What I want for Christmas from video games

I’m angry.  I was never a Scrooge before.  Holiday time!  Trees! Presents! Santa!  But not anymore.  Oh no those magical childhood days of unicorns and guitar playing chimpanzees (my childhood was freaking great ok) are over.  How can I tell?  I don’t want new video games for Christmas.  Games worthy of our duckets come out every single month of the year now.  What I want heading in to the new year is some stuff to CHANGE.  Games are great, we write about them, you guys come here and read about them (that isn’t totally true, we definitely write about them but most of you come here to check out the pictures of hot chicks from Blizzcon, but whatever) and everybody is happy.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t  some fantastically stupid things going out in the land of interactive media though.  What do I want for Christmas?  I, much like our President, want CHANGE.  Not in a healthy country affirming way, I don’t have time to worry about that.  I want the experience of being a gamer, be it the games or how we play them, to change.  So let’s get on it developers.  Let’s make 2011, which looks like another enormous year for gaming, a step in the right direction.  Or, let’s at least stop being stupid.

Bioshock 2: You’re not my real dad!

I heard the announcement that there was going to be a Bioshock 2 with a wince and a fair amount of anxiety, dreading the return to Rapture just as much as I would dread seeing one of those awful Disney made-for-DVD sequels of their classic movies.  Uh, not that I have a soft spot for Disney movies or anything, shut up.  You don’t know me.

It really didn’t add up.  Bioshock ended tied up in a nice little ribbon on top of it, and I don’t know about you, but I got the feeling Rapture wouldn’t last much longer regardless of which ending you saw.  The dream was dead, all that was left was for the rest of the underwater city to realize it.  Plus, Bioshock was the first FPS game I played that really went above and beyond its genre, story wise, gameplay wise, and philosophically.

Godfather II: Just another sandbox game

For anyone who has read the book or seen Godfather II, and let’s be honest, if you haven’t you’re not playing this game, you may be in a for a few surprises. Whatever you do, don’t read the book or watch the movie within six months before playing this game. Don’t do it. As a matter of fact, don’t play any game based on a movie shortly before or after seeing said movie. Consuming the same storyline across mediums without providing ample time for digestion between will always lead to despair and indigestion.

First and foremost is the complete and utter lack of trips to Las Vegas. I say trips because there is a lot of flying between cities as you struggle to maintain a grip on your fledgling empire. It is casually mentioned that Don Corleone does live and work in Vegas but he spends most of his time in New York at the Federal Building in the court hearing. Also, I should mention the good Don is neither voiced by Al Pacinio or Michael Imperioli and while Carlso Ferro does a convincing job of playing an Italian American with enough power to know he doesn’t have to flash it, he by no means brings the character to the forefront. In Assassin’s Creed II on the other hand he is fantastic. Speaking of fantastic, John Mariano was spot on as Fredo. RIP John Cazale.

General Mish-Mash: Podcasting with poorly drawn Potatoes

General Mishmash is a REAL man's potato.

Stuff. You talk about it. Sometimes you wish other people talked about it too. Well, we are other people. Presenting the first Faceplant podcast, General Mish-Mash episode 1! We hit some of the hottest topics in the universe today, such as why hammocks are awesome. Seriously. But we also talk about how 3d games will be invading our lives and making them more….expensive? Speaking of expensive, Tophat freaks out and explains why Modern Warfare 2′s DLC is the devil and we’re all idiots. We also hit on some other big games such as Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2, but really sink our teeth into what makes Mass Effect 2 great. And terrible. And also, kinda ehhh. With quick hits on game remakes, developers mailing it in, and many reasons why Enosh sucks, you can’t afford not to listen. Enjoy!  (The voice we referred to as “Peck” is actually “Tophat”.  Don’t ask.)

The stakes of remakes

What is it about remakes that we love so much?  Why can’t we just let something die?  It’s been an unexplained phenomenon for at least the past century, where it seems our culture wants nothing more than to take one of our beloved cultural icons and beat it with a stick, until it looks nothing like the original.

I always thought it went down like this:  somewhere there’s a large, open conference room stuffed full of old men in suits.  The old men have enormous white beards and eyebrows that look ready to rip a man’s face off.  They’re all wearing top hats and have monocles, and have been frantically discussing how to work the intercom without having someone walk outside to actually ask the secretary.  They are all over a hundred and fifteen years old.

Defeated, the men turn to their real job as presidents of entertainment, looking toward their, old gnarled CEO for guidance.  He clasps a cigar between his parchment thin lips and asks the question.