The Year In Review

Yep, it’s time for the obligatory celebration of a year that isn’t even over yet. Oh 2009, we barely knew ye. As ridiculous as it sounds to find sentimentality in such a short period of time, it couldn’t be more on the contrary. There have been some major things happen this year that will never be forgotten; both personally and globally. To me, this is the year a friend since elementary school got married, another got engaged (just happens to be the co-author of this here blog), and my sister is expecting her first child in May of the next year. To all, this is the year Michael Jackson died, a half-black president was inaugurated, the economy fell, music still sucked, The Beatles made a video game, and movies were still the same general ideas (you know, an endless 2 hour drama or a barely plus 1 hour ridiculous comedy). How do you send off a year like this? By ranking shit of course!

(To make this more interesting, pretend this is the acedemy awards.)

Best Story – The Death of Michael Jackson

It was truly the story of the year. It lasted from the moment he died all the way until his body was buried. Sure that sounds like would only be a week for most people, but this story definitely hit the bizarre with all the trouble with finding a place and time to plant this guy. The memorial service was the biggest since Princess Diana, and the fan outcry bordered on the insane (much like Lady Di. I mean, I know it is big deal that he died, but why do people have to act like he was some life changing force behind their lives? It’s truly disturbing, but I digress). And finally, the whole situation about the doctor giving him too much medicine causing the overdose made this the story of the year.

Worst Story – Balloon Boy

ugh…

Best Character – Barrack Obama

Let’s see, he’s been the focal person of this year. He’s made strides in helping the economy, put forward a controversial health care bill, and won the Nobel Prize. However, it is impossible to tell whether or not he has done anything great yet, and it’s obvious that he won the Nobel Prize for not being “The Decider.” Yet this is not why I chose him for best of the year; it was what he has done. He has shown to us that he is not going to allow the mistakes of the previous administration carry on any longer. A good example is the reinstitution of stem cell research along with new policies in Iraq. He is starting to appear to be the president we all hoped he could be, and that is enough for me.

Worst Character – Sarah Palin

Ok, here’s where I get blasted for having a dem. win the best with a rep. winning the worst, but she deserves it (ok, it was between her and Lady Gaga). I’ve never seen anyone try to gain so much steam into the future presidential race during the reigning President’s first year (she does know that there isn’t an election every year, right?) Don’t forget, the whole debacle with David Letterman really showed her to be another ridiculous mouthy conservative. (Hmm, maybe I should have made the winner Rush Limbaugh. Oh well, too late now)

Best Movie – (Mulligan)

If you know me at all, you know that I have reached the point where I no longer enjoy movies at any sort of regular rate. Most movies are these pretentious comedies (see Seth Rogan) or these drawn out boring dramas that are there for the sole purpose of getting dumb people to think on something (Benjamin Button). So I don’t waste my money on movies anymore until they hit DVD or HBO, and therefore have nothing to add other than I guess the Watchmen was pretty cool.

Worst Movie – The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttion

Awful, boring, awful, long, boring, awful…

Best Game – Dragon Age: Origins

Ah, this was close one. I agonized over this decision (well, as much as one can in about 15 seconds). There were a few good competitors, namely Assassin’s Creed 2 (I also didn’t play Uncharted 2 because I lacks a Ps3, and have yet to play Borderlands). However, Dragon Age was packed with all the things I love about an RPG while adding a few wrinkles (such as combat tactics, flanking, and trap making) that made the game play highly addicting. In an era of shooters, it is good to see a company like Bioware continue to make frontline RPGs.

Speaking of shooters…

Worst Game – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Ok, this may be the one that I regret later. Granted, I probably should have picked a game that failed more spectacularly (WET, Halo Wars, etc…), but I think I picked it just because it seemed to not improve in any major way from Modern Warfare. I haven’t played it too much, and I think that is the indication to me that this is the most disappointing game of the year. To that end, the game just seemed like its sole purpose was to meet a deadline, and make more money. Multiplayer is still pretty much the same, and soon becomes no fun to play after a week or so of getting smashed by online diehards. Do I hate playing the game? No. I just feel like I already owned it when I bought it. And of course, single player lasts about as long as a 15 year old virgin, and leaves the player just about as satisfied.

