The Quixotic Engineer

Over the holidays I had the pleasure of talking to game bloggers Alex Raymond and Denis Farr on Michael Abbott’s Brainy Gamer Podcast. In this episode we discussed our personal favourite games of 2009, as well as which titles we’re looking forward to next year. I picked the most mainstream possible game as my favourite, surely destroying my indie cred. As always, I’m thrilled and honoured to be a guest on one of my favourite podcasts!

You can listen to it here:

• Download the podcast directly [mp3]
• Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes
• Subscribe to the podcast feed

Since I somehow neglected to mention it here, I also had a terrific conversation with Corvus Elrod and Deirdra Kiai as part of the Brainy Gamer “Summer of Confabs” a few months ago. In it we discussed sexist game marketing, Orson Scott Card’s involvement with Shadow Complex, and some of our favourite indie games of the year. Do give it a listen if you haven’t already!

Happy new year everyone! You’ll have to excuse another decade retrospective in list form; we won’t get to do this again for ten years, after all. Here’s my perspective on the 00’s in video games, using the only honest metric I know: games that I personally enjoyed.

2000

The autumn years of the Nintendo 64 and Playstation brought us some real gems. Perfect Dark, Rare’s successor to GoldenEye, forced us all to buy 4 MB of extra RAM in order to enjoy four player deathmatch with an abominable framerate. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was destined to be the black sheep of the series, but it has found significant critical appreciation with age. We clicked and looted our way through the hellscape of Diablo 2 (including the long-teased “cow level”). Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 found broad appeal outside of skater culture for its deeply challenging trick chaining system, establishing a fan base that would justify dozens of sequels.

→ Read more

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a something of a sleeper hit for me. I had enjoyed the previous entries in the series, but only as World War 2 simulators with little lasting appeal. If it hadn’t been bundled economically with Assassin’s Creed¹ at the time, I doubt I would have even bothered to check it out. It was therefore a complete surprise when Modern Warfare delivered a one-two punch: an exciting campaign with some truly memorable set-pieces and an addictive MMORPG-inspired multiplayer. I was absolutely floored, and have been an Infinity Ward adherent ever since.

→ Read more

Anamanaguchi – Dawn Metropolis

With the chiptune scene becoming increasingly important and interesting, it was only a matter of time before a band like Anamanaguchi showed up with a radical new take on the genre. While many chiptune artists create rocking music using synthesizers and NES sound chips alone, Anamanaguchi complement their sound with live guitar, bass and drums. The synthesis of the two worlds is difficult to categorize; it has the excitement of metal, the timbre of a vintage video game, the rhythm of dance-punk. Dawn Metropolis is an exciting album, pure and simple.

→ Read more

This week I attended the Montreal International Game Summit, a professional conference for game developers. Since that is not my profession (yet), I managed to get a free pass as a student volunteer. This was a compelling arrangement, even if it meant I didn’t always have my choice of presentations (I particularly regret missing Brenda Brathwaite.) Fortunately, the talks I did attend were also terrific, so I thought I might share some of what I learned.

→ Read more