory experience, but where it really shined was the story. In addition to the ever delightful GLaDOS, players were introduced to Wheatley and Cave Johnson, voiced by professional actors Stephen Merchant and J.K. Simmons, respectively. I’m not sure I ever stopped laughing while playing the game, and it very squarely fell into the category of “games I can only play with Vangie around or she will straight up cut me.”

Portal 2 proved that it was possible to tell an exciting, entertaining story in the context of an excellent game, and it raised the bar not just for videogames, but all other forms of media, as well.

Honorable Mention: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Last Year’s Winner: Heavy Rain

An adorable Blue Badger keychain! (Thankfully not based on the Proto Badger.)

Chibi Phoenix Wright stickers!

And, the *ahem* poo de grâce:

Phoenix Wright toilet paper!!!

Look for these items and more in a store near you never.

Fortunately, Metal Dead did not elicit any of these responses. Somewhere out there, Vangie is right now breathing a sigh of relief.

Created by Walk Thru Walls Studios and for sale on Indievania for $5, Metal Dead is an adventure game starring two metal-heads, Malcolm and Ronnie, as they attempt to solve the mystery of a zombie infestation plaguing their city. Their search leads them to the offices of the MediGeniTech company, where they encounter a number of other, mostly sane, survivors and proceed to solve a number of puzzles in order to escape the building and (hopefully) unravel the riddle of the undead plague. The narrative combines horror and comedy elements to provide a story that is both entertaining and surprisingly poignant at times.

OK, now that we’re through the obligatory funny introduction and background information, let’s get down to brass tacks: this is the first game from a small indie studio, and it’s not half bad! Walk Thru Walls manages to capture a lot of the feel of past adventure games (e.g., Monkey Island) while creating its own distinct style; I think they’ve done a great job, especially considering it’s their first attempt. The graphics are simple hand-drawn pictures animated with Flash. While the drawings are a little crude, they serve to enhance the indie feel of the game and give it a unique look. The sound design is equally simple, consisting of little more than a MIDI soundtrack and sfx, which does a lot of work at times to simulate heavy metal. If I have one gripe with the game, it’d be that the soundtrack wasn’t a little more extensive (what can I say, I’m a sucker for good soundtracks).

The game is short; I beat it in about five hours, but those five hours were pretty enjoyable. The puzzles are taxing without being frustrating, and the game provides a rather humorous system for giving hints. Jokes ranging from corny to crude to dark fill the game, and while Metal Dead is not up to Monkey Island levels in terms of zaniness, it manages to come close (also Malcolm accidentally steps in poop at one point, heh). Most of the game’s supporting characters seem to be drawn from the stock selection of “quirky” characters you see in a lot adventure/zombie games (e.g. the crazy gun guy, the gruff cop, the stoner, etc.), but there were a few that were actually pretty inspired, including the main antagonist (although I’ll leave the details as a surprise!). Additionally, the creators of the game went the extra mile of adding humorous achievements into the game, and I had a good time searching for them and chuckling at their referential nature once I found them.

Metal Dead is not without its flaws; but when the game is considered as a whole, these flaws tend to fall away, leaving a very solid adventure gaming experience. Considering its length and price, I highly recommend trying it some afternoon when you’re looking for something laid back and fun to do. Die-hard metal and/or zombie fans should also definitely give it a look. According to Walk Thru Walls, Metal Dead is only the first in a series of metal-inspired adventure games, and after playing their initial offering I’m rather excited to see what they come up with next.

Videogames, Sensory Deletion, and The Shadow Government

Videogames have been in the mainstream for over 30 years now, yet it seems we still can’t get through a year without the news media telling us “Those dadgum Intendo tapes are ruinin’ the chillin’s minds.”

Well, what if they’re right? What if there’s a game whose purpose is to burn away any capacity for dissent within you and transform you into a complaisant drone, devoid of any dreams, goals, or ambition, satisfied with whatever life hands you like a good do-bee?

The story of the mysterious arcade game Polybius suggests that this could be the case.

