Not much gaming related to talk about, and I’m not thinking too much about that stuff anyway given the dental work. I also have an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow night. I think I’m going short again. It’s time for a change.

If you have an iPhone, check out SlotZ Racer. It’s a great little slot car game that just recently got a nice little update to it. It amazes me that iPhone developers can sell games for $4.99 and then pass along free updates like that. What’s wrong with the rest of the industry that we’re paying $59.99 for half a game and then getting another $50 in downloads available later?

Everyone better watch out, because if these iPhone things ever get cheap enough… hoo boy.

Well, this year’s different! Sort of! While I’ll probably buy some new games too, I’m definitely going to play some of these ones that have been taking up space for so long without even a spin of the disc. I managed to get this insane plot started last night with Level 5′s Rogue Galaxy, a Japanese role-playing game from the people who made Dark Cloud 1 and 2 and more recently Professor Layton. How on Earth did I arrive at Rogue Galaxy among all the titles I could be playing? It’s something called “GAF Plays” that helped make my choice.

The Gaming Age Forums have been around a long time, and there are some staple threads that pop up from time to time. Among them are these GAF Plays threads where someone picks a game that’s not brand new and just starts a play through of it while asking others to join them on the journey. RPGs are a popular genre for it because of their length and the abundant options available for character development. I stumbled into that one and decided I want in.

You can read my impressions of the game after two hours of play right here in that same thread. Post 95 is also from me, but if you’re interested in how these threads work, I do recommend just kind of starting from the beginning and working your way down. It definitely helps to be playing along, but if Rogue Galaxy caught your eye somewhere along the way and you’re wondering what it’s about, then this is a good way to get some info.

On a more personal non-game related note, my second session of indoor soccer starts tomorrow night. Really looking forward to that, but it’s definitely going to cut into the Rogue Galaxy time.

Tonight was the first test of Cooking, with a US recipe for Fried Chicken. The software allows you to pick your recipes by pretty much any way you can think to categorize food, but probably the most fun way to choose is to pick a country and go from there. To make it easy on myself, I chose the US since I’d probably have most of the ingredients on hand already and would have a good idea how it should taste.

I made a huge mess, but ended up with some pretty great tasting fried chicken! The relatively simple recipe called for Cayenne Pepper as one of its spices, and that added some nice heat underneath the batter. My first go at the batter was a disaster and I think either the recipe was a little off or I simply put too much flour in there. It was nowhere near “smooth” and I had to chuck it. Some really cool features of the software are video clips for various cooking techniques and hands off control for moving through the steps. Unfortunately as Kyle noted in his column,  the DS “hears” you making all sorts of noise in the kitchen so you have to turn off the voice recognition or the cooking steps will be over before you start!

Now that I’m finished everything (shopping, prep, cooking, eating, cleanup), I think I’ll be happy to try it all again sometime soon. There’s an abundance of good looking recipes to choose from and having those videos really came in handy to see how to chop parsley properly and cut the chicken for cooking. I took the DS shopping today and the built-in shopping list for my recipe was very handy. Plus I could check to see if I had all the cooking utensils I’d need right there in the recipe.

The whole experience was a little more satisfying as a learning tool than using a book, and even though my DS needed to be cleaned up afterward, it was all worth the effort. If you’re looking for something a little different that’s videogame related but not just another game to throw on the pile, check it out.

Fortunately, the pain hasn’t arrived with the tooth yet. One of my fillings fell out last night and I’ve had all kinds of frustration with this particular molar and fillings just not sticking. At some point it’s likely to require a root canal, but I won’t find out until Thursday if that’s the case this time as that’s the first I could get in. Soft foods and lots of mouthwashing for me until then.

As for Warhammer and Games for Windows Live: it’s Universe At War all over again. Just as in that RTS, I simply cannot get GFWLive to work on my machine with Dawn of War II. I have tried everything. I’ve opened every port they require for GFWLive and gone as far as I’m willing to go. It’s just plain nuts that it won’t work!

