Gaming pleasant surprises/disappointments in 06

Now that it's over, what were the biggest pleasant suprises/disappointments?

Here are mine:

+Doom for XBLA. Although I wish it was Doom 2.

-No Geometry Wars 2/Mutant Storm 2 release in 06. I love me some Robotron clones and was expecting at least one of these to come out. No such luck.

+Lost Planet. OK, it's not out yet, but I thought this was going to be crap. Now because of the demo it's a shoe-in for Top 20 GOTY next year.

++X '06. The amount of games/good news that werehere were staggering. Bioshock is a console-exclusive, SC 5 is a console exclusive. MS has put their muscles into this gen.

-No user-content plans for XBL. I thought this would be a great way for MS to make inroads with people, but nothing.

+Ubisoft kicking ass. They are becoming somewhat of the anti-EA. They're not catering to the lowest common denominator and should be rewarded for it.

-No good platformer for a nextgen system. I can't even think of what the closest thing to a platformer would be. There's literally nothing that came out in 06. (edit: LOL I totally forgot about Sonic coming out. That was horrific though, so maybe that's why I forgot it).

-PS3. I was originally going to buy all three consoles at launch (especially since I got burned with having to wait a long time for the 360). But this turned out to be a running joke. Ridge Racer 7 is OK, Resistance and Blast Factor are genuinely good and everything else is borderline worthless/on the 360.

-(x5) Wii. Dog shit from every angle. VC could have been great, but it's garbage, the system's power is beyond embarrassing and the lineup is worse than I could have imagined. Nintendo farted out a system here.

Surprise for me is the Wii. I thought it was a total gimmick until I tried Wii Sports. I was sold, I knew it would be a big hit with my inlaws and I was right, they don't play videogames but we played for 5-6 hours straight on Xmas Eve. Nintendo definitely lived up to the mantra with getting people who aren't into videogames to play. Just a different perspective from above.

<3 Xbox 360: Achievements and friend leaderboards are now required to be standard in all new consoles.

</3 Nintendo Wii: I was hyped just like everyone else at the beginning half of the year up until E3, but the release has shown once again it's the typical Nintendo half-assed gimmick with barely-there first-party support and third-party support that ranges from embarrassing to non-existent. Maybe it will be like the DS and get a second wind.

</3 PS3 - LOL

+ Final Fantasy XII being the first real RPG I've played in a long time and a great change for the series.

+ Godhand actually being good.

+ PSP being given the entire library of PSX games for the more tech savvy.

+ I honestly expected Gears to be pretty shitty for the longest time. Yeah, about that.

+ XNA being awesome on the PC side of things, and looking to be awesome on the 360.

+ Episodic content leading to some great games, even if its slower than it could be.

+ MGS Portable Ops coming out of completely nowhere and being a better game than MGS3.

- Sony's hilariously bad launch.

- Cave being all silent on the home side of things since Ibara.

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Originally Posted by Tain

+ I honestly expected Gears to be pretty shitty for the longest time. Yeah, about that.

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+Me too. I at least thought it'd something that doesn't appeal to me at all. Watching a video does it no justice.

+ Drill Dozer is super grawesome, more than i imagined.

- Twilight Princess isn't as much like Majora's Mask as i thought it'd be.

- Unlike everyone else, i hate Kingdom Hearts 2 after the first 4 hours.

+Yggdra Union - Best SRPG since FFT. Really broke the SRPG mold. The focus on formations, rather than individual units works really well, the card system isn't garbage, and for once a SRPG with a challenge.

+Yakuza - It's SEGA. That's bad. But wait, it's actually good! Vintage SEGA. The Shenmue feel was everywhere and I truly felt like I was playing a DC title.

-Twilight Princess- OoT didn't really do it for me and this basically the same exact game. WW is better.

-No 360 for me this year - Self explanitory

-Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Maybe it's just this one, but it's boring, shallow and extremely easy. Not sure what the big deal is, but this game blew.

-No word on Front Mission 5 from SE. - Guess we aren't getting it.

I'd say FFXII was a surprise, but with Matsuno at the helm I was expecting it to be great from the moment his involvement was announced.

+ Zboz

- The relative lack of original XBLA games. Where are all the ones shown at E3?

+ Wii Sports is the shit.

- Nintendo dropping the ball with the VC. What could have been a treasure trove of classic titles is a barren wasteland of overpriced crap. Apparently Urban Champion is one of the first 2007 titles. Thanks, Nintendo, for wasting everyone's time.

- MK Armageddon being a step back for the stellar series. Deception was much better.

- The yearlong clusterfuck of PS3. From the E3 price announcement to the launch disaster, has there been a week without bad news for Sony?

+ VF5 on 360. The one reason I wanted a PS3 is gone.

-Lumines Live. What could have been the best XBLA game since Geometry Wars turned into a disaster with the multiple microtransactions required to get the full game.

+ FFXII. The first JRPG in years that I enjoyed.

+ Sony's continued failure to lock out homebrew on the PSP. Earthbound on the go is nice (and thanks to Nintendo's idiocy, this is only possible on a non-Nintendo system)

+ Bully: It is better than Grand Theft Auto in large part to being much less generic. I hold out hope that it sold well enough to warrant a sequel on better hardware set in a college town.

+ Capcom: You make Japan worthwhile. You saw the writing on the wall and got behind the 360 with new IPs and Resident Evil 5. Dead Rising was even better than I expected. You brought one of the two useful series to the DS. You steered clear of the PS3 and Wii at launch, sealing their pathetic lineups' fates. If UG&G were on PS2, and SFAA were on XBL, you'd have been flawless. Hell, you even cut the fat that was Clover.

+ Final Fantasy XII: It is so much better than every other JRPG that honestly all copies of everything else should be burned in its honor. This game completely ruined my holiday to-do list. Of course, now that Matsuno is gone, Square is useless again, but at least we got this, VS, and the FFTs while it lasted.

+ Gears of War: This will get mentioned again under the 360, but it deserves its own spot too. When the only thing I can point out to make a game better is to make the single player longer and to give the multiplayer more maps, you know the stuff that was packed in there was fantastic. I foresee more maps via XBL, which is why well-thought-out online capabilities are a requirement in 2006 and beyond. The single player issue will be solved in 2008 with the inevitable sequel.

