Top Ten Games of 2012

2012 is ending and that means that another year in gaming has come and gone. Initially I thought that this year had been disappointing for me, but when it came time to make my game of the year list I had quite a bit of trouble deciding on the ten games I thought were the best.

The following is the final list of games that I came up with. Keep in mind that these are my opinions, but I still think you should check these games out if you haven't yet. We'll start from ten and work out way down to number one.

10. Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed

Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but it's still a competent kart racer. Like the previous installment it feels different enough from Mario Kart to justify its existence. Every race is all about the drifting. Sadly drifting doesn't feel as tight when you're a boat or a plane, but at least those additions add something more than new tracks and characters.

It's a whole lot of fun and at the budget price of $40 it's worth checking out.

9. The Last Story

Much like Resonance of Fate a few years ago The Last Story is one of the few JRPGs that has a unique battle system. It's a third person shooter, but with swords and magic. You're supposed to use strategy to beat your opponents, but the strategy element of the game never quite takes off. Despite that the battles are still fun.

The story and characters are memorable to boot. The game clocks in at around 20 hours to complete, which is good because it doesn't give you enough time to tire of anything.

The visuals push the Wii to its limits, which can sometimes make the frame rate less than desirable. Don't let that discourage you though. If you have a Wii The Last Story is definitely something you should check out.

8. Asura's Wrath

Quick time events are often lame, or at the very least implemented poorly. Asura's Wrath is the exact opposite. The entire game is basically a string of quick time events and it couldn't possibly be any more awesome.

Asura's wrath is balls out anime craziness. It's more or less an interactive movie, but somehow it feels like you're actually doing your fair share to help out in the madness. It's super satisfying to nail every single quick time event and have Asura burst in order to pummel his enemies into the ground. The action is non-stop and it's always complete insanity.

YOU STAB THROUGH THE EARTH WITH A SWORD!

7. Pokemon White/Black 2

Every year a new Pokemon game comes out and every year I play a whole bunch of it. I'm 22 years old and I still love Pokemon games. I almost feel bad for putting it on a game of the year list time and time again, but it needs to be done.

While games that rehash the same thing year in and year out get old that never happens to Pokemon for me. They change enough to keep me coming back every single time. In fact with Pokemon Black and White 2 I think Game Freak outdid themselves. Sure, people who casually play the games might not notice, but as a long time fan I appreciate it. It's cool that I can fight every gym leader in a world tournament, or actually fight Pokemon higher than the mid-50's after I've completed the game.

Game Freak and Nintendo know what they're doing, so get ready to see another one of these next year.

6. Xenoblade Chronicles

It may have taken NOA a while to bring it to the US, but we finally got Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii. It was certainly worth the wait.

I played Xenoblade so much that I burned out on it and wasn't able to complete it until months after my initial binge. My final save ended up being around 113 hours ,which is a pretty sizable chunk of time. I now know why people worked so hard to bring it over here.

It's not a revolutionary JRPG, but it takes steps forward for the genre. A lot of JRPG mechanics are contrived now and Xenoblade tries to remedy some of those issues. Everything is streamlined and as user friendly as possible. The game works hard to keep you engaged with its fast paced battles and easily navigable menus.

The plot and characters of Xenoblade are memorable, but still a bit cliche. The game will be remembered for its combat and the way it tried to modernize the genre.

It looked and played incredibly for a Wii game, which makes me excited to see what Monolith is going to be able to do on the Wii-U

5. SSX

SSX is back! While it may not be better than ever EA still made a decent attempt reviving a dormant franchise. SSX is just pure fun for me. Racing down a snow covered mountain while jumping off of everything in sight gives off an incredible sense of speed. The controls are tight and feel just right for the fine movements the game requires.

While the new survival tracks aren't the best part of the game they add something new to the SSX formula that can hopefully be improved upon in new releases. Overall I think that this SSX reboot was well done and hope to see EA do some more with it in the future.

4. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy

I was expecting absolutely nothing from Theatrhythm, but I had to find out what it was all about. As you might be able to gather from its position on this list I ended up enjoying it a whole lot more than I ever imagined.

Rhythm games tend to have a short lifespan by nature. You play through all the songs a few times and then you're done. Well I somehow ended up playing Theatrhythm for over 26 hours. There were so many things to keep me coming back. Multiple difficulties, an RPG leveling mechanic, character unlocks, song unlocks, and even equipment.

Even more than that the gameplay is fun. Tapping and sliding the stylus along to the many classic Final Fantasy tunes in the game works amazingly well. Theatrhythm  was clearly crafted with a love that I didn't think Square Enix had in them anymore.

3. Borderlands 2

I played an obscene amount of the original Borderlands and the amount of time I spent with Borderlands 2 is no different. I don't particularly like First person shooters, but when paired with loot and RPG mechanics of Borderlands I can't seem to get enough.

Gearbox hit it out of the park for me on this one. The gameplay was improved in almost every way from the original. The game as a whole ran a lot smoother and everything just seemed to work better in general. Gearbox heard what fans had to say about the original and took it all to heart.

It's fun to play alone or co-op. Whichever way you like to play don't miss out on this great game.

2. The Walking Dead

I don't like zombies at all. In fact when zombies are involved in anything I almost immediately write it off as being something I'm not interested in. For some reason I decided to give the first episode of The Walking Dead a chance and was completely blown away.

Even if you don't like adventure games The Walking Dead is something that I think everyone has to play. It shows that choice in video games can actually work to great success. Every choice you're given seems like it matters, whether or not it actually does. This is amplified by the fact that the story if actually emotionally affecting. The characters are some of the most memorable I've ever come across. Somehow they actually managed to make a likable child character!

Words are not enough to explain the majesty that is The Walking Dead. If you like video games do yourself a favor and check out what it brings to the table. You won't be disappointed.

1. Mass Efffect 3

I don't care what anyone says about Mass Effect 3. Sure, the ending wasn't as desirable as I would have liked it to be and there were too many half-assed sidequests, but the journey as a whole was still outstanding.

I enjoyed the time I had with Mass Effect 3. The universe still managed to hold every ounce of my attention as I flew to every single planet and talked to every person I possibly could. No matter how much I disliked the ending nothing can take away the love that I have for the Mass Effect Universe and its characters.

Mass Effect 3 ended the story of Commander Shepard. I'll never be able to forget the time I spent with it, so that's why its my favorite game of 2012.

     -Manny

Game Time - 4/29/2012

It's been another long week and Xenoblade has still managed to consume nearly all of my free time. Don't worry though, because I have a bit more to talk about. 

As most people have been made aware PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale the terribly named answer to Super Smash Bros. was announced on Thursday. I wrote a post on what was shown, but after thinking more about the game I've got a few things to say.

Stemming from this announcement I ended up playing Brawl with my brother and a few friends. It was a lot of fun, but I sucked it up something fierce.

With two games and a pretty cool announcement it was a solid week.

Xenoblade

After 100 hours of play time I still can't stop playing Xenoblade. I've completed almost every sidequest that has been thrown at me, but there are still a lot to go. After a ton of needless questing and leveling I'm sitting at the solid level of 87. The cap is 99, so after a few more hours of messing around I should be there. I could probably beat the final boss with my eyes closed, but due to the way I play games that won't happen for a while longer. 

The sidequests in this game suck. Straight up, they're not engaging. None of them are voiced, and the dialogue from your party is almost the same for every single quest. There's nothing to get invested in. It's a shame, because the rest of the game is so solid. Everything deals with killing a certain amount of monsters, or getting certain materials. While they give you decent experience the loot you get it almost never worth it. However, now that I'm at the end of the game that's no longer the case. The loot is awesome now, and I even got to see a fully voiced scene. 

It's refreshing to find almost all of a games characters to be genuinely interesting.

