It’s not often that the GameCola staff gets together to do anything. We all hail from different parts of these here United States, as well as America’s hat, Canada, and America’s…thing that’s very far away from America, England. It really only happens once per year, if you don’t count all the podcasts and “Versus Modes” we do. And at that time of year, the GameCola staff unites with one single purpose in mind: to ignore my e-mails asking them to vote in the year-end awards. Jerks.

But eventually the votes come in, and the points are tallied. The awards are set in stone. Then more votes come in, and we quickly chisel away to re-stone the awards. And so it goes, until the dust (from the stones) settles and is wiped away to reveal…the article that you’re reading, right now, wrapped up warm in your Harry Potter snuggie, watching the snow fall outside your window, and wondering if you remembered to let the cat back inside.

What follows are the games that the GameCola staff, as a whole, posit to be the best games of the year of our lord, 2010. My apologies to Black Ops, Starcraft II, and Red Dead Redemption, and my much more sincere apologies to Excruciating Guitar Voyage, which I’ve previously described in GameCola as the greatest game of all time, and which didn’t receive so much as an “honorable mention” from our staff. Jerks.

But before we get to the awards themselves, I’d like to take a quick moment to thank all the people who contributed to writing this article, without whom none of this would be possible, mostly because I haven’t played Mass Effect 2 yet:

• Matt Jonas, reviewer and video-er,
• Christian Porter, author of “Top of the Heap,” “Poor Player’s Paradise,” various reviews, and frequent podcast and video contributor,
• Jeff Day, author of “Gamera Obscura” and proprietor of random.access,
• Vangie Ridgaway, author of “Gamer Girlfriend” and enabler of Michael Ridgaway,
• Michael Ridgaway, author of “Quantum Geek” and frequent podcast contributor,
• Kate Jay, author and artist of “The Gates of Life,”
• Eric Regan, author of “Captain Eric’s Psychic Thumbs” and creator of fantastic MS Paint art,
• Michael Gray, whose contributions to the site are too many to list here,
• Elizabeth Medina-Gray, staff editor as well as author of “testgame.exe: Making the Adventure,”
• And, finally, me.

Now, on with the flame-bait!

Best Licensed Game

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Matt Jonas: How can this be the same Ubisoft that slaughtered Turtles in Time?

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is based on the motion picture directed by Edgar Wright, and the comic book series by Bryan Lee O’ Malley. It is a series heavily influenced by videogames. To coincide with the theatrical release, Ubisoft produced this fantastic Xbox Live and PlayStation Network title, which combines the gameplay of Final Fight and River City Ransom in a way that many others should learn from. Filled to the brim with references to classic videogames, Scott Pilgrim may be forgiven for its freezing issues, because it stays true to both the movie adaptation and the comic, sharing the greatest elements of both.

Honorable Mention: Epic Mickey
Last Year’s Winner: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Best Remake/Re-release

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge

Christian Porter: Step One in making a good remake is to give a rat’s ass about the source material. If you don’t care about it, then you’re just going to pump out utter garbage. Thankfully, LucasArts still cares at least a little about its adventure games of yesteryear. Monkey Island 2: Special Edition pays every bit as much attention to detail as the last Monkey Island remake they put out, and it’s still every bit as fun and entertaining.

Honorable Mention: Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals
Last Year’s Winner: The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Best New Character

Sheep Man
(Mega Man 10)

Jeff Day: Amidst all the incredible, emotional, and downright heartwarming characters that graced our screens this past year…one has to wonder why the HELL we turned them all away in favor of an ovine robot.

Aside from the obvious obsession that GameCola has with Mega Man games, there’s just no possible way we could turn our backs on the cuddliest character of 2010. Look at him! He’s soft! He’s adorable! And he packs some serious killer Thunder Wool. He could definitely use some of that wool to crochet his enemies…to their graves! Beyond warming our hearts with his soft exterior, Sheep Man is one bad motherfleecer that you should keep both eyes on at all times.

Bonus Factoid: Even in this terrible economic crisis, he was able to maintain some level of steady employment this past year, first as a sheepherder, and then in a circuit board manufacturing plant, before settling on Dr. Wily’s minion. Sheep Man must have one dynamite resumé!

Honorable Mention: John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)
Last Year’s Winner: Morgan LeFlay (Tales of Monkey Island)

Most Innovative

Heavy Rain

Vangie Ridgaway: This year’s Heavy Rain offers a bevy of innovations that make it well worth playing. The most significant innovation, of course, is the extent to which player actions influence the plot of the story. Bear in mind, this is no Fallout, where player freedom is so important that plot is almost secondary to exploration in the game. Story is everything in Heavy Rain, and every choice you make carries consequences, some of which are immediate, while some are so far down the road that you could have no way of knowing in advance what is “right.”

Heavy Rain is also innovative in its de-emphasis of combat and its deliberate focus on real motions and movements that people make every day. Buttons and joystick motions aren’t just used to move forward and attack; they allow your character to swing a golf club, rub balm onto a burn, and even rock a baby to sleep. In the same way that the story adaptation mechanism serves to make you think like the characters, this mechanic allows you to feel and move as them, thereby further increasing the immersion factor of the game.

Honorable Mention: Minecraft
Last Year’s Winner: Scribblenauts

Best Story

Alan Wake

Kate Jay: Do not go gently into that good night. At least, not unless you’re packing a flashlight. In Alan Wake, light is the key to overcoming the people and objects that have been consumed by an evil dark energy. The theme of darkness is often played out in horror games and cheap paperback novels; however, Alan Wake stands out from your typical “fight the shadows” game. It has a compelling (if short) storyline that one can easily imagine as a horror novella, or as an episode from “The Twilight Zone.” This very literary feel is appropriate, given the fact that the story revolves around the famed horror writer, Alan Wake. The game is riddled with narrative aspects: Alan narrates certain cutscenes as though writing a novel. You can also read pages from a mysterious manuscript that sometimes dictate events yet to occur in your gameplay. The game is infused with background factoids about the local people and places, further enriching the game’s story.

