It’s Hard To Overstate My Satisfaction

Portal (PC, also Xbox 360 and PS3 as part of The Orange Box)

Year: 2007

Nominated by Brad

Brad: The most impressive thing about Portal isn’t just that it does something really original, but that it can take an extremely abstract concept and get players to understand it within an hour or so. And when I say it’s an abstract concept, I just don’t mean for a game, I mean in general – Portal is a deceptively tricky idea. Ok, so you have a gun that can create two portals, and whatever goes in one, comes out the other… easy right? Sure, when they’re in a straight line, that’s easy enough. It’s tougher when they’re on perpendicular walls, and suddenly running north becomes running west, or when one’s on the floor, so you fall into a hole and pop out of the wall… or when you put one on the ceiling, and one on the floor right below it, creating an infinite loop that you can push an object into, causing it to plummet forever and build up speed, until you suddenly move one of the holes to a wall, thus using that built up momentum to launch said object clear across the room with great velocity…

Head exploded yet? Well, here’s the simplified version – Portal is really fun and you probably haven’t played anything like it.

Oh, dammit, this just broke my brain.

Stryker: Very, very few games do humor well. Most that attempt to be funny end up being corny, with dumb jokes or clichéd gags that fall flat. Generally, if I’m laughing at a game, it’s because I’ve come up with something ridiculous to do in it, not that the game intentionally did something amusing. But Portal is genuinely hilarious, and easily one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. The backhanded complements, understated remarks, and bald-face lies, all told in a completely neutral monotone by a malevolent A.I., consistently inspire outbursts of laughter.

…because, you know, just being the most innovative puzzle game since Tetris apparently wasn’t enough.

Earth Really Is Full Of Things

Katamari Damacy (PS2)

Year: 2004

Nominated by Sara Lawrence

Sara: Sending things to earth… humor… catchy songs… Japanese pop culture… bad parenting…

Katamari Damacy is a game with wide appeal due to its stylized but realistic, brightly colored cartoonish graphics and quirky, slightly messed up premise. The story starts out on a down note with the Prince’s violent, alcoholic father going on a bender destroying everything except Earth. No more stars, planets or moon. Not only does the prince have to clean up after his father, but dear old dad mocks his son at every turn.

Part of the charm of KD is that it is kinda evil. There is perverse humor in rolling up humans and animals, hearing them scream and watching them flail. It reminds me of the awesome power of the Greek gods or old movie monsters. Then again, it makes me wonder if maybe Godzilla wasn’t a bad monster, but instead he worked on a demolition crew and was just doing his job… Either way, the prince must roll everything up for the greater good.

The worlds of KD are so intricately detailed as you start out at the merest level, barely able to pick up insects and erasers until you zoom out to the skies and eventually are able to pick up clouds. Discovery hides behind every peculiar corner and each discovery is announced with an unique, sproing or clatter of noise. KD is a timeless classic because of its drawing style that has nods to 1970′s cartoons, ancient traditional Japanese culture and mixture of technology from the ’80′s, 90′s and ’00′s. It’s humor is infectious and is just as fun to watch as it is to play.

It’s just easier to show a video than to try to explain the gameplay.

Chris: In the previous decade, the little innovative games of note all used a pretty similar recipe: Sprinkle amazing gameplay with graphics and music that’s so stylish and simple that they are timeless and therefore don’t need to compete with the Halos for graphically supremacy. Katamari bucks this trend by tossing graphics into the garbage disposal and giving us character models that appear to be designed by the Pac-Man Atari team.

What’s the enduring legacy of this game, then? The best soundtrack of the decade. Admit it; just reading the word Katamari makes the theme song pop into your head. And there are 6 or 7 other tracks that have the same quality and joyfulness. Add in a batshit crazy story that delights in how little sense it makes. Then mix thoroughly with a fun new style of gameplay that turns the whole world into a snowman and you have a great tasting game for people who only see snow when the Super Bowl is in town like me (and for those who are building entire snow families in May like Brad).

And if you don’t know how to work Youtube well enough to find the soundtrack (or click on links), feel free to start randomly calling my friends as I’m sure 5/6ths of them are still rocking their Katamari ringtones.