+ Ubi Soft: Joust called them the anti-EA. I love that description. They have their annual sequels, but they actually bring tons of new, well-thought-out content to the table when they do. GRAW defined what this generation was to be about, much like Resident Evil did way back in 1996 for that generation and 3D games in general.

+Xbox 360: I bought mine in February with the plan being to let my wife have it for Oblivion and Tomb Raider, while the PS3 would be my main system. GRAW began to change that plan, and it was killed completely by Dead Rising, Gears of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and especially Achievement Points. I never would have experienced Veteran Call of Duty 2 & 3 or Realistic Rainbow Six without them.

+ Yakuza: As was mentioned earlier, Sega did something right for the first time since Orta. However, their consistent decline says that they won't get two games right this generation, so they're good for one in the next 4-5 years.

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- DS: I sold my fat DS after the first Castlevania and bought a Lite for the second. Other than the Phoenix Wrights, I still can't find any other solid reason to own one. I can't believe what a let down NSMB and Star Fox were especially. I'm hoping to see more/better third party support in 2007.

- Cavemen: If you're not playing your 360/PS3 on a 16:9 HDTV with a 5.1 setup with component/HDMI, you belong on a Geico commercial. In fact, you should have bought the TV and stereo before you spent the money on the consoles that now you can't fully appreciate. Fuck you for potentially making one game get delayed by one day so that the text size can be increased.

- Nintendo: You had three big time releases scheduled for 2006 in my eyes: New Super Mario Bros., Yoshi's Island DS, and Super Paper Mario. You made a soulless cash run out of a 2D Mario platformer. You farmed out Yoshi's Island to the hacks at Artoon, who, to their credit, stayed so close to the original mold that the game turned out decent. You missed the end of the GameCube's life and the year with Super Paper Mario, which was the most promising out of the bunch. Third parties have always carried you, going all the way back to the NES. Now that your quality needs to be flushed, you better throw some of that cash we keep reading about at developers who still know how to make games.

- PS3: I want to have the feeling of firing up a brand new console again, since it's been 10 months for me. The PS3 lineup is so bad that I can't even lie to myself to make that happen. 2007 is pretty simple for Sony. Get Konami to put a new, good Castlevania exclusively on this, or kiss my ass. I will give one ounce of credit to Sony for actually following through on their promise of no regional lockout. Nintendo completely fucked us, and only the western games (Ubi and Eidos) are not locked out on the 360.


- PSP: I had over 20 games for this thing before I realized that I never played it. After some serious thought, I realized that the games were good from an objective point of view but that they just weren't fun in that format. Having Ultimate Ghosts N Goblins fall to a handheld was perhaps the biggest shame of 2006.

- Wii: This is similar to the PS3. If I were given a PS3, I would buy Resistance. If I were given a Wii, I might buy Trauma Center, a DS port. I want to want a Wii, but it's the DS without Castlevania or Phoenix Wright. It's an as yet unjustified gimmick. Given its hardwre limitations, if this doesn't become the console home for new 2D games, it'll be useless in a year. The Virtual Console beats out the PS3 for the biggest ball drop of 2006. If I had a card with points and a Wii for free, I wouldn't spend the points right now.

+ 360 had a good year; better than I expected.
+ Saints Row came out of nowhere and showed what GTA could be like if they paid more attn to the gameplay
+ Viva Pinata became good after looking horrible for a long time
+ Final Fantasy XII delivered
+ NBA 2k7 became one of the best basketball games of all time
+ Wii is surprisingly fun
+ Sony seriously flubs their launch, giving some breathing room to MS and Nintendo
- The PSP's library still sucks for the most part
- Lumines Live was overpriced
- Microtransactions
- April through mid-August

+I finally got the joy that is x box live, and now couldn't imagine not having it.

+Wii boxing is a lot of fun. And really the biggest thing here is it works ONLY a the wii being one of the few games that doesn't make it feel like a huge gimmick. If they made a fight night no matter how ugly it would still be fun because you're punching.

-The rest of the wii sports games are terrible, tennis is the worst because it could have easily been a lot of fun. But clearly nintendo thinks gamers are such chimps they need to move the character for me. Many times of which I could do a better job at.

-The wii does NOT work well with FPS 2 hours with call of duty 3 was more than enough to show me this.

+The ds has been a grave yard after it's great first year.

+FFT remake is on the way....even if it is for the psp.

-I was pretty shocked to see Sony drop the ball like they did. $600 lol

Xbox 360 -- One of the best consoles I have played in a long time.

Oblivion, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Dead Rising, Fight Night Round 3, NBA 2k7, Saints Row, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Gears of War, and Viva Pinata. I don't usually play this many games at all, yet I played all of these a lot this year. Things like Mass Effect look really great on the horizon as well. Viva Pinata and Gears of War both looked like shit this time last year yet made impressive games when they dropped in November.

Wii -- A surprisingly good launch as far as sales go, but not a whole lot going on to keep the momentum going.

Nintendo did a few things right. They succeeded in suckering in a few non-gamers to buy their system. They had a very, very good e3 and rode that wave of solid press to a successful launch. All of the games everyone were excited about probably won't even see 2007 launches. Wii Sports, Zelda and maybe Excite Truck are all there is.

Zelda's ok at best (kind of dull, boring).

PS3 -- It's been funny watching Sony topple over off of its high horse.

+ DS
+Zboz

-Wii
-PS3 I mean holy shit, wow.

I loved Radiata Stories.

I really didn't much love the Guitar Hero. I wanted to really get into it, but after a while I was just kinda like. :/

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Originally Posted by Finch

- Twilight Princess isn't as much like Majora's Mask as i thought it'd be.

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This is a good thing, quiet you. I just started the game but I'm liking it a lot more than MM aside from them absolutely spewing the entire hard plot on you in the first hour and a half of gameplay. OoT at least had a more decent transition into the big quest.

Most of the good games I expected to be good so I wasn't really surprised. This is why I haven't listed many positives. I do think it was a great year.

- It needs repeating. Sony. WTF?

- Jerkoffs who tell me I shouldn't be allowed to enjoy my new console because I didn't have money for both it and a newfangled setup even though I can enjoy the games just fine, and it doesn't harm other people at all.

