Keeping with the usual blog post themes for this time of year, here's my list of top media things of 2008. As usual, my memory is poor going back to the beginning of the year, so I may forget some items that probably deserve recognition.
Top Movies:
#1: Wall-E. Needs no explanation, simply the best Pixar movie so far.
Runner-up: Dark Knight. Even though it could have ended 2/3rds through and I'd have been happy.
Top Albums: (that I got this year, not necessarily released this year)
#1: Stars - Set Yourself On Fire
#2: Offspring - Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace
These two I like to listen all the way through, though there are certainly a few tracks that I especially like - [Celebration Guns; Calendar Girl; and Your Ex-Lover Is Dead] from Set Yourself On Fire, and [Fix You; Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?; Rise And Fall; You're Gonna Go Far, Kid; and Nothingtown] from Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. There's several other albums I got this year which I like, but usually specific songs or sets of song (other Stars albums, the Killers, Fall Out Boy). Yeah, I don't get much new music...
Top TV Shows: (watched this year)
#1: Torchwood (season one) - excellent characters and a different style than Doctor Who. More character based than big bad based. Best episodes: "Countrycide", "Out of Time", "They Keep Killing Suzie", and "Captain Jack Harkness".
#2: Chuck (seasons one and two) - also very character based, and they are excellent ones. Episodes: "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater", "Chuck Versus the Nemesis", "Chuck Versus the Crown Vic", and from season two, "Chuck Versus Tom Sawyer", "Chuck Versus the Seduction", "Chuck Versus the Sensei" and "Chuck Versus the Delorean".
#3: Doctor Who (seasons one and two) - I like the Doctor, and some of the stories have been excellent. Notably "The Girl in the Fireplace" (my favorite episode), "The Satan Pit", "School Reunion", and "Bad Wolf".
#4: Bones (season one) - David Boreanaz is awesome. So is Emily Deschanel.
#5: Heroes (seasons one through there) - Season one was excellent. Season two was horribly stunted by the writer's strike shortening the season. Season three started poorly, but is actually coming out to be pretty interesting.
Honorable mention: BSG (seasons one-two): interesting characters, can't stand the story most of the time. How I Met Your Mother: hilarious. Also, legendary. Would probably make the top 5 except I only just started watching it - first four episodes of season one last night.
Best Tabletop Gaming (RPG's and Board/Card Games):
#1: D&D 4th edition. The system did not disappoint. It's not the same as 3.x, nor is it supposed to be. Very tactical, fun fights, and DM'ing is so much easier. My one experience as a player was also awesome.
#2: Zombie Fluxx. I didn't like Fluxx that much, but somehow the zombie theme really makes this version work.
#3: Pandemic. A very tough co-op board game that's pretty fun. I like the challenge, and it's a game that requires a lot of cooperation.
Honorable Mentions: Munchkin Quest: much more fun than plain Munchkin, I love the exploration and roving monsters parts. Order of the Stick: takes a long time to play, but an excellent game nonetheless. Exploration and stacks of incredible monsters.
Computer/Console gaming (by category):
RPG's:
#1: The Witcher (PC): adult story, classic RPG style but done very well.
#2: Mass Effect (360): Bioware does it again. Has some slow parts, but the story and characters kept it going. (Though this came out before 2008, I only played through and finished it this year).
#3: Infinite Undiscovery (360): Square does a non FF RPG. It's very reminiscent of FFXII.
#4: Fable II (360): Not terribly deep, but fun action RPG style. Plus you can own a town!
Honorable Mention: FFVII: Crisis Core (PSP), FF Revenant Wings (DS).
Did Not Play: Fallout 3, FF Tactics A2 (if we call it a RPG), Chrono Trigger (DS).
Strategy/Simulation:
#1: Civilation Revolution (360). Sid Meier, your Civ games continue to rock. This one pares down all the extra cruft from the latest Civ games and just uses the fun stuff. Must play another turn...
#2: Red Alert 3 (PC). Same campy style, same crazy unit selection. I haven't been able to play Co-op mode, but even without it's a great game. Only complaint: skirmish mode CPU players are HARD! Please send tips for beating medium or harder CPU players.
#3: Sins Of A Solar Empire (PC). Space strategy at its best. You don't notice the micromanagement, and the ships are beautiful.
Honorable Mention: Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii), Hinterlands (PC), Civ: Colonization (PC)
Arcade/Short Games:
#1: Geometry Wars 2 (360): Six modes of awesome, and co-op craziness. Pure top-down shooter.