What’s even more frustrating is that it’s an entirely unnecessary layer between myself and playing the game. For years and years PC gaming has gotten along just fine without additional services that want massive amounts of open ports on your router, sign-on names and achievements. The games were fun to play all on their own, and finding other players was as easy as clicking on “Multiplayer” and seeing a list of servers. GFWLive throws a whole other layer in the way of me playing and because it’s not transparent, it makes me fume.

I can separate the problems of GFWLive (Microsoft) from those of Relic (the game’s developer) or THQ (the game’s publisher), but how many others who encounter the same problems as me are going to do the same? What completely boggles my mind is why a developer and publisher would want their cart tied to this particular horse. It just seems like a complete waste of time, resources, and consumer good will.

Nothing good has come out of the Games for Windows initiative that Microsoft started and seems happy to mostly ignore in development, technical support and marketing. Just like nothing good has come of this damn tooth and its fillings that keep falling out. It’s probably time for both of them to go away for good.

On a completely unrelated note, Jackyl is coming to Allentown, and I’ll be there even if I have to go myself!

It’s every bit as good as I was told it was. Makes me excited about comics again, to be honest. The days of me collecting are long gone so this won’t get me back on the bandwagon, but it’s definitely a great primer for the film.

I read that there are plans for a videogame adaptation of some sort and I wonder why? This isn’t something that translates in any way to videogames. Why shoehorn it in? It’s also rated R and should be a pretty cold-hearted R at that. No need to go pushing these “heroes” that way.

Just hearing that there is or was a videogame in the works reminds me that videogames always seem to be this secondary thing to all other forms of entertainment. It’s almost like they’re always a promotional tool instead of the prime entertainment form itself. Developers and publishers have to cut that out. It makes the hobby always seem second rate.

Not something I would’ve gone to see otherwise, but a fine night out thanks to free tix.

EDIT! – OK, so I was wrong about Hoobastank. I swear I got an e-mail claiming they were also on the bill as a late addition. Hmmmm…

The show was pretty good regardless. 3 Doors Down really have their thing nailed down and Hinder were kind of schlocky and perfectly suited to arena rock. SafetySuit were kind of… there.

Yes, that’s a direct quote from his editorial. It’s an article about how the Xbox 360 matches nicely with Ford’s legendary Pinto. Did you know they sold the Pinto (quite well) for ten years even though it was known to explode upon rear impact? The 360 isn’t likely to end your life, but the comparison sure does ring true. Here we are three years plus from the system’s initial release date and pretty much everyone has had to replace at least one console. Some, like writer Tom Chick, have a red batphone in their house for the almost monthly system swap.

Yet people continue to recommend the system to friends, including Mr. Nicholson, who arrives at the above conclusion after convincing someone that you can get it fixed, and you should just expect to be without it for a week or two every year. It’s insane. He claims the cost is the key, as it was with the Pinto… $200 for an Arcade system that will let you play Grand Theft Auto IV compared to $400 for a low end PS3. Even crazier, his friend buys it despite being someone who lives on a farm and was raised with practicality at her core.

I guess that’s how far we’ve come with electronics. We just don’t care anymore when they fail on us. We simply bend over and take our whipping, then move on to the next box. There’s something really rotten at the core of it all, but I guess people are totally immune to it anymore?

It felt pretty good until it got to the end of the blurb and it noted he’s the third oldest Super Bowl quarterback in history…

Ah well. I can’t exactly get younger, can I?

There are times in this hobby when I think we all really take for granted just how far we’ve come from the days of two paddles batting a ball back and forth across a black and white TV screen. This is one of those times I had to stop for a second and smell the roses. Quake III Arena, for free, in my web browser.

Where will we be in another ten years? Amazing.

I fully intended to start the list on 1/1. I just failed miserably at finishing the first post. And once you get to day two, and then three, etc. Well, the will to get started just drains out day after day. I also recall being inordinately busy during that time, but that’s just me making excuses. If you’re one of the six people that visit this blog thinking I’ve got something interesting to say, you’re disappointed. Sorry for that.