Characters play an equally important role in moving the story along: Alan’s brooding and mysterious writer persona is often counterbalanced by a welcome infusion of humor in the people he meets. Along the way, you meet a local stalker, a floating man in a diving suit, and two aged rockers who think they’re Nordic gods, just to name a few. It’s these quirky interactions that help keep the plot from getting too dark or convoluted.

As with a good book, you’ll find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat, ready to turn the next page—if you’re not afraid of going out in the dark to find it, that is.

Honorable Mentions: Red Dead Redemption, Nier, Heavy Rain
Last Year’s Winner: Tales of Monkey Island

Most Disappointing

Metroid: Other M

Michael Ridgaway: Metroid: Other M is not a bad game, and compared to many other games it’s pretty fantastic. If it were in an original setting with original characters and was developed by some smaller studio, we’d be lauding it as the sleeper hit of the year. But it’s not. It’s a Metroid game developed by Nintendo and Team Ninja, and as such expectations were extremely high. When the story, characters, and gameplay were found lacking, people were upset. As a fan of the series it was hard for me to be less than blown away by a Metroid, and this sentiment was echoed throughout reviews and discussions, both on GameCola and other sites, regarding the game.

(Dis)Honorable Mention: Final Fantasy XIII
Last Year’s Winner: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time Re-Shelled

Funniest Game

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Matt Jonas: No More Heroes 2 knows that it’s funny. It constantly acknowledges the fourth wall and uses excessive amounts of bad language, just for the sake of it. Sex and drug references aside, the obscure anime-styled sequences will either have you rumbling on the floor in hysterics, or laughing through complete confusion. The violence is disgusting, but it’s so disgusting that it’s actually bloody amusing. This makes No More Heroes 2 a game that you’d be a fool to miss. It’s extremely witty and thoroughly off-its-head. Although this marks the endzone for Travis Touchdown, we will always appreciate how his humor can overshoot the gap.

Honorable Mention: Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
Last Year’s Winner: Tales of Monkey Island

Best New Peripheral

Pokéwalker

Michael Ridgaway: The Pokéwalker is a little pedometer that comes packaged with every copy of Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver and allows you to train your Pokémon, capture new Pokémon, and obtain items that you can then transfer to your game. These functions are enabled by collecting “watts,” which are generated by real-life user movement (although some cheaters, myself included, occasionally resort to just shaking the device). It actually expands the experience of the game quite a bit by giving players something to do in-between game sessions, and it incentivizes exercise. Most importantly, though, it’s FREE, and once you have it you might as well use it…

Honorable Mentions: Game Boat, Wii Inflatable Racing Kart
Last Year’s Winner: A cardboard box (Let’s Tap)

Best Multiplayer

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

“Captain” Eric Regan: Usually when you’re thinking about the best multiplayer game of the year, you’re thinking about a big-budget, big-name title. Not here at GameCola, though! Boy oh boy, do we love our downloadable titles at GC.

There were many worthy titles out there, but Scott Pilgrim took home this year’s faaaaabulous prize. Now, I really hate using the phrase “old-school” in any way, but it’s a term that probably best explains what makes this title just so much fun. Much like the comic and the movie it’s based on, the game takes many pages from the days when videogames were just finding their feet. It’s very reminiscent of classic games like the Ninja Turtle arcade games, Double Dragon, and River City Ransom, but with modern touches, like the ability to revive your fallen companions, and more in-depth combos. It’s a really easy game to get engrossed in, and the experience increases by leaps and bounds the more people you have playing! While you can’t play Scott Pilgrim online (yet?), it does allow for one fantastic couch co-op experience!

Honorable Mentions: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Last Year’s Winner: Borderlands

Best Indie Game

Super Meat Boy

Paul Franzen: Anyone who’s listened to The GameCola Podcast, or been a fan of the site for a while, or…read anything I have ever written for GameCola, knows that I’m God-awful at videogames. It’s kind of embarassing. So why, then, would I ever like this game? Why would I enjoy Super Meat Boy—a game whose major selling point is pain?

Simple: Because the game makes losing super, super fun.

With one simple mechanic—an instant replay that showcases every single one of your failures simultaneously after you beat a level—the game goes from “depressingly challenging” to “YES! I died again! I can’t wait to see what that looks like!” It also helps that the core gameplay mechanics are fun—I’ve always been a fan of running very fast, and jumping, and meat. But what really makes this game great to me is that it takes the frustration out of losing, and that’s worth so much more than a game about playing with dirt.

Runner Up: Minecraft
Last Year’s Winner: N/A

Best PC Game

Mass Effect 2

Christian Porter: BioWare has truly raised the pick-three-people-from-a-group-of-a-dozen-or-so-and-embark-on-a-story-heavy-action-RPG-adventure genre they like so much to an art form with Mass Effect 2. The gameplay is similar to but tuned up from the already great original Mass Effect, building up the story nicely for the third and final chapter. There’s tons of gameplay, and the game has excellent graphics—or, you could say it’s a game with a lot of mass, and excellent effects!

Get it?! It only took me four years to come up with that one.

Honorable Mentions: Fallout: New Vegas, Minecraft
Last Year’s Winner: Tales of Monkey Island

Best Console Game

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Michael Gray: Super Mario Galaxy 2 is absolutely amazing. Having two Super Mario games for the same console is amazing enough, but Super Mario Galaxy 2 delivers a great gameplay experience by building upon the solid formula that Super Mario Galaxy created. The sequel is twice as long as the original, and it has loads of new material that gamers will enjoy, such as Yoshi, Cloud Mario, and 40% more screentime for Luigi. It’s an undeniably fun experience for fans of the Mario series (i.e. everyone), and everyone agrees that it is the best console game this year. If you don’t count the console game that won Game of the Year, of course.