- Again, no Mario with a Nintendo launch.

- Nothing shown from Junction Point Studios.

+ Okami and FFXII. Right now Okami probably has my vote for GotY (still haven't played GoW though). Both of these games are extremely original and well executed. I always had high hopes for Okami, and I feel it delivered on every level. And I've come to despise Square RPGs, but holy shit did they make something special with FFXII

+Nintendo's financial success. I am absolutely shocked that the Wii, and the DS especially, did so well this year. When I found out that all the DSs in this region were sold out, I was pretty damn shocked. Thats pretty impressive for a 2 year old handheld, especially since this didn't happen the last 2 christmases that it has been out. And I can't remember the last time a Nintendo console received so much positive press...

-The uncertainty of the Wii's capabilities. I guess this isn't really a good or bad thing, but its got me a bit worried. So far, most of the controls I've seen on the Wii are just hints of great things to come. When I played Red Steel, all I could think about was how great Metroid Prime 3 could be (the controls are supposedly way way better). When I played tennis in Wii sports, all I could think about was how great it will be to play a tennis game where it actually matters HOW you hit the ball with the remote. So when you swing the remote he swings his racket... ok... how is that any different than just using a button to do the same function? Another thing that has me worried is the lack of camera controls in 3rd person games. Zelda has no free camera control, and from what I hear Mario does not either. Thats a big problem if no developer can come up with a way to include camera control into 3rd person games.

-Zelda TP. Don't get me wrong, this is an absolutely great game, probably one of the top 5 of the year. But when it was all said and done, I think I was left with a feeling of dissapointment more than content. The game is probably the best in the series from a technical standpoint: great controls (even without camera control), best dungeon design, great art style. But there were just too many small things off with the game. Like I said, no camera control, annoying fetch quests at the start of the game, blurry graphics (wtf Nintendo? Retro did this better 4 years ago with Metroid Prime), useless items (you get a slingshot at the start of the game just to get the bow on the second dungeon... what the hell? the spinner and dominion rod were great items, but they could only be used in very very limited conditions. And where the hell are the fire/ice/light arrows? , only 2 swords and 2 shields in the game (this was a real dissapointment to me), a soundtrack that would instantly be 100x better had it been orchestrated (look at Okami, Nintendo), and just an overall dull feeling from the game. The game lacks that classic, epic feel of OoT and the great sense of adventure of WW. I just hope the next major Zelda game is fresher than this one.

-Oh yeah, and LOL@Sony. But, maybe thats a good thing?

Actually, in Wii Sport Tennis, the tilt of the remote do translate into spins, etc. I know what you are saying how you pull back the racket and whacking the ball... but the tennis game is actually alittle deeper than simulating the button press. I can make the ball curve now or hit it low and fast. It all depends on the moment of contact and how you hold the remote.

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- Cavemen: If you're not playing your 360/PS3 on a 16:9 HDTV with a 5.1 setup with component/HDMI, you belong on a Geico commercial. In fact, you should have bought the TV and stereo before you spent the money on the consoles that now you can't fully appreciate. Fuck you for potentially making one game get delayed by one day so that the text size can be increased.

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oh yoshi.

That entry is fantastic. I even got mild mannered NZE to call me a "jerkoff." :D

- Wii: I still really like the concept of the system, but the launch did nothing to alleviate my doubts about it. Outside of a Gamecube port, a DS port, and Monkey Ball the launch line-up didn't interest me at all, and stuff like Red Steel showed just how awful it could be. I'm still hoping that 2007 will see a glut of quality creative software for it.

- Okami: This game made me really sad, because I was sure I was going to love it. Instead, it bored me into submission and I traded it in after about 15 hours. Too much hand-holding to be fun and taking a class about Japanese art at the same time didn't help (the real thing is much nicer). And contrary to most reports I've read, there was nothing about the gameplay that felt especially fresh to me.

+ Zelda: Twilight Princess: After being so let down by stuff like Beyond Good and Evil and Okami I almost didn't buy this game, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to it like I had been any Zelda before it. I thought that maybe the whole gameplay formula had lost it's luster for me, but no. Twilight Princess is a total masterpiece. It is undoubtedly yet another incarnation of Zelda, but it's so refined and well-designed nothing in it feels like a chore. It's huge, but tight and focused. The cinemas and character designs drip with charisma and the soundtrack is the best of the series. It really feels like the work of master's of their craft.

Pluses+

+World of Warcraft- Almost everything about it. From Leveling to endgame raiding. A brilliant game. It consumed me for two years and now thats its finally dying down (probably to reemerge as an almost entirely different game after the expansion) I need to take a moment and congratulate blizzard on making a MMORPG thats actually fun and playable. Thank you.

+Gears of War- Multiplayer is everything Halo 2 online should have been (if it was bungie's goal to shrink the game down to smaller maps and quicker games. As it is, its almost a perfect single player experience as well. Story leaves a lot to be desired but no one can criticize epic for milking the gameplay when its this good.

+XBLA- So good. So very good. They need to make it their goal to pick up and distribute forgotten 16-32 bit 2D games, instead of the late 1970's arcade games that only Yoshi remembers. Their original stuff is golden though. I don't think I ever had any hope this would work when I first read about it, and honestly thats what makes it so amazing to me.

+Dead Rising- Been a long time since I've wanted to be GOOD at a game. Not like just beat the game and be done with it, but be GOOD at it. Thanks Capcom.

+Sony's DOA launch. I call this a positive because I hate Sony. That being said, question...

Why was Sony Advertising constantly when they had no systems left to sell, and all it was doing was encouraging parents to go into the store, find out they can't by one for little tommy, and inquire about an Xbox 360

+EA probably losing their NFL liscense is the best news EVER for any football fan even if they don't know it. You see Madden sucks without 2K games to steal from, and so lets get some competiton back into this market and get an actual football game released.


The Bad will come later cause I just don't want to think that much now.

Happy new year all of you.

"Why was Sony Advertising constantly when they had no systems left to sell?"

So people don't buy 360s instead.

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

"Why was Sony Advertising constantly when they had no systems left to sell?"

So people don't buy 360s instead.

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Its generally a bad idea in advertising to bring consumers into situations where your competitors have plenty of product available and you have none.