Brad: Katamari Damacy is pure concentrated happiness molded in video game form. From start to finish, the entire thing is filled with great, original gameplay, zany humor, bright visuals and upbeat music. Conventional wisdom tell us that this is too much, and that you need to have some down parts to provide a little contrast and accent all the goodness. Instead, KD just pours even more sugar on top, and somehow makes it all work.

Stryker: What I love about Katamari Damacy is how unapologetically Japanese it is. The game is absolutely filled with references nobody outside of that country would get (other than a few hardcore Japanophiles), household objects that are completely foreign to westerners, and a 100% J-Pop soundtrack. It’s not that I love all things Japanese, but I really appreciate that the game was clearly made without any thought to overseas markets, making it a more “true” representation of what the designers wanted to do. Of course, this also made it impossible to localize, and rather than try, Konami deserves a lot of credit for simply translating the dialogue and trusting us to enjoy the rest more or less as is.

(Sara Lawrence is an independent artist living in Seattle. You can browse her online shop. She’s also married to some hack writer.)

If Any Game We’ve Discussed In This Feature Truly Deserves The Label “New Classic”, This Is It.

Grand Theft Auto III (PS2, Xbox, PC)

Year: 2001

Nominated by Brad, Stryker, Chris Delp, Mr. Do! and pretty much everyone we consulted with

Brad: Grand Theft Auto 3 wasn’t the first “crime simulator” that let you commit all kinds of heinous, illegal acts (it is part 3, after all). It wasn’t the first game to be narratively structured around completing missions, while giving you free time between missions to do whatever you wanted (this time was generally spent committing even more heinous, illegal acts). It wasn’t the first game to have a functional city with cars that follow traffic laws, people who behave believably, and neighborhoods laid out in logical ways. But it was the first to do all those things in one game, and more importantly, do it extremely well.

That’s not to say the game wasn’t innovative, either. GTA3 was so far ahead of its time that it’s almost as if some time traveler from the year 2020 visited here and accidently left it behind, inadvertently jumping gaming ahead two decades all at once.  The city itself was far larger than what we had ever seen in a game before, complete with weather, a day/night cycle (including sunsets, darkness, lights coming on, etc.) , and a population that acted on their own instead of simply reacting to you. And it was all actually there – if you saw a tall building way off in the background, it wasn’t just some flat background painting, you could hop in a car and actually drive to it. This was mind-blowing in 2001.

What’s really remarkable is that this game is so huge that other games that have been completely absorbed into it. Do you like Crazy Taxi? Well there’s something like it in GTA3, except it’s more fun and it’s only a minigame. Carmageddon? Yeah, that’s just called “commuting” here. Ditto for our once-beloved dark horse Felony 11-79 (which actually got a low grade from us specifically because GTA3 does everything it did, only better). Hell, just stealing a police car and playing Vigilante missions is more fun than a lot of other games, and that’s only a tiny, tiny portion of GTA3.

The level of detail was staggering for the time, too. Hop into a car and you could listen to the radio – not just one station, but multiple stations each with their own format, individual playlists, DJs and commercials that went with it. There were dozens of different cars, all of which handled differently (tip: The fire engine is a near-unstoppable monster). Instead of having subway stations magically warp you to various locations around the city, there was an actual subway system, with trains running on schedules and tunnels you could drive down Italian Job style.

Insurance rates are about to go up.

And within this environment is the incredible, awesome, anarchic gameplay that binds the whole thing together. This is a game almost completely free of arbitrary restrictions. In other words, if it’s physically possible to do it in the game, for the most part it you can do it. And there’s so much to do. I remember spending hours trying to create the biggest pileup of cars possible, for no other reason than to toss a grenade into the middle of the pile and see how massive of a chain reaction I could cause. Or parking an SUV at the top of a tall staircase, and pushing it off to play “pedestrian bowling”.  Your options are pretty much limited only by your imagination.