Honorable Mention: Red Dead Redemption
Last Year’s Winner: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Best Portable Game

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray: The Phoenix Wright series introduced us to a cast of wonderful characters and intriguing story-driven cases to solve, and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth continues the spirit of the series in a big way. There are new friends to meet, villains to bring to justice, and old characters from the original trilogy to randomly run into. Plus, you get to play as Edgeworth, who is—and I’m being conservative here—completely and utterly awesome. Especially enjoyable for those who have played the first three Phoenix Wright games, Ace Attorney Investigations is a solid adventure-style portable game, and one of the best games of 2010.

Honorable Mention: Valkyria Chronicles 2
Last Year’s Winner: Scribblenauts

Best Downloadable Game

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Michael Ridgaway: I enjoyed the Scott Pilgrim books and movie, but I swear the game is actually the best version of the series. (A movie and book based on a videogame-ish world work best as a videogame—go figure). Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game is pretty much a straight-up homage to River City Ransom, one of the greatest NES games ever, and it duplicates all the best mechanics from that game while introducing a few new ones. Additionally, the graphics by Paul Robertson and the music by Anamanaguchi are fantastic (I listen to the soundtrack at least once a week), and the multiplayer mode is top-notch, as well.

Honorable Mention: Mega Man 10
Last Year’s Winner: Trine

GameCola Staff Member of the Year

Kevin Leacock

Paul Franzen: If you aren’t a long-time GameCola reader, you might not even know who Kevin Leacock is; after all, in 2010, he only wrote like two actual articles. But be that as it may, you’re definitely familiar with his work. Intimiately.

Do you remember GameCola’s dark ages? Think back. Here’s a hint: We used to look like this. Kevin’s the reason we don’t anymore. Kevin ripped us from the evil clutches of an early 90s Geocities-inspired web design—clutches that we weren’t necessarily willing to be uncluctched from. Kevin, with the help of a few other staff members who will remain anonymous because they didn’t win any awards this year, built the all-new GameCola.net from the ground-up. It’s because of Kevin that we’re all here today—if it weren’t for him, we’d probably have all been here a few days ago, because GameCola’s old-school issues usually published around the first of the month. But that’s besides the point. Kevin took the rotting husk of a website designed by an incompetent me, and he turned it into something we can actually be proud to look at and access, instead of just thinking “well, the content’s great, but the ugliness of the site has this bad tendency to melt my eyeballs.” Kevin brought dignity, sleekness, and modernity to GameCola.net, and for that we’re all unrelentlessly thankful.

Technically, of course, he did all this in 2009, but since the site launched in early ‘10, it still counts. Thanks Kev!

Honorable Mentions: Matt Jonas, Michael Gray
Last Year’s Winner: Michael Gray

Game of the Year

Heavy Rain

Vangie Ridgaway: It’s not often that a game comes along that is so completely immersive, so shockingly brutal, and so terrifyingly life-like that you stay up all night, not just trying to escape the nightmares, but agonizing with yourself over whether or not you made the right decisions. Enter Heavy Rain, a mystery/psychological thriller game with a story that is more compelling than many movies of the same genre. But Heavy Rain offers more than just suspense. Its gameplay format forces you to become the characters, to live in their skin, to make their choices for them…and to accept the consequences. As you move forward in the game, the story adapts to your actions, and insists on holding you responsible for them. With so much on the line, players are forced to examine their own values and ethics, and to make decisions that range from the “morally gray” to the downright agonizing. Even so, the game moves ruthlessly forward, ever demanding an answer to the question that lies at the very heart of the game: How far would you go to save someone you love? The answer, be it terrifying or uncomfortable, lies only in you.

Honorable Mentions: Red Dead Redemption, Fallout: New Vegas
Last Year’s Winner: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Mass Effect 2: $24

Amazon.com is currently selling the Xbox 360 version of Bioware’s sci-fi action-RPG epic Mass Effect 2 for $24. This is an incredibly good deal, especially considering that the PS3 version costs nearly three times that amount. Also of note, if you haven’t picked up the original I would suggest doing so at $20, also on Amazon. Two must-have Xbox games, twice as many alien broads to nail and about 100 hours of time-suck for $44. Not too shabby.

Street Fighter IV: $15

If you’re looking for some fighting action, you’re probably looking for Street Fighter IV, and for $15 why the hell wouldn’t you be? Like the above, it’s Xbox 360 only, I’m afraid. The PS3 version costs about twice as much for some reason.

Blue Dragon: $10

If you’re anything like me, you rue the slow demise of traditional turn-based RPGs. Even Final Fantasy, the archetypal turn-based RPG, is slowly integrating action into their games, as evidenced in their newest game Walk a Few Steps, Kill Something and Repeat Until the Game Ends XIII Final Fantasy XIII.

Thankfully Blue Dragon plays like a classic RPG. It’s a bit weak on story, but for $10 it’s an absolute steal.

Oh, and sticking with the theme of shafting PS3 owners, it’s an Xbox exclusive.

Alter Ego: Free

Admittedly, this one isn’t so much of a game as it is a psychological experiment. It’s surprisingly capable at sucking you in and killing an hour or two, though.

It’s essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure game in which you navigate the development of a person from birth to death. Play as a jerk, and you’ll set your house on fire and die in the smoldering wreckage. Play as a nice guy…and you’ll probably still just die of cancer at the age of 30 a week after your mom dies in a car wreck. Hey, I said it was free; I didn’t say it would cheer you up.

And hey, lucky you, PS3 owners. It’s browser-based, so you can play it on the PS3. That’s a feather in your cap that you can wear proudly in your next heated PS3 vs Xbox forum post.

