Top Ten of Two Thousand and Eight...ALLITERATION

So writing a personal top ten for pretty much anything is both presumptuous and pretentious, but this is the internet and those kinds of things don't exist here, so I'm going to go ahead and throw out my top ten Game releases for the year in no particular order:

Valkyria Chronicles
Little Big Planet
Fallout 3
Gears of War 2
Lost Odyssey
Grand Theft Auto IV
Metal Gear Solid IV
Dead Space
Fable II
Super Smash Brothers Brawl

Wow, a ton of surprises right? If you were to take out Lost Odyssey and insert Call of Duty: World at War, this list would be nearly identical to every other top ten list out there (Except for those kids who just compile a list of every JRPG released this year, you know who you are). The only real underdog to get any significant recognition this year was Valkyria Chronicles, which is good, but there weren't more gems floating around? Yeah there were a ton of killer XBL PSN and NVC games, Braid, Mega Man 9, World of Goo, etc., but otherwise I think this was a year full of disappointments. Tons of games looked like they had promise but failed to deliver i.e. Army of Two, Infinite Undiscovery, Animal Crossing City Folk (I'm totally going to get shit from -other Matt - for that). Did Nintendo even have any holiday releases besides Animal Crossing? Did they need them? Financially? No. By reason of proving that they actually give a damn about their consumer base? Yes.

You know what? Now that I'm on that subject...

The only excuse I can possibly find for them having such a weak showing in the winter season is that they've got something HUGE on the horizon. Something that, with the incredible revenue they're raking in, they could afford to push back and perfect for another year. Something to the effect of a new Legend of Zelda or Super Mario. My guess is that it may be Star Fox, trying to redeem itself from its weak efforts on the Gamecube. While it would be less likely, perhaps Nintendo wants to take some extra time fine tuning its online services in order to drop an on-line compatible F-Zero title. Wishful thinking, anyway. A more likely scenario is that Nintendo is above all else a corporate entity that values cashflow above fan service. No matter how fickle the casual audience is (seriously, these are the same people who would start fist fights in Wal-Mart over the last Furby) Nintendo knows that that is where the money is at and is going to give them what they want (which is apparently shitty party games) every single time until the hype is gone and they come crawling back to their core.

Dave and Buster's: REVIEW'D

So the other day I and a few friends made a trip to this place called Dave n' Buster's. Its a restraunt. Maybe you've seen a commercial for it. Maybe you don't watch television. Maybe, you're a jerk and are just like every one of those other lying bastards who tell everyone they don't watch television. I imagine most people who are into games would know a thing or two about it, as it is essentially Chuckie Cheese for adults, only, it doesn't have a famous American video game pioneer as it's former CEO.

Anyway, I went there with a few preconceived notions about what exactly this place would be like. Essentially I imagined a really crappy restraunt with an ultra fancy state of the art arcade attached. What it ACTUALLY turned out to be was nearly the polar opposite. You walk in to the place and the arcade portion of it is near completely obscured from view. If you were to stop by, not knowing what it was, you'd probably assume its a halfway decent restraunt, which, strangely, it is. The food was good and came within a reasonable amount of time, and (though I prefer not to drink) there was a huge selection of various beers and liquors. I imagine the sound proofing detail on the place must be massive as barely any sound from the arcade leaked through into the dining area.

Where this place stumbled, and I'm actually pretty sad for it, was it's gaming room. It is difficult to say who is to fault on this, the gaming industry, or the restraunt chain, but the arcade was lacking to a pretty huge degree. I haven't been to any other arcades lately so maybe I'm a little too optimistic in my expectations, but the entire experience seemed to be just a huge flashback to my youth. Not because I was having a load of childish fun, but because all of the same arcade games that I have already played a thousand times were there, with only a few more modern titles to check out. I couldn't help but feel like I was getting ripped off most of the time. Well...nevermind, I was fully aware that I was consistently getting ripped off from the second I walked in the room. Why should I pay the DnB chip equivalent to about a dollar to play Star Wars: Starfighter for three minutes when I can easily walk into a used game shop and pay three dollars to own the game outright. Sure, as an added bonus I get to sit inside of a nausea inducing hydraulic driven bubble, but I can't quite decide how much that experience is really worth.

Another complaint that I have about the experience is that the restraunt/arcade seems to be in constant conflict between its target and actual demographic. The arcade is packed with children. I suppose that thats predictable, but I would hope a restaurant marketed as such would offer an escape in some way from the chaos that comes along with the presence of youngsters. I'm sure that the corporate execs of DnB would want to claim not to be as such, but it seems that whole place really is just a Chuck-E-Cheese that serves less pizza and more alcohol.

Ultimately I'm not angry at my experience, but I'm disappointed. I like the idea of enjoying games in a more social environment, but I'd rather do so in the presence of people my own age.

People who are mature and don't spend forty minutes pretending to play Time Crisis 4 when, clearly, they are watching the in-game demo.

I hate children.

On Scales in reviews.

Hence forth I am hitherto going to add more numerics to my reviews of this that and the other. Not because it adds value or purpose, or to make a stand or a point or a preposition, but because it is confusing and some might say humorous. This here placard of numerals shall stand for all time as something scribed whilst I was deliriously ill and had nothing good to scribble on about! ALSO! Through the rest of this writing everything should be read as if it were being yelled at you!! With the more exclamation points conjuring up more yelling within your head. Harken! Let it be known! NOW! That all numeral values placed within a review shall be taken with the largest and bitterest grains of salt, AND! That I have mostly gone through with this much effort in typographilizing nothing because Matt made it so clear that he would not be numerating his reviews, and to make up for this short fall in integers I have decided to take up the slack.

SO!

Hear Ye Hear Ye! 9/10-( "Hear Ye" lost points for lack of creativity.)

I will place nonsensical numerical values in reviews that make no difference and have no pertinence to said review.