It’s the last day of the year, and I don’t really have anything interesting queued up so you are getting a year-in-summary type of list. I know, I know – it is not the most original idea I have had lately but it is either this, or 3 lines of text and a picture of a lolcat. So you are getting a list, and you are going to like it!
Favorite Game of the Year
This was actually a pretty good year for games. We got Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Alpha Protocol and Fallout New Vegas (which I have yet to finish due to WoW, and crap I bought during the Steam Holiday Sale madness). All of these were excellent games and it is hard to pick one that I liked the most.
But if you put a gun to my head, I would probably say Dragon Age: Origins. Why? Motherfucking Morrigan, that’s why. I am still angry at that bitch for manipulating my ass at the end of the game. You don’t often get this kind of emotional impact from video games. Part of it of course is the way I played the game. If I did not rely heavily on her magic for crowd control during battles, her ultimatum probably wouldn’t be so tough to reject. But BioWare still gets points for this.
Least Favorite Game of the Year
Actually, I think I successfully avoided all the horrible 2010 games somehow. It was actually quite simple – I just did not pay attention to any hype surrounding a game with any combination of words like “modern”, “call”, “warfare” and “duty” in the title. I tried one of those, and was not terribly impressed. Then again, it was on a console so my impression might be skewed by the shitty ass controls.
The least favorite game I played this year though must have been Borderlands. I still maintain that Claptrap is probably the worst video game mascot of the decade.
Biggest Video Game Fail of the Year
Ubisoft’s DRM for Assasin’s Creed 2. I especially liked when their activation servers crashed on the release day. Fun times.
Biggest Video Game Win of the Year
Seam Holiday Sale. No seriously, this is exactly the kind of thing that shows you the difference between companies such as EA and Ubisoft (militantly anti-customer and oblivious to it) and Valve which seems to know exactly what gamers want, and made it their business model to deliver it.
Most Favorite Book I Read this Year
I don’t believe I actually read any books published in 2010. But I read several books this year which made quite an impression on me. I loved Anathem by Neal Stephenson, Glasshouse by Charles Stross and City and the City by China Melviele. If you are looking for some good reading, definitely pick one of these three.
Most Favorite Movie of the Year
I don’t think anyone will argue with me on this: Inception was hands down best things I have seen this year. Nolan seems to be incapable of making a bad movie. Great writing, great concept, intricate plot, great acting and Ellen Page included in the package. Best movie of the year for me.
Close runners up are Kick-Ass (best super-hero genre deconstruction, best Nicholas Cage performance in a while, and best little-girl-kicking-ass performance since Natalie Portman in The Proffesional) and Scot Pillgrim (for bringing video game aesthetics and gamer culture onto the silver screen, with lots of laughs providing me with a much needed break from reality).
Least Favorite Movie of the Year
Book of Eli. That movie was shit on wheels. Not even the effective fight scenes, and large amount of Mila Kunis could not save it from the horrible, horrible plot. Also, this is possibly the only movie with a plot twist worse than The Village. M. Night. Shamalamaplottwist would be proud.
Most Favorite TV Show of the Year
Surprisingly enough, Dexter is still good. Even though the show has four seasons under it’s belt it as not yet begun to decay. At least in my personal opinion. Last season of True Blood was also somewhat entertaining so I guess it deserves a mention.
I have a sneaking suspicion that people will yell at me for not including The Walking Dead here but I still haven’t watched it. I hear it is amazing though… So it is on my list.
Least Favorite TV Show of the Year
I have never actually watched an entire episode of Jersey Shore, but that piece of shit is a travesty and an abomination that ought to be killed with fire. Twice. No seriously, I even feel bad for talking about this because it gives more exposure and publicity than it deserves. I do not understand this phenomenon, and I hope it dies soon along with every other reality TV show ever made.
Most Popular Post of the Year
Believe it or not, but it was this one. I got stumbled-upon and quite a few mundanes were raging in the comments about me being an elitist. This prompted me to write about Charlie and his Car but of course none of the Stumble Upon folks who just came here to yell at me, read it.
Now it is your turn. Which are your most favorite and least favorite things in each category? Tell me about your personal picks for best/worst video games, movies, books and TV shows of the year!
It’s difficult for me to put out a list such as this. I don’t remember half the games, movies, TV shows or books between Jan and Nov. The ones that are still fresh are the ones I played, watched and read in December. :P
But I do have a Favourite-est Gadget Of The Year: my Kindle! Got one in October, and in those 3 short months, I think I have read more books than the previous 9. It’s a bit of a hassle buying Kindle books from Amazon since I’m technically not allowed to do so, but it’s really worth it.
And how about the Awesome-st/Surreal-est Experience Of 2010? Mine’s definitely watching the birth of my kid. That experience will be etched in my mind until I die or assimilate my consciousness into the singularity.
