While now may be the time for a look back at the last 12 months of gaming I only bought my Xbox in June so really all I can present is a look back at the last 6 months and the games I have played in them. So if you consider this a review of the year from someone that only really took part in the latter half of it.

June – Prototype

There are games that start slowly but build to a crescendo of fun once you learn to love them, there are other games which start of fast paced and immersive and stay that way for 8+ hours of great game play. Then games like prototype show up, they start high fast and frantic but the longer you play and the more you immerse yourself they reveal a shallow, frustrating, under developed core. Prototype could have been a truly great game but instead its focus on futile side quests, grind achievements, lacklustre plot and game dynamics that make you repeat the frustrating rather than revel in the celebratory left me as player rather angry. The truth is I ruined this game for myself but lets face it, if I hadn’t tried to chase down the achievements, complete all the side quests, played through the single player campaign or tried to explore the sprawling Manhattan world – why would I put the disc in?

5/10

July – Catch up month

Only having had the Xbox a few weeks I spent July playing catch up on titles such as Dead Space, Mirrors Edge, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Too Human, X-men origins: Wolverine, Assassins Creed & Spiderman Web of Shadows. It was probably good I did that as very little worth playing was released in July.

August – Batman: Arkham Asylum

Without doubt one of the best titles I played this year which rewrote the book on how games like this should be made, in fact this game would be my game of the year if 70% of the boss fights didn’t revolve entirely around throwing a batarang in someone’s face and dodging. It shocks me that a game that was able to do so much right provided possibly the least interesting and most repetitive boss battles I played this year. A small tarnish on an otherwise superb game.

8/10

September – Beatles Rock band, NHL 10, Wet, Halo 3:ODST

This was a good month firstly you have what is in my opinion one of the finest examples of a rhythm game released that almost made me want to buy plastic instruments (in the end I played it at my brothers house and while I just wouldn’t play it enough to buy it my opinion of it remains a high one).

9/10

Secondly NHL 10, now I don’t follow hockey but this game sucks you in and makes playing a sport you know nothing about a whole heap of fun, decent graphics and good game play with a well structured season mode (which does not in spite of certain reviews editors opinions make it an RPG).

8/10

Wet on the other hand was a game with grand ideas that just get a little on your nerves, everything feels fun for five minutes but you will find yourself eventually turning the music, reel effect, sound and then text off. Despite this I did enjoy Wet and was able to take from it all the things it was instead of getting caught up in all the things it wasn’t. The game won’t change anything or provide anything new but if you can look past it and put yourself in a mindset that doesn’t expect every game to turn the genre on its head there is fun to be had in this game.

6/10

Talking of not changing anything I am brought to September’s final offering ODST. I am by no means a Halo Fan but my best friend is so every game I get brought into his co-op world. Bad facial capture and more of the same game play aside I really enjoyed this game and what was done with it. I liked the story and while I recognised the Halo universe it did feel to some extent a different game to my experiences with Halo 2 & 3.

8/10

October – Brutal Legend

I was not sold a false bill of goods with this game, I followed the game with semi interest but not fanaticism and the game I played was the game I thought it would be from the first trailer. Too many reviews were tinged with resentment for everything the game wasn’t or the false hype that they themselves had placed on it. Yes it tried to be too many things, yes the multiplayer is jankey and yes it didn’t change the face of gaming. What it provided was a fun, funny, well told story in a well imagined world that really used the music and the metal culture to provide a good gaming experience. It was never a game designed to  just be rushed through, it was a game designed to make you want to experience and enjoy the world. This was no false bill of goods, I got exactly what I wanted.

9/10

November – Modern warfare 2, Left 4 dead 2

I already wrote a blog detailing Left 4 Dead 2 so let me just say its good, I prefer the first but it’s a game in its own right ignore the DLC Protesters and see for yourself.

8/10

I had never played a Call Of Duty game I knew of them, and being that I visited the internet at least once between the beginning of time and November 10th I was well aware of Modern Warfare 2’s release. I played it going in with a basic knowledge of the first game and little else and from mission one to my final knife throw I enjoyed every single moment of this game, it was frantic and exciting and massively immersive. With great graphics, a completely barmy plot and a marketing machine in the tens of millions this game hit with the force of a blockbuster movie and I enjoyed it more than I really expected I could. Yes it looks Michael Bay at his worst which makes for a terrible movie but a great game

9/10

I am not at Comic Con this year and it pains me, I am yearning for it like a little dog yearning from some attention on its owners 12th birthday without knowing he has been given an r rated game and the good times of fetch and scratching my belly are gone forever, with the only likely contact we will ever have again being when he shoots me in the leg with a bb gun or decides to give me a blowback to make his friends laugh…..where was I?