The Story

In 1981, a mysterious arcade cabinet suddenly started popping up around the suburbs of Portland, OR. The cabinet was solid black with one button, one joystick, and a marquee that read “Polybius.” Soon after it appeared, people started playing the machines and were immediately hooked. Word spread quickly, and lines constantly formed around the machines with people eager to play again. Owners of establishments which had these machines reported visits from mysterious men in black who would not collect marketing information or even quarters from the machines—they would only collect unknown data and leave. People who played Polybius reported that they experienced night terrors, amnesia, insomnia, memory loss, and even an inability to feel sadness¹.  The game is said to even be directly responsible for a few cases of suicide. Then, as suddenly as the machines appeared, they were gone. Many people who played the games eventually developed an aversion to videogames, and one even became an anti-videogame activist.

The first pieces of evidence for Polybius’s existence were limited to this screenshot of the main screen:

And this black-and-white photo of a Polybius cabinet:

The cabinet picture corroborates reports that it was an all-black cabinet with simplistic controls. The screenshot gives little information except for introducing the game’s designer, Sinnesloschen Inc. (which translates from German as “Sensory Delete”).

The Internet Has Their Say…

The story spread across the Internet in the early 2000s and, though its origins are not certain, the legend is thought to originate from a Usenet post. Eventually the story gained such notoriety that it even enjoyed a brief reference in an episode of The Simpsons.

The Internet being as it is, rumors started flying fast and furious with leads on Polybius’s origins and where it is now.

Many people claimed to have a copy of the original Polybius ROM, but all of them refused to release it, most saying that, the budding philanthropists that they are, they were afraid of the adverse health effects they may loose upon the world. How thoughtful. (Though, a recreation of how people thought the game would play is available at http://www.sinnesloschen.com/, a Polybius tribute site.)

The game was said to have been developed by Ed Rotberg (Battlezone), though stories have surfaced that Atari and possibly Sega were also involved. Some claimed that Polybius’s gameplay was similar to Atari’s Tempest, except that it utilized strobe effects, and instead of you moving your character directly, it was the entire maze around it that moved, creating an optical tunnel effect.

One piece of information that was uncovered and has been largely accepted as part of the Polybius mythos comes from a 2006 comment that appeared on CoinOp.com’s Polybius entry that purported to be written by Steven Roach, who identified himself as part-owner of Sinnesloschen. To summarize his post, Sinnesloschen was allegedly contracted by an unnamed company from the southern United States to develop a game they had an idea for. A story is told with great detail to attention about working environments, contracts, etc. Skip ahead a bit and the writer discusses a story about a kid who suffered an epileptic fit due to Polybius. However, they settled out of court, so no documentation exists. The “men in black” described in the story were explained as being company directors assessing the machines. If you want to read the full post, it’s on the coinop.com listing for Polybius in the comments on this page.

Coinop.org reported in 2009 that they were going to Ukraine to research a lead they got about Polybius, and that they would report on their findings once they got back. Three years later nothing has been posted. I’ve contacted Coinop.org but have not received a response as of the time of publishing. If they get back to me afterward I will update this article with any information they give me.

…And Nothing of Value Was Gained

All this information is great and all, and it’s a cool story—but does it hold water? First thing’s first, we have to separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out, of the information provided after the story was posted, how much is legit.

Let’s take a look at the two pictures that were originally released—the cabinet and the screenshot. Considering how easy these would be to Photoshop, it’s hard to call them evidence at all, so those are out.

But what of Ed Rotberg of Battlezone fame’s involvement? Well, it turns out he’s been interviewed about this before, so take it from the man himself:

“…I can state with confidence that I never saw or heard of, and certainly never worked on any game called Polybius. I understand that my name has somehow gotten connected to this game (if it ever existed), and have even seen some sites that purport to show the screen display, ‘game play’, etc. I have had nothing to do with any of those.” – Ed Rotberg²

So there goes Ed. We’re almost back to where we started, except for one thing: Steven Roach. If you read the story, it’s very detailed—but that’s what I think tarnishes its credibility. The story is too detailed, like the author was really trying to anchor himself into the Polybius story and win over skeptics with a glut of facts. The fact that they worked in portacabins, details on what district of Portland the kid who had an epileptic fit lived in, the fact that playtesting figures were collated—are these the details you’d include if you were telling the story? Ones you’d consider important? Hell, after 25 years are these even details you’d remember?