#2: World Of Goo (PC - OSX): Construction game of excellence: can you build that bridge? How about a tower? Oh man, my 30m tower fell... *sigh*
#3: Castle Crashers (360): Beat-em-up RPG, great co-op multiplayer. Only complaint is that it's hard on the hands if you play for too long (which you'll want to do!).
Honorable Mention: Braid (360): Great gameplay, but the story really fell flat for me.
Driving/Sports:
#1: Burnout Paradise (360): Crashes. Oh yeah. And the multiplayer really works, just hit the button and you've got other players also driving around the city with you. Also, really great support and added features over the year with free DLC.
Can you tell I don't play many games in this category? Heh... Oh, maybe GTA IV? It's a good game, but not in my favorites, really...
First Person Shooter/Action:
#1: Left 4 Dead (360, PC): Co-op survival action. Best zombie game ever. Now excuse me, need to go play another game.
#2: Gears of War 2 (360): Campaign story totally awesome - insane set pieces, cinematic fights, etc. Co-op and solo in the campaign is great. Multiplayer: Horde mode is a blast, co-op against waves of enemies. Other modes suffer from poor matchmaking protocol that takes a while to actually start a game.
#3: Battlefield: Bad Company (360): Hilarious single player campaign. Great multiplayer, with destroyable terrain. It doesn't matter if I suck, so long as I get to completely destroy entire buildings!
#4: Mirror's Edge (360): Parkour action. The fighting is meh, could have been left out completely, the exploration and motion is awesome on it's own. Looking forward to the DLC with just time trial levels.
Did not play but probably deserves a spot on this list: Call of Duty: World At War. Played the beta and it was awesome. Been meaning to pick up the full game, especially since the price drops.
Top 5 games of the year:
#1: Left 4 Dead
#2: Rock Band 2
#3: Gears of War 2
#4: Civilization: Revolution
#5: Geometry Wars 2
See you all next year!
2 comments:
I haven't analyzed it too deeply, but my intuition for best film of the year tells me Burn After Reading, though I'd need to remind myself what else came out. I saw Juno at the end of 2008 or else that would have been it. Synechdoche, New York gets the award for best mixing of 'dreamscape' (not literal dreaming) and reality. Oh yeah, and my brother gets a special award for coming up with Curse of the Jade Scorpion as the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of good Woodie Allen movies. Sheesh. The best (only?) DEI movie manifestation this year was the one I inserted into the fake unified field theory in Meet Dave.
I didn't list to too many entire albums, though I have been digging Dave Gahan's 2007 album that I just got. I can't make it album-of-the-year, though, because it's not good enough for that just as a matter of principle. My 2009 album-of-the-year will likely end up being the new Depeche Mode album that's coming out.
For TV shows, I finished watching Buffy and Angel this year, and I haven't yet started any new ones. I really liked the episode Once More, With Feeling and Apocalypse Nowish gets bonus points because I watched it during the biggest earthquake the UK had in something like 25 years. (Now that's realism! Damn!) I want to try Big Bang Theory, and I need to watch that episode of Numbr3rs that supposedly refers to one of my postdoc advisors.
I haven't tried Pandemic. In Munchkin Quest, one of my favorite moments thus far (besides that whole incident with the 21st level augmented potted plant) occurred last week when one of my friends voluntarily turned into a female so that the 9th level Amazon would ignore him. Was Order of the Stick really a 2008 debut? Wow, it was a long year---of course, my sense of time is really skewed these days because the Pasadena/LA moments are small clusters with indeterminacy in between. Bring on the roaches!
I played almost none of the console or computer games you mentioned here. I really dug playing N+ co-op with Lemming. That was one of my favorite co-op gaming experiences in a very long time. It was awesome! I would really like to play more Castle Crashers. I only played most of the first level at Pax 2007 because the power went out. (We wouldn't have been able to go beyond level 1 anyway.)
Re: Order of the Stick, I doubt it was a 2008 release, but it's included because it's in the group of things I associate with playing in 2008. Which is pretty much my criteria for inclusion, since my memory for exact release dates and that sort of thing is poor.
Oh, and I realized my lists are missing at least one notable game: Spore (PC/Mac). It should be in the honorable mention list for strategy/simulation. It's got an enjoyable end phase, but the rest of the game is just a tad bit too simple for me.
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