Giant Bombcast Giant Bomb Game of the Year 2010: Paul Barnett's Top 10

Ladies and gentlemen. I don't even know where to start here. Uh,
special bonus, special bonus, A little audio recording here. So we've been
having some some of our guests from the industry and beyond providing a top ten
lists to kind of compliment our own for our Giant Bomb Game of the Year
twenty ten. So today in an audio format is Electronic Arts Assist's own Paul
Barnett. Paul, how's it going? So a couple of things get close
to the microphone. Leo Alexander's not here right, that is accurate. I
can't get ambushed again, well except for us, and this, uh,
this tumbler of Johnny Walker that you've got going. And and secondly here's a
Poae mallet. Yes, and if for any reason I talked too much hit
me because I get excited. We can edit around it, but we should.
We should set the scene here. Paul and I are both wearing festive
holiday Santa hats. They are yes, Christmas. I brought them specially for
us. Yes, because it's Christmas Day for the people who aren't paying attention
to when we when this was launched, we actually recorded on sure sure we
didn't actually red no, no, we can't. We could, I know,
because we don't start untill after Christmas Day. You're right, we don't
start until the twenty seventh. Yeah. Oh well this was a recording we
made on Christmas Day. All right, yes we can so so so Santa
Paul has shown up with present Christmas. I actually I have brought presents,
brought present you're gonna give away. Let me explain what they are as welcome,
Ok, couple, This here is the e A Crew addition. Oh
wow, of Hot Pursuits. Say so, uh, this is a explain
the limitedness of this. Well I would do, but I don't really understand
it. Everyone in the Who's in the Games label was given this. So
it's a specially pressed, special exclusive tons of extra cars thing. It's the
only way of getting all of them together. So we have your copy of
It's the EA Crew Edition twenty ten of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for the
PC. It's got a festive holiday outer package to it. It's just Hot
Pursuit in the front in in a nice cursive font, little uh leaves and
berries. It includes fortier employees only. Mercedes Benz SLR, McLarens seven twenty
two edition Maserati Quatroporte Sport GTS, Chevy Corvette z O six, Lamborghini Revatan,
Bugatti Veyron sixteen point four Aston Martin. That's how you say that,
right vs. And the OUDR eight five point two FSI, uh so that's
that's a gift for Giant balls, the gift for Giant bomb users. Will
We'll figure out some way to give this to people absolutely, and carry for
myself and then carry yes, friend of the show, Yes, friend of
the show. Producer at e a mythic. She's insisted that I bring you
some of these. We have so close to spelling this energy drink everywhere.
God damn, that was terrible street you drinks. That would have been bad.
War Hammer Online, we have a grip of patches for your sweet jean
jacket because clearly everyone who plays or Hammer online would have eighties and eighties geen
jacky, that's exactly what they have. And it's a verminous hord, verminous
hoard maybe. And then this one. I stole this off marketing, which
so it's a says war Death Kill custard and it's got eight bit Paul,
eight bit Paul. It's my third year. Ah, can you explain the
custard reference? Are you you known for extolling the virtues of custard. It
was explained that the realms of chaos in Warhammer, Yes, and the way
the Americans have generally been doing it's like, you know, devilry, satanic
lava. And I said, no, no, no, it's it's chaos.
You know, it's badgers singing songs and custard falling from the sky.
It's anything. Yeah, it's all custard falling from the sky. And not
realizing that you guys really don't have custard. So I could have really said
anything, but so people just kept saying custard to me, falling from the
sky would be would be pretty frightening. And something about custard just sounds like
a like a curse word, sounds like you're swearing emmy when you and God
dare you sir, custard? You So I brought I brought all them a
season of good will and very nice. Well, thank you, Paul,
for these are our usuable. Thank you for these as we disseminate them to
the to the masses. But what we're here for in actuality is for you
to give us to deliver in classic outsized Paul Burnett fashion your Games of the
Year for twenty ten. It's it's been a year, it has. So
the first thing is, there's not a lot of console stuff in my top
Ten's in no way reflection the console markets. It's been a tremendous year if
consoles would have been really really great games. It's more reflection of the games
I've had to be looking at and playing at for the secret project that I'm
working on, and so it sort of reflects that. So are you suggesting
that if people look at this list they can divine what it is that you're
doing. Probably not, he would suggest no such stuff. So so legally
he cannot suggest any such things in no particular order. They're just written down
as they came to me. Oh, there has to be some order there.
