I’ll be writing about the other 2008 games I’ve played and enjoyed soon.

“In an interview some nine months after my initial, overjoyed impressions of the game, Shigeru Miyamoto told Weekly Famitsu’s editor-in-chief Hirokazu Hamamura that his team’s “main goal” in Super Mario Galaxy was to make a game that was easy enough for anyone to pick up and play — a game that could be embraced and played to completion by non-gamers, all while never once making the hardcore gamers feel like they’re being “patronized”. He actually used the Japanese verb “being licked” (like a mommy kitty licks a baby kitty, to help the image along) — he was well into meaning-business mode. Maybe he’d played the latest Zelda games, where a blasted text box will scream at you about the function of a key every single god damned time you pick up a key: “You got a magic key! . . . This is a magic key! . . . It can be used to unlock one door! After unlocking one door, this magic key will vanish!”

I took Miyamoto’s “No Licking” stance to mean that he was against the source of the licking as well as the act of licking itself. Maybe he’d stopped and asked himself two questions, regarding the keys in Zelda: number one, why can’t the game show you what a key does? When you use a key to unlock a door, maybe we could just see the key hover up above the hero’s head, fly into the lock, click, turn, and vanish into a puff of smoke as the door rumbles open? Then we’d know, deep down, “Hey, that key’s gone now.” Number two: why does the key have to disappear after we use it? The answer to the second question has something to do with how the key isn’t a “key” so much as it’s just “something to do” in order to progress deeper into a dungeon. On a deeper, weirder psychological level, the key is imprinting our children with obsessive urges to always look for the solution to the problem before their eyes in the most far-flung place. In this way, it can be construed that games aren’t running parallel to real-world logic so much as they’re scribbling poisonous crayon circles anywhere they please.

Yet Super Mario Galaxy licked me plenty of times, up and down, all over. At a certain point about three-quarters of the way through the game — this almost scarred me for life — I was swimming in a giant liquid sphere toward a floating tower, when a penguin sidled up to me out of nowhere and with a hateful snippet of a sound effect, his text box took up the greater part of the center of the screen: “PRESS THE A BUTTON TO SWIM”.

It occurs to me once again that no one in any Japanese office anywhere, precisely, has yet been able to construct a Powerpoint presentation that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that though the people who forget to use the one button on the controller to do almost everything, or else forget that keys unlock doors are forgetful enough to also have lost the instruction manual (and possibly box) of every game they own, they are probably also forgetful enough to misplace the game disc and/or the console.” -http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=295

But I don’t know. I was just bored most of the time. It was too linear for me, and it was sometimes amazing, but most of the time it felt like another game where you do favors for idiots. Like, you’re saving the galaxy, right? If you don’t do it everybody dies, right? So why is it that rabbits are CONSTANTLY fucking with you to keep you from getting more stars? The game needed some serious editing if you ask me, or it needed a mode where the characters could not talk to you and you were forced to explore, as Mario games had been in the past.

I do, however, object to the idea that you had to be inundated with prompts and button suggestions throughout the process of playing through SMG. In fact, for the most part, if you avoid running up to NPCs or engaging them in some way you never have to read through whatever inane details they’re trying to provide. Though I wouldn’t ever call it a really challenging play experience, I WOULD say that it was a fantastic exploratory game and nearly every world held some unique method of exploration, be it bee suits or mario ghosts or ice skating or sling-shotting. The story certainly wasn’t the most air-tight, but when has any traditional Mario story line been that compelling? Super Paper Mario, did you say?

It’s definitely the most fun I’ve had exploring a Mario Universe ever (thanks in no small part to the smart environment puzzles that fit well with each world’s context), and I think Miyamoto is right when he says that it’s something that anyone can pick up and enjoy without alienating hardcore gamers.

Either way, it doesn’t make the top of my BEST GAME EVER list, but I’m glad that it made the number 7 spot on your list for last year

Anyone played Williams Pinball Hall of Fame for the Wii? Because that shit is CRUCIAL. It’s a $20 game that should be under every Christmas tree this year (and it’s definitely on my favorites for THIS year).

A) Hit the thing with the thing
B) Throw the thing at the thing
C) Point or Look at the thing

It’s part of why I thought Zelda: Twilight Princess was better on the gamecube. So, please take all of my apparent hatred towards Mario Galaxy and apply it to Wii gaming. Honestly, had it been a gamecube game, I would have liked it more (this was proven by playing Super Mario Sunshine after playing Mario Galaxy).

Anyway!

I have not played the pinball game for the wii, but that does sound pretty banging. I will try and track down a flea market copy for $10!

I will now list the games that I have yet to play from this year that I think have a chance at making this list once I spend some time with them:

* Prince of Persia (PS3/X360)
* Disgaea 3 (PS3)
* Resistance 2 (PS3)
* Crystal Chronicles: Final Fantasy: My Life As The King (or whatever it was called) (Wii)
* World of Goo (Wii/PC)
* Warioland Shake It (Wii)
* Capcom vs. Tatsunoko (Wii)
* Persona 4 (PS2)
* Thunderforce VI (PS2)

And there are more in my suggestions pile that I’m just not sure have a chance of beating out one of those 10 games up there. Pretty soon here I’ll be posting the list of games that just plain wouldn’t make it onto my 2008 ROM mixtape 10 years from now. I guess I should also post a list of games that I downright hated.

The Last guy looks awesome

I’m sad that Pixeljunk Eden was on their list, but not Pixeljunk Monsters (I think Monsters, a tower defense game, is much more enjoyable, although I think Eden is quite beautiful).

And World of Goo is kind of meh. I think it is technically impressive, and has some fun things going on, but it feels too Jenga for me to really say I’m having a blast.

But Rolando is really kind of great! Other than the fact that it completely bites Loco Roco’s style I’d say it’s the best iPhone game bar-none. It’s certainly the most Not A Phone Game that I’ve played for the thing.

However your Offworld link has reminded me that I HAVE to play Soul Bubbles for the DS. It is a moral imperative.