And this freedom applies not just to your sandbox time, but to most of the missions as well. Want to try to pull off a bank heist in some crazy vehicle? Go for it. I remember one mission where the objective was to kill a mob boss. You are told the time and place, and there’s a sniper rifle conveniently placed on a rooftop across the street. But that’s doing it the boring way. I instead blocked off the entrance to his hideout with a bunch of stolen busses, then leisurely tossed Molotov cocktails at his car as he attempted to get around my roadblock.

This game rewards creativity, which is something the later sequels have badly gotten away from, opting for a more structured approach to the missions. Compare it to GTA 4, which more or less punishes thinking outside the box, with most missions giving you very specific requirements to pass (Drive this car, wait at this spot, follow this route, wear these shoes), and causing you to fail if you deviate from the plan that has been laid out for you. The somewhat overbearing approach of the later sequels completely goes against the spirit of the game, which is why GTA 3 ended up being our choice for “new classic”.

…well, I mean that and because it’s awesome.

Seriously though, Grand Theft Auto 3 is the best game to have come out between 2001-2010, bar none.

Stryker: Grand Theft Auto 3 has done for its genre what Doom did for First Person Shooters – it’s not necessarily the first game of its kind, but it’s the one that put them on the map, made people take notice and popularized them. And this has been a real bounty for gamers. Aside from its own worthy sequel, GTA: Vice City, we’ve also gotten plenty of other enjoyable games following the Grand Theft Auto formula – Saint’s Row 2, Red Dead Redemption, and The Saboteur, just to name a few. Remarkably, GTA3 is still more fun than most, or maybe even all, of the games that followed in its footsteps.

Chris: GTA is greatness. I don’t know if I’ve ever had so much fun behind the wheel of a virtual car. Well, outside of tournament play…

And I’m sure I wouldn’t be playing Skyrim tonight if GTA3 hadn’t came out.

Mr. Do!: Anyone who labels this game a “cop killing hooker murder simulator” is missing the point completely. Or, at the very least, they’re overlooking the driving on the crowded sidewalk, blowing up entire traffic jams, and ramming buses into the ocean aspects of the game.

To Avoid Overusing the Word “Awesome”, We Might Start Referring to ImpressiveThings as Being Totally “God of War”

 God of War (PS2)

Year: 2005

Nominated by Stryker

Stryker: Beat em ups don’t work in 3D. Oh, they’re just great in two dimensions, where the linearity allows for simple, fast paced combat, but once you add a third dimension, it gets too complicated and things just go all to hell. Suddenly, it became impossible to hit anything or move around effectively. That was the hard-earned knowledge that we all learned through countless failures and disappointments on the original Playstation.  Well, apparently, nobody told God of War that, or if they did, Kratos simply ripped that person’s head off and ignored them.

GoW has a pretty ingenious solution to the whole fighting in three dimensions dilemma. Most other games have you fighting along a single plane with your fists or handheld weapons, which makes it hard to line up attacks, and leads to frequent misses. But it’s a lot harder for an enemy to dodge your attacks when you’re wielding a sword on the end of a chain and swinging it above your head like a psychotic cowboy. So yeah, there’s you’re solution – to fight in three dimensions, attack in three dimensions. Simple, yet… well, not exactly elegant I suppose, but effective.

 Kratos – Worst chiropractor in ancient Greece.

Brad: By 2005, the classic beat ‘em up was dead. There had already been a burial plot picked out between shooters and point-and-click adventure games, funeral arrangements were being made, and mourners were holding candlelight vigils outside Mayor Haggar’s office. And then, just when things seemed their gloomiest, God of War showed up,  gave the genre a much need boot in the ass and dragged it kicking and screaming back into relevance. GoW made us fall in love with these games again by keeping the part we enjoyed about these them intact (kicking lots of ass quickly), but adding some much needed variety and depth in the form of puzzle solving, epic boss fights, and just enough strategy to keep your brain off autopilot. Kratos came back from Hades to become a God, and thankfully, he brought the entire genre with him.