There has to be some order. Then if you don't have order,
Paul, then then what is just custard coming out of the sky. There
is chaos? Okay. So one of my one of my favorite games was
Fruit Ninja. Fruit Ninja? Do you even come out this year? Fruit
did? Okay? Well, it's only when I become aware of it.
The game of the Year for me one of the most Fruit Ninja fair enough,
because it combines two really important things fruits and fruits and ninjas. And
what I really like about it from a sort of game designery point of view
is that you get it on your iPad and your your family and all of
them. Every age quickly understands what to do and can quickly play it.
So it's a marvelous thing for bringing people together around the table, and it's
harmlessly chopping up fruit as a ninja. It is a low barrier to entry
for that game. I also feel that it it represents as far as kind
of the the you know the iPod iPad like that style of game. The
swipe is one of the few actions that you can really execute well on that
platform. I think it's you know it. Fruit Ninja is represented of kind
of like this, this first or second step of people figuring out, like
what is the best way to actually interact, raining it in and realizing like
this slash is actually quite satisfying. Yeah, well, and we can make
game gameplay out of this motion. So bizarrely, in my opinion, all
the best iPad games involved single finger input of some description, because that's actually
what the iPad excels. That mean's what he's good at, and if you
actually have to do anything else then it's rubbish. And so it's another reason
why I thought, Paul, this is why we get along. Yeah,
it's not just because've got a bag of peas in front of this. No,
No, that's well for something. Jeff Green will come back and get
his empty PA bag someday. No, he didn't get to take that back.
That's going to fill it up and get you. I never I never
want to collect an empty P bag ever again. You want to collect a
full p bag. That happens. So game number two, Game number two
PC games Digital a love story. I don't know what that is. It's
interactive fiction, okay, lots of text and windows. You read it,
you pay attention, you're put in commands, you type. It's quite short,
written by a lady. It's wonderful. It's an example of imagination gaming.
It can play on any platform. It takes about eight minutes start to
finish. This is the one in the apartment with the couple. Might be
okay. To tell you anything about it is to ruin it, okay.
But digital love story, as as a friend of mine, Quinn said when
the credits rolled at the end, he found himself welling up with tears and
in his head he kept saying, I can't believe it. Surely it wasn't
that good, but apparently it is. One on What I like about it
is it's showing you that actually great design can still come from the very elementary,
rudimentary building box. Nothing but Asky done well, and that story really
does matter because we were in a day and age where people are worried about
whether the story is any good and so digital a love story. It's awesome.
See this is interesting, Jeff, and part of why I was excited
to get a bunch of other folks from the industry in on this top ten
listation. Uh, the difference of perspective and how that informs what you consider
like the best or most important games of the year. Because I feel like,
for for the the the game player, you want as complete and good
an experience as you can have, right, like you know, high level
of polish, a lot of depth, things like that. But it seems
like the kind of the designer perspective. The thing that I keep seeing is
it doesn't have to be a fully formed game. It just has to have
an excellent kernel, has to have something of interest at it's you can learn
from exactly, or going into new areas or or re engaging old areas,
or broadening the moment. But there it's it's always games that's like, well,
we wouldn't call this a great game, but there is there is something
at the core of this that's that's important or can be can be learned from.
Well, for the longest time, the drivers on games commercial games is
to do with the size of the market, delivery system and therefore the potential
profit. And what's been happening over the last three years is all those rules
have been challenged, and they've been challenged super aggressively. We now have completely
different people effectively spending money on what we would call commercial gaming. Yeah,
we have completely different delivery systems, mobile phones and stuff like that. There
actually proving that you can play games. And if we have different size of
market and we have different budgets, we no longer just need to do a
seventy five million dollar game. You've got guys working back bedrooms knocking a game
out, making tons of money on it. So it's completely changed it,
which leads rather bizarrely and tangent gently to the next one. There's actually multiple
versions of that. The one I picked was four square, and this is
this idea that you go and book book yourself in when you go to Starbucks
and you can collect points and level up and decks and real live achievements,
which you could argue isn't a game, but the reason why it was in
is because people who actively will tell you they're not gamers will do that,
and it is clearly a game because they're going back to the same place to
level up to become there clicks. Clearly again they're grinding. They're grinding it
and so all breaking their phone and then hacking the geolocation services so they can
check in from home without having to leave. And then bizarrely, I was
in a meeting where I got the marketing term for the market segment that these
people are. It's social light l I T e. S. And it's
someone who has a lot of social meets on Facebook and on Twitter. You're
gonna have to leave, and then we murdered him. I don't. This
is just just for telling us that information is the point when the marketing people
are telling you there is a viable measurable segment. Then as a designer,
it's become fact. It's become something you have to You now have to pay
attention to it, and you now have to at least take it into account.
