Kotaku 
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Denver, 3:57 AM
Mon Nov 30
12 posts in the last 24 hours
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Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/26/09
Uncharted 2
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
I was surprised to read the voice over credits and see a lot of my favorite voice actors in the game. Tim Curry, Kate Mulgrew (sp?), Claudia Black, Steve Blum, Yuri Lowenthal, Liam O'Brian, Nolan North, Cam Clarke, Jim Cummings (he's everywhere), Kath Soucie, and Fred Tatasciore are the one's from the game that I can remember right now. (Super-frog is a voice acting geek if you can't tell already. :P)
11/26/09
11/25/09
Uncharted 2 was good from what I played, but I only got to play for less than 2 hours total so I'm not comfortable picking that. It's probably as good a choice as any, though.
Modern Warfare 2 mostly lived up to the hype, but a few nitpicky things like the dedicated servers issue, a short single-player mode and no co-op campaign (spec ops is ok, but I'd rather see a full mode with co-op) knock it down a few pegs. The multiplayer will keep me hooked for quite a while though.
Games people have already forgotten about since they came out early this year, but are definitely in the mix: Punch-Out!! and Street Fighter IV.
Definitely NOT game of the year: Borderlands or NSMB Wii. Both are fun, but the praise on those two is terrifyingly overblown.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
Assassin's Creed 2
Uncharted 2
Batman
Call of Duty: MW2
inFAMOUS
11/25/09
11/25/09
For me... boy, I don't know... I've had a ton of fun with Bayonetta, and why shouldn't that count? It came out this year.
#speakup
11/25/09
11/25/09
It's unforgiving at first, but once you get hang of it it's gratifyingly good.
11/25/09
While I'm firm in my choice of Uncharted 2 for game of the year, I would be remiss if I didn't give additional mention for two very special games.
That Game Company's "Flower" needs no introduction, and Daniel Benmergui's "Today I Die" should be familiar for the die hard kotakuite.
11/25/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
...
I kid, I kid. Thanks, Tim!
Although I didn't even get to say goodbye. :(
11/18/09
It seems people have this feeling about games, that they need to all be beaten. That if you buy it, or rent it, you have to get from square one to square last. But that isn't the case in really anything else. Reading a book you hate? You stop. Can't stand that movie you rented or bought a ticket for you pop the DVD out or leave.
But books and movies are usually less than half what a new game will run you. You can find used books for a buck, rent a movie for less than five.
So is that the thing? Money? The more we pay the more we think we have a right to complete something? Some games you can beat, some you can't, deal with it.
11/18/09
This "can't" shit, these absolutes, is what is painting casual gamers as impotent arm-flailers and causing developers to put in these crutches (or rather, electric wheelchairs) rather than teaching beginning gamers how to go about learning a game.
No one has the right to beat a game, they have the capacity to. Everyone does.
11/18/09
Too true. I liked the Dead Rising school of hard knocks approach, you learn by dying horribly and it isn't until you push past that incredible annoyed barrier that you begin to discover everything in the game.
I miss game difficulty and the ability to feel a sense of pride over beating something that bratty little kid down the street couldn't. Before gamefaqs. Hell, I just want something hard enough these days that there are no hints anywhere on the internet on how to beat it, just personal strategies people have used.
I disagree with the all games can be beat comment. There were some pretty impossible NES, SNES and GB games back in the day.
11/18/09
I used to think Actraiser 2 was unbeatable up until 1999, when I met someone who spent an entire summer trying to beat the fucker and succeeded.
11/18/09
Castlevania X for the Super. After Super Castlevania.
AVGN fondly recalls fighting dracula at the end in one of his vids.
The only way I could do it was save states on zsnes.
Also, in that same vid, he mentions a game breaking bug in the 64 Castlevania where if you pick up this detonator before you pick up this nitro, then you can't pick up the nitro at all. And you can't drop the detonator or do anything with it. And you can't progress.
11/18/09
I'm not saying that's bad. Some stuff is just harder than other things.
#speakup
11/18/09
And the Castlevania 64 issue is a bug. It's a manufacturing defect. If I snap a game disc in two, it also becomes unfinishable. Lots of adventure games in the 90s, if you missed an item earlier in the game you couldn't finish it or go back. You started over and that was that - but the game was still finishable.
11/18/09
Some games are harder than others, of course. But those games can be beaten by anyone who again, barring physical or cognitive disabilities, will put in what is required of them.
11/18/09
...wha wha what?
Really?
The end boss where you had to fight dracula jumping over these little pits and if he hits you once you fall into one and die instantly?
I FUCKING HATE YOU FOR OPENING UP AN OLD CHILDHOOD WOUND YOU ASS.
You have NO goddamn idea how infuriating it was to play through this tough as nails game, get to the end, and hit that impassible brick wall.
11/18/09
Ok, sure, as you say barring a disability or a game bug, all games can be beaten. I think most games are meant to be beaten. They tell a story and you're supposed to have fun figuring out how the story ends.
What I'm saying is that it's ok for a game to go unbeaten. There are games I own that I've never beat and maybe never will.
Super Guide (or whatever they are calling it in the New Wii Mario Bros. game) just tells me that people feel as though they have to beat a game. That simply buying a product earns them the right to get all the way though it.
And that isn't true. People have this sense of entitlement these days, as if they are owed something. "I paid for this, what do you mean I'm not good enough?" But the same can happen with a book, "I don't understand these big words," but does a handy man pop up and say, "Oh, hello there, it looks like you want to know the definition for pleonexia."
Maybe if you're using a Kindle or a Nook that does happen, I don't know. But this day and age of holding hands, tolerance, and people thinking they have a right to things is getting absurd.
So you can't beat that level in the new Wii game? TOO BAD! Nah, that's mean.
So instead... "Aww, here, we'll help you."
#speakup
11/18/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
Now lets see him and his crew pump out more games!