But wait, there’s more…

Two out of three of these deals are from Amazon.com, which charges you a shipping cost for any orders under $25. Now, if you buy both games, problem solved. However, if you already have one or just don’t want one of them, you can always pick up a filler item. There’s several services that will help you find a suitable filler item, including:

http://www.fillerchecker.com/
http://slickdeals.net/slickfillers/
http://filleritem.com/

Welcome back to the GameCola Top 50 Videogames, etc., etc. Now that you’ve had time to absorb and digest #50-31 on last week’s list, it’s time to move on to #30-11. This week we’ve got shape-shifting vampires, aspiring buccaneers, and a diminutive space prince, just to name a few. So, take a look-see through Part Two of our top 50 and let us know in the comments what you think.

30. Okami

Who’s to blame:
Elizabeth Medina-Gray – #4
Jeff Day – #16

In Okami, you play as Amaterasu, a sun goddess in wolf form, who must save the world from eternal darkness. Yes, you play as a wolf who’s also a god. This game is awesome.

The world of Okami is based on classical Japanese mythology, and one of the most immediately impressive things about the game (after the wolf-god thing, of course) is that every aspect of the game’s design plays off of this classical Japanese theme. From the stunningly beautiful pseudo-brush-stroke graphics, to the background music, to the main gameplay mechanic—drawing on the screen with a magical paint brush to affect the environment—everything about this game fits together perfectly, and it’s all so cool. Playing as Amaterasu feels like living in (and helping to create) a richly detailed work of art.

On top of its obviously impressive and innovative design, however, Okami is raised to the level of “great game” through its story and gameplay. The world of Okami is filled with engaging (and often, funny) characters to talk to, inventive dungeons to complete, and challenging enemies to fight. The paintbrush mechanic is exceedingly fun and rewarding (and surprisingly easy to control with the PS2 controller once you get used to it), allowing Amaterasu to do everything from drawing the sun in the sky, to directing a stream of fire, to making trees bloom—and all of these are essential to the game’s progress. Okami is, overall, a great game because it has a solid story, engaging gameplay, astounding visuals, and a lot of heart.

-Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray

29. Mega Man X

Who’s to blame:
David Donovan – #7
Michael Ridgaway – #14

If it weren’t for Mega Man X, I may never have grown up to love heavy metal as much as I do. When I first popped the game into my SNES all those years ago, I was expecting something along the lines of the last Mega Man game I played (6, I think). What I got was a title screen that blew my mind with an awesome metal theme song and crisp new graphics. The rest of the game did not disappoint, with the graphics providing colorful and detailed worlds that were as much fun to look at as they were to play and the music providing an awesome soundtrack that kept my little heart pounding the entire time.

Mega Man X took the Mega Man series to the next level by incorporating new mechanics such as the wall-kick and dash, by including more exploration and collectibles, and by including more of a story within the game’s action. It’s not without its flaws—for instance, the game’s final boss is notoriously tedious to beat, and this is a task I’ve only ever managed once or twice in my life—but overall the game sports an incredible level of polish and refinement. The X franchise has declined in recent years, but there will always be a special place in my heart for the one that came first and the unending love of metal it imparted on my tiny being.

-Michael Ridgaway

28. Rock Band 2

Who’s to blame:
Zach Rich – #5
Matt Jonas – #17
Christian Porter – #23

Whoever said that playing the real thing rather than these plink-a-dink toys was more fun…is still right. But for the sake of pick-up-and-play party fun, I’ve yet to encounter a game better than Rock Band 2. This game gets everything perfect: the look and feel of the rise of a rock band, the customization to make the band all your own, and a setlist that is absolutely killer—not to mention the other 1,000+ songs now available through DLC. There aren’t that many games launched in 2008 that still have the support and community that Harmonix has brought to RB2, and with a Green Day expansion and the next numbered title coming to us further down the line, the best rhythm game of all time is looking to become a hell of a lot better. Now…a little Porcupine Tree, Harmonix, if you will.

-Zach Rich

27. Lufia II

Who’s to blame:
Matt Gardner – #1
Elizabeth Medina-Gray – #13

Hands down, the greatest thing to have ever happened. Lufia II achieved an impeccable level of balance of RPG elements, creating an immersive experience that doesn’t once trip you up with excessive grinding, poor level design, boring characters, or other issues that have long plagued the RPG genre. The dungeons are well-designed, filled with fun puzzles and ZERO random encounters. The visuals are great, and the music is simply astounding. There are fun minigames and diversions, as well, such as raising capsule monsters to join you in battle, and winning bitchin’ new weapons from casinos. This game also contains one of the most compelling reimaginations of the classic “heroes save the world from evil” story ever. From an RPG standpoint, this game does everything right.

-Matt Gardner

26. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Who’s to blame:
David Donovan – #6
Nathaniel Hoover – #8

The Star Wars games have always been a curious anomaly: licensed games that are actually good. Not only have they frequently been good, but at times they’ve even been ground-breaking. I won’t pull a trick from the Nintendo Book of Marketing and claim that Jedi Knight is really a “first-person adventure,” but the immense and varied level design (that often places a surprising emphasis on platforming and adventure elements) leaves you with a sense that you are playing something more than just another FPS. This is not to say that Jedi Knight disappoints in terms of Stormtrooper-slaughtering mayhem. Why shoot enemies when you can choke them with the Force? Why choke them when you can shoot them while you’re choking them? Add in lightsaber duels, a Rancor fight (in the Mysteries of the Sith expansion), and the complete absence of midi-chlorians, pod racing, or Jar Jar Binks, and you’ve got one of the most solid and memorable Star Wars games ever.