I can’t really make it up to you… not with ten posts in ten days with a game a day. I failed at that once already so I’m not going to try again. Instead, here’s my top ten counted down, why I picked them in a brief capsule, and what didn’t make the cut and what I’m still trying to get around to playing…

10. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Nintendo’s top shelf fighting game is one of the best things you can play on Wii, whether you’re in it for a few quick rounds or a lengthy stay in any of its myriad of modes. I didn’t play this game nearly enough last year, and it’s mainly because my kids hog the damn Wii.

9. Mega Man 9 – This is a brilliant sequel to a series that just plain works best in 8-bit form. It’s retro cool in all the right ways, and it’s really not as hard as people would have you believe. You’re just soft.

8. The World Ends With You – I haven’t finished this one yet, but I’m already impressed enough to give it a place on this list because you need to try it. The music is phenomenal, the game design takes unique advantage of the DS, and it’s got character galore. I only wish I had bought it sooner!

7. Valkyria Chronicles – If you’re here from Quarter To Three, then you know I’m a big fan of this game. Strategy games on consoles just have this unique feel to them that doesn’t happen anywhere else. When you combine that intangible uniqueness with some of the people who created Skies of Arcadia, you come up with something quite brilliant in gameplay, graphic design and musical score. It’s by SEGA, but it’s like the arthouse films that win Oscars every year. You really ought to play it, but many of you just won’t for a million different reasons.

6. Frontlines: Fuel of War - The first game on my list that I reviewed for Crispy Gamer in 2008. You can hop over there for a lot more detail, but suffice to say this is the Battlefield game that stepped out of the mold far enough to really get me excited about this genre of first-person shooter again. It’s far better than DICE’s own Battlefield: Bad Company, and Frontlines even includes a superb single-player campaign, too! Criminally overlooked by pretty much everyone last year, and brushed aside by many of the rest. Shameful.

5. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 Wii – I also reviewed this for Crispy, but with the early site came problems with posting reviews and somehow it never appeared online. It’s a damn shame too, because this game reinvents videogame soccer with incredible results! People were looking for reasons to waggle early in the year, and this game nailed the pointer/waggle wand control scheme dead on. If you run across it for cheap, even if you don’t like the sport so much, check it out. You will be amazed at how Konami turned playing a soccer videogame into what’s essentially like diagramming plays as they happen where you can step in and take direct control anytime you’d like. Amazing.

4. The Club - Ah, The Club. Many of you were probably wondering where this was going to turn up on my list. It’s not in my top three, but just barely. Bizarre Creations’ fantastic combo of racing game and third-person shooter is simply sublime.

And no one gets it.

Then  there’s this contingent that gets it, yet wants to savage it because it doesn’t look like they expected it to look, or doesn’t make it easy for them to be awesome at it. Whatever… Bizarre dudes? I get it. You nailed it. Thanks for one of my favorite games of the year.

Not only do I love the club as a single-player game, there’s this multiplayer mode called Team Siege that kicks all kinds of ass. Two teams of four face off against one another with a short time limit for the assaulting team to take out the team under siege. The key? The guys defending have a very small area they cannot leave from which to defend. The defenders also only get one life while the attackers have unlimited respawns. Survive while under siege and you feel like you’ve really done something cool! Map design plays a huge role in making Team Siege so much fun, but the failure of The Club means finding games was a brief blip in the annals of time.

Sometimes people just don’t understand something. This was one of those times.

3. No More Heroes – That last comment about The Club can be applied to pretty much everything that Suda 51 has ever made, except for No More Heroes. Enough people figured this one out for it to make some end of the year lists, and rightfully so! The game takes shots at gamers, game makers and everyone in between. It’s so insider sometimes that you wonder if it’s unintentionally making fun of even itself.