Eh

I don't think that's as huge as an issue when things cost a lot of money. I'm not sure how many people wanted a PS3 and got a 360 instead. There were probably a lot, but I bet there are more people conviced of the PS3. Problem is, they can't afford one, LOL. So they probably will get a 360 regardless.

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

Eh

I don't think that's as huge as an issue when things cost a lot of money. I'm not sure how many people wanted a PS3 and got a 360 instead. There were probably a lot, but I bet there are more people conviced of the PS3. Problem is, they can't afford one, LOL. So they probably will get a 360 regardless.

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I hear you. I just don't get spending 300 million dollars to send consumers into situations where all they can get are things your competitor makes.

Yeah substitution products can be a real bitch economically speaking.

Oh yea,

- anything from Nintendo or Sony
+ anything from MS

At least that's what TNL tells me to think.

(+) The Wii. Since I was never planning on spending a money for ROMs that everyone's been emulating for ten years - I mean, the Virtual Console games -
I can't say I'm "disappointed" with the paltry selection. Or the lack of a huge jump in graphics from the Gamecube. That's not what this console's about. It's about control. New control. And yeah, I realize that there's no game that particularly stands out that uses the controls as a selling point. But Wii Sports is a delicious taste of what's to come - it's like those little hot dogs wrapped in a biscuit, sliced into pieces about an inch long and stuck with a toothpick that an old lady wanders around the mall passing out. Sort of. The controls in most games are unrefined now (Red Steel) but I can just imagine what's going to be available in the years to come. And even if it can't pull off the most precise movements that we're hoping for - well, I'm thinking we can wing it pretty close, and there's always Wii 2.

(+) Twilight Princess, for the most part. I know it's more or less at home on the Gamecube, but hey, they did release it for that too, so big deal. The sword swinging is a *little* gimmicky but at least it's not overblown. It works, it's fun. What works REALLY well is the aiming of weapons like the bow; being able to strife and aim feels WONDERFUL. It's natural. In any case, this is a HUGE improvement on Wind Waker, even if it does stick to more-or-less the same formula that Ocarina started. But Wind Waker added virtually nothing besides a boat - and that got old fast. Here, you can now fight on Epona - nice - and it's much more subtle, but you can also continue to run and swing your sword without stopping, as can you continually roll without a real pause like before. Putting weapons on a separate snappy screen is a good idea. They really smoothed everything out. Then there's the pretty big aspect of being able to change into a wolf as well as some cool new weapons, and a decent story, too. My only real qualm is that it's a little long in the tooth. The overworld is almost too big - but it could stand to be inter-connected a little more. Warping helps a lot. Some of the gameplay was bordering on filler, but just as I was starting to get annoyed, the game moved on (for example, with the vessels of light)... yeah, it's not revolutionary, but it's really good.

(-) I haven't spent too much hands-on time with one, but the Playstation 3 seems to be more or less an overpriced game console or a reasonably priced game console/blu-ray player combo. Either way the graphics aren't really beyond the 360's at all, and since that's sort of what it was going for, I guess you could say it's a bit disappointing. I certainly won't be buying one until they're much cheaper.

(+) Half Life 2: Episode One was a really nice surprise. I knew I'd enjoy it but it was actually got my emotions going a little, and not too many games have done that. Good stuff.

(-) Yoshi's Island DS. Again, I haven't played it too thoroughly, but what I DID play was thoroughly disappointing. I almost bought it but opted for a real copy of the SNES original instead with the intent to get 100's on every stage. I'm glad I made that decision. It's a classic, and this new one is more like a "I'm too pussy to really try anything new, so here's a bunch of familiar stuff, although you'll have to live with our new out-of-place music". Sorta.

(-) I still haven't played Okami, so I'm disappointed in myself.

I forgot Sam and Max. That's a plus. Bone really bummed me out so I thought the new Sam and Max was a lost cause, but they captured the art style pretty well and, most importantly, the dialog. The episodic distribution is a good idea for an adventure game too.

+sony's preformance, ah the joy of watching the arrogent fall on their smug faces.

+zelda twilight princess. a beautiful game, takes the best aspects of both mash and ocarana and makes a fantastic game with great atmosphere. i am a bit ticked about the only 2 swords thing, but given the integration of the sword tehniques into combat, ill let that slide.

+okami. another beautiful game, long, maybe a bit wonky on pacing eventually, but just nails the art direction. id consider it better graphics than any of the next gen systems because it has a feel of real artistry, not just brute polygons.

-phantasy star universe. lets see, they took away our ability to coustomize our guys and play offline because you have a cool single player storyline? oh wait, its horrid. and on the pc its spyware-ific, sega, only you could fuck up something this badly. after how much i loved pso on dc, gamecube and later on the xbox, it was a herculian task to make this game not ge a day one for me.

+cryptic, city of heroes really came into its own this year, albeit with 2 massively delayed content issues. the mayhem missions helped city of villians feel more villianous, the police band stuff helped extend the life of my maxed characters. and the vet rewards were well picked. wings, samurai armor, kilts, ok didnt really feel the kilts, but overal a great year for city of heroes/villians.

-mass effect, i was really hoping it was coming this year, eh, better have it finished than rush it, but that put the zboz to 07 for me.

-eletronic boutique, the cult of pre orders is beginning to piss me off. i can understand rewarding the prepared with a guarentee of getting the game you want on launch day, but this whole nonsense of not getting games in for over a month if they arent preordred? fuck that, circut city says thanks.

EDIT: forgot one
- and + oblivion. ah if there were ever a game that both impresssed and dissapointed me at once. the game is the best constructed rpg in theory, but a lot of stupid decisions made it dissapointing in my eyes. no polearms, cut mounted content(which makes riding a horse feel awkward, either you a have trail of 5 wolves or you hop on and off your horse 20 times per trip) , awkwardly implemented level scaling, very same looking environments, a reduced feeling of actually affecting the story, reduced feeling of living political and religious factions going on around you, radicaly reduced numbers of guilds, oblivion looks like a meatloaf cd cover, daedra and aedra represented poorly, no polearms, strange looking argonians, no crossbows, no thrown weapons, reduced types of katanas, overreliance on dl content to nickle and dime us to death, and a number of really limited dl's at that(horse armor, vile lair, theivs den argueabley), lack of differentiation between the weapon styles' power atttacks, and harder to mod for due to the lack of a good nif. importer, really cliched plot, did i mention the fucking polearms? everything plays better but feels worse, its a weird feeling.