And just look at how achievements have completely changed gaming Now, it's almost
inconceivable for game to come out that that doesn't pay attention to achievements and Facebook
and Twitter. So I thought that was really interesting. Next one is an
indie game, Realm of the Mad God, and actually in a little independent
festival competition. I know the guys we're making it, and they're actually ex
Google guys. It's a web based browser game and you basically log into a
land and you it's got it's got the old what was the Supernintendo modes,
modes seven scaling and rotation, scaling, a rotation. I just shoot the
hell out of things as these little fantasy dudes. And what's really interesting about
them is they've got a blog. They're very open about how they're making the
game. It's really just using clever survey technology and then they've bolted a game
on it and they're trying just to figure out how to do it, and
so it's public fast iteration of an interesting game. It's really quick to play,
and they're really nice. They're really approachable. The game's really interesting,
fast and quick, and as you play it every month it changes and alters,
it gets better, and it's really interesting. And so from a game
design point of view, it's really interesting to see two people using public available
graphics doing something that's interesting and challenging. So I thought that was really good,
and I'm off to beat them because it really nice people. Then I've
got an Xbox Live game finally, it's actually from the indie I really like
the Indie channel on Xbox. I think there's some really really interesting things on
it. The fact that Microsoft get out of the way they get reviewed,
you put them up. It's unfortunate that you have to sift through. It's
got that the kind of Apple app store thing of There are a lot of
things on there that aren't necessarily worth your time. Might be melting. What's
that for you? Oh? Thank god, no ventilation to this room.
There is no ventilation. Yeah, there's no way of doing recommendations. There's
no way of doing reviews, which is really sad. So you have to
just sort of sift through it. But there were some real gems in there.
Originally I was going to put soul Caster in, which is like eight
bit and you summon little monsters and a little dungeon. It's quite cool,
an epic dungeon. That got like a wave because that was really interesting and
reminiscent to a very strong idea that I've been playing with, not that dumb
realm with the Mad God. Also reminiscent of strong ideas that I like.
But the one that I picked was Minor Dig Dig Deeper. I've heard of
this Minor Dig Deeper, yeah, which is a sort of side on bolded
ash and a little little light on your helmet, and it's very simple to
play. As soon as you say boulder Dash, I'm like, all right,
let's go. It's all in there. The boulders fall their diamonds to
find you keep going to your shop. You make little elevators and lifts.
It's mindless, it's quick, it's cheap, and I've played it. I've
completed it eight times, wow, which is unusual for me because I don't
have any specapacity. You've prestiged eight times. What is it about the package
that compels you? Specifically? It's a really really simple idea delivered with charm
and wonder. So a lot of problems people have when they do you quantify
wonder allowing someone to see one good idea without trying to to put extra ideas
on top of it. Because if you have one strong idea, yeah it's
good. If you have two strong ideas, it doesn't bring twice as many
people into the game. If you put more ideas on, you've got a
good chance of hiding your strong ideas that you can't see them anymore. And
mine, who dig deeper goes you dig in a mine. The name pretty
much just dig and if you have to dig, dig deeper, and you
sort of go, well, if all I want to do is mine by
digging deeper, minor dig deeper is the dish, the way to go.
It's the ultimate. It's digging. It's if you're gonna dig. And the
bit the joy when you get your your your little petrol gasoline drill and then
you fire it up and it vibrates the controller and all of a sudden you're
doing like industrial digging. It felt like a Chilian miner, but not trapped.
They're very, very exciting. I liked it a lot. Every time
I find a new war, it's like, oh, yet another war.
And then I I was digging down and I came across this strip of land
that I couldn't dig through because I didn't have a diamond tipped like drill bid.