But that’s part of its incredible charm. Well, that and a light saber that sends geysers of blood everywhere. I’m not one to get caught up in the gore fest. As a matter of fact, I really didn’t like how Gears of War 2 seemed to make that a selling point this time around. But in this game it’s all in ridiculous videogame fun, because not only do the bodies spray blood, they also spray fountains of coins!

I’d like to say more, but I think this is one of those games you just have to play for yourself. The more I tell you about it, the more I’ll ruin surprises best left to the player. Just get it and see it all for yourself.

2. GRID – Racing. It’s a major part of who I am. I grew up in a family that went to the races multiple times per year. Not really big auto racing events, though we go to those too. No, we mostly hit the local dirt tracks, which in Central Pennsylvania means some of the best auto racing in the country.

As a gamer, racing games are a major part of every year for me. I love them in all shapes and sizes. Sims to pure arcade, I’ll play anything that has superb competition, pretty graphics and excellent handling. GRID has all that and throws in awesome and simple online play, too. I got hooked on this game with its demo and couldn’t wait to get on the track with the full game.

It’s the type of racing game that straddles the line between arcade and sim handling, forcing you to always push just that tiny bit more in every corner, beyond the point of no return if it were a simulation, but not so far that you can’t believe it’s “real”. The circuits are so nicely realized and each one provides for a lot of unique automotive action in a varied number of cars. GRID might have made number one for me in another year, but there was one game I played a lot more…

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King – Lame pick? Maybe. Should I be burned out on World of Warcraft by now? Probably. The thing is, I’m not. I mean, I was. In the middle of 2008 I pretty much stopped playing. All my guild pals were doing the Level 70 heroics, and PvP and the Sunwell and all that jazz. I wasn’t able to keep up. When you write about games, it’s very hard to commit hours upon hours to a single game in any given year. You just don’t have time to stay involved.

That was my excuse anyway because really I wanted to be involved, and when Wrath of the Lich King shipped I got back in big time. You can read about my Death Knight, Braxorigan, over at Crispy. That fellow is the reason I stood in line until midnight on launch day, came home and installed, and then played until 5:30AM. Everyone eligible to create a Death Knight should run through the first three levels to see just how awesome it is to take on Brax’s journey. It sets the stage for the entire expansion, generating proper excitement for the new character type and for the assault on Northrend.

That’s just the start though, because I’ve seen so much amazing quest design since then that I can’t really pick any other game to stand above them all. Blizzard continues to maintain what’s made World of Warcraft the biggest game of its type while adding all sorts of subtle and not so subtle enhancements to the formula. If you’re going into this game to “grind”, you’re missing out on why it’s so special. Yes, it’s fun to play with friends, and yes it’s cool to battle it out in PvP, but the real genius is in the storytelling and how they make you feel special even though you’re one of millions. It takes some serious thinkers to build something this huge, but even tougher to do is to build it right.

I’m a little surprised at myself for picking Lich King as my number one game of the year, but it’s definitely top of the list. That said, there are so many I haven’t played or am only now getting to. This week I finally tried both Persona 4 and World of Goo (Wii). Both are pretty incredible from what I’ve seen so far. They could easily become games I’d have wanted on this list. In addition to those everyone else’s number one, Fallout 3, still hasn’t made it into my PC or consoles. I suspect I’ll get around to it on the PC sometime in 2009. And one that really bugs me, Left 4 Dead, simply came out at the wrong time. I was overwhelemed wtih reviews when it shipped and couldn’t buy it because it would’ve taken time I needed for work!

That’s just a small sampling. There are far more. I’m also finding the iPhone games to be pretty substantial so who knows, maybe I would’ve wanted something on there on my list?

I do wonder sometimes how even the full-time guys in this biz can make a definitive list. There are just too many releases and it’s too easy to skip stuff that’s not being released by the biggest publishers. Have they all played GRID?  Did anyone other than me even load up Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for the Wii? Probably not.

With that in mind, I’m pretty happy to have put this list together. Hopefully you’ll find something you might’ve missed.

Shorter, more frequent updates are planned. We’ll see if that works out…