Oh yeah Comic Con

So for those of you like me missing the action here is a brief round up of what I have found out so far.

Darksiders – one of the sponsors of  the convention and  from what I am hearing you know it, last year I got to play it at Comic Con 08 and I have been looking forward to it since then. I love the art style the story idea and the game play which is a triple bonus in my book. So if you look me love you some Joe Mad  art and giant swords now is definitely the time to search the net for it.

Dead Space: Extraction – the prequel to Dead Space for the Wii is hands on which s no surprise as last year they were really pushing Dead Space at comic con and fans were Queuing up to try it (they could easily rename it queue con). Feedback so far is positive for this with alot of reports saying it maintains the original Dead Space feel while allow the Wii’s game play style to help influence the game with one reviewer comparing it to house of the dead. Limb removal, low ammo and all the fun of the original are all there with a new dynamic allowing you to slow down time.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 – What better place than Comic Con to throw out some UA2 news again not to sound like a broken record but last year all they had was a video and a booth host obsessed with the women of the Marvel Universe. Taking place during the Civil War storyline which if you don’t know what that is will mean nothing and if you do know will either excite or anger the game is looking to deliver everything Ultimate Alliance did and more. Some character details making it into the game have been released (Gambit and Jean Grey making the buzz) as well as a guest cameo by Stan ‘The Man’ Lee! A release date of September 15th was also announced.

Metalocalypse – Not much to say as it was only an announcement but the worlds most brutal Norwegian heavy metal band are getting a XBLA & PSN game so fans of adult swims cartoon are in for a treat.

Spore Hero – Coming out for the Wii, Spore Hero takes the original concept  and adds a deeper action RPG element to it. If you haven’t been following the coverage of Spore Hero, the story begins after you crash-land on this mysterious planet while riding on a blue meteor. At the same time a red meteor was also streaking through the sky, and on it is your nemesis, whom you’ll have to battle for the fate of the planet. While Spore Hero has been unveiled previously comic con is the first chance people are getting to try it hands on and seems to be delivering.

Coming in part 2

Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age Origins,  Singularity & More

As its Comic Con I will end each post with some cosplay.

If you check out some gaming news websites today you can see an announcement that Mass Effect 2 will be getting its own comic book pre release to get people excited about the upcoming RPG. It will fill in the time between the end of Mass Effect and the Beginning of its sequel and if it’s smart will have a male and female character alternate but will probably just focus on a guy. It is not alone as singularity has also announced that it will be releasing a comic to let people get to know their IP as well as previous games such as Gears of War 2, Halo & Warcraft to name a few all having released comics.

The comic is not a new way to advertise a product be it a web comic (such as what penny arcade did for Fallout 3 and Rainbow 6), free handout (which Mirrors Edge & Dead Space both were doing at last years Comic-Con) or just expanding the universe mythology (ala Halo & Warcraft). In fact the origins of comics themselves are rooted in being used to advertise or sell other products and mediums which is why Marvel for years was listed as Toy Company who made comics to advertise those toys.

Hell if you were born in the eighties chances are most TV programs you loved were just there to shill something else to you (even down to the Flintstones who originally sold cigarettes) so as a practice its not a new thing and its nice to see that games are stepping up the media medium ladder so quickly, lets face it the last 20 years video games have had hundreds of badly developed tie in titles designed to help promote a movie. Currently video game movies are just using the idea to tell a story but by my guess we cannot be far off from an actual movie only made to help push a game especially with the profit margin on a game to the profit margin on a movie seeming far more favorable.

Comics and games run pretty hand in hand both in stereotyped fan base and in actual fan base so its no surprise to see them working closely my only problem with this process is who ends up running the projects and getting them out. I have read comic most of my life and enjoy the good and the bad and can tell you that it is incredibly easy to spot a comic written by a person not good with the medium. There is this assumption in all media that if you can do one thing you can do another, if you’re a stand up comedian you can write a sitcom (5 points to whoever knows that reference), if you write books you can write a film, if you can write your own name on a napkin you can do the dialogue for transformers 2! They are different crafts that require different skill sets and different abilities to visualize which results in the majority of video games comics I read just being pretty bad.

As discussed in the recent podcast there are few well written games surfacing in general but I just don’t understand why a games company who is willing put up the cash to make the comic in the first place isn’t prepared to just stump up the little bit extra and hire someone half decent to write it.