I like hearing people complain about not getting the pre-order bonuses they were told they were entitled too.

That shit is awesome.

+ GOD HAND!!
+ Finally getting around to RE4.
- Oblivion and Yakuza not living up to hype.

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

-eletronic boutique, the cult of pre orders is beginning to piss me off. i can understand rewarding the prepared with a guarentee of getting the game you want on launch day, but this whole nonsense of not getting games in for over a month if they arent preordred? fuck that, circut city says thanks.

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Originally Posted by Revoltor

I like hearing people complain about not getting the pre-order bonuses they were told they were entitled too.

That shit is awesome.

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I'm really beginning to think that EB only carries new games to keep hardcore customers (IE, the ones who actually do pre-order everything) coming in. They probably make the vast majority of their profit on their ever-increasing used section. Personally, I try to avoid shopping there now. I get all my used stuff on ebay or forums, and Future Shop (and Superstore) gets new games at the same time, enough copies to satisfy demand (making pre-orders obsolete), usually has a better price by a dollar or two, and doesn't have the obnoxious warranty crap that each EB employee seems intent on pitching to everyone. Fuck EB, fuck their pre-orders, fuck their add-on sales, fuck their used section.

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Originally Posted by Ammadeau

+ GOD HAND!!

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Freak. But I'm not getting into that argument again. :yuck:

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Originally Posted by Ammadeau

- Oblivion and Yakuza not living up to hype.

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Freak. Oblivion is the best game of 2006. Yakuza isn't far behind.

+The Wii system as a whole. Wii sports is a great pack-in and a good preview of what could be. I thought pack-ins died during the 16bit days?

+Excite Truck. THis game surprised the fuck out of me. I was expecting a shallow game that would be going back to Gamefly in 2 days. 2 weeks later, I'm still enjoying it. Easy enough to be fun, challenging enough to make you want to keep playing.

-Metal Slug Anthology Wii. Smart move SNKP. To have classic controller config. would have been a no-brainer. Instead, you force us to use the newfangled controls. If it aint broken, don't fix it.

-Phantasy Star Universe. PSO was better in almost every way. Many of the new features seem forced. The fun factor of PSO was lost somewhere. $10 / month fee is justified in games with lots of content and plenty to do, but this game didn't have enough to do, and was needlessly repetitive. To make it worse, the community was non existant.

+Guitar Hero II - Better selection of songs and more realistic difficulty. I can actually beat this one on Medium.

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Originally Posted by bVork

Freak. Oblivion is the best game of 2006. Yakuza isn't far behind.

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I'm not going to argue God Hand again. Let's go personal opinion and all that there, but Oblivion's 'everywhere looks the same and feels the same thanks to procedural enviros and auto leveling' is a spit in the eye of Morrowind, and just plain lazy design. Yakuza has more cliches and stupid, predictable deaths than the worst Hollywood crap, while the fighting system was just plain sloppy and simple, especially after God Hand. If you enjoyed these games, I can only assume you're very easy to please.

God Hand's levels look they were made out of the ugly Lego bricks

God Hand looks like an uglier PS2 RE4.

Hell, I'm willing to bet it runs on a tooled RE4 engine.

There's a vast difference between, say, the Jerall Mountains and the Gold Coast. Try fast traveling between distant locations in Oblivion - you may be surprised at the differences. The change is far more gradual than in Morrowind, which might be what is confusing you. Morrowind was much more abrupt about it. The West Gash and the Ashlands look completely different despite being right next to each other.

You are, sadly, a bit more correct about all the areas feeling the same. Still, it doesn't detract much from the brilliant game.

I found Yakuza's plot unspectacular but decent, and the fighting was very satisfying (more so than God Hand, as far as I'm concerned). You also ignored the gobs of minigames and other things to do in Yakuza besides the main plot.

+ Final Fantasy XII - I got this game two days ago...and it turned out that its actually NOT shitty. VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, GOOD GAME :) Thanks for recommending this game!

+ Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Its Zelda, and its fantastic.

+ God Hand - This is the type of "old school" beat em up that I have been waiting years for. This is the biggest surprise of the year for me (right after Wild Arms 4).

+ Dead Rising - Finally a great wacky alternative to the Resident Evil series. This is CAPCOM's next big franchise.

+ Tomb Raider Legend - Proof that Tomb Raider games can actually consist of solid controls and fun gameplay!

+ Enchanted Arms - The first traditional JRPG on the 360 turned out to be a very solid and satisfying adventure.

+ Wild Arms 4 - A great mixture of 2-D platforming elements and turn based JRPG battles. This is quite possibly the most fun I have ever had playing an RPG.

+ The combination of the Wii and the DS can not be stopped. I will never be delusional enough to think that the Wii alone is better than the 360. However, the combo of the Wii and DS is going to provide some fun and innovative gaming experiences for years to come.

+++++ The Xbox 360. I HATED the first Xbox with a passion, and I constantly asked myself why I even owned an Xbox. Then, I turned around and bought a 360 on launch day last year so I could play Perfect Dark Zero. PDZ turned out to be one of the shittiest games I have ever layed eyes on, but after that the 360 seemed to do everything right. The 360 is going to own this generation, and its probably the best system I have bought since the Dreamcast. I hope Microsoft can keep the positive momentum going in 2007!

+++ Virtua Fighter 5 and Assassin's Creed announced for the 360 - Thank God I can save my $600 now :)

+ The PS3 becoming a running joke. LOL at the PS3. Any company that has the nerve to charge $600 for a videoGAME (key word here is GAME) system deserves to be laughed off this fucking planet. I can only hope that consumers continue to laugh at the PS3, because we don't need shitty prices like this ruining this industry. We should speak with our wallets, and not pay $600 for systems or $60 for games!