-David Donovan

25. Katamari Damacy

Who’s to blame:
Elizabeth Medina-Gray – #12
Paul Franzen – #18
Jeff Day – #19
David Donovan – #20

What can I say? Katamari Damacy is just one of those games that excels at fun. Cute, funny, quirky (make that extremely quirky) but also very challenging, Katamari Damacy has something for both the casual and the serious gamer. OK, I don’t know how “serious” one can actually be while rolling a giant sticky katamari around the world and gathering up objects/people/buildings/etc., but you know what I mean. Katamari Damacy is on this list because it is crazily innovative (i.e. weird), addictive, and full of innocent fun (unless someone somehow wants to see the rolling-up-maidens level as not so innocent). Plus, the soundtrack is really great. The various sequels are good too, of course, but the original Katamari Damacy wins, overall, for its originality and just plain awesomeness.

-Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray

24. Final Fantasy VI

Who’s to blame:
Christian Porter – #6
Mark Freedman – #18
Justin Luschinski – #21
David Donovan – #23
Michael Ridgaway – #24

Before Square tried to sink its flagship by loading it full of pretty cutscenes and hoping we didn’t notice that the story and gameplay got shittier with every passing game, they used to actually try to make it one of the finest game franchises around. Never was this more clear than with the release of Final Fantasy VI.

It was ahead of its time in graphics, audio and gameplay, but FFVI’s enthralling storyline is what truly made this game a classic. It served as one of the greatest kicks in the videogame industry’s collective ass that if the industry is going to progress, we’re going to need deeper plot lines than “save the princess” or “beat that bad guy ’cause he’s bad.” FFVI paved the way for the complex storytelling of today’s games like Ninjabread Man Mass Effect or Metal Gear Solid.

-Christian Porter

23. Fallout 3

Who’s to blame:
Mark Freedman – #2
Paul Franzen – #21
Justin Luschinski – #23
Matt Jonas – #23

One of the greatest games ever…there’s just so much to do, and you can do it any way you want. The post-apocalyptic future world is your oyster. Jimmy is looking for his daddy. Maybe he can’t find him because he’s held captive by the Super Mutants, or maybe he can’t find him because you blew his head off. The choice is yours. Whether you’re a nice guy, a bad guy, or somewhere in between, there’s nearly endless possibilities. Part RPG, part shooter—this game has it all.

-Mark Freedman

22. The Secret of Monkey Island

Who’s to blame:
Paul Franzen – #11
Michael Ridgaway – #14
David Donovan – #17
Nathaniel Hoover – #22

Part of what makes The Secret of Monkey Island grab us by our hearts and just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze is that, at its core, it’s a game about wishes and dreams. (I’m being serious now; this is me being serious.) Forget about the treasure hunting, the insult sword-fighting, and even the rubber-chicken-with-a-pulley-in-the-middle; when the game opens with that beautiful star-lit night sky, and the hero introduces himself by saying “My name’s Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate!”, we’re hooked. From that point on, the game might be mostly silly jokes about dairy farmers and leather jackets, but it starts with a tone of hope and ambition that sticks with us throughout all the pointing and clicking.

So what’s the game actually about? It’s the classic story of a young dreamer and his quest to become a grog-swilling, gut-stabbing, wench-wooing pirate—a quest that you get to help him with by picking up objects, combining objects, using objects, giving objects to others, and fooling people into believing that there is a three-headed monkey standing directly behind them. It wasn’t the first point-and-click adventure game, but its sense of humor, charm, music, loveable main character, story of hope, and total lack of any way for you to die without trying made it by far the best of its time, and, arguably, still one of the best today.

-Paul Franzen

21. Final Fantasy VII

Who’s to blame:
Matt Jonas – #5
Christian Porter – #12
Elizabeth Medina-Gray – #20

Revitalizing the role-playing genre through more than just the transition from 2D to 3D, Final Fantasy VII became the benchmark for all other RPGs. This three-disc behemoth has everything that was possible at the time—a gripping story, fantastic characters, a massive soundtrack, cutting-edge graphics—and they still had room for full-motion video!

The story has a very strong eco-friendly theme, and it takes you by the hand all the way through, chock full of surprises and suspense and other awesome words beginning with “s.” It is considered the best game in the series by many, including myself.

-Matt Jonas

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In this edition of The GameCola Podcast, Zach Rich loses his cell phone. Also, he, Christian Porter, and Justin Luschinksi talk about:

• What games they’re playing now: RPGs, Borderlands, LittleBigPlanet and more
• Bad voice acting
• The Dreamcast
• 3D movies and 3D TV are bad.
• Christian Porter was scarred for life after watching 3D porn.
• Pokémon Black and White? Oh no…
• It’s the last weekend to play Xbox 1 games on Xbox Live. They go offline on Thursday!
• Green Day: Rock Band
• Broadway musicals
• We will buy Super Mario Galaxy like the good little sheep we are.
• The beta for Halo: Reach is coming soon.
• People on Xbox Live are jerks.
• NES cart harmonica now conveniently for sale.
• Christians Retro ≠ Good article about Castlevania
• Red Letter Media’s hilarious movie reviews
• 8-bit Theater is ending.
• Zach and the other six people will be psyched about Hydro Thunder Hurricane.
• Mega Man 9’s programmers confused “being challenging” with “being an asshole.”
• Games our podcasters are looking forward to playing
• Zach loses his cell phone, and he is no longer able to contribute to the podcast.
• Games that should have sequels, but do not: Star Force Gemini, Okami and Soul Blazer
• Possible Rock Band games
• The Gigyas theory: The final battle of EarthBound is a metaphor for an abortion.
• We want Mother 3, but all we’re getting are spoilers for it in Super Smash Bros.
• Duke Nukem Forever is really coming this time.

Enjoy!

GameCola Podcast #23: Zach’s Lost Cell Phone

You’re welcome.