Coinop.org seems to agree.

“Quick update, we just wanted to go on record here that Steven Roach is full of himself, and knows nothing about this game. We have it on good authority. No, Polybius is not a Tempest prototype. No, Polybius is not a vector game. Does the title screen look vector? No, it does not.”- coinop.org May 16, 2009.³

These, however, are just opinions, not proof. I searched around the Internet for proof of Steven Roach’s identity and finally found it at the Retrogamer.net forums⁴.

It was a 150-post discussion, so I’ll give you the play-by-play:

• Steven Roach (Stevenroach) posts the same “I want to clear things up” spiel.
• User, Space_Ace and others reply that they are skeptical.
• Stevenroach answers some questions and says he may have more proof, but he will have to dig it up/get legal clearances.
• Users ask what the game was about.
• Stevenroach evades that “What’s the game about?” question for about three posts. After being grilled a bit, he divulges the info. It was action based but with number puzzles.
• Stevenroach gives the full backstory on the Sinneslöschen name—it was blurted out at the last minute by a co-worker when they were on the phone with their lawyer and needed to quickly come up with a business name.
• Enter Porkpie, a user that immediately defends Stevenroach and demands people being skeptical of him to apologize.
• Enter Baxter, a man with a background in the game industry who discusses why Polybius is very plausible and compliments Stevenroach’s writing.

The conversation died for a few months at this point, so I feel this is a good time for me to comment on something I thought was very strange. If you buy this story, then this means that the company, Sinnesloschen, which means “Sensory Delete” in German, accidentally made a videogame that allegedly deletes senses. If that’s the case, I’m going to start a company with this Steven Roach guy and we’re going to name it after the German words for “Blow Jobs and Ice-Cream Sundaes,” and see what happens.

Also, if you look at the conversation, people really had to grill him to get any information out of him about the game. Even very vague information—people were saying “just tell me if it was puzzle or action,” and it took quite a while for him to come out with it. That’s suspicious for someone who wanted to “set the record straight.”

Anyway, skip ahead a few months; the thread is revived and someone notices something important: that Stevenroach, Space_ace, Porkpie and Baxter—the most active commenters in the thread—have a suspiciously similar writing style. (And they do. Stevenroach, Space_ace and Porkpie, for example, all double space at the end of their post and sign their name. That’s uncommon in forums.) A mod researches and verifies that Stevenroach, Space_ace, Porkpie and Baxter are all coming from the same IP.

I’d say this pretty well debunks the whole Steven Roach story, but I’m nothing if not a good skeptic, so I’ll entertain the idea that it’s possible that the Stevenroach commenting on those forums isn’t the same as the original one from the Coinop.com messages. This seems a bit unlikely, though—the writing styles between the retrogamer.net and coinop.org personalities are very similar. His writing is reasonably eloquent, but a giveaway is that it’s overly descriptive, a desperate attempt to make his story seem anchored in reality. However, I think the case-closer here is the more damning fact that the retrogamer.net user Space_Ace, who was later found to be Stevenroach, registered his handle on March 17, 2006, three days before the Steven Roach post appeared on CoinOp.com. This soundly puts to bed the notion that Steven Roach plays a part in this story any greater than tacking a hoax backstory onto the original legend.

The Shadow Government: Malicious, Cunning, but Not Too Bright

A hobbyist’s recreated Polybius cabinet.

The biggest problem with the Polybius story itself and the data-harvesting G-men is one that is common to many the-government-is-evil-and-out-to-get-me conspiracy theories—it postulates the existence of an incredibly sly, technologically-advanced shadow government that is at the same time an evil genius capable of launching a mind-control device right under the public’s nose without their knowledge, and a bumbling moron so stupid that it achieved exactly zero of its goals. Add to this the fact that they supposedly have these amazing resources, yet they somehow didn’t have anyone talented enough to code the game in-house, so they had to outsource it to Sinneslöschen. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that rule number one in the Secret Evil Organization Handbook is “be self-contained.” Since they purportedly weren’t self-contained, this means they had no real control over the code of the game, so they would have had to actually explain to the coders at Sinneslöschen “Yes, we want it to be similar to Tempest, except this one erases all senses and life goals from the person playing it and gives them a feeling of lobotomized contentedness for the rest of their lives. Oh, and a love for toil, if you can fit it in.” Also, I’m no military strategist, but I’m pretty certain that the CIA almost certainly wouldn’t want other countries to know how our super-advanced mind-control devices work—that just seems like national security 101.