- Okami - FUCKING BORING!
- Kindom Hearts 2 - What a piece of shit! BORING!! Hopefully Kingdom Hearts 3 will return the series to its former glory by adding an understandable storyline and changing the battle system back to normal. Kingdom Hearts II is so easy that it practically plays itself...it put me to sleep.
- Phantasy Star Universe - Didn't I pay for a better version of this game SIX YEARS AGO!? Sega needs to just die now...or I will settle for them being ass raped just as hard as they raped fans of this series.
- Sonic - :( :( :(
- Tales of Series - Legendia is one of the shittiest JRPG's of this generation, and Abyss was a promising game on an underpowered system. I would have loved Tales of the Abyss if it was actually able to run properly without breaking the PS2.
- The Library of Wii Launch titles - I played through Zelda, and had a ton of fun with Rayman. Why does every other game (besides the remake of Trauma Center) have to suck to some degree!? This is an awful launch lineup.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bVork

I found Yakuza's plot unspectacular but decent, and the fighting was very satisfying (more so than God Hand, as far as I'm concerned). You also ignored the gobs of minigames and other things to do in Yakuza besides the main plot.

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Yakuza's plot wasn't original, but it was atypical of the genre, for sure. It had more in common with hardboiled novels and film noir than ganster dramas. I liked it.

+Metal Saga - it was nice to see someone actually try new things in Jrpgs. All jrpgs from this point on you should let me zip through battles. It was also nice to see a jrpg take a few things from US/UK pc rpgs.

+Atlus - thank you for continuing to bring us nerdy japanese games

+Wii - It's nice to have something new brought to the table. Hopefully we will see more games that actually use the Wii in ways that aren't bullshit

+Burger King 360 games - I hope this starts something new in advertising. We need more games like this. I was to be Hardie's/Carl's Jr. Star or Ronald McDonald and I want to pay only 3.75 for it.

-FF7: Durge of suckass. Thanks square, you made a shitty game out of one of FF7's most loved characters. Good job.

-gaming assholes - I don't care how much you love the atari, nes, snes, playstation, xbox or zboz. Quit being dicks. It's been like 20 years or something, grow up. Learn how to play well with others. You're almost 30 something now. God damn it people.

-WoW - thanks for taking the life blood away from TNL. Fucking die already.

-PS3 - LOL, you'd been better off advertising the thing with Dr. Evil. "It only cost....*puts pinky to lip*...one billion dollars "

-metal saga - Why couldn't I marry Rose? Fuck you people for not rounding the game out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

grow up. Learn how to play well with others. You're almost 30 something now. God damn it people.

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Hey, remember when you posted pictures of a severed dick because you couldn't win an argument? Yeah.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kidnemo

I loved Radiata Stories.

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This is a + for me as well. I'm glad someone else loved that game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nomi

This is a good thing, quiet you.

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I'll never be quiet! I want the Wind Waker/Majora's Mask guy to get his own series of kind of like, but not Zelda. More unique characters that aren't simply plot devices, please.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

+Metal Saga - it was nice to see someone actually try new things in Jrpgs. All jrpgs from this point on you should let me zip through battles. It was also nice to see a jrpg take a few things from US/UK pc rpgs.

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That's right!

+Metal Saga did NOT suck like all but one or two reviews said! It was actually good!

Quote:

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+Atlus - thank you for continuing to bring us nerdy japanese games

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This year's Atlus has released so many games that i thought only i wanted. I could make a tasteless post relating sexual favors to the output of Atlus this year and i wouldn't be ashamed until tomorrow. Keep fighting the good fight.

+ God Hand. Best game.
+ Yazuka. I guess the same Sega that brought us Shenmue isn't entirely dead. This game was absolutely awesome.
+ FFXII, for proving that Final Fantasy can be worth playing again. Too bad that what's been shown of XIII (which really isn't that much, but...) looks entirely unappealing in comparison.
+ Wii. Besides the VC execution needing some serious work, I've had a ton of fun with it. Of course, TNL doesn't want to hear about that.

- Games like Dead Rising fucking over people with SDTVs. Sure, it'd be nice to own a giant LCD HDTV. Not gonna happen right now, considering my living situation. Not knowing what games are and aren't going to be playable on my TV makes me want to hold off on a 360 until I get a monitor that I'll be able to read their text on.
- Virtual Console. Yes, there's a couple of really great titles on there already, but it's not enough. Where are the SNES games? Baseball and Urban Champion this week, when we still haven't seen Contra 3, Super Mario World, Link to the Past, Super Metroid, among a ton of others. That's a joke.
- Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know how the final product actually turned out to be even more miserable than the demo that came out on Xbox Live, but it did.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stibbons

Hey, remember when you posted pictures of a severed dick because you couldn't win an argument? Yeah.

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No, I don't really recall that.

But you would be the one to defend assholish behavior on the gameboard.

OMG ZBOZ LIVE IS THE BEST THING EVA LOL LOL LOL

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

But you would be the one to defend assholish behavior on the gameboard.

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I'm not defending anything. My point is that you're the last person that should be telling others to grow up and learn to play well with others.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buttcheeks

OMG ZBOZ LIVE IS THE BEST THING EVA LOL LOL LOL

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Confirmed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finch

That's right!

+Metal Saga did NOT suck like all but one or two reviews said! It was actually good!

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Well, the game was a little half assed. It should have been fleshed out a little more.

But it tried a lot of new things for jrpgs and was fun. Shit, it had a cult dedicated to Arnold. Come on, how can you fault that game?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stibbons

I'm not defending anything. My point is that you're the last person that should be telling others to grow up.

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lol, ok sure. I might believe that if it was said by anyone that wasn't you.

grow up

or joust

EDIT: or anyone else known for taking huge stinking shits on the game board.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

grow up

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lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bVork

I found Yakuza's plot unspectacular but decent, and the fighting was very satisfying (more so than God Hand, as far as I'm concerned). You also ignored the gobs of minigames and other things to do in Yakuza besides the main plot.