In the coming week I should be able to wrap up my time with Xenoblade. I'm really looking forward to the conclusion of the story. At first it seemed as if the game had nothing in common with Xenogears and Xenosaga, but now it's evident that they all share certain themes. I don't want to get too much into that though, because it would ruin the story.

For all the ragging I do on the sidequests I legitimately love the rest of the game. It does so many things right and I hope that more games do it like this in the future. JRPGs have been getting stale for a while now and Xenoblade tries to do as much as it can subvert that trend. 

Sony Smash Bros.

Yeah, I didn't play this game. I did however consume as much media as possible dealing with it and thought about it a whole lot.

This isn't exactly a name that rolls off the tongue...

My first thought was that PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale may be one of the worst names a video game has ever had. It's not catchy and it's far too long. I've decided that I'm going to call it Sony Smash Bros., because it looks very similar to Super Smash Bros. When the first footage of the game came on GTTV all I could think about was how much the game looked like Super Smash. 

I've been browsing a lot of forums and it seems that there are a lot of people who aren't down with this game at all. I've seen people calling it lazy and unoriginal due to how similar it is to Super Smash. While it's clear that this game is pulling a whole lot of inspiration from another franchise I don't think that's such a bad thing. I like Super Smash and I like Sony characters. If you put the two together that's something I could get down with and this game is my opportunity to do that. That's not the problem for me.

It's hard to defend against the Super Smash comparisons when you release a picture that has a Wii in it.

The place where it all got a little weird for me was when I read about some of the game mechanics. As most people know the goal of Super Smash is to knock your opponent off of the stage. That's not how this game works at all. That fact alone should appease all the haters right? Well no, because the way you score points sounds awful. Every character has three specials of varying power. The only way to score is by hitting opponents with a special in order to kill them. In that way it's like a timed super smash match. The issue I have with it is that if you get hit with a special it's an instant kill. 

On it's own that's not too terrible, but it brings up a lot of questions. Apparently SuperBot games recruited avid fighting game players to work on the game. They claim that the game will be easily accessible, but deep at the same time. It's like they're trying to tell me that this game will be super competitive if I want it to be. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I don't see how this mechanic is so deep. If all I need to do is fill a meter for a super what's the point of the characters even having moves other than supers? The only reason you'll be fighting is to get your super. 

With that mechanic in mind it changes my view of all the footage, because it means that the game is super unbalanced. It's clear that some supers are far better than others. It's caused me to be very skeptical about the whole game. I realize that this makes me sound like a super competitive asshole, but I assure you that's not what I'm trying to do. It's just that I like it when a game is balanced. I'll most likely be playing this game a lot with my friends and it'll be super annoying if it's not balanced properly. The game is still in development, so there's time for the mechanic to change, or for everything to get a lot more balanced.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl

After talking a great deal about Sony Smash Bros. with my friends we decided to play some Brawl. As I've mentioned before Brawl isn't my favorite Smash Bros. game, but I still find it enjoyable. The controls are floaty and it's not as fast as Melee was. Regardless of my feelings we played for a few hours and it was really fun.

We haven't played Super Smash in a long time and it was good to get back to it. For some reason it's the only game series that I've ever practiced enough to get good at it. It's just fun and that's awesome. When I got done playing it I realized that I was ready for a new Super Smash game. I'll be able to get my fixes fairly soon. Sony Smash Bros. should be coming out before the year is out and Nintendo claims that there is a Smash game coming for the 3DS and the WiiU. 

SSX DLC?

This Tuesday we're rolling into May and that means that the SSX DLC will be hitting digital stores. My friends haven't been competing with my scores lately, so hopefully they'll be brought back into the fold. I really want to play more SSX, but it's hard to find the motivation when I have nothing else to work towards. 

I'm planning on finishing up Xenoblade in the next few days, so I'll be moving on to a new game. So far I don't know what that's going to be, but I've been thinking about Zak and Wiki. I started it a long time ago, but didn't end up sticking with it. I liked what I played, so I hope it'll stick this time around.

We'll have to see what goes down in the coming week.

