A little on the nose there, Nintendo, but you're right. This game dropped on the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda

Skyrim and Skyward Sword are two vastly different games, but playing Skyward Sword made me realize just what felt off about Skyrim. It’s that uncanny valley problem again. When your game strives for photorealism as much as Skyrim does, it can’t help but feel a little off when your character doesn’t move like a real person. LoZ: SS has none of those problems, as you might imagine, because it looks so stylized.

As you might imagine, Skyward Sword is yet another Wii game trying to do more with less. In motion and outside of cutscenes the game looks perfectly fine. It’s only when you zoom in for those cinematic moments that you have jaggies and aliasing and the seams start to show. I really do appreciate the brilliance of the Nintendo artists because games like this and Kirby’s Epic Yarn both look fantastic on a 480p connection.

The collector's edition bundle, complete with special Wiimote Plus

I’ve still got to put more than two or three hours in, but Skyward Sword is shaping up to be one of my favorite games of this fall for one reason: character. If there was one thing that Twilight Princess lacked, it was character. Everything was dark and dreary and realistic just like every other stupid fantasy game out there. It was especially glaring after what we got in Wind Waker with its vibrant colors and eccentric characters. So far, Skyward Sword has that in spades.

Her hair is a pendulum. It's awesome.

The Skyloft area is a hub of zany fun. Link’s classmates are hilarious archetypes with the pompadour-ed bully and his goofy looking lackeys. Zelda and Link’s relationship reminds me of anime high school relationships and his headmaster is named Gaepora! Fly outside of the city and you also get characters like the bartender at the pumpkin bar place who I’m now in thrall to thanks to a chandelier…er…accident. It was awesome!

Property damage has never been so fun!

Our interaction went something like this. I walked into the bar and the camera showed me that there was a heart piece hanging from the roof. When I spoke to the barman’s daughter she told me not to try to knock it down because it wouldn’t work. Naturally I went right up to the second floor and knocked down the chandelier. Everyone in the bar was super shocked and then the barman started yelling, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!” It…was…awesome. Now I have to sell soup for him, but it was totally worth it for that absurdist moment there. That’s what Twilight Princess was missing. When TP got absurd it got creepy and weird.

The most hilarious moment of the session. I love how this game comments on the mayhem that most players cause in the world

Below are the rest of my miscellaneous observations:

– Not having access to fine tune settings like text speed is a little weird for me. I hate the glacial pace that the text flows and there’s no quick way to fast forward it.

– On the other hand, they did give me the option to remove most of the UI and that is awesome. Nothing worse than an overcrowded UI.

– There are new mechanics that are neat. Actions all seem to drain stamina in a Mario-style pie chart. Running, hanging from ledges, climbing, rolling, spin attacks…It’s not a huge change, but I like it.

– The way they bind motion option selections with a string is brilliant in a way that makes me wonder why no one has ever thought of it before. So much better than hunting for menu items with the pointer.

Why has no one thought of this before? It's really quite brilliant.

– Like I said earlier, Headmaster Gaepora! Awesome. Can’t wait to find more mythology tie-ins

– Ok…using the sword is super cool. Sometimes I get a jab when I want a swing, but that’s usually when I’m being lazy. Getting swarmed was tough to deal with at first, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it as time goes on. Doesn’t help that my shield has a health bar. What gives?!

Maybe I should have named Link Min instead of Daniel

– Flying is initially clumsy because you control it with the wiimote, not the cursor. I’m getting better at it, but it flies against first instinct.

– It’s the little touches. Always the little touches:

– The Zelda found secret stinger is played on a harp since the arc instrument in this game is a harp
– In the bazaar the music changes to reflect each vendor’s motifs, adding and dropping instruments based on proximity. In fact, all of the music in this game is pretty awesome so far.
– Everyone’s house/room tells a little story about who they are from someone who collects cute things to someone who clearly doesn’t dust at all. No one room is a generic “room”. Skyrim doesn’t have these emergent stories. Homes are homes with scant little to differentiate or personalize them.
– There was a woman with antiques who charged me every time I broke her stuff by rolling into the wall. I emptied my wallet laughing so hard and breaking all her shit. That was so much fun.

Looking in people's cupboards reveals a little bit about them...at the cost of a minor scolding.

– If there was one terrible thing, it’s the constant reminders about rupee denominations. I KNOW! It’s annoying and it doesn’t add anything to keep reminding us what everything does every time we run into it.