This brings me to the fact that Sinnesloschen means “sensory deleting,” which I’ve touched upon a bit already. Now the U.S. may be a pretty unilingual country on the whole, but if people were lining up to play this game at multiple locations for several weeks, then simple probability dictates that AT LEAST one person would know enough German to know what that says. They might not think anything of it at the time outside of “what a weird name for a company,” but later when they’re waking up screaming, having forgotten their childhood, unable to feel normal emotions, they might look back at that and think “You know, that might have been more literal than I initially thought.”

Also, regarding the men in black not taking the quarters—of course they wouldn’t. Generally, the game company doesn’t collect the quarters; the owners of the establishment the machine is in does. Then they usually write a check to the game company for the licensing/rental fees.

The Verdict

Some people say that the Polybius legend came about from a seed of truth: that a game in the 1980s (possibly a prototype of Tempest itself) caused epileptic seizures in those who played it, and the mystique of “men in black” and more creepy symptoms eventually were added to the story. Though that may have happened, frankly, I don’t believe that the Polybius myth is based on any truth at all. I will, however, admit that I believe something is missing in the story. If it began on Usenet, I think it’s been retold so much that a crucial piece was left out in the re-tellings—something tied to the game’s namesake, Polybius, an ancient Greek historian. You see, Polybius wasn’t just a historian; he was also a budding cryptographer, inventing a decoding tool named for him called the Polybius square.

A normal Polybius square, used for deciphering codes.

Maybe I’m just reading too deep into it, but this fact seems too good to be coincidence. Why choose Polybius, an obscure Greek historian, to name the game in your story after? Even Sinnesloschen means something related to the story, so it seems out of place for the game itself to be a completely randomly chosen name. I think there was a big punchline/scare at the end of the story that required the reader to recognize a code and decode it. However, even with that addition, since all the evidence crumbles upon any kind of inquiry, the story is still 100% fiction.

Some people ask “If the story is fake, why would someone just make it up?” Just a passing glance at YouTube will show what some people are willing to do for the chance at a soupçon of fame. Create a creepy enough story on Usenet or wherever, and you can take pride every time you hear about it online, in the news, or even in The Simpsons.

But even if somebody did dig up a legitimate ROM, I highly doubt that any videogame could have such a profound effect on one’s psyche that–

ALL GLORY TO POLYBIUS.

ALL GLORY TO POLYBIUS.

ALL GLORY TO POLYBIUS.

sources:
1.Polybius Theory
2.Den of Geek
3.CoinOp.org
4.RetroGamer.net forums

The Simpsons Arcade Game is a Konami beat ‘em up from a time when Konami made really good beat ‘em ups, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’ll be free to PlayStation Plus members starting on February 7, though no pricing or release date was mentioned for us regular folk. In November the game was rated for the 360 by the Australian games classification board, perhaps indicating a pending XBLA release, as well.

With four-player online co-op and—one hopes—a way to gain extra lives without jamming quarters into your console, this February could mark the first time that anyone has ever gotten to the end of this game. I call Marge.

I’ll believe it when I see it–

TOO CUTE. DAY ONE PURCHASE.

Well, this isn’t really news, is it? We already know the game features full-motion video, because we’ve been bombarded with it in each trailer.

It was revealed at said VIP party that these animated sequences are the work of BONES. That’s the studio responsible for Full Metal Alchemist, which just so happens to be one of my favourite series ever made.

Past triumphs clearly show that BONES can deliver truly beautiful animation, but that is the clincher: we want animation, damn and blast it.

Kind of makes you wish this was coming out for a good system.

I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say, “What we really want to see is a whole series of Phoenix Wright anime episodes.” Get on the blower to Capcom and let them know just how you’re feeling.