Best Song – (Pass)

Worst Song – That song that Cartman sings of Lady Gaga’s

you’ve heard it. enough said.

(Yup, that’s two Lady Gaga mentions in one post; it’s time to wrap things up.)

Modern Warfare 2: revisited

Yes, just two posts ago I published a review on my thoughts of Modern Warfare 2.  The key word in this article is revisited.  I wish reviewers would go back and revisit many of the articles that they write to let you the reader know if their thoughts had changed with time.  The way I understand they don’t do this because they are always getting new items in that need their attention, but I feel like for big ticket items, revisiting and re-reviewing the item should be the norm.

Back to the re-review.  I still really like MW 2.  I like it a lot.  Having spent some more time on it, however, I am seeing some of it’s issues.  The biggest issue I have is the multiplayer online.  It sucks.  Not that the maps are bad or that the weapons are uesless, because they aren’t bad and they start out alright.  It’s the other players that suck.  Or rather, they are way too good for my abilities and as such I am dead often before I hit the ground.  There really is not point in playing online when I might get one kill per match.  I feel like I’d have to play a few hours a day to get to the point where it might be fun and if that’s the case, I’ll stick to single player games, thank you very much.

As per the single player action, I enjoy it still.  Do I enjoy it the same as when I played through the game the first time?  No, but I still enjoy it.  I was playing around with the idea of selling the game this week until I played the single player again last night and still found it fun.  The thing about this game, in my situation, is I haven’t played another first person shooter of it’s caliber in what feels like forever.  Not because there haven’t been the games, but because I haven’t played the games.  I’ll likely be buying Gears of War II or renting it sometime here in the future and once I play it, I’ll do a side by side analysis of the two.  Then we’ll see if MW 2 has staying power.

The Special Ops missions are still just there for me.  I haven’t felt compelled to play them.  That might change soon, though.

All in all, I find that I still greatly enjoy the game, despite realizing that the real long term aspect of the game, the multiplayer, is just a waste.  At the end of this re-review, I’ll give the game a solid B.

Predator Drone: $10.5 million, hijacking live data stream: $26

Yup, the military is at it again.  In the latest from the “We have no idea what the internet is or how to use it safely” desk, there are reports that Iraqi insurgents have been using a $26 computer program to hijack the live visual stream from the military’s unmanned aerial vehicles.  Nothing I’ve read indicates that the insurgents were able to take over any control of the vehicle, but they were able to see exactly what it was seeing.  That is definitely one time where you don’t want to see yourself on TV.

Here’s the story from a Wall Street Journal article.

Modern Warfare 2

Call of Warfare: Modern Warfare 2 is possibly the biggest video game to hit the planet bar none.  The game sold close to half a billion dollars in it’s first week.  That’s billion, with a B.  To celebrate this landmark gaming event, I feel it necessary to throw my ~$60’s in to the discussion (games aren’t cheap, you know).

First, the graphics.  This game looks awesome.  Obviously you are playing a game, but it is a damn good looking game.  The fluid movement of the characters and environments are great.  I appreciated the little details that were incorporated like the realistic looking dirt and grime.  I thought even the fire looked pretty decent (I have a pet peeve about how fire looks in games).  Granted, I played the game on the Xbox 360 using composite video and this is the first modern console game I have truly spent any time with, but all the same I thought it looked great.

As for the plot of the single player, I found it engaging, albeit brief.  Seriously, I think there may be ~15 hours of game play in the single player if you play straight through.  Sure, you can play on different difficulties and you can play attempting to get every challenge and that will take some time, but just playing through casually will take you no time at all.  This is my major beef with the game.
As for the Special Ops section over Xbox Live, Scott and I played for a few hours the other night and personally I found it enjoyable.  It is something that I look forward to doing again but not necessarily out of how awesome it was, but rather how burnt out I am playing other games right now.

The glaring omission in this ‘review’ is my lack of opinion on the online head to head multiplayer.  I haven’t played it.  I have heard it is epic.  I plan to find out.  Stay tuned to the blog and the podcast for more details.

In a true journalistic cop out maneuver, I’ll ask you for your opinion.  What did you think about the game?  Am I wrong?  Or should you just shut up and accept my opinion as the word directly from God himself?  Let me know in the comments.