Super Potato in Akihabara

As is typical of me, I played a ton of video games this year. Here’s a listing of what I played along with a few short (or long) words on each game. For the most part, this list is restricted to games released in 2010 unless I did not play them until this year. It’s also mostly in chronological order, with some skips here and there.

Mother 3: Definitely did not come out in 2010. I reviewed it already, but let me say that there is significant beauty to this game. Affecting and heartwrenching, this is easily among the best games I played this year. Do not play this on an emulator because the music-timing of the battles is deliciously fun and the time lag of emulation makes that impossible to experience.

Mass Effect 2: The first AAA game of the year. My review trended toward disappointing, mostly due to the way that story was handled in this iteration compared to part 1. Still, an undeniably great game whose heist-story mechanics and plot are unique and interesting in the gaming landscape. I can’t wait for part three in November.

Heavy Rain: Almost as exciting as actually doing the chores your imaginary wife forces you to do in real life. The execution just missed with this one and its plot twist was asinine and felt cheap. If you’re allowed to hear the thoughts of the protagonists, but you fail to provide a logical reason as to why that person is lying to us (himself?), you’ve lost me.

Pro Yakyu Spirits 2010 (Professional Baseball Spirits 2010): My baseball game of the year. I love taking the Carp to the Japan Series each year. I spent countless hours developing my franchise. This game was worth every dollar I spent importing it.

Final Fantasy XIII: Thoroughly disappointing. Expect more from me on this (edits from the future!), but SqueEnix really dropped the ball something fierce here. A game that suffered from complete lack of creative direction. Final Fantasy XIII is the head of the snake eating its own tail that has become SqueEnix.

Yakuza (1, 2, )3: Did not put that much time into this one, but I did play its prequels to completion. Fiercely Japanese in design, I just haven’t found the time to get deep into this gem. I’m sure it’s actually pretty great.

Mega Man 10: It lacked some of MM9’s magic (partially by being easier), but still a razor sharp example of why the Blue Bomber captured our hearts in the first place. Pump Man’s power, while heavily reminiscent of Leaf Man, is deliciously fun to play with. Using it again Solar Man was also tons of fun for me.

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilve: It was fun to go back to the best two games in the series. The Pokewalker was stupid, but I have high hopes for Black & White. These games are easily dismissed as rehashes, but they’re still white-hot proof that JRPG design doesn’t have to be needlessly complex to be addictive and elegant.

Alien Swarm: Valve gave me this game for free. I played it maybe twice. Decent fun, but I’d rather play Left 4 Dead 2.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: Never beat this game. SMT continues to be ridiculously tough and legitimately mature in their presentation of mankind’s eternal struggles against its darker tendencies. Maybe it’s the first-person dungeon crawling, but something about this game prevents me from ever picking it up most days.

Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse: I’m lumping all five episodes into one entity. I find TellTale adventure games to be workmanlike in quality. With the exception of the last two or three episodes of Tales of Monkey Island, they lack the extra oomph that could make them truly great. That said, The Devil’s Playhouse was the most hilarious Sam & Max iteration yet. From Sam & Max’s insistence on pronouncing General Skun’kape as skunk-ape to their episode-wide fight over what to call the menacing Sam clones (Samulacra or Doggleganger?), these games were absolute riots. Now if only TellTale could figure out how to make them great games as well…

Monster Hunter Tri: One gaming session. The sword swipes pack so much friction it’s beautiful. Despite this, never picked it up again. Got a sick black classic controller out of it. Now if only I played Wii more often…

Super Street Fighter IV: Played the hell out of last year’s iteration. Opted to play other games since it was structurally similar to vanilla Street Fighter IV. Kind of wish I’d played it a lot more this year.

Green Day: Rock Band: Played it once, exported the tracks to Rock Band 2/3, never felt the need to boot it up again. Despite only 1 hour of playtime, unlocked an achievement. Fixing the ‘D’ rank that came as a result on Giant Bomb is the only reason I will ever boot this up again.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies: Practically perfect in almost every way that a JRPG should be. I understand why the story was left more generic than years past, but the lack of an interesting narrative is what kept me from finishing.

DeathSpank: Played the demo once. Bought it on PC to support Ron Gilbert. Might actually play it one day. It seemed funny.