There’s a Zombie On Your New Classics List

Plants Vs. Zombies (PC, XBLA, PSN, Mobile)

Year: 2009

Nominated by Chris Delp

Chris: Video games as a medium has been mirroring the video camera as a medium for decades now. We’ve come through our silent film era with the (relatively) rudimentary titles of the NES/Golden Era with silent protagonists and game designers that stumbled upon their artwork with virtually no precedent to go on. And as the Playstation helped usher in our own talkies, games are still plagued with bad, over the top acting, and clunky story telling that cannot spell the word nuance. Somewhere in that exciting new mess of movies someone got the idea of pairing top notch animation of cute animals together with the vaudevillian humor and sensibilities of the previous generation, and almost inexplicably the magic of Looney Tunes emerged. Now with Plants vs. Zombies (along with other notable games of this era such as Angry Birds) we are seeing video games’ version of Looney Tunes. Once again here we have wonderful artwork paired with simple gameplay that we are all familiar with on some level, in this case Tower Defense. Popcap has yet another timeless game that appeals to kids with its shiny, fun color palette and adults with its oozing ironic humor. This game and perfectly paired theme song, “Zombie On Your Lawn” are in fact so adorable that I wouldn’t be surprised to see a backlash to it all as we continue to fall down our endless chasm of irony.

Pictured: The chasm of irony.

One more thing that PvZ has going for it that has helped it in the short term is the simplicity of the point and click control scheme makes it easily portable to modern smart phones, all en vogue controllers of the day and probably any Minority Report-like controllers the immediate future seems to promise.

These types of games may never be the defining games of any time, but will always be welcome.

Sara: There are zombies on the lawn. We don’t like zombies on the lawn. It’s a pretty simple premise. Zombies equal death and plants kill zombies. If you add various flora to your garden, you won’t have zombies on the lawn trying to kill you for your sweet sweet brain juices. It’s all about as plausible as sparkly vegetarian vampires that long for vacant-eyed teenage girls.. Not likely in other words, but it’s hard not to be entertained all the same. PVZ appeals to people of all ages from 3-year-olds who say, “zommbeees,” like a zombie as they reach for the mouse to 64-year-olds who love horticulture and have just enough hand-eye coordination (sorry, Mom).

A brilliant part of PVZ is the strength of the basic tools. Even when you have access to high-priced heavy artillery like the corn cannon, lining up a few repeaters behind a fiery stump and a tall nut works faster and withstands more zombie onslaught. Some of the weapons are level or zombie specific, which is a little annoying when you have limited seed slots, but there is more than one way to de-arm a zombie. I am always amazed at how each person I know identifies their favorite offensive and defensive plant combinations. It’s funny, satisfying and still has hints of challenge after two years of play. Playing one game is like eating just one potato chip. It is so easy to try one more and then another, and another, and…

Brad: Plants vs. Zombies is meant to be funny and lighthearted, and manages to do so with its silly concept, humorous visuals, and amusing sound effects, all of which work together really well. It’s not meant to be scary, and it isn’t at all… and yet… when a level goes badly, I’ll be damned if I don’t run for that restart button before “The Zombies Ate Your Brains!” can pop up on screen. So, um, good job, I guess?

Rock Band – I’m Not Proud Of It, But This is Pretty Much How I Find Out About New Music These Days.

Rock Band (Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii)

Year: 2007

Nominated by Chris Delp

Chris: With Rock Band, Harmonix may have developed the best party video game ever conceived. In a time when everything has moved online and local multiplayer is sometimes completely written out of games, RB encourages you to get all your friends together and faux jam out together. I can say that, for years, this has been my go to activity for having people over to the house, and it’s gotten to the point where I don’t even think of it as a video game, but more like Karaoke – where even the tone deaf like myself can play alongside our music major friends. While this may not have been the revolution of their previous title, Guitar Hero, it was the next 3 evolutionary steps of the genre all at the same time.

One more thing that may or may not be lost over the decades.. . Rock Band has the best post release support of any title to this point. Downloadable expansion songs released every single week since initial game offering in 2007. A public platform for indie bands to release their own music for purchase in early 2010. Everything that was right about DLC in this generation was embodied by Rock Band. Now let’s see how this works when Rock Band makes the jump to the next gaming platform (this could get ugly).

