Hello! My apologies for being absent for the last couple of weeks; my wife and I spent the Christmas holiday in Northern PA at the cabin her parents-in-law own, and while I did have internet access, all I had for gaming was my netbook, which honesty can't handle much more than some simple flash games, so I didn't have much exciting to say. I did find a few fun flash games to play, though, and I'll link to those shortly.
Before I get to that, though, mostly for my own edification, I want to make note of some of the excellent games I started and did not finish this year, in hopes that I will wrap them up early next year. They deserve to be seen through to the end.
- Batman: Arkham Asylum - The single best melee combat engine I've ever seen outside of a fighting game, hands down, wrapped up in an atmospheric and well-written game in the Batman franchise, of all places - a franchise known specifically for terrible games in almost every case. One of the best surprises of the year.
- Assassin's Creed II - This one has its hooks sunk deep in me right now, and I was playing it pretty much non-stop before we went on vacation. I'll be getting back into it starting tonight, and will probably wrap it up this week or next. I loved the first game, and while the sequel feels a little less focused, it also expands the fiction in some really neat ways I didn't expect, and gives you so much more to do (and so much of it enjoyable) that in every important way, it's an even better game.
- Torchlight (with at least one character class) - I've written a bunch about Torchlight already, and it's not the sort of game you really finish, but I should complete the main quest line with at least one character just to see everything it has to offer. I'm sure it's one I'll be going back to again, hopefully before the MMO counterpart arrives.
- Red Faction: Guerrilla - I have absolutely no interest in the plot of RFG, or the characters; all of that is generic in every way. But I have every interest in earning all of the upgrades to allow me to wreak havoc more effectively on every building erected on the Martian landscape. For my money, the best use of a physics engine in a game to date - yes, better than Half-Life 2.
- Dragon Age - Who am I kidding? I'm never going to finish Dragon Age. I sure would like to, though.
- New Super Mario Bros Wii - Meghan and I should have this wrapped up soon, at least in terms of beating the standard game. Whether we'll manage to collect every star coin or not, who can say, but it's already been a really fun ride and I'm looking forward to trying.
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - I'm that guy who really liked Phantom Hourglass, even with its frequent trips to the Dungeon of Repetition, so making my way through Spirit Tracks (which has no such thing) is a no-brainer. I wish it didn't rely so heavily on the DS microphone, which I find finicky at best, but that won't keep me from finishing it.
Alright, that's already looking like a somewhat daunting list, especially considering that Red Steel 2 will be out early next year, along with a crop of other stuff I'm not even thinking about right now, so I'll stop there. If I can make it through most of that, I'll feel like I didn't do the games of 2009 too great an injustice.
If you want to hear me talk about some other games of the year, the most recent episode of the Immortal Machines podcast has, I think, some good discussion on the topic, and the one we just recorded last night about the completely insane sales Steam, Direct2Drive, etc have been running this month should also turn out worth a listen when it gets posted, so keep an eye out for it.
And now, for suffering through my rambling, your reward: if you haven't found these little time-wasters on some other corner of the Internet yet, consider them a late Christmas gift, and enjoy.
A pretty hilarious re-skin of the NES classic Kung-Fu, this will probably only entertain you for 20 minutes (unless you really liked Kung-Fu, and hey, nothing wrong with that), but I think I can safely say it'll be a good 20 minutes.
I wasn't aware that Adult Swim made videogames, but I guess when they're not making extremely inappropriate cartoons, this is what they do. Fine by me - two parts pachinko, one part Grand Theft Auto (well, just the part where you evade cops, really), Mountain Maniac sees you wreaking havoc on a mountain village by chucking boulders down from the peak. Strangely, more than anything else it reminded me of Atari's Crackpots, the game that probably cemented my hatred of spiders forever.
Goddamned spiders.
And finally, an oldie but goodie...
Pretty much everything over at Orisinal is delightful - they have a ton of very well crafted Flash games, and I recommend you check all of them out. They've been around for years, but surprisingly few people seem to know about them. For the season, though, Winterbells is a joy to play. Peaceful and relaxing, while still being challenging to the point of mild addiction. Don't worry, the bunny will be safe even if he falls.
To give credit where it's due, some of these gems were dug up by Mike Bellmore over at Immortal Machines, and I thank him for passing them along. I hope everybody has a great New Year's celebration this week; see you in 2010.