The seventh best videogame(s) of 2008
(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)
Tom Chick
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Rockstar / Rockstar San Diego)
It's not a good year for videogaming without an almost perfect racing title lighting up the room. "Midnight Club: Los Angeles" is this year's belle of the ball, with its crowded and evocative Los Angeles-a-like serving as a shrewdly crafted rumpus room for the same great driving physics that graced "Grand Theft Auto IV," but this time with better AI in the other cars. No one does traffic like Rockstar, bless their city-building hearts. But this next-gen "Midnight Club" will really ruin other racing games for you once you see how well it plays by actually looking at the world instead of a minimap. Not since "Forza" invented a color-coded gravity indicator (really!) has a driving game so successfully put you in the driver's seat instead of behind a TV screen.
Chris Dahlen
No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)
Probably the roughest and least accessible game on my list, "No More Heroes" succeeds because of the way its story explores one of pop culture’s best lies - namely, that an average schmuck can become a winner through doggedness and hard labor, whether it’s pumping gas and cleaning trash, or spending half an hour wearing down a lolita with a lethal baseball bat. And the fact that after all that, Travis Touchdown remains a schmuck, is the perfect kicker.
Ben Fritz
No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)
The first action game to successfully embrace the Wii from the ground up, rather than jamming in something that works 100 times better on a PS3 or 360. The swordplay and wrestling are a bloody good time and the villians are over-the-top awesome. But “No More Heroes” really stands out for the way it overflows with style tailor-made for its audience, giving gamers the ultra-violent, retro, bombastic, hilarious fantasy life they never knew they wanted. It’s “The Last Starfighter” for otaku.
Leigh Alexander
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Konami / Konami)
Though "Castlevania" creator Koji Igarashi persists, in the face of fan pleas to the contrary, in pursuing the franchise in 3D and on next-gen consoles, the long-running series continues to shine on the DS. There, its jaw-droppingly complex and artful 2D sprites can take center stage, while the stylus controls make for intuitive mechanics that don't try to overhaul the basics. Previous DS "Castlevania" titles have excelled, but "Order of Ecclesia" combines a lovely heroine, environments as variegated as they are visually captivating, and the smashing new "Glyph" game system for what feels like the series' richest and most challenging entry since the classic "Symphony of the Night."
Coming tomorrow morning: The sixth best videogame(s) of 2008
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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Kyle - I was talking specifically about fiction. In the real world, I recognize that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. For example, the son of an impoverished single mother can be elected president.
But many games are built on a "zero to hero" storyline where the player starts out as an anonymous farmer and end the game as the savior of the world. But in No More Heroes, the protagonist's dreams grow more and more fantastic, yet he still has to spend his days doing odd jobs and manual labor. Even when he's one kill away from stardom, he still has to go out and pump gas. Travis is a schmuck because he's playing a rigged game and he's too deluded to notice it - and I admired the game for not shying away from that.
I don't know if Travis Touchdown is a born loser. But he grew into one, and the game never lets him forget it.
Posted by: Chris Dahlen | December 25, 2008 at 07:09 PM
"one of pop culture’s best lies - namely, that an average schmuck can become a winner through doggedness and hard labor"
I can't even begin to describe how cynical and wrong this comment is.
Or is it?
Yes. It is. Why?
First, it depends on your definition of a winner. Second, definition of a schmuck. Third, many people do achieve what society would call "win" after dogged determination and hard work. Fourth, it infers that you are stuck with the loserhood that you are born (?) with. Whether this is something the author has found in his own life experience or simply knows to be true, it's reaching. Way. Too. Far.
Posted by: Kyle | December 23, 2008 at 07:13 PM