I can’t really decide between Starcraft 2 and Mass Effect 2. Both are great games, in their own genre.
Haven’t really keep track of movies I have watched, so I have to also say inception. (kick-ass was also pretty awesome :P)
And for worst game of the year…. Mw2… Why the fuck did I buy that?!?
(And I think you meant Steam, not Seam holiday sales :) )
Oh, cursed sales at Steam and GOG. I can’t.. ooo… new sales today. BRB, money to spend.
[…] Right. I jotted down a short list at my blog, and it being my second blog post this year, I must be allowed to say it is my best. Especially since the other one was a “long time no blog” message this spring. This one was more of a “I don’t watch TV or Movies” post, and I also bragged (as I am bragging here) that my mother knitted me a Totoro teddy.
And even though I am not at all happy with it, Civilization V almost tops my list this year – only beaten by Minecraft. And I cannot explain why. So my top is filled with games I can’t explain why I like the most and a game I can explain why I shouldn’t like as much as I do. Go figure.
Still, thank you for a nice year in blogposts, good luck with the next.
My favorite game I played this year was probably Spelunky or Iji – I don’t have a gaming rig yet, but they were really fun games to play. Iji grabbed me immediately, Spelunky took a while to get into, but became absurdly addictive. On the Wii I played Cave Story a lot, Soul Calibur 2 a lot (GC game), and I went through the Metriod trilogy.
I still haven’t see Inception, and there weren’t many new movies I really liked. Sita Sings the Blues was fun (and free!), but mostly I liked old movies I hadn’t seen before: The Seventh Seal & Sanjuro were tops.
For TV, I thought Breaking Bad got too absurd around season 2, and this season was worse. I still loved 30 Rock, and Treme was pretty good as well (not The Wire good, but hey, nothing is). Walking Dead started so well, but they’ve only gotten 6 episodes, so I’m hoping.
For music, Sufjan Stevens, Gorillaz, Joanna Newsom, & Arcade Fire all released good albums. I really liked Cee-Lo Green’s album too. For books, my favorite was Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow.
I’m still watching and enjoying Dexter, but I feel it has lost something since the beginning… specifically, the moral ambiguity – Season 1’s Dexter was fairly categorically not a Good Guy; he was a compelling protagonist ‘n all, but still a somewhat inhuman serial killer.
Dexter of the latest season… it’s changed tone, he seems more heroic and the bad guys he kills are practically pure evil (rather than just being probably-deserving murderers). I think it started to swing that way with Season 4, but the whole serial killer vs serial killer element, with them being so similar, retained some of the old dark character.
Paladin-Dexter hunting down and swiftly dispatching a gang of murderous rapists, well it’s still good TV but it does seem like the lines are more harshly drawn between good ‘n evil.
Well, I haven’t been playing many new games, but one of those was VVVVVV, which was OK, but not great. I like trail and error type of games, but enough is enough ;)
Also bought the Oddbox in the Steam Sale, since I loved Abe’s Oddysee and Exoddus, but unfortunately both Munch’s Oddysee and Stranger’s Wrath were badly ported and crash all the time. Fortunately the developers have promised to fix it, and some updates were already released.
As for movies, the best was definitively Inception, although I’ve heard good things about Black Swan.
@ Mart:
Congratulations on the child birthing thing! :)
Oh, btw – how is Kindle with language support? From what I read it’s UI is English only. I want to get one for my dad, but it would be nice if I could switch the UI language to Polish for him.
k00pa wrote:
Hype maybe? It was pretty hyped up and pretty much every non-geek male I know was pretty much like this but about MW2. It was kinda surreal.
@ Tormod Haugen:
I have not bitten the Minecraft bug yet. I only played the demo, for a very limited time. I’m afraid that if I start playing it, I won’t have time for anything else. lol
@ jambarama:
Well the second season of Walking Dead is in the works. They really got the thumbs up from the critics so I think they gave them 12 episodes this time, but don’t quote me on this.
@ Matt`:
Interesting. I didn’t really notice this, but now that you mention it you are right. It did become more black and white. Then again this season was sort of dominated by Julia Stiles’ character and her story arc which sort of prompted this dichotomy.
On the other hand, the entire series has sort of shown a slow humanization of Dexter. In Season 1 he was just a reclusive serial killer who didn’t care about anything and anyone, save maybe for his sister. Over time however he developed this relationships and attachments (in spite of the code) – he became a real brother, a real husband, a real parent. I find it really interesting to watch him adapt to these roles while still being the introverted psychopath we all know and love.
It seems that the writers actually get the introverted personality type. There is this scene at the end of this season when he is watching all the happy couples at his son’s birthday party and he says something like: “They make it look so easy, connecting with another human being. It’s like no one told them it’s the hardest thing in the world.” I don’t know about other people , but that hit very close to home for me. :)