Justin's Game of the Year 2009: Fallout 3

Well, it's about that time, closing up the year of gaming. We played a lot of games. We covered many genres. We played on many consoles (not the PS3 though!). So what is your favorite game of the year?

This year, I'm picking Fallout 3.

At the beginning of the year I was coming down off of Call of Duty 4, a revisit from last year, that I really never let go of. I took a hiatus and spent some time with my Wii, buying more games for that than any other this year. I also bought quite a few iPod games. I even played Spore on my Mac.

Then Fallout 3 came out and I knew it was going to be a toss up between it, Halo: ODST and MW2 to make my most played game of the year award. I couldn't talk myself into yet another driving game. They're repetitive and don't really bring much to the table. I probably spent as much time driving in Forza 2 as I did painting the cars in it. The other games pretty much ended up being sequels as well. More of the same. More of the same fun, mind you, but just more story with slightly better graphics.

But Fallout 3 was such a departure from the last few years of gaming that I had to pick it just because of it's differences that I ended up enjoying so much. Besides some issues I had with the crappy voice acting and bad animations (walking around for instance was like watching a bad 80's computer generated music video), getting into a deep RPG with fully a customizable character was just what I needed. I liked the missions. I liked the choices. I liked zeroing in on people's body parts and blowing them off with a scoped magnum. This was so much better than the space epic, Mass Effect (a game that had superior voice acting) that I tried last year and got tired of real quick. Roaming around generic looking planets that could have been modeled on a G3 Macintosh with Google Maps overlays. Of real boring places. Seriously, look at this crap.

In further...

• Wii GOTY: Excite Truck
• iPod GOTY: Crush the Castle
• Retro GOTY: Excite Truck
• Car GOTY: Burnout Paradise
• Human GOTY: My son

"Walkthrough" Apps in the App Store

I had no idea there were so many walkthrough apps in the iTunes store until I saw some go free at FreeAppAlert.com.

iPod as a Gaming Platform?

I've owned an iPod Touch for about three months now and I think I've seen enough games on it to call whether or not it's got any future as a gaming device, at least enough to compete with the likes of Nintendo or Sony.

But since the games range in price from free to $20 (and that doesn't include the $100 price for the in-game stat boost in iMob!!), the kind of games your going to get are radically different than you'll find on the DS. The couple of games I did play that managed to cross over were Terminator: Salvation ($5) and Hero of Sparta ($1). Both of these games have on screen touch joysticks and buttons to touch mash. While they're impressive for the platform, the touch controls just feel awkward because of the lack of physical feedback. I find myself looking down at the controls to see where my thumbs actually have ended up on the screen after a couple seconds of playing and realizing I'm not hitting the on-screen buttons anymore. Aside from that, there's also the feeling that because these games offer a pretty decent (and not to mention) cheaper alternative to the DS or PSP, they are a little under developed. Terminator's controls were sluggish and Hero's animations and hit detection were sloppy.

But what about the other games? There a digitally tons of apps duplicate online website flash games over and over again. Some are free. Most are a dollar. It's very easy to drop a few bucks on some of these games and realize that they're completely unoriginal and have better online counterparts. Will they do in a pinch while your waiting in the drive-thru or at the prescription pick-up line? Definitely. But you'll quickly realize that you get what you pay for. Cannon Challenge, GloBall, Paper Toss, Star Shower and Wild West Pinball (a fantastic, simple table) are great for places like that.

There are, however, really good games on the Apple Store. Really good. Aurora Feint (block matching with screen rotation), Car Mania (a path drawing game), Cataica (motion controlled Asteriods with better weapons), Flight Control (another path drawing game), Monster Pinball (multi-table and cute), Pew Pew (Geometry Wars meets Rez) and Zombies and Me (run and escape) are a few of the games that I bought and thoroughly enjoyed. They're original, if not at least evolutions of console games, and seem to fit perfectly on the iPod.