     -Manny

Game Time - Xenoblade Edition - 4/22/2012

I really like JRPGs, so it's no surprise that Xenoblade Chronicles was the only game I played this past week. At the cost of decent sleep I managed to put in around 50 hours of gameplay. Thinking back I have no idea how I put that much time into the game, but I've come to the conclusion that I really like it.

Since I only played Xenoblade this past week I decided to make this a special edition of Game Time to share my impressions. I'm trying to do everything I can, so it's going to take me around 70 more hours to get what I want out of it. You read that right. There's an estimated 120 hours of gameplay in Xenoblade. If I play the way I've been playing it's going to be a while before I get around to a review, so this will be a placeholder in the meantime.

Welcome to the special Xenoblade edition of Game Time.

What's This All About?

Xenoblade Chronicles was originally just known as Xenoblade in Japan. It was released to critical acclaim in 2010. As time passed people wondered if it was going to be localized for other territories. Since it was published by Nintendo they themselves would have to approve of the game's release. To everyone's surprise Nintendo of America said they weren't going to release it. They even held their ground after a European release happened the August of 2011.

Wii and RPG fans cried out in agony. They wanted a US release to happen as well. A letter writing campaign called Project Rainfall was started. People wrote letters to Nintendo of America asking for them to release Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower. Nintendo didn't comment on whether or not the campaign had any success, but we finally got the Xenoblade we asked for.

I can't exactly tell you why Xenoblade is so well liked, but I have a few ideas. Taking it down to its most base level you could call it a single player MMO, but that's not doing the game any justice. The battle system is fun, the story is fairly good, and to top it off it's on the Wii. It looks incredible for a Wii game. While there are spots there are places it doesn't look so great, but it's all due to the technical limitations of the system. Monolith wasn't afraid to push the console to it's limits and it certainly pays off.

They Live On Mechs!

JRPGs always have the most ridiculous stories and that's one of the things I love about them. They may have a boatload of cliches, but when they do new things they're absolutely nuts. Xenoblade takes place on a giant mech called Bionis. In the times of old it was locked in constant battle with another mech known as the Mechonis. Now they're both defunct, but the continuous battle begins. Bionis is brimming with sentient life, while Mechonis is home to evil robots called the mechons. It's an interesting concept, but when you think about it too much it begins to fall apart. The places you travel on Bionis seem like they'd be impossible to traverse, but it's a video game so whatever...

Bionis is the one on the right with the giant laser sword.

The main character's name is Shulk. As is the standard with all JRPG main characters he's a little emo, but it's okay since he's special. He is one of the few humans who can wield the laser sword known as the Monado. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume that it's the Xenoblade, but that hasn't been established yet. I don't want to talk too much about the plot, because it's chock full of twists. I couldn't believe a few of the twists that were thrown my way, which isn't normally the case with these types of games.

Something that makes the game feel even more unique is the British voice acting. Since I live in the U.S. it's interesting to hear all of the acting with a different accent. The problem is that the voice acting isn't exactly the greatest. Sometimes it's totally fine, but there are other times where it feels flat. There are points where the voices are completely emotionless when they should at the very least be screaming. It's not enough to make me dislike it, but it certainly draws attention.

Also, Yasunori Mitsuda did the music and it's amazing. I'm contemplating buying the soundtrack.

Single Player MMO

I feel bad every time I compare Xenoblade to a MMO, but it's an apt comparison. To start with you get quests from NPCs who have exclamation points over their heads. They're never inside, because you can't ever go inside. Instead you'll be traversing huge environments. They're varied and very large. Sometimes they're so large they become annoying to traverse.

The way it's most like an MMO is in the battle system. You control a single character. A skill bar is shown on the bottom of the screen and you can pop off skills while auto attacking. Once you use a skill it's put on cooldown for a set amount of time depending on the skills level. The amount of damage a skill does depends on your characters position. Certain skills will do bonus damage from behind and some have certain effects from the side. Positioning becomes very important early on.

Yup, that looks like an MMO.

