Weekend Confirmed 141 - Far Cry 3, Skulls of the Shogun, Darksiders 2

How I would like to see Game of the Year done.

First, start with a list similar to the New York Time Notable Books of Year which isn’t really an award but more a list of what the reviewers feel were excellent books released over the past year.

From this list of Notable Games, six would be then shortlisted for Game of the Year contention with one taking home the big prize. I don’t feel that the MSRP, team size, budget, length of the game, or any other factor should disqualify or dimish any games opportunity from contending as Game of the Year. If a two hour downloadable game gave the panel the one of the best gaming experiences they had that year, there is no reason that it shouldn’t be in the discussion. Braid was certainly one of the best games of 2008 and Journey should be in the discusion this year with FTL making a strong case as well.

Finally, recognize indivual games for the excellence they brought to gaming in that year. This would allow the games that have really stood out to be acknowledged for that specific excellence. This recognition would also stand the test of time as almost a list of milestones for the industry and games that others will be compared with going forward.

Imagine had this Recognition of Excellence been in existence over the past six years, we might have a partial list looking something like this:

In Recognition of Excellence in Storytelling: Bioshock (2007)
In Recognition of Excellence in Co-Operative Play: Left 4 Dead (2008)
In Recognition of Excellence in Motion Control: Flower (2009)
In Recognition of Excellence in Art Design: Kirby’s Epic Yarn (2010)
In Recognition of Excellence in Sports: NBA2K11 (2010)
In Recognition of Excellence in Writing: To The Moon (2011)

So in the end there is a list of the games that the panel felt were truly strong and worthy of attention (Notable Games of 2012). There are nominees for the Game of Year award with the winner awarded (Game of the Year). And there would be a handful of games that have brought something special to gaming being acknowledged for their acheivement (In Recognition of Excellence).

Long time listener, first time caller,

Thanks.

Hi there Garnet, I tried twitter, but I don't know if Jeff Cannata saw it. I have an extra dota 2 invite, just need the details on how to make it go his way. His steam id or something :)

Hey Garnett,

Love the podcast and have been hearing for a long time. But this is the first time I make a comment here.

I have been meaning to write about this for a long time, but have not because I wanted to express myself in a way that did not sound like a complain.

I just heard the latest bioshock infinite podcast, and finally, for the first time I think you may have actually experienced a frustration I have been having for the longest time with the show, which is the desire to learn about a game, without having anything spoil it.

I look forward every weekd to hear the podcast, but many times, I find myself having to skip huge parts of the show because of the indiscriminate spoils that come from "talking about a certain game."

Like many of you, I play games to experience the story, and i like to be surprised by the game and the experience. If Jeff tells me that I am a citizen of Comcordia, and will revolt because of racism and become the rebel in the game, that just killed a major surprised and plot of the game, I will no longer be able to experience and be surprised myself.

Going back to the Assassin's creed 3 episode. You talked so much about the story, that I had to completely stop listening to the podcast because I did not want to learn more about the game.

I know it is really hard to talk about a game without giving away spoilers, but I would really appreciate if you could talk more about the gameplay and mechanics of the game, and when talking about the story just give an overall overview, and not specifics of what is going on.

I love you show, and in no way shape or form I am trying to tell you how to do your job. I just would hate to have to stop listening to a show I love because of spoilers.

I think sometimes, the eagerness to talk about the game, and the fact that being a journalist, you loose track that most people have not played the game, and wont probably play the first week the game is out. most people are excited about to play the game and want to learn about it but do not want the experience told to them in advance, but rather, want to learn if the experience is worth having.

I believe on the bioshock infinite episode was the first time, you and your crew experienced what I have experienced all along. Want to learn about the game, but did not want Jeff to spoil any of it. Maybe you can re work the approach so this is not an issue in the future.

Again, i am not trying to tell you how to do your job, just giving the insight of someone outside the business who would love to continue to listen to the show.

Thank you guys.

So it seems as soon as gamers get there hands on or see a WiiU they're immediately interested, and understand the idea of the console. If the interest in Nintendo isn't there, that's different altogether. Everyone understand the tablet controller and knows the benefits once they've put there hands on it. It more a classic system innovation then the motion revolution.

What have your experience with the WiiU been?

Welp, as the year winds down, I'm confident in what my top 10 picks for this year are.

1) The Walking Dead - Yeah, it's probably technically a cheat to pick 5 episodes as one game. And yeah, at times it feels less like a game than an interactive novel. Screw it. The game was still one of the most gripping, entertaining, and genuinely moving experiences I've had in years, and I agonized over every choice.

2) XCOM: Enemy Unknown - When the FPS XCOM was announced, a lot of people were upset that they weren't getting a TBS game. I was not one of those people. I played the orignal XCOM and while I enjoyed it, it did not become a religion to me. So I went into this one with some excitement, but no hype. My boss actually set up a meeting with me about 2 weeks after the game was released to ask about the sudden drop in productivity at work... this game owned my life.