Yes, I’ve recently become obsessed with Bioware’s latest Shooter-That-Sort-Of-Plays-Like-An-RPG thing, and so far I am having a good time with it. The option to bring over your first character is definitely a nice bonus, and I find that the combat is a huge step forward from the previous game’s sticky, half-assed tactical combat. There are a few problems I do have with the game, such as how it plays more like Gears of War with dialogue trees, but I don’t want to talk about the game itself; I want to talk about a theory I have concerning the human race.

“If it exists, humanity has, or will, try to bone it at some point.”

Let me give you the setup: In most Bioware games, you have the option of seducing one or more of your party members into doing the mattress mombo with your little Jedi Knight. In Mass Effect, male characters could choose between the hardened god-fearing soldier, Ashley, and the naïve nerdy blue alien, L’iara. Suprisingly enough, most of the people I knew wanted to get it on with L’iara, and didn’t even give Ashley the time of day. I can totally understand this, because Ashley came off as a racist bitch to me and was willing to screw over our team members because “they weren’t human,” but what’s interesting to me is what people were campaigning for to be in Mass Effect 2.

They wanted to have more romance options. Specifically with more of the aliens.

Which shouldn’t be possible.

Posted for referance. Don't get any ideas.

It’s hilarious to me because you know that the developers at Bioware took a look at most of the forum comments and were freaked the hell out. “Wait a minute, you want to have sex with WHO?! The freaking Turian? It looks like the love child between an Elite from Halo and a grasshopper! What is wrong with you people? And you want to screw Tali, the creature with an immune system so weak that she could get cancer by opening up her visor to eat a cheeseburger?! Don’t you guys care about the gameplay? Oh Jesus, how are we going to make this work?”

It’s not that I’m racist or anything—hell, I was the one whom tried to get a threesome going between Ashley and L’iara in the first game—but it just bewilders me how persistent some of you buggers are. Inter-species relationships are next too impossible on Earth; how do you think we’d fare with aliens? How do you know that Turians have the parts we need to have sex? What makes you so sure sex is pleasurable to them? Hell, the only race of animals that has sex for pleasure other than us is dolphins, and you don’t see women lining up at Sea World for that reason. At least I hope not. That’s not even mentioning Tali, who I’m pretty sure would melt if you so much as took off her helmet.

This isn’t just for Mass Effect; this is for almost every other sci-fi universe. How many aliens has James Kirk let his little captain boldly go where no man has gone before? I specifically remember this green alien from the original series—whats the deal with that? How does he know that she can have sex the same way? What if there’s nothing down there? What if she exchanges DNA by holding hands? What if she has a bunch of spikes down there as a defense mechanism against sexual predators and Otaku?

With most discussions of Mass Effect 2, that was the first and last thing anyone talked about. There wasn’t any mention of the gameplay; there wasn’t any real speculation on the story; the common cry was, “Will I finally be able to tap that synthetic ass?”

Is this really how we are as a race? Are we so sexually frustrated that we can’t think of anything better to do with an alien species but try to screw it? Why must we turn this game into an episode of The Bachelor? IN SPACE! I’m not saying that there shouldn’t EVER be any sort of relationship, but I’d like to think we as a species will worry about more things than the potential to get our rocks off when we are conquered by our hot blue alien overlords.

And if you must know, yes I’ve got my sights set on Tali, you sick buggers.

….

DON’T JUDGE ME!

(The author would like to note that the game is pretty awesome and you should buy it.)

In my defense, though, videogame news tends to be really boring.  It’s all about companies I don’t know promoting games I’ve never heard of.  Most news stories look something like this:

Company A Thinks Game X Will Be
A Best-Seller

Company A’s Vice President of Marketing made an official statement today saying that they are planning on sales of Game X to increase profit during the spring quarter. “We hope the game sells in the millions,” said Mr. Doodlebug today. ”A strong first quarter will be a great way to start off the year.”

Some variation of that story appears at least twice a week on gaming news sites.  And if that’s news, I’ll eat my hat, by jingo.

So, that’s why we here at “Carbonated News” don’t give news updates every day, or week, even.  There’s just not that much news we can find that’s interesting enough.  Well, that and we’re lazy.  Why else would we write a column about December so late that it’s already two weeks into January?

Anyway, here’s the news for December 2009:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 made over $500 million in its first week of sales. Attempting to capitalize on the game’s popularity, President Obama ordered that 30,000 new troops be sent into Afghanistan. What can we say? The man is certainly dedicated to generating new jobs for Americans.  The President later went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize, although we have no idea how.
• Assassin’s Creed 2 is releasing downloadable content in January and February. Few details have been released about the DLC, besides the fact that they’re both 1 GB in size and…whoa, what? 1 GB? Seriously? Man, I remember when people thought a game was big if it was 3 MB.
• On Days of our Lives, it was finally revealed that Nicole switched her baby with Sami’s. She attempted to flee the country with Baby Sydney, only to be knocked unconscious at a bus station by a mysterious stranger.  The baby was once again kidnapped, this time by Anna Dimera.  Meanwhile, our heroes are going crazy in their attempts to find the little child.
• Various celebrities I don’t know are providing voices for Mass Effect 2.  Mr. Doodlebug, EA’s Vice President of Marketing, made a statement about how he hopes this will increase the game’s sales.

• Sony started planning the release of the PlayStation 4, ten years ahead of time.  This is because they expect the PS3 will last for at least ten years, and…ugh.  The PlayStation 4?  It’s too early to be talking about that!
• Nintendo responded to Sony by saying the Wii 2 is also in development.  Their Vice President of Marketing, Ikoru Doodlebug-san, says we can expect it to have revolutionary technology.  Something we have never seen before.  According to patents filed by Nintendo’s development crew—I am not making this up—this technology involves the ability to save games to the Wii console itself instead of using a memory card.  How revolutionary!
• Not wanting to be left out, Microsoft also made a statement about its next-generation console, but we were tired of hearing about consoles we won’t see in at least three years, by jingo.
• Mega Man 10 is being released next year.  While this is good news for Mega Man, the details about the game that were released are…odd, to say the least.  Specifically, information was released on a boss named Sheep Man.

