Working Title 12.13.07: Working Rant - What Did We Learn?

Posted by Jordan Williams on 12.13.2007

Now that 2007 is almost gone, what did we learn from Gaming this year? You'd be surprised.

Hello all of you wonderful people! Welcome back to the #1 Column to always get sick on the same exact day of the year every year, WORKING TITLE!

Yep, I'm fighting off a pretty gnarly cold right now so it's going to be a criminally short little diddy today, good thing that this fell on an off week where I am allowed to post a short column without threat of Newbs beating me with a fiberglass tube.

No, I'm serious...he really does that. Just don't mention it or you'll have to go in THE CAGE.

Either way, seeing as it's ALMOST the end of the year, I figured we'd just take a small moment to reflect back at the things we've learned this year. This is by no means the epic end of the year round up that you'll be seeing a lot of people do, this is just a glorified list masquerading as a Working Rant...what else is new?

Anyway, let's get this show on the road so I can go back to sleep.

Working Rant: 5 Things We Learned from Gaming This Year

#1. People LOVE shooting games.



Team Fortress 2, Timeshift, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Jericho, Hellgate: London, UT3 and Crysis. If there was a theme to this year's top games, it would definitely be the year of the GUN. Now I'm not going to go on a large rant about the sci-fi shooter is becoming the next WW2 genre, but if anyone out here is gonna lie and say that the shooting genre wasn't representing in a big way this year. Just look on Xbox Live and see what the most played games are currently, you'd be hard pressed to find one that dosen't have you putting bullets into people. I myself still personally play Saints Row online despite the game being glitched to hell and a year old. It's just the shape of the genre at the moment. People love their guns, their futuristic (sometimes) weapons and armor...and most of all; they love the amount of bragging rights it allows them. Twitch Gaming never died, it just got stylized.

#2. Primary colors are the devil.



Ooo. A graphics rant. Not really, just another thing we've learned this year...primary colors are the devil. Again, look at some of the biggest games this year what do they all really have in common? Muted, bled out colors until everything becomes a nice haze of brown, gunmetal, and bloom. Now this isn't exactly the case with some games like Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy, but it's a trend that started last year with Gears and I hope dosen't continue much longer. What's the point of putting all of that money into graphics only to use eight shades of brown, four shades of gray and a metric fuckload of bloom?

I can see where it would make sense in some games where they it's mean to be the point...but man if wars end up being that dull and that bright count me out.

#3. The Wii is the worst best gaming console ever



Stow the hate comments. Let me explain that first. What exactly do I mean by the best worst console? Well, look at the Wii's big picture. It's selling like hotcakes, is the top seller among it's intended age group, and like it or not, is changing the way some people play games. But then you look at the flipside...

The Wii's sales are constantly being marred by product shortages, which means only about half of the people who want a Wii are able to get one at some reasonable timeframe. They Wii to game sales ratio is pitifully low. They are selling more CONSOLES than games, which is never a good thing, and on top of all of that where Xbox 360, it's true competition even if it (and you) dosen't want to admit it had MULTIPLE blockbusters this year, the Wii only had one and a half, Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3. Now, if this were any other console like say a certain cube that could play games, everyone would be calling this the death kneel for Nintendo, but because of the novelty of the Wii people are overlooking it's delays, set backs, and obvious flaw in it's gameplan for the sake of that nifty little Wiimote. And let's not even start on its lack of a decent online multiplayer plan even after a full year. If this year proved one thing, it's that the Wii is the worst best gaming console ever.

#4. People will either comment or send hate mail about the above statement because it was critical of the Wii



It's true.

#5. The game that had the biggest impact this year was only four hours long, and two of its most prominent characters were a cake and a box with hearts on it



Prove me wrong. I dare you to go find a game THIS YEAR that made a bigger impact that Portal. You've got your Halo 3 and your CoD4 and your Mario Galaxy, but if you type one of those into a search engine you aren't going to get the amount of sheer awesome love you'd get from the Weighted Companion Cube. I don't think Valve knew what they had on their hands when they decided to make this a part of the Orange Box and release this upon the world. Now we have tons of people just treating this game like a cultural phenomenon and this is NOT a bad thing. I know SEVEN PEOPLE.

SEVEN.

PEOPLE.

Who have the WCC tattooed somewhere on their body. If Valve dosen't deliver with a Portal 2 at some point in the next year, or work Portal into the vast story of Half Life 3, I do think there will be some sort of mass suicide/cake related accident in the world. Don't say I didn't warn you.


Next week...

Man, I wish you all could've seen the color of the thing I just coughed up. Anyway, next week will be a special time for Working Title. In a world where we will no doubt be seeing a ton of year end game awards...mine will be no different! Next week is the first week of the WORKIES! Celebrating outstanding achievement in categories that make no sense...ABOUT GAMING!

Until next time, I'm Jordan Williams...and I think I may just end up like Beautiful Katamari...