3) Halo 4 - Spartan Ops feels like a missed opportunity as they recycle assets and push players through mediocre net code, and I'm still not sold that I enjoy the weapon drops more than fighting over spawn points on a map. That said, the core gameplay in Halo 4 is so smooth and well balanced, and the single-player campaign, minus button pushing being the only objective, was perfectly paced and pretty gripping if - like me - you enjoy the lore. Definitely going to get the most hours of any game released this year, that's for sure.

4) Mark of the Ninja

5) Assassin's Creed 3

6) Darksiders 2

7) Dishonored

8) Borderlands 2

9) Journey

10) Mass Effect 3

Honorable Mention: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Max Payne 3, Torchlight II, Diablo III, SSX, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Feel free to add your own.

Not to be the asshole skeptic in the room, but it is much more likely that there was some sort of toxic exposure issue in Jake's college dorm room than a haunting. Carbon monoxide poisoning has been connected with many of the classic signs of haunting.

On the "stressfullness" of hardcore games:

I've said it before, I can't emphasize it enough, you have to LET GO of the need to finish every game you start. You want to have fun playing Dark Souls or ZombieU or Spelunky or AC3 or whatever, it's not that hard to do:

Just Be In The Moment.

Don't think about how far you've gone or how much farther there is to go, don't worry about whether you're making progress, and for the love of whichever god floats your boat, stop treating your lost progress as a waste of time! It's not like you're being any more productive when you do finish games. It's just a game, try to enjoy the journey.

Serious question: Why doesn't Shack just hire Jeff?

Just wanted to poke my head in to comment on your DotA discussion, with Jeff saying that he wanted to get some experience in the genre. For some background here, I've been playing DotA since it was a collection of mods on battle.net for warcraft 3, and DotA 2 for a bit over a year. I played in the League of Legends beta and continued there until about a year after they released their 3v3 map, playing on a couple of low level competitive teams on the way.

First, the pitch on ARTS games and why Jeff will get sucked in super hard (I hate the term MOBA. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena? The games are action RTS, it's a way better description): It's like taking the experience of leveling a character in Diablo/WoW to the level cap, compressing it into a 40 minute time period, and making the entire experience PvP. In WoW if you want to roll a tank/dps/healer you have to sink days into a new character, while in these games you just hit find match again and pick someone new. I've literally been playing these games for the past 10 years, and it hasn't gotten old yet.

I've had thousands of RPG experiences encompassing the full spectrum of the genre. There were times when my character grew so powerful he could destroy anything in his path with ease, times when my shaman managed to throw out a key heal to turn the tide of a fight and a game, and times when my guy ended the game having taken a total beating, with a pitifully small inventory, no HP and weak spells.

The basic mechanics aren't that complex. You have four abilities, you level up and earn gold by killing things, you use that gold to buy potions and new armor/weapons, and you go and kill the enemy. If you're not strong enough to kill the enemy, you need to farm better than they do so you can have more items and be higher leveled, so you can kill them.

When it comes to which game to jump into right now, Dota 2 is really the place to be as a new player for one reason: Valve. The game is as polished as any Valve project. Each character has 30 minutes of dialog recorded, covering just about every action that occurs in the game. Characters have rivalries with each other in the game universe, and talk smack to each other after kills (Example - when a samurai strikes down a stealth hero with permanent invisibility: "An honorable foe stands to fight before he dies."). The animations and character design are amazing and ever improving, the devs put out custom holiday events/map reskins,

If you want to see esports done right, you need to see what Valve is doing with Dota 2. Anyone can jump into any game being played at any time as a spectator, whether it's your friend playing his second game ever or two pro teams going at it. When tourneys are online, you can watch the games through the game client. You can jump into a first person point of view and get a players mouse and screen movements on your computer, you can control the camera yourself, or you can use their AI director to frame the action for you. Commentator audio is piped through the game client, and if multiple commentators are commenting on a match you can select the one you want at any time.

Gameplay wise, the balance philosophy of DotA has always been "Make the less popular, weaker characters better, instead of making the popular, strong characters worse." Valve hired both the original creator of DotA, as well as the man who took it from a fun but unbalanced mod to a competitive game played for huge amounts of money. It's fascinating to look at the comments around DotA balance patches - nobody complains. In Starcraft blizzard can say "Hey guys we're going to make command centers cost 405 minerals instead of 400" and the forums will explode with reasons that this will kill the game, but everyone has so much faith in icefrog's ability to balance the game that nobody gripes.

Finally, Valve is monetizing the game through cosmetic items and never selling anything that affects gameplay, while LoL is monetizing the game through selling heroes (as well as boosts that shorten the grind that it takes to get your summoner to the maximum power level). For me this is huge - I like being able to play as whoever I want to, at any time, without being charged. The implications of selling heroes are what drove me away from the game - Riot is incentivized to release new heroes as often as possible, to make more money.

Anyhow, I hope this post might inspire some people to check out the greatest genre in competitive video gaming. Nothing beats jumping online with a couple of friends and creating some new stories, and the first time you get a character strong enough that you can come out of a three vs one fight unscathed I guarantee you'll be hooked!

If anyone wants Dota 2 keys, I think I have a couple extra lying around - just reply here and I'll set you up.