In other news, Capcom announced a fifth game in the series without confirming whether or not it would have a U.S. release. At the very least, there is no excuse if they don’t bring the iOS trilogy overseas. Running games from another region has never been a concern for mobile devices, and the games have already been translated before, so think of another excuse Capcom before CANCELLING THAT, TOO!

Why does Capcom like playing with us? In between ruining our lives and imitating infamous movies, Capcom should climb back up to the middle ground and offer us more of what we actually want. Face it, their recent output hasn’t been great, so they can start by bringing the Mega Man Legends 3 prototype to the Nintendo eShop as originally promised. Then we can work from there. Put your back into it, Capcom! SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

Sitting down for a few online matches can be a fun way to relax after a hard day at work or school. But it’s hard to avoid getting even more frustrated when we have to share our games with idiotic players.

In this column, we’ll talk about some of the worst offenders and how they end up corrupting the hell out of our gaming experiences, and we kindly invite you to…well, don’t be that guy.

You know the drill, right? Every single game with a multiplayer component has its whole assortment of cheap tactics and exploits that players abuse in order to defeat their adversaries.

There’s a lot of stuff to complain about if we’re talking about shooting games, like campers, noob-tubers, grenade spammers, bunny hoppers, etc. But cheap tactics aren’t exclusive to a particular genre; real-time strategy games have tankers and rushers; fighting games have shield-grabbers, turtles and cookie-cutter combos; and Mario Kart games have blue shells (that stupid blue shell!)

This month’s and incoming editions of “Don’t Be That Guy” are going to address those cheap tactics and playstyles. But unlike before, I’m not just telling you to stop using them; you already know that you shouldn’t. I’m asking you to stop complaining about them!

We need to understand something: We can’t fight the cause of this problem. Cheap tactics, game glitches, and physics exploits are part of every game; they’ve always been there and they always will be, and people are going to exploit them because the goal of every game is winning, and normal, reasonable people do what it takes—within the rules of the game—in order to do so.

Rather, we’re going to focus on the effects. I’ll try to make you aware that these cheap tactics are fair and perfectly normal. I’m not saying that they’re OK. No, I’m not! It’s perfectly fine to feel bothered about them, but yelling at random strangers online or cursing in message boards is not the solution, either.

So, What’s Cheap, Anyway?

We deride as cheap any kind of winning playstyle that we don’t think is as skillful as our own—and we get stuck on that idea because the way we choose to play is the way we think the game is supposed to be played.

Let’s face it: Online multiplayer games make everything look stupid. Just look at the current shooting games of this generation; there are people jumping around, roadie-runs and, apparently, nowadays combatants can survive multiple bullet wounds, but they’d die instantly at the first sign of stabbing.

That’s part of the reason we think some playstyles are cheap: because we play the “this doesn’t happen in real life” card.

Some people complain about games for being unrealistic, while others complain about games for being too realistic. There isn’t a standardized system for the sense of reality on every title; each one has its own set of rules, and you’ve got to accept them if you want to play it.

Don’t be…this guy!

But what happens when people are ruining your gaming experience by exploiting the game’s rules, physics, or glitches?

That’s easy. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to your game library or game store.
2. Pick a game, an entirely different game.
3. You’re done!

See? You’re not obligated to like every game, and you shouldn’t play a game you’re no longer enjoying, unless you consider yourself a masochist. Seriously, there are other games out there that might deserve your attention, and one of them could have everything you’re looking for.

But what if you really like that game, but you just can’t stand that thing (or sum of things) in particular? Well, let yourself be heard! But do it properly! Don’t yell at random strangers online, don’t troll around in message boards, and don’t send death threats to any game developer. Be smart. Be polite. Talk about it with your fellow gamers; write about it in your blog, favorite forum, or social network; and provide sensible feedback to the people in charge of the game.

Good developers and publishers pay attention to what people are saying about their games. They want their next titles to be sold; they’re not going to mess around if people are no longer enjoying their product. And in this modern era, companies can also update their games to address glitches and balance issues whenever necessary.

Remember the release of Gears of War 2? What a mess!

We’ll continue with this subject in the next edition of “Don’t Be That Guy.” For now, I invite you to read Vangie Ridgaway’s “Gamer Girlfriend: Candy Corn Games.” She did an excellent and funny analogy about why you don’t have to play a game you don’t like, no matter if everyone’s telling you that you should.