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I'm willing to accept others felt otherwise, but for Yakuza I used the same attack pattern for pretty much every enemy in the game, aside for the latter bosses, where I just owned them with weapons. When I tried to change it up, there wasn't many options and it ended up worse anyway. The plot was 100% predictable for me, so boring. Plus one thing I absolutely can't stand is people doing retarded, out of character things to service said plot. There wasn't much else to do besides simple 'go there do that' side quests and the hoestess bar, neither were particularly fun for me. I beat the game so I didn't hate it, but the whole experience was forgettable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

EDIT: forgot one
- and + oblivion. ah if there were ever a game that both impresssed and dissapointed me at once. the game is the best constructed rpg in theory, but a lot of stupid decisions made it dissapointing in my eyes. no polearms, cut mounted content(which makes riding a horse feel awkward, either you a have trail of 5 wolves or you hop on and off your horse 20 times per trip) , awkwardly implemented level scaling, very same looking environments, a reduced feeling of actually affecting the story, reduced feeling of living political and religious factions going on around you, radicaly reduced numbers of guilds, oblivion looks like a meatloaf cd cover, daedra and aedra represented poorly, no polearms, strange looking argonians, no crossbows, no thrown weapons, reduced types of katanas, overreliance on dl content to nickle and dime us to death, and a number of really limited dl's at that(horse armor, vile lair, theivs den argueabley), lack of differentiation between the weapon styles' power atttacks, and harder to mod for due to the lack of a good nif. importer, really cliched plot, did i mention the fucking polearms? everything plays better but feels worse, its a weird feeling.

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What is it with you and those fucking polearms? They were next to useless in Morrowind, why would they bring them back for Oblivion? The crossbows is a valid complaint, I wish they had brought those back. I also wish they'd just give you a fucking museum with a bunch of those display cases, that's all I want. I don't want all the stupid bullshit you get when you buy furnishings for your house. I just want a place to keep and possibly show off my shit. Why is that such a problem?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Toupee

(+) Half Life 2: Episode One was a really nice surprise. I knew I'd enjoy it but it was actually got my emotions going a little, and not too many games have done that. Good stuff.

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Agreed, although I only just started it. I liked HL2 A LOT, but I think the years of hype really hurt it for me in the end. I thought it was going to literally be the greatest game I'd ever played... so of course I was let down.

I had zero expectations for Episode 1. I just sorta bought it out of habit... in a daze, like a zombie. But holy hell, it's damn good. Reminds me of a roller-coaster ride. One amazing action-packed scenario after the next.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by youandwhosearmy

+Dead Rising- Been a long time since I've wanted to be GOOD at a game. Not like just beat the game and be done with it, but be GOOD at it. Thanks Capcom.

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Agreed, except not about DR (which I've yet to buy). I'm talking about IIDX.

I think one reason I became so obsessed with beatmania in 2006 is that it rekindled a desire to improve my own skills that I hadn't felt since the days of arcade SF II. The level of satisfaction from merely getting better at the game is absolutely unmatched, and probably much closer to how one feels as they gradually master a musical instrument.

The biggest surprise for me this year is that I discovered a game that's been around since the late '90s, and that it then went on to become the most rewarding videogame experience I've had to date.

+ Gears of War- Most enjoyable online multiplayer to date. Can't wait for new maps.

+ Capcom- Dead Rising and their PSP (MHX, MMPU, UG&G, CCC) games were excellent. Phoenix Wright, too. Okami I haven't put enough time into, I'm kinda 'eh' on it so far but most say it gets better. God Hand most seem to like, I need to pick it up sometime. Additional props for putting Lost Planet demos on Live in a beyond-timely manner. Other companies take note pls.

+ The decline of the third party exclusive- Anything that saves me $600 is a good thing, imo.

- Sony- See also "Vanity; thy name is". LOL Sony. Can't wait to see them further falling on their ass throughtout the gen. Good value or not, a $500-600 price tag is going to fly with the mass market about as well as a lead weight.

- Nintendo- I really enjoyed Zelda, but it seems they worked on it to the exclusion of all else. Wii games' dates slipping was extremely disappointing. Virtual Console pricing and the first party offerings are a joke. DS was pretty good this year, but not really because of the first party stuff. Metroid Prime Hunters in particular was godawful.

- Xbox Live content- Microtransaction abuse and shitty arcade releases that cost too much, yay! A hearty LOL @ MS's fulfillment of their promise for new games every Wednesday. UNO skin =/= new game. Total LOLs at nobody putting up game demos around the holidays.

- Ubisoft's Wii "Support"- Yikes. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Here we go:

The Surprises:
+ FFXII delivers, just like it's been said before. When I found out that 12 was going to be set in Ivalice I was really skeptical about this game. For me, Tactics was better than any of the other numbered series and having the two bleed together got me really nervous. But, I'm happy to say that FF12 is like Vagrant Story, Tactics and Final Fantasy having a massive orgy in my PlayStation 2 resulting in a joygasim of epic proportions. I almost consider it Vagrant Story 2. This might be the last numbered Final Fantasy I play just so the series doesn't become tainted with me again (like after IX)

+ Guitar Hero(I and II); not much else needs to be said. The games are awesome and keep me entertained.

+ Wii: Everything I expected and I didn't expect a great deal. Wanted something that was fun and function for me, and I got it. I understand the problems people have with it and I think they're justified in the way they feel. But for me, this is a pretty good system.

+ LOL @ Sony: I knew they'd chop off their own leg once Square-Enix started making games for other systems. Strange how Square affects such things.

+ LOL @ Blu-Ray: Seriously. LOL.

+ Future FFTactics coming in the future. Might have to get a PSP now, and totally ready for Advance 2. :link:

The Middle Ground:
+ - Xenosaga 3: From a playing stand point, this game was possibly better than Xenogears 1 and leaps and bounds better than Xenosaga 2. But the plot just died in it. The Xeno series never recovered after the main writer left and they're damn lucky the music didn't come crashing down once Mitsuda left. The plot left me feeling bitter and disgusted. Loved characters reduced to emo crap. Gah. :yuck:


Disappointments:
- Supposed Metroid 3 and Smash Brothers Brawl launch dates pushed back? Jesus. SSBB is most likely going to be the life line of the Wii much as SSMB was the life line of the GameCube. That shit needs to come out like last month.

- DS FriendCodes: At least they fixed this shit with the Wii.

- Final Fantasy III; Mognet specifically: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HAVING THE FUCKING SPACE NOT WITH THE LETTERS?! Writing Mognet mail is the most tedious bullshit thing in the entire game.

GOOD-

-Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin actually being good.

-The GBA producing good original content in the wake of the DS: Ordital, Dotstream, Drill Dozer, Atlus' efforts and Scurge were well done.

-Under Defeat and Radigy on DC....in 2006. Bliss.