If that doesn't sound enough like an MMO for you wait a second because I've got more. In battle players draw aggro. Yes, it's actually called aggro. You can have up to 3 party members at a time. The one who's attacking the enemy the most will draw the most aggro, so they'll be targeted. This leads to very MMO like strategy. The roles are very clearly similar to a DPS, tank, and medic. The tank will draw aggro, while the DPS attacks, and the medic heals. Not every character fits these exact archetypes,  but they're all fairly similar.

A Completionist's Nightmare

For the first ten or so hours of Xenoblade I didn't have very much fun and it was entirely my fault. There are a ridiculous number of quests available. They give a lot of experience points, but the items and rewards you get are rarely worth it. To top it off they almost never have a worthwhile plot. It's almost always kill so many monsters, or collect to many of a certain item. In the beginning of the game they're easy to complete, but later on when you need to get rare drops it becomes incredibly frustrating.

Take this amount of quests and multiply it by a hundred or two. That's how many there are.

I freaking tried to do every single quest I could. At certain points in the game there are time limited quests. For some reason I'm always scared of missing content in games, so I try to do all the quests I can as soon as possible. This led to me becoming extremely overpowered. It was so bad that I hardly ever took damage and didn't die until I was about 30 hours into the game. I didn't need to use any type of strategy, because I could literally annihilate enemies while auto-attacking. The difficulty of the game has completely turned around now. Even with my extreme leveling the enemies are posing a threat now. It's actually fun to plan out what I'm going to do and co-ordinate with my other party members.

Since the quests aren't exciting or anything it's easy to burn out on the entire game. I've burned myself out twice already and come back around. If anyone is planning on playing this game, I recommend you only do a quests before advancing in the story. I've read countless forum threads about people getting burned out on the game and I can totally understand why. I recognize that it's completely my fault, but they could have at least made the plots worth the time.

Xenoblade is chock full of content. With 120 hours of gameplay time to do everything there is no shortage on stuff to do. It's all about finding the right balance. I think this is why I like Xenoblade so much. I love playing MMO's, but I can never play them for very long. I need a story to sustain me and Xenoblade delivers that with all the trappings of an MMO.

How do I feel?

I really like Xenoblade, but I still haven't managed to gather all of my thoughts on it. This past week has been a complicated jumble of work, Xenoblade, and sleep. In that order. It's all been a blur. All I know is that it's been an enjoyable blur. Every spare moment I've been playing Xenoblade.

Every time I think the Wii is done an awesome new game gets released. It's a shame that all of these games are coming at the end of the systems life cycle, because it means that a whole lot of people are going to miss out on it. I'm here to say that you shouldn't miss out on this game. Unless you don't like JRPGs or MMOs and in that case you'll want to steer clear of this game like it's the plague.

I'll be back next week and I'll hopefully have more concise thoughts on the game. On top of that I'll actually try to play some other games, or else next week's game time is going to be pretty lame.

See you next time.

     -Manny

Game Time - 4/15/2012

Another week has passed and it's time for another issue of Game Time.

Much to my dismay I still do not have Xenoblade. Nintendo and UPS both claim that it will be arriving tomorrow, so I hope that's true. However, my dismay was not enough to keep me from playing a few other games.

This entry is going to be a bit short, because I ended up playing a lot of what I played last week. SSX and Kid Icarus are still at the top of my gaming list, but I also got in a whole bunch of Skullgirls.

Skullgirls


My brother loves fighting games. Prior to this week he was watching all the Skullgirls streams that he could possibly consume at once. By the time Tuesday rolled around he was basically losing his mind with excitement. Personally I was on the fence about Skullgirls, because I wasn't convinced by what they were showing.


My brother plays on 360, so he was going to have to wait until Wednesday. I decided to buy it, because indie fighting games are few and far between. We both ended up loving the game. The initial reason that I didn't want to buy Skullgirls was because of the art style. It's a combination between 1940's Disney cartoons and hyper-sexualized anime. It really weirds me out when cartoon girls have their boobs spilling out over their tops.