I can say one thing though, the iPod is a platform for gaming which I am happy to drop a few bucks a month on in experimentation. My job inherently leaves me sitting around for bits at a time throughout the day waiting for something technology related to break, so if I'm  not checking email or researching a troubleshooting problem, my iPod will be a savior from the endless internet time sink.

iPod Games Megareview

Over the past few weeks I've had a chance to download a play quite a few iPod/iPhone games, so here's my review digest.

• Bubble Wrap (FREE): A high speed time trial for popping those awesome packing bubbles virtually.  Fun to pass around for a few minutes with friends to beat each other's high scores.
  1-stars
• Cannon Challenge (FREE): A physics based stationary tank shooting game dealing with trajectory and speed. Lots of targets as the levels progress. A single play through is probably all you need.
  2-stars
• Flight Control ($1 sale): This game is awesome. Touch and drag various aircraft to their color coordinated landing zones. Don't let them crash into each other as they fly onto the screen. So simple. So addictive. Highly rated. Get it before the temporary price goes back up to $4.
  5-stars
• LightBike (FREE version): TRON lovers will dig this rip-off game. I'm sort of intrigued to buy the full version.
  3-start
• Lightsaber Unleashed (FREE): All I can say is that I was once ambushed by two coworkers with their copy of this silly Lightsaber, motion control based toy. I'm no longer a virgin to air-light saber battles. We laughed the whole 20 seconds it lasted, then cried a little.
  2-start
• Monster Pinball ($4): A six-table pinball game with beautiful, cute monster graphics and table elements. This was the first game I bought. I think it's still worth the $4 after playing it too.
  4-stars
• Paper Toss (FREE): Another physics game where you are given a number and direction of wind speed in an office (they are so windy those cubicles) and you have to "throw" a paper ball in a waste basket. It would have been better to have speed control as well as direction. Still a good time for free.
  3-stars
• Peggle ($1 sale): A falling ball game based on Pachinko or the Price is Right's "Plinko". Special pegs have powers such as multiple balls or pinball-style flippers to keep the ball going. Great sound/music. The level themes are nice too.
  5-stars
• Pew Pew (FREE): A space game mashup of Geometry Wars and Super Smash TV (or Robotron if your that old). I like the two versions. One is solitary avoid-the-badies-and-get-to-the-door game and the other is a outlast-the-waves-of-enemies-and-shoot-them-up style game. The later has dual thumb controls.
  4-stars
• Tap Tap Revenge (FREE): Guitar Hero/Rock Band style game play for the iPod. The game is free. Most of the music downloads are free. It's a win/win when you add in the controls. Three buttons to press as well as shaking the iPod to the left, right, and floorward. A must have.
  5-stars
• Wild West Pinball ($1 sale): Another pinball game, but a single table. The camera moves in nice and close on the table when the ball is dancing around the bumpers at the top of the table. The sounds are authentic for the style of table that it is and it's got really good physics. It's a sparce table, but it's really well done.
  4-stars
• 2XL Supercross Lite (FREE): I was very tempted to buy the full version of this motion controlled motocross racer. What really kept me from getting it wasn't the graphics, the framerate or the sound, but the motion controlled steering that involved turning the iPod to steer. When you turn the iPod, you're turning the screen too! Very hard to play a game like that unless you've memorized the tracks (or lean your head with the iPod).
  4-stars

That's about it. I've played quite a few games that I played for 10 seconds and then deleted. But a couple things surprise me about the games that are being developed here.

First of all, the touch screen joysticks are actually pretty darn good. I thought I would find myself having to watch the screen where the small circles are for the thumb controls, but it's not as hard as you would think keeping your thumbs where they need to be. The Terminator game was the first game I played that used them heavily, but the slow framerate of the game made it unplayable, not the controls.

Secondly, there is a very nice war going on the App store. Peggle started it all by selling it's game for $1 for a limited time and grabbing the number one spot for sales that week. Since then, almost every day afterwards, a game will either go on sale for a buck or totally free for a limited time. It's a great way to grab really good games (like I did above). We all find ourselves checking the store daily to grab these good dollar gems.