Rock Band is the most fun you can have with a group of friends that doesn’t involve hockey sticks (playing hockey and rioting being the two most fun group activities in general).

Brad: In 2005, Guitar Hero looked like it would go down in history as one of the most innovative games of all time, by giving players a little plastic guitar and letting them jam along with their favorite songs. A mere two years later, Rock Band came along and did everything GH did, did it much better, and then added 4 times as much depth.  That’s like cavemen inventing the wheel, and then just a couple of years later, building Honda Civics. “Oh yeah, the wheel’s nice, and we couldn’t have the car without it, but, um… I’ll take the Civic, thanks.”

Stryker: Some people have criticized Rock Band for its somewhat underwhelming online play, but I’m actually kind of glad that this part of the game is crappy. This is a party game and playing online doesn’t do it justice. Rock Band is meant to be played together, with everyone in the same room… preferably while having a few drinks, and with the other 3 band members choosing songs that force the singer to attempt to rap.

Straight Outta Gotham

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

Year: 2009

Nominated by Brad

Brad: Critics who praise this game almost universally say it’s the first Batman game where you actually get to act like Batman. But what does that mean exactly? Previous Batman games let you punch people, swing on ziplines and throw batarangs, right? So does it mean that this one also lets you date Kim Bassinger and Nicole Kidman , or pretend that the idea of Liam Neeson as a ninja isn’t crazy? Or, you know, can you actually do some of that “being a detective” stuff that Batman’s supposed to be so great at? Wait, can we go back to my idea where you get to date the hottest actresses of the late 80s and 90s? I’d play that game.

Sadly, this Batman game isn’t a romantic simulator, but it does do a pretty good job of making the player feel like he’s the real Dark Knight and not just some guy who bought a Batman costume at Rite-Aid for Halloween and likes to fight a lot. The Batman we’re used to seeing in the comics and movies doesn’t just punch people, he turns into a whirlwind of ass kicking, and that’s what you get to be in Arkham Asylum. With some practice, you can get into a fight with 7 or 8 guys at once and feel pretty confident that not only will you win, but that they’ll never even touch you.

I’m guessing that’s what they mean when they say you actually get to act like Batman.

The only way this game could be better would be if the villains sang “I Whooped Batman’s Ass” on the Game Over screen.

Stryker: Have you ever experienced anything that was so natural and intuitive that it almost felt as if your body was doing it on its own, without you even having to think about it? Maybe playing an instrument that you’ve practiced for years, or a sport that you’re really good at? That’s how the combat in Arkham Asylum feels. Everything is so fluid and perfectly done that at times it feels like the game has bypassed the controller and you’re somehow controlling it directly with your mind.

…like giving an award to some drug lord for coming up with a more addictive version of heroin…

World of Warcraft (PC, Mac)

Year: 2004

Nominated by Stryker

Stryker: As far as PC games are concerned, the past ten years has really been the decade of the MMORPG. Yes, I know, Everquest came out in 1997, and Ultima Online came out in 1958 or whatever, but the 2000s is when they really started to get popular, draw mainstream attention (including one of my all-time favorite South Park episodes), and began to kidnap people’s friends and family members. And you can’t discuss this phenomenon without looking to the long reigning king of the genre, World of Warcraft. While most other games of this type have peaked and then fallen hard into obscurity (I like to think of Everquest as the MySpace of MMOs), WoW’s been able to stay on top for 7 years now. Let me explain how impressive this is:

MMOs tend to go through what I like to refer to as “the idiot cycle”. The idea is based on a simple truth – most people who play games online are idiots. How the cycle works is that you start playing an MMO, and at first you’re so engrossed by trying stuff out, exploring, and leveling up your character that you can put up with the social disabilities of your fellow players, such as trolling or being a teenager. But over time that wears you down, while at the same time, the game becomes more familiar and less interesting, and eventually you are driven away to find some shiny new MMO where the cycle begins anew.

Somehow, WoW manages to break the cycle and keep people coming back, and that’s pretty amazing.

We’ve described “modern classics” as games people will still be playing 15 years from now, but we didn’t mean without taking a break to play other games, though that seems to be a possibility here.