Comic Jumper: Hilarious in a juvenile way, I slogged through the repetitive, mediocre gameplay just to see more of this game. I think Min “played” this the right way. He watched me beat it and got to enjoy the presentation without having to touch a controller.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty: Am I the only person who hates what they did at the end of this story? Sure, it has legitimately far-reaching consequences for the sequel, but I think they’re also legitimately less interesting. Still, as perfectly constructed a game as they come. I fell out of playing it, but it definitely feels like I could pick it up at any time and have fun with it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game: A loving tribute to River City Ransom wrapped up in a franchise that I really enjoy. Sounds like a recipe for success to me. Loads of fun, but, like most middling brawlers, starts to wear on you toward the end as there’s not enough variety introduced in later levels.

Worms: Reloaded: Love Worms. Loaded this up once and never did it again. I’ve hated all Worms interfaces since Worms 2, mostly because they obfuscate and hide customization options more and more as they transition toward console friendliness. I wish they’d put more effort into their PC version.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 2: Case West: I’ll lump these all together since they are mostly the same game spread out into chunks. The prologue and epilogue (Zero and West, respectively) are just small and feature-gimped enough that they lack the oomph of the full retail release. Dead Rising 2 itself was everything I wanted it to be. A more robust co-op system would be all it needed to be top tier, but I still had loads of fun with it. As a bonus, Min and Dead Rising 2 taught me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em this year.

Civilization V: You probably saw my review where I hated on the terrible AI. I haven’t played since they patched/fixed it, but if they did it right, this game could totally fall back within my good graces. I do sincerely love this game, it’s just not what I hoped it would be and, in its present form, not as good as IV.

Rock Band 3: Harmonix went and made a perfect Rock Band game. Now all I’ve got to do is get my hands on a pro-guitar and I might actually learn something practical from a game that lets me indulge in all my favorite music.

Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale: Ever wanted to run a JRPG item shop? This indie game translated from Japan is charming and fun, but I haven’t had the time to devote myself to it yet in 2010.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West: So good until the end. Can a stupid ending mar an otherwise good game? Yeah, kinda. I still loved it for the great acting (weird to say, right?), but stupid ending + sub-Uncharted 2 traversal-style gameplay mires this one in the mediocre bin. The fighting system could also have used a little less frame-lock in its animations (is that what this is called?). Can’t count how many times I died because I was stuck in a seconds-long super attack aimed at the air.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn: Unparalleled artistic vision ties this game together. I haven’t put too much time in, but it seems super easy. I want to play with a friend to get the most out of this. What do you say, Min?

Super Meat Boy: Juxtaposing Kirby and Super Meat Boy is wrong on so many levels. One is like chamber music. Beautiful, complex, but not so complex it’s tough to listen to. The other is kick-you-in-the-teeth, bite off a squirrel head, make you a man heavy metal. Super Meat Boy is so deliciously crunchy in every way that it might be the best game game on this list. Where Starcraft II is perfect with a Beatles-type polish, Super Meat Boy is The Clash; unabashedly punk rock. I love this game. It’s so addictive and fun.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX: Did I say Super Meat Boy was perfect? Pac-Man CE DX (PMCEDX) is video gaming distilled to its primal essence. Eat a whole train of 30 ghosts and I dare you not to feel primitive fun stir deep within you. Words cannot express how great this game is in bite-sized chunks.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: Is it cheating to count a re-release? This is probably the greatest adventure game ever now with a commentary track recorded by the big three: Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, and Tim Schafer.

Poker Night at the Inventory: Strong Bad is unbelievably annoying, but banter between Max, Heavy Weapons Guy, and Tycho are always a joy. The second half of this year’s poker lessons were learned here. Now if only I could get straight flush and four-of-a-kind hands so that I can 100% the achievements in this game!

Back to the Future: The Game: The voice acting and atmosphere in this game are both spot on. Unfortunately I hit a game breaking bug and had to start over. That sucked.

Limbo: First played this on 31 December, so it still counts. Deeply atmospheric, but darkly disturbing and difficult for me to stomach more than once a day. I want to go more into that in another post. Unfortunately for the game, I think the controls are a touch floaty, which I mostly find frustrating because I need to beat it dying fewer than 5 times for an achievement.

And that was 2010 in video games (for me). I missed some huge ones (Super Mario Galaxy 2, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Call of Duty: Black Ops), but I think I got a good spread in there. Here’s to another great year in gaming for 2011.