Valentine is exactly what I don't like about the art style, but I use her anyways. 

While I still don't like the art of Skullgirls, I like almost everything else about the game. What's cool about the game is that it was built by extreme fighting game fans for fighting game fans. Mike Z, one of the main people who worked on the game plays Blazblue at tournament level. Due to this fact the game does a lot of things that people who really like fighting game fans will go bananas over, but casual players won't care about at all.

In fighting game tournaments if the pause button is pressed the perpetrator loses. This can totally break up the match, so the penalty is completely justified. Sometimes the button can be pressed on accident and Skullgirls totally gets around that. In order to pause the game you have to hold start. To the average gamer this might be frustrating, but it;s a very cool feature. The game is chock full of little things like that to make it feel polished. You can edit the buttons from the character select screen, there's a system to protect against infinites, and a whole lot more.

There are only eight characters in Skullgirls, but they're all unique.

I play a lot of fighting games, but I'm not super hardcore like my brother. The reason I like Skullgirls is because I really like how it plays. Games that have 1 frame links like Street Fighter IV make it hard to do combos. Skullgirls is all about pushing the buttons fast, so I can actually do fairly decent combos. It doesn't make me feel like a failure and that's cool.

On top of all that the game has a great tutorial that does a pretty good job of teaching the basics. The skills that the game teaches can be applied to all fighting games. It's really the first real tutorial seen in a fighting game and it's something that a lot of games could learn from.

SSX


It's been a week and I still think SSX is awesome. Even though I beat the campaign and reviewed the game I still had to keep playing. It definitely helped that one of my friends bought the game. SSX has a system called Rider Net, which is essentially the auto-log from Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. If your friends beat your scores in global events or explore mode drops you'll be challenged.

For some reason I had to beat every single challenge that I was given, which ended up being 50 or so. Some of them were crazy, but I still ended up beating them. The competition is prolonging the life of the game for me. Normally I would have moved on, but the challenges are keeping me coming back for more. Since I the challenges keep going back and forth I'll most likely be doing this for a long time, especially since I'm still having a boatload of fun.

Tomorrow EA is going to announce what the first SSX dlc is, so my fun might be extended. They released a promo picture that looks a whole lot like SSX Tricky. I can only hope that the SSX Tricky mountain is being added as DLC. It would be even better if they threw in some new clothes that were reminiscent of the Tricky costumes.

This looks a lot like SSX Tricky. 

Kid Icarus: Uprising

I really wanted to have a review of Kid Icarus up last week, but I didn't end up finishing it. Initially I thought it was super short, but it ended up being much longer than I expected. The first few chapters flew by and only took twenty minutes at most. Now the chapters are taking an hour or more a piece to complete and I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's way longer than I thought.

Initially I thought the overall plot of Kid Icarus was basically non-existent. It seemed to be a bunch of referential jokes and a whole lot of witty banter. I'm nearing the end of the game and all of that is still there, but now there is an overarching plot and I'm really liking it. There were a few plot twists that I didn't see coming. While the plot may not be a masterpiece I think that it's got a lot of charm. Iwata's sense of style really shows in this game.

Last week I talked about how uncomfortable I thought the controls were and I'm going to have to take that back now. At a juncture that I can't pinpoint I felt totally fine playing the game. The controls even began to feel right. I'm no longer having trouble doing what I want and I'm dying far less often, which is weird because I'm getting farther into everything while slowly ratcheting up the difficulty.

I want my Xenoblade

I have been wanting to play a new JRPG for quite some time, so its great that Xenoblade should be coming tomorrow. If all goes as planned it will consume my gaming life for the next week. If I can tear myself away from it for long enough (If it even comes) I'll try to finish up Kid Icarus and throw up a review, but I promise nothing.

That's what I played this past week. Get ready to hear about a whole lot of Xenoblade next week. I'm starting to get pretty excited about it. What's not to get exited about? It's a recent Wii release that doesn't suck. 

With that final thought I leave you to pursue another week of video gaming.