Thanks to Aubrey for the tip!

While there’s no word yet on when it’s coming out, whether it stars Phoenix Wright or He Who Must Not Be Named, or whether it’s coming out in the U.S., Court-Records.com confirms this morning that the big news Capcom has been hyping for Ace Attorney fans is indeed Ace Attorney 5.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Ace Attorney 5 has been “announced”—we’ve been hearing reports going so far back as 2007 that the game was under development. But at the time, the project was shelved so the developers could work on the Ace Attorney Investigations series (purportedly not due to poor sales, but due to poor fan reception of Apollo Justice).

Also announced this morning was an HD iOS port of the original Phoenix Wright trilogy.

[Edit: Notice Maya's chin. Now you can never un-notice it.]

Dodge this.

From first peek, Girl’s Dodge Ball looks like Dead or Alive Xtreme. This should have been ample reason to stay as far away as possible.

One interesting feature you may notice is that Girl’s Dodge Ball simply cannot be played. This game crashes before you can even imagine doing anything, as though it were a sentient lifeform ashamed of its own quality. It crashes constantly, consistently, in the same place. User reviews that point this out seem to vaporize from the AppStore. I doubt any company would hide their failures and fiddle with the scores to make themselves look better. It would be just as easy to fix the problems…right?

On the plus side, at least Girl’s Dodge Ball has the decency to stop all by itself. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 expects you to press the guide button and quit of your own accord.

Who is Gilr, and does he mind me using his select?

There are constant spelling and grammatical mistakes, though nothing on par with the atrocities seen in Dino Cap 2. I didn’t know that illiterate teenagers crafted games these days.

Whatever “achivements” are, they sure sound exciting. The game tries desperately to cover the spelling mistakes by having advertisements appear at the top of the screen. All of the advertisements I’ve seen might have been for games I don’t want to play, but at least you can play those games.

Well, I’ll just select which “gilr” I want to play as. You know what? Maybe “gilr” isn’t a spelling mistake. These characters certainly do not look human. There’s also only two to pick from. It isn’t possible to unlock the others; doing so requires spending virtual money.

You can earn the virtual money just by playing, but whenever I go to start the game, a remix of Chris Rea’s “On The Beach” plays and the iPod crashes back to the springboard. You can also buy the fake currency by spending real currency. If I discover that anyone has actually done this, I will forcibly remove their brains through their arsehole. It sounds really painful, but it shouldn’t be too hard to do, seeing as their  brains must already be swimming in stools to begin with.

“Funny App Game!” Try again—it’s neither funny, nor a game.

Aren’t there any nice things I can say about this game? No, not at all; there is absolutely nothing that even remotely springs to mind. While we’re talking about reasons why this game is flawed fundamentally, might I draw your attention to the title, which should be written as Girls’ not Gilr’s or Girl’s? Unless it is about one particular specific girl’s “dodgeball,” which it isn’t. The game doesn’t even function, so it could be about a magical ball for all we know.

It doesn’t matter any that the game is free to download; if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work! I find this ironic, considering that the latest update “fixes some bugs.” And now, for the score…

But wait! I recently came into acquisition of an iPad 2. As if by a Toca’s Miracle, Girl’s Dodge Ball actually runs on that system (while in iPhone App mode). Unfortunately, it operates poorly and has a graphical error that makes it hard to read your score.

The game is surprisingly entertaining, though. Collecting the unlockables is fun, although everything can be won in about half an hour if you put your mind to it. You have to avoid multi-colored dodgeballs thrown at you by pink shiny robot ladies. The ease in which you earn virtual money destroys the whole point in spending real money anyway, which is good, because buying virtual currency is a sin.

When I play this game on the platform it was intended for, though, it crashes every time. So the score still needs to reflect this. I hate to be a spoil-sport, but I am sticking to my guns with this rating.

Both characters, as well as Cole from inFAMOUS and Kuro and Toro from my nightmares will be exclusive to the PS3/Vita releases of Street Fighter X Tekken, which is set to drop in March. Kind of makes you long for DCW’s version of Mega Man, doesn’t it?