Brad: When we started this feature, I made a rule saying that we would only write about games that we actually liked. Today I’m breaking that rule and writing about a game I’ve never even played, because I couldn’t find a guest writer to come in and talk about WoW with Stryker. Maybe this is due to the fact that not many people are eager to write for free on a blog that only 3 people read, but I prefer to think it’s because all the potential candidates were too addicted to the game to have time to write.

Calling WoW a modern classic kind of feels like giving an award to some drug lord for coming up with a more addictive version of heroin. But as addictiveness seems to be a quality more and more games are going for these days, I guess it’s sort of appropriate.

The Saboteur, or How The Irish Saved Paris

The Saboteur (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

Year: 2009

Nominated by Brad

Brad: The Saboteur is basically Grand Theft Auto set in Nazi-occupied Paris, with some elements of stealth thrown in. Yes, it is every bit as good as that sounds, and no, they didn’t screw it up.

I feel like that’s all that really needs to be said, but since this game wasn’t a big seller, and therefore not an “obvious” classic, I’ll tell you my favorite thing about it. Games in this GTA-type genre are generally divided into two sections – the parts of the game where you complete various missions and progress through a story, and the free play portions, where you explore, find amusing diversions, and generally mess around. The best thing about The Saboteur is that the stuff you do in free play has a beneficial effect on the missions. If you happen to be driving around Paris, and decide to blow up a Nazi guard tower, that’s one less tower you’ll have to worry about the next time you’re trying to escape. It’s pretty nice to have some real meaning added to the free play portion of the game, beyond the usual “Hey, I made a few bucks.”

Just your typical game about an Irishman fighting the Germans in France, with some assistance from the British, in order to avenge his Italian friend.

And since when you destroy something the Nazis built, it stays destroyed, you actually get to see the extent of the Nazi occupation diminish as a result of your actions. So while the game begins with hundreds of Wehrmacht checkpoints, tanks, watch towers and other structures of their occupation; by the end of the game, this may be reduced to just a handful, or even none at all. It’s very cool to play a game that is about driving the Nazis out of Paris, and be able to see that change reflected over course of the game in a literal way.

Stryker: Few games blend stealth and action as well as The Saboteur does. If you’re particularly gifted at sneaking, you can get through most of the game this way, and there are few things quite as satisfying as stealing a uniform, sneaking into an enemy base, attaching explosives to 7 or 8 pieces of equipment, walking away completely undetected, and then detonating the entire thing all at once. But if you’re more of a kick open the front door and start shooting type, you can do that too. Both approaches are equally possible and equally fun. More importantly though, is that the game transitions fantastically between the two, allowing for an even more enjoyable approach where you sneak as long as you can, then start shooting once you get detected and everything starts going to hell.

Disgaea – Ninjas With Guns!

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2)

Year: 2003

Nominated by Brad

Brad: I really like Strategy-RPGs, but they tend to be pretty structured. Each character has a certain class, with specific abilities, and one weapon type, none of which can be changed. Then you fight in a predetermined number of battles, and eventually beat the game.  Disgaea says to hell with all that and throws the gate wide open to let you do pretty much anything you damn well please.  Want your ninja characters to carry guns? Go crazy. Want to change your knight into a thief with an ungodly number of hit points? Have fun.  Want to level up your items  – yes that’s right, your ITEMS – by jumping inside them and fighting random battles? Sure, why not?

Games are almost always better when they engage your creativity and get you to experiment with them. And for a genre that is based on strategy, adding tons of possible tactics is the best kind of feature. Disgaea may not have been a huge seller, but it’s the gold standard for the genre thanks largely to the massive amount of crazy things it lets you try.

You won’t take this Priest lightly once you find out she still retains most of the skills from her previous life as a Samurai.

Stryker: Disgaea matches the madness that it lets you commit on the battlefield with an equally zany storyline and characters. The game is full of humor, and never takes itself too seriously, which is nice on its own, but actually pretty important for setting the proper tone. A serious game dealing with heavy themes would lose all its credibility the first time one of my thieves threw an axe-wielding priest at somebody… and yes, that’s a thing you can do.