-Elite Beat Agents and DQ Rocket Slime, my two fav DS games in 06, both were definitely unexpected.

-Getting Beatmania in the US...even if it wasn't the greatest version.

-Wii looking to be as fun and quirky as the DS proved to be.

-Turbografx games on the Virtual Console.

BAD-

-Odama. Could have been the great action pinball we've missed all these years, instead it's screwed by tactic mircomanaging crap.

-Nintendo focusing on a stream of DS content instead of finetuning games like Yoshi's Island.

-Lack of homeports from Cave, really sucks.

*-neo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by g0zen

What is it with you and those fucking polearms? They were next to useless in Morrowind, why would they bring them back for Oblivion? The crossbows is a valid complaint, I wish they had brought those back. I also wish they'd just give you a fucking museum with a bunch of those display cases, that's all I want. I don't want all the stupid bullshit you get when you buy furnishings for your house. I just want a place to keep and possibly show off my shit. Why is that such a problem?

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agreed about the furnishings, i thought it was going to be cool, but i was wrong. anyhow, re polearms, there re a few reasons
a. variety, swords and axes shared most of the same animations, good for developers, bad for variety ingame, i prefer a little variety in how my guy looks, it is a small thing, but tes games are about beautiful variety, so dropping it was bad.
b. spears did have a use, most people just looked at the damage numbers and said bah. Fact is, they had a longer reach than any other weapon in the game, even claymores/dai katanas. i learned fast that with reasonable speed, some backpedeling, and an ok spear, i could pull out wins vurses much better equipped foes with relatively few injuries. and also, if something is "broken" shoudl you ditch it, or fix it? spears had their place, and their loss left a void in the game. finally, with the new hitting system, spears would be incredibly useful. unless you were a skilled blocker, spearmen could be a real challenge.
c. spears were the presumptive racial weapon for argonians, they allowed them to have a "niche" in the racial specialties, without that they became blander. Why have strange fantasy races if you arent going to give them a place.
d. historical immersion. soldiers and guards used spears and polearms, it just would look better with them walking around with them, admittedly they were like this in morrowind too, but hey, rectify the mistake, dont sweep it under the rug.
e. since the game was actually getting interesting animations, i was kind of hoping for some darth maul type twirls and strikes. idealistic i know, but why not.
so yeha, thats why i wanted polearms, maybe if that shivering isles expansion proves true, they will put them in, the non attacking anims are already there, with the magic staves, all they need to do is add 2 normal swipes and some power swings, lets round it out here.

+ Gears of War living up to the hype. I had my doubts because Microsoft and Epic were trying so hard to make it a Halo-type franchise, but they really delivered with an awesome co-op experience over LIVE and a kick-ass multiplayer experience.

- The Wii. I was excited about the system and planned to purchase it for launch, but after Nintendo announced the price of the system and its controllers, I felt it was not worth picking it up at launch. I'm going to wait a year before I decide to purchase one (hopefully, we'll finally see some online Wii titles and a more robust VC selection).

- PS3. As soon as Sony announced the $600 price tag, I knew things were going to be bad for Sony. What I didn't expect was Sony losing the GTA exclusivity. Even with the $600 price tag, you could have said, "well, at least they still have Grand Theft Auto 4". The number of available systems being cut twice and the fact that the system was essentially not finished when it was released (see 720p/1080i display issues and jaggy PS2 upscaling) only added to the LOLtastic Sony stumble. I'm curious to see if Sony will be able to recover in 2007.

+ Jump Ultimate Stars turned out great and was worth the import price, even though I had my doubts about a portable Smash Bros-type game.

+ Nintendo being a positive in the public eye for something other than the Gameboy. i knew last year they would be the darkhorse for E3 and the new gen. so far they're proving that.

+ Okami is a game im actually sitting down with a few hours each day to finish. i haven't done this for a long time. sure the whole second half seems tacked on and out of place but it's been pretty damned enjoyable. 25 hours in and i'm finally at Oni island.

+/- Final Fantasy 12. i know the game is good, but the KotOR/MMO type of gameplay takes a lot of getting used to for me. i'm not terribly fond of everything being autopilot......yet.

- Yakuza "so far". only got to the funeral but its seems so damned mundane like GTA. the cionstant loading is atrocious and until i see a reason to not jam on the button during fights i fail to see hoe people say the fighting is "deep". Amma summed up my exact feelings.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ammadeau

I'm willing to accept others felt otherwise, but for Yakuza I used the same attack pattern for pretty much every enemy in the game, aside for the latter bosses, where I just owned them with weapons. When I tried to change it up, there wasn't many options and it ended up worse anyway. The plot was 100% predictable for me, so boring. Plus one thing I absolutely can't stand is people doing retarded, out of character things to service said plot. There wasn't much else to do besides simple 'go there do that' side quests and the hoestess bar, neither were particularly fun for me. I beat the game so I didn't hate it, but the whole experience was forgettable.

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- SONY. again lol. we all know they will eventually take the world by storm, but how long will it take and how much market share will they give up? it's selling like hotcakes in Japan.

+ Xbox Live Arcade :: I've had more damn enjoyment out of downloading games and playing for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. Hopefully once more original content comes underway this enjoyment will continue.

+DS :: Always in my pocket, always ready to suck time. New Super Mario Bros, Tetris DS, and a shit ton of others I'm forgetting all came by for a good amount of play time.

-Bomberman Land Touch! :: Online Bomberman was one of the events I was looking forward to most this year, and this was one of the biggest disappointments. The game was impossible to find, the lag online made it unplayable, the battle mode was as basic as a Bomberman battle mode could be, and always having to play with at least four computer players is dumb as shit.

+/- Wii :: Although it wasn't the "OMG Orgasm!" that I was hoping for last year, I'm amazed how much fun I'm having with my family playing Wii Sports. I can't wait to see their reaction to Wario Ware.

- Zelda Twilight Princess :: I hated the controls in the Wii version, and although the GCN version does correct this by a million times, I don't have the "I need to play this now! I can't wait!" urge that I get from games I really enjoy and love. I hope I enjoy it more as I go futher into it, when I have the desire to go further into it.

- Metal Slug Anthology :: No D-Pad Support on GCN Pad! No D-pad support on GCN pad! WTF SNK, OMG WTGDF?!@!?!