     -Manny

Game Time - 4/8/2012

Happy Easter everyone! While it may be a holiday that doesn't change the fact that it's game time.

Last week I dipped into my backlog of games to try and clear some of them out. I wasn't expecting to get anything new until Xenoblade (Which I still don't have). Much to my surprise I was able to pick up two new games this week thanks to an awesome Best Buy sale. I've been waiting for Kid Icarus and SSX to go on sale, so it was great to get them for $30 each.

Needless to say I spent most of my free time playing both of them. While I'd like to say I played them both equally, I didn't. SSX turned out to be way more fun than I expected, so Kid Icarus had to take a back seat.

Oh yeah, I played a bunch of Skyrim too. Let's break it down!

Skyrim

My Skyrim madness continued into this week. I truly did get hooked on Skyrim again. Initially I only wanted to beat the main quest line, but it ended up being much more than that. I did beat the main quest line and I didn't think it was that great overall. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll just say I had to kill a bunch of Dragons. For some reason it seems like an Elder Scrolls tradition to have the guild quests far outshine the main quests. You'd think that it would be completely the opposite, but you'd be very wrong.

Once I beat the main quest I couldn't stop for some reason, so I decided to try and get every trophy in the game while doing a whole bunch of random stuff.  I'm not exaggerating at all. I literally did completely random things and I had fun while doing them. I got married, became obsessed with collecting books, ran to every place on the map that I hadn't explored, stole from everyone I saw, learned shouts, crafted weapons, and did some sidequests. There's something awesome about running around a huge world as a cat man dressed like Batman and doing whatever the hell I want.

My cat man married Aela. She can't die, so that's pretty cool.

The thing that draws me to Skyrim is that you actually can go anywhere you want. It's a living, breathing world that my character can truly influence. It's easy to get immersed, because there's just so much to it. It's hard to imagine that there is so much lore to read into. There's an actual history to the land of Tamriel and I really love that. It's one of the reasons I get so easily sidetracked in the game. It's constantly throwing so much at you that it's hard to focus on a single task. I don't mean that in a bad way. Unlike most games I find the totally random quests to be interesting. While they may not reward you with the best gear there's always that chance that you could get something.

So yeah, I got sidetracked in Skyrim. It's still awesome. I didn't get all the trophies, but I'm damn close. I've got some new games now and I've completed the main quest, so I won't come back to it for a while. However, I will certainly return to Skyrim when I have the time, or when they release the inevitable DLC.

SSX

I bought SSX on Tuesday and threw up my review on Friday. Somehow I managed to cram in a ridiculous amount of SSX into four days. Since I wrote a review I don't want to rehash my experience too much, but there are some things I feel need to be said about SSX.

I'm going to come right out and say that I think SSX is awesome. It's one of the most purely fun games I've played in a long time. Longtime fans of the series seem to have mixed feelings on this reboot. The crazy characters and locales have been toned down quite a bit for this brand new entry in the series. While I can see how that's a bad thing, it's not necessarily the worst thing ever. In games like SSX specifically I think the gameplay is the most important part of the game and SSX delivers in that department.

In real life this stunt could only end in tragedy.
This is SSX, so it can only end in awesome.

Like I said, SSX is fun. I played a whole shit ton of it. I beat the campaign, completed half of the drops, competed against my friends times/scores, and competed in global events. Most of the events I played were basically the same, but I had fun playing every single one of them. There's something almost magical about speeding down a snow covered mountain at full speed tricking off of everything. The game has a great sense of speed and it controls very smoothly. Almost everything about the movement and handling of the game defies reality, but that's what extreme sports games are all about. I'm sure someone out there would prefer a snowboarding game that parallels reality, but I'm not that person so I love everything about how SSX handles itself.

To enhance the experience even further the music goes along with everything you're doing while going down the mountain. The music changes tempo, volume, and even adds in some crazy bass. I still don't quite believe it, but this works amazingly well even with custom soundtracks. It's like having a DJ remix your songs, but it's the game and it doesn't sound like total shit. Somehow it manages to make any kind of music sound like it fits in with the game.