On the whole 1,000,000 gamerscore race, wouldn't you have to play at least 1,000 games on Live in order to do that? Are there even that many games available on Xbox 360?

Also, I wonder if any of those people have tried also playing the PC versions of games that use GFWL. GFWL achievement points count towards your Xbox Gamertag. If you play a game on 360, and the PC version of that game uses GFWL, you can get the same achievements twice by playing both versions.

I agree with Jeff one million trillion infinity % that the addition of capes to any game elevates its standing automatically.

I think you guys made the awards category discussion more complicated than it needs to be because you were so wrong about trying to say Angry Birds should be up for GotY. To me this problem is solved with 3 categories:

1. Best AAA Game
2. Best Downloadable Game
3. Best iOS/Android Game

The only games that wouldn't fit into these 3 categories are DS and Vita titles, however you could have platform specific categories for those. In the case of Vita "cross buy" games could go into 2. and also you could argue that since all its games are digital and smaller they should all be considered in 2.

Other than that I think you could have a category called "Special Novelty/Innovation" for motion games, and then developer specific awards for writing, direction, art design, technical performance, multiplayer design, etc.

I think a good barometer for sorting games in general might be how much data they use. The amount of sound/resolution of art assets, etc. generally speaks to the intentions of a title without saying that its good or bad.

Excellent choice Jeff. Darksiders 2 is one of my top 10 games of the year. Such a great pastiche of everything I love about so many different games.... not to mention comic book art and that delightfully cool middle-ground between heavy-metal fantasy and Christian Apocrypha.

Looking forward to the DLC tomorrow.

Not to 'opposition buzz market' too much, but a few weeks ago, there was a Joystiq podcast episode that had Brian Leahy and Mike Schramm appear to talk and debate about DotA 2 and LoL, pros and cons, and what the general similarity/differences are.

I myself have been curious of these sort of games, but am absolutely afraid of getting absolutely creamed; especially after some of the horror stories that BLeahy points out (in the podcast). I found it absolutely informative, and well worth a listen.

Plus BLeahy! (whatcha gonna sayhee?!)

You want to judge all time consoles Garnett here's what you do. You take 2 consoles you make a list 10 best games of each, then you make a top 10 of those 2 list and who dominates that top 10 usually wins.

Example 1992 dream team<2012 dream team! I know what your saying "Mysssss your crazy and stupid!" But wait here me out. Who are the top 5 players on the court? Lets count
1. Jordan
2. Lebron James
3. Durant
4. Kobe
5. Pippin or Barkley
So your there's a big drop from 4 to 5 and your telling me 3 of the top 5 players are on 1 team, easy pick.

Now lets try super nes to playstation

Playstation Snes
1. Metal gear solid. 1. Zelda link to the past
2.Castlevania SotN. 2. Super Mario
3. FF7 3. Super metriod
4. Tekken 3. 4. Super Hyper SF2
5. Gran turismo 2. 5. Chrono trigger
6. Tomb raider 6. FF6
7. Niche RPG of your choice 7. Mario kart

Alright nothing to controversial there I'd assume pretty standard right? If so would you disagree that you'd reach Chrono trigger before you reached FF7, and Mario kart is going to be ahead of GT2 or right behind. It's very one sided.

Nerdy correction moment:

Advance Wars actually started as Famicom Wars back in 1988, and that style of strategy game was fairly common on the Famicom during the 80s, if not always as refined as Nintendo's own series.

Fire Emblem has a similar history.

anyone else think this jake guy is full of shit?

This is for Jake. It's about sleep paralysis, the phenomenon during which people often feel like a presence is in their room, holding them down, sitting on them, stopping them from talking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I experienced it a number of times during my youth. It's terrifying and the first few times it occured I was 100% convinced I was the victim of some kimd of severe haunting.

In my opinion, game of the year categories should be broken up into how we already talk about games-best multiplayer, story, world, etc. For example, for me, I buy Bioshock games for story, Call of Duty for multiplayer, and Saints Row for the open world. It doesn't make sense for me to put these games against each other, since I get a totally different experience from each.

hearing skulls of the shogun talk makes me want to develop my strategy game and intimidates me cause I still think in grids. FC3 sounds rad too but I want a good pc to play it on, FC2's console version looked really washed out by comparison.

now here's a fun discussion to be had
http://bitmob.com/articles/dyad-creator-thinks-traditional-storytelling-in-games-is-idiotic
GO

CORRECTION! TLC sings Waterfalls not Destiny's Child. Other than that good show.

After watching some competitive Starcraft somehow I became excited for Pikmin 3 ohhhhh it can't be here soon enough:)

Unfortunately, the Adventure games haven't aged too well.

Jeff, have you played Sonic Colors or Generations? Those two are a fantastic dose of Sonic goodness! The console version of Generations is the best Sonic game in years.

Hey Garnett and Gamefly crew, congrats on 'Writer's Rumble' it is quite fun. A little buggy but really fun game overall.

So skulls of the shogun sounds interesting. Any chance that its going to get a Vita, IOS version?

I hate weekends before a game I am anticipating comes out.

Well, I'll never get this out of my head. Thanks, guys!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcT7sseLZI

Bacon pancaaaaaaaaaake!