Game of the Year 2011: Best Adaptation

Best Adaptation of an Existing Work: El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

El Shaddai may seem like a strange pick for best adaptation. After all, the game is based on an obscure questionably canonical Judeo-Christian religious text (Book of Enoch 1, from the Dead Sea Scrolls) while including a Tron-styled motorcycle race and enough homoeroticism to make Cho Aniki hang its head in shame. And yet, it is still completely accurate to the story, and more importantly the spirit of the story, on which it is based. For example, the aforementioned motorcycle race which takes place in Azazel’s realm. In the original text, the angel Azazel acts as the Judeo-Christian Prometheus, giving tools and weapons to humanity with the knowledge of how to produce them. He represents technology and hunanity’s future, and in that sense the game’s neon robotic metropolis is a plausible interpretation based on modern knowledge of where humanity can next progress. It is the kind of interpretation that can only come from a development studio divorced from Western Judeo-Christian culture. It is an interpretation that requires developers to step back and see scripture as story rather than sacred text. El Shaddai is not a literal adaptation of its source material, but it is an accurate interpretation of its source story, and for that it is worthy of high praise.

Game of the Year 2011: Best Social Game

Best social game: Dark Souls

I realize “social games” are considered their own genre of freemium Facebook games, but that’s not how I’m using the term here. To me, a social game is one that promotes social interaction, an no game has done that more for me this year than Dark Souls. I can’t even count the number of Dark Souls conversations I had on twitter of “oh crap, I can’t believe that just happened,” and “ try using this item there.” Part of it comes from the game’s challenge, which encouraged me and many others to seek out new strategies from friends, but there is also the sense of wonder when encountering something wholly new, both mechanically or visually in the game, that seemed to demand being shared. And of course, there is the sense of accomplishment when defeating one of the monstrous bosses that prompted every Dark Souls player to broadcast when that first damn Taurus demon was vanquished. It is a type of social interaction with gaming that I haven’t felt since playing Ocarina of Time in 4th grade, where one friend would discover the trick to a dungeon and share with the rest of us only for a different friend to solve a difficult puzzle in the next one. And for the out-of-game real world socialization it produced, Dark Souls is by far the best social game of 2011.

Game of the Year 2011: Best Series Reboot

Best series reboot: Mortal Kombat

Franchise reboots are often treated as second class games or unimaginative cash-ins, but a good one is exceedingly difficult to pull off. It’s usually the result of either a series that has grown stale from sequelitis (see the newly announced Tomb Raider) or a series that has had too few sequels and is in need of a comeback (XCOM and Syndicate, I’m looking at you). For me, 2011 had two standout reboots that really nailed what developers should strive for: Rayman Origins and Mortal Kombat. Now, because of my general preference for platformers, I’d say Rayman is the better game, but Mortal Kombat is by far the better reboot. I was never really a Mortal Kombat fan; the bloody payoffs were only entertaining for so long before the realization set in that it was just too stiff and overly-mechanical with its reliance on memorized combos. But this year’s Mortal Kombat has finally won me over. Most special moves are easy to pull off and can fluidly chain into one another in any combination, which is my ideal fighting formula. Sure, all of the signature blood and guts are there, but for the first time I feel like Mortal Kombat is a truly mechanically sound fighting game even if its gory presentations were to be stripped away. There is also much to be said of its story mode, which has set a new standard for fighting games in its presentation. While the fighting mechanics rebooted the game series, the story mode essentially rebooted the cheesy films, adding much-needed and often ridiculous context to each fight. The moment Jax challenged Johnny Cage to a fight because he simply wouldn’t shut up is utterly brilliant. The best franchise reboots can keep the old fanbase happy while bringing in new players, and as a recent convert I can attest to Mortal Kombat doing exactly that.

Game of the Year awards 2011: A New Take

It’s that time of year when every game journalist makes a list of their favorites from the past 12 months. However, when writing my own entries, I found it exceedingly difficult to simply narrow down to a numbered list. How can I compare Mario 3D Land to Skyrim, to To the Moon, to El Shaddai, to Rayman Origins? There were so many games I loved this year, and each for entirely different reasons. So for my own blog, rather than a numbered list of my top 10 or 20 games, I have chosen select favorites and will attribute awards to them for the specific quality that made it my favorite of the year. This means that many genres and categories likely won’t be represented, but then again, I don’t claimed this to be an objective list of any sort.

Oh, and there will be spoilers. For some games it is impossible to discuss what made them so special without spoilers, so I won’t shy away from them.

Hope you enjoy it!

 

Best series reboot: Mortal Kombat

Best social game: Dark Souls

A Puzzling Story

I’ve been playing quite a lot of the new Professor Layton recently, and it’s gotten me thinking about the relationship between gameplay and story. Essentially, there is no relationship in Professor Layton, and yet I still enjoy it. This is troubling to me, since I’m typically of the school of thought insisting that gameplay should drive story and vice versa.

Sure, the occassional Professor Layton puzzle will relate to the story action in some cursory way – a door that needs unlocking or a maze puzzle to help some character who got lost on their way to the store – but for the most part the puzzles are complete non sequiturs. This should bother me, but it doesn’t for some reason that I can’t quite place. Perhaps because the puzzles are so short that they don’t detract from the story? Or maybe I”m just being indoctrinated into the delusional madness of puzzle obsession that infects every character in Professor Layton’s world? I’m still not convinced that Layton is not simply locked away in an asylum somewhere, rocking back and forth in his cell quietly chanting “Puzzle, puzzle, puzzle” with these adventures merely projections of his fevered imagination. Especially with this new one supposedly a prequel, I imagine it more as a genuine sequel where he is first locked away, and reminiscing through the distorted puzzle lens of his madness.

The other game that comes to mind when thinking of this disconnect between story and gameplay is Catherine. Though I must admit, I haven’t yet begun to actually play Catherine, but this is in large part because of the puzzles. I played the demo, and the puzzles just didn’t resonate with me in any way, nor did they appear to have any relation to the plot aside from the visual surroundings. I am curious, though, as to how the overall game experience is impacted by there only being one type of repeated non sequitur puzzle in Catherine, compared to the literally hundreds of different puzzle types in Professor Layton. I imagine Catherine wears out its welcome sooner, another reason why I have yet to pick it up. Perhaps I should get it though, just for comparison purposes.

This post isn’t really going anywhere, not yet at least. I haven’t yet finished the latest Layton and haven’t started Catherine. But I felt compelled to get some of my initial thoughts down nonetheless. After all, this blog is meant for my musings. I never promised conclusions.

Welcome to Gamerly Musings

Hi, I’m Scott Nichols, freelance game journalist/critic/writer-type person extraordinaire.

I have been laser focused on the videogame industry since I was a little kid. I played and read about games constantly, even getting a job at GameStop in high school to be involved in the industry. In college I studied writing and received my BA in English while also starting my first freelance gigs writing for PC World Magazine’s website and GayGamer.net. I still write for GayGamer.net, and over the past three years have expanded to also write freelance news, reviews, and feature articles for GamePro, G4, IGN, Digital Spy, and others across the internet.

As the name of this blog implies, I plan to collect my gamerly musings here. This is where unpublished feature pitches go to shine rather than die, and where I can post thoughts not quite developed enough to pitch but are still worth sharing. I’ll also do a fair amount of linkage to my various freelance articles and reviews in hopes of creating some sort of unified portfolio.

So, welcome. Sit down, grab your favorite beverage of choice, and lets chat about some vidyagames.