In case you didn't notice I think SSX is awesome. I highly recommend it.

Kid Icarus: Uprising

As a kid I never had a NES. I never played Kid Icarus. My first exposure to the series was when Nintendo decided to put Pit into Brawl. All I really knew about the game was that there was an eggplant wizard, but I had never seen it. Despite my lack of knowledge I wanted to pick up Kid Icarus Uprising for the 3DS, which I did.

I have a ton of feelings on Kid Icarus: Uprising and I've yet to sort them all out. What stands out the most to me is how uncomfortable the game is to play. When I first heard the game came with a 3DS stand I thought it was a joke. The game actually comes with a stand, because apparently they realized how uncomfortable the entire thing was. The 3DS isn't very ergonomic to begin with and it doesn't help that I have giant hands. You're expected to hold the 3DS with your left hand to use the circle pad and the L button. With your right hand you use the stylus to control the camera and aim Pit's shots. The pad is supposed to help take the pain out of holding the 3DS, but it seems useless unless you're at a desk. When you get used to the controls they're not awful, but I still haven't ever found myself in a comfortable position.

Outside of the control I generally like the game. It's just straight up weird. Pit and the Goddess Palutena are trying to take down the evil Medusa, who's apparently back from the first game. While you're fighting enemies everyone will talk constantly. I'm not even kidding I don't think there has been a point in the 5 hours I've played the game where someone wasn't talking. Normally that would make me want to smash a game into a million pieces, but the dialogue is actually entertaining. Self referential jokes are constantly being made. Games and game mechanics are referred to and joked about, which leads to some interesting dialogue. It seems like the witty banter it going to continue for the whole game, so hopefully I won't get sick of it.

While playing Kid Icarus: Uprising I've been getting pangs of nostalgia, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why until earlier today. Nintendo mainstay Masahiro Sakurai was the mind behind this game and coincidentally he was behind Kirby as well. When I thought about that it all started to make sense. It's got so many similarities to Kirby's Air Ride! Both games look similar graphically (At least I think so), both games have unlock grids, and both games have grind rails. In Kirby's Air Ride you're primarily piloting stars. In Uprising there are vehicles that handle very much like the stars in Air Ride! Even the menus look alike. Maybe I'm crazy, but they seem like they have a lot in common to me.

Parts of Kid Icarus have looked a whole lot like this...

All I know is that Kid Icarus is a crazy game. It's got a butt load of content and it's chock full of style. I'm certainly going to finish it, so hopefully I'll be able to review it in the near future.

I Didn't Play Xenoblade...

Xenoblade Chronicles was finally released in America this past Friday the 6th. Many people have been playing it, sadly I am not one of those people. I pre-ordered my copy from Nintendo's website long ago. I thought that it would be nice to order directly from Nintendo, but apparently that was dumb. My order still hasn't shipped and I get the feeling it won't for a while. I thought about cancelling the order and picking it up at Gamestop since they apparently got a ton of copies, but that didn't quite pan out. Nintendo has already charged my card for the game... Hopefully I get it soon, because it looks amazing. I could use a solid JRPG to play.

Other than not playing Xenoblade I played a bit of Skylanders this week. While at Best Buy I picked up Stealth Elf. For some reason I told myself I wasn't going to play any more Skylanders until I got one of every type. I only needed a life type and I had my heart set on Stealth Elf. Lucky for me she was one of the most sought after toys, so she was always sold out. I think she looks cool and now that I've got her she's my favorite Skylander. I leveled her up a bit and I'll probably end up finishing the game sometime this week.

She's clearly the best Skylander. She fights with teeth.

In the midst of a game drought I somehow managed to pick up a bunch of new stuff. Perhaps it's good that Nintendo decided not to ship my copy of Xenoblade when they were supposed to. Now I can finish Kid Icarus and mess around with Skylanders some more.

Well I hope you enjoyed this week's Game Time. See you next week.

     -Manny