Source: Nintendo Power. No, really.

• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is being released next May. This is the fourth game in the Sands of Time trilogy, and it’s coming out at the same time as the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie. Fans of this column will remember that last month, I said a Prince of Persia game is in development that has nothing to do with Sands of Time. Clearly, either I was wrong, or they’re making two Prince of Persia games at the same time.  Either way, we’re not complaining.
• Ignore the second news item on this list. We did get official information about the DLC for Assassin’s Creed 2.  This is a good lesson in why it is important to post your news articles before the news becomes outdated.
• The UN held a climate conference in Copenhagen recently. The United States of America sent three representatives, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, to attend this historic event.  All three representatives went to Denmark separately, on his or her own private jet, which gives you an idea of how much they really care about reducing emissions. By most accounts, the conference was a huge failure.
• In less-depressing news, the Professor Layton movie is coming along nicely.  A trailer and details were released, but unfortunately, the movie takes place after the fourth game, and only the first two have been released outside of Japan, so we have no idea what is going on in the trailer or who most of the characters are.

And that’s the news for December of 2009, everyone!  More war, no attempts to prevent the impending ecological disasters that environmentalists have been warning us about since the 1970s, and Sheep Man.  Clearly, the future is so bright that we’ll have to wear shades.

Oh well.  Maybe next month we can get an exclusive interview with Mr. Doodlebug. That’d be pretty interesting, by jingo. Until then, stay carbonated!

…Whatever that means.

• The new GameCola
• Save Points : good or bad?
• People are more excited for re-releases than completely new games.
• Some series (i.e. Sonic) get away with making millions off of bad games, just because of the license.
• Batman Begins is a franchise reboot, not a remake. I (Michael Gray) don’t really understand the difference.
• Live multiplayer is better than online multiplayer.
• Michael Ridgaway played the Ghostbusters game, tried to play Tales of the Abyss and is playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
• Zach wants to see a game with Bowser as the main character.
• Voice acting in the Mario games.
• Nathaniel Hoover is playing Tales of Symphonia, Dragon Warrior III and Final Fantasy VIII.
• Michael Gray is playing Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships, Duck Tales 2 (both the NES and GameBoy versions) and Kwirk.
• Zach Rich is playing Pokémon Red, Sam & Max: Season One, Magic: The Gathering, Peggle, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, and Mass Effect 2.
• Everyone discusses the upcoming Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.

Download

And how! Harmonix is starting to listen to me. Last month, I tackled the ten albums that will be made available in the Rock Band series before 2020, and while we didn’t see a full release of any of the ten albums (yet), we did get one track off one album from the list! The very first album on the list, Disturbed’s Ten Thousand Fists, is now 1/13 complete, with the addition of the album’s first single, “Stricken,” to the music store in early May. It’s only a matter of time, friends. Soon, we’ll all be playing “Weird Al” songs with plastic instruments!

Now then, as I write this, we are currently two days away from Microsoft’s big press conference to kick off E3 2009. The hype is huge, and the huddled masses are teeming with anticipation to learn just what huge and juicy games we can expect to look forward to, buy, and love to death in the next year. Many people have offered up their predictions of what will happen over the next week, but none of them are going to be dying in 2020, you see. Therefore, as a human being that is going to die within the next 11 years, the Big Three and all the third parties will simply have to bow down to my demands, or else face damnation in the eyes of every eventually-going-to-die child on Earth. Get out your fanboy hats, and jot some notes down, Nintendo, because this is:

Ten Things I Demand to See Happen at E3 2009 Before My Death in 2020

Here are the rules: If it’s printed on this page, it’s going to happen by the end of next week. It’s that simple, GameCola Faithful.

1. Mass Effect 2 will make me want to make love with the nearest alien, female or not.

I don’t think I’ve said this in GameCola before, but I believe Mass Effect to be the best game I’ve played so far in this console generation. It’s the textbook example of how to make a Western RPG/shooter hybrid. It has a dramatic story. It has touch-perfect controls. There’s a whole galaxy to explore. You can be as much of a goody-two-shoes or a badass as you want! There’s so much to see and do that it was simply jarring to me that millions of GameFAQs MORONS said that goddamm Halo 3 (which is a totally great game, just not God on a disc) was better than this Paragon of Game Design.

My anticipation for Mass Effect 2 has been at the forefront of my brain, and I physically NEED as much info as I can about the game to tide me over until it’s released in 2010. We know two very important things that I’ve been hoping to hear about this game:

1. ME2 will use the information from your ME1 savegame to alter the story according to your actions in ME1, and
2. THEY’RE FIXING THE GODDAMN VEHICLE SECTIONS.

Bioware, I expect to be blown away by whatever you have up your sleeve for next week, and you better be playing with some hot fire, ’cause otherwise you’re going to get burned by my soon-to-be unleashed spirit.

2. Reggie will kick someone’s ass.

It’s been a while since we were introduced to the current President of Nintendo of America, and it’s been almost just as long since someone last had their name taken from them. I want to see Nintendo’s local badass take the stage and wow the hell out of us by being just as aggressive and intimidating as he was way back in 2004. And I’m not talking about beating Super-Mom at a round of Wii Sports Resort, I’m talking about jumping from a plane with no parachute, making a big impact crater on the Nintendo stage, appearing from the smoke completely undamaged, punching Shawn White in the face, and then giving us a teaser trailer for the next Zelda game. Nothing would top that, ever.

“I killed a man once. He was this wide, and about twice as tall. I knifed the son-of-a-bitch right in the jugular, and as he was taking his last breath, I told him that, where he's going, no one can play EarthBound on the Virtual Console.”

3. Tim Schafer and Jack Black will adopt a baby together.

It’s the only thing I can imagine that would be more awesome than anything I’ve seen about Brütal Legend. The doubly fine folks at…Double Fine have been hard at work on this tribute to the metal gods for so long, and I need to see some fine gameplay going on here. Seeing as this comes from the folks who made the most excellent Psychonauts, I’m willing to bet that a million-and-a-half copies are sold of this beautiful nugget. Let’s see some gameplay, Tim.

4. Kingdom Hearts III will not be a PS3 exclusive.

Q: How do you make a mega-corporation cry?

A: You take away its talking ducks.

The amount of 360 support Square Enix has been showing is unbelievable, from average (The Lost Remnant) and severely overlooked (Star Ocean 4) exclusive RPGs to a core Final Fantasy game actually being released for a non-PlayStation console. So what would be the lipstick kiss at the bottom of the love letter? Mickey Mouse, of course.

It’s been four years since the love-it-or-hate-it Kingdom Hearts II saw the light of day on the PS2, and with the three sidegames now coming out in Japan, there’s nowhere left for the series to go but move on to the next core installment. If Final Fantasy is Square Enix’s biggest series, and it’s not exclusive to the PS3, I can’t begin to imagine why this series, which is almost just as popular as its source material, would be. It would be a huge blow to Sony to lose this kind of support from hardcore RPG players, and this kind of thing could make the 360 the RPG gamers’ console of choice in the States.

5. Big Rock Band announcements will make millions cry with joy.

Even during the reign of the first Rock Band, big improvements were made to the first title through the use of title updates, like the in-game store. With the huge community aspect Harmonix incorporated into Rock Band 2, as well as the recent arrival of Rock Band Unplugged, and the forthcoming Legoand Beatles games, there could be some huge announcements from the MTV booth. Especially if there are some juicy albums (I’ve got suggestions) coming for DLC, or the Lego track list manages to transform the cutesy version of the game into a must-own for the fans. There’s also this whole Pearl Jam thing going around. How’s about a little info on that, Harmonix?

6. Rare will announce two or three new titles, and one of them will be a new Perfect Dark sequel. The original Perfect Dark will also be released as an XBLA title, and God will smile on us all.

There are a few screenshots floating around of a possible XBLA re-release of Perfect Dark, Rare’s non-Bond FPS for the N64. There’s also a disturbing lack of knowledge about what the British developer is up to. Another Perfect Dark could possibly be in the pipeline if there’s going to be a remake of the original, but that can’t be all those bloody geniuses from across the pond are up to.Killer Instinct 3? Jet Force Gemini 2? Mr. Pants and the Journey for Checkered Boxers? The mind absolutely boggles at the possibilities!

What the hell is Bean?

7. 1 vs. 100 will be just one of several Xbox Live Primetime titles on the show floor. Someone will win a car.

Growing up, I was a huge fan of the TV gameshow genre. Being a child of the 90s, I not only hadWheel of Fortune and Price is Right to watch daily, but also all of Nickelodeon’s game shows. Legends of the Hidden Temple, GUTS, Figure it Out…all good memories. Primetime’s games will show on your Xbox played in real time, and based on many-a-site’s impressions of the flagship title, 1 vs. 100, it looks like it works wonderfully.

On Monday, June 1st, the U.S. beta for 1 vs. 100 will be free for all Xbox Live Gold Members. That means anyone who is important will be playing this a lot. So, I can only assume that Microsoft will be showing off a lot of other titles that will be coming to the service in the future. Could they be original game ideas? Or maybe Primetime versions of true TV classics? Primetime Family Feud, perhaps? I’m eagerly awaiting more titles to be shown for this upcoming expansion of Xbox Live.

8. Microsoft will announce another huge partnership for Xbox Live. An angel will get its wings.

Similar to the Netflix reveal last year, I’m almost certain that Microsoft has another big entertainment partnership to flaunt at their press conference. I’m not sure at all with whom; I just know it’s coming, and it’s going to be just as big as the Netflix deal for XBL subscribers. How about a Time Warner Cable partnership? TV on the Xbox seems like the next ideal step, and who better than the cable juggernaut?

9. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum will both steal the show for the comic book lover.

Little fun fact for you all: I’m a comic book enthusiast. Underneath my bed is a collection of Marvel comic books from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, which I fully thank my Dad for. I know a lot about the Marvel universe, and that’s half the reason why I got such a huge boner every time I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance way back when I first got my 360. Now the sequel is a few months away, and the roster of playable characters is booming like crazy. The Civil War arc may not have worked to a tee in the comic series, but it’s the perfect setting for a game about teaming up some of the greatest heroes ever. As long as Deadpool can talk and there’s no mention of any “Weapon XI,” I will love this game forever and ever and ever.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I’m not as into DC as I likely should be, but damn do I love the Batman. I’ve kept myself a little bit in the dark about the upcoming Batman title (lol see wut i did their?), but the fact that Mark Hamill is returning to voice the Joker, just as he did in all of the DC Animated Universe series, makes this title almost an instant buy for me. It’s a shame I don’t have a PS3; the Joker levels exclusive to that console look to have the coolest gameplay I’ve seen from any game in a while.

10. Pikmin 3 will be shown for the first time.

Or the puppy gets it.

So, I hope you all enjoyed your early peek at what you’re going to see this week at E3. I know my predictions are going to come true; after all, the biological warfare of the MOOOOOOOOOON PEOPLE will be my ultimate downfall, and my upcoming death will guilt everyone into following through with these promises I made them make. So, happy E3, everyone!

I’ll be over here, graduating from high school.