That's all of a sudden, I now had a goal, which was
yes, and and there's a simple things like that. If you dig and
you design badly, you make really really rocky, like terribly horrific things,
and they wobble and get it killed. One idea well delivered, that's all
you really need. All so I like that a lot. I've got Wild
Cataclysm on as well, for very iclar reason. It's a homage to my
childhood. As this company called Ultimate, he became rare who made all these
like eight bit games for the Spectrum when I was a little kid, and
years and years ago x ZX Spectrum forty eight k oh. Yes. Anyway,
the point is years and years ago they had six games development at once,
Game one, Game two, all the way through to game six,
and then one of them was working on Game three, and he'd come up
with this new way of doing graphics effectively what you and I would call sort
of isometric. At the time, but on the forty eight K spectrum,
and he showed it to the Stamford Brothers are in charge of and they looked
at it and they went, wow, that's really good. That's really really
impressive. Unfortunately, we have games one and two still in production. So
what they did is they canceled games four or five and six, got them
to use this new engine, and then they sat on it and didn't do
anything with it while they finished games one and two, and they pumped out
Games one and two was very good, game called Underworld, very good,
sold millions one point four million units, and they sold millions, and then
they brought out the one they've been sitting on and everyone was blown away.
And then they quickly brought out more sequels to it, and they just made
tons and tons of money because they had already had the time with that engine.
But but they sat on this new development. They didn't just jump at
it and go out. And so the reason I like well Cataclysm is because
Blizzards just been sitting on it. Joining Well, we've got it. I
don't know, should we launched, I don't know. Should we just wait?
We should just wait. Let's just wait for a bit long Christmas Claus
Christmas, can we have about a little bit, a little bit more?
And then what do they do? They bring it out. They get the
record for the most sales in one day of a PC game ever, three
point three million. I think the last time I looked, they reinvigorated their
user base. They've had a lot of people returning to their game for a
game that they were done, dusted and finished with a year ago. And
so for that along, I go, gosh, I should be on the
list obviously, you know, with Cataclysm just out in one of the more
massive new releases recently, it's it's it's impressive to consider that, you know,
this six year old game that still has incredible legs, that has a
massive user base, and that they're able to put out full size, fifty
dollars expansions for and you know, break records with like that's a that says
something. Do you feel like that that number? I mean, it's it's
obviously like a huge number for twenty four hours, but what number of their's
old subscriber base do you think will come around to Cataclysm in the first month
or something like that? Because they've got like, what was it twelve million.
Still, so you look at like the three point three million in that
context, like, well, what are all these other people doing? Obviously,
if you have an active Wow account, why wouldn't you go out and
buy the big new expansion. Well, millions of them are in China and
it's not there yet. Okay, Okay, you gotta give that. Okay.
What I like about it is basically Wow is like an annuity. It
makes an awful lot of money. One subscribe is actually worth way more than
just the initial purchase price. So what you gotta look at. You got
to say three point three million. They sold a load of those direct digital,
so they kept lots of the money, right and everyone that they send
out that people buy it's probably worth like a hundred and twenty dollars to them,
is they're going to subscribe for a bit longer, so you know,
it's at least at least And it's actually a very fun expansion, a bit
thin for what it is, but still beautifully delivered. And I can't think
of anyone else doing it to that level. It seems like it's just incredibly
well done with and finding ways to reinvigorate these existing areas that you know,
players are largely kind of ignore, were ignoring. Well, I was in
I was on a panel talking about it, and I tried to explain one
of the things that is, it's a hard lesson and very you know,
ego bruising to learn. Wow is the MMO equivalent of the iPod or the
iPhone. It doesn't matter that there were MP three players before the iPod.
Yeah, once the iPod came out, it dominated, And it doesn't matter
what you made after the iPod, the zoom, it's all right, but
it's not You're never going to take on the iPod. It doesn't matter how
many cell phones existed. Then the iPhone turned up and it just dominated.
And so that's actually what WOW is. It's this sort of like magnificent uber
creation and you know, chasing after it as already learned tomorrow experience painful and
humbling. So you know, I, you know, you Yeah, I
think it's really good expansion. They went really hard. It's really good.
Loads of people bought it. I'm impressed, and I'm gonna say I imagine
there's probably a lot of very expensive math used to decide when exactly that cataclysm
was going to come out. I've got no idea about that. But yeah,
I suspect that there are like a lot of men standing around a white
board looking at charts and graphs. There are trajectories of sales and of subscription
rates and things of that nature, and knowing that, Okay, this is
the exact moment where if we put this out, here's where the lines intersect.
Maximum value for dark dark, darkened rooms with men's with cigars. Yes,
yes, send the go code. They're the same people we launched on
the seventh, buttoned down white shirts with short sleeves, thick horn, rim
glasses. It's like NASA in the sixties. It's basically what I was and
say, it's like what happens when they get a new president him in secret
and they basically they set him down. But they first of all, they
have a pool. How long before he brings a barrier? Fifty one?
Right? How long? But then what they do is they show him the
Kennedy assassination from seven different angles he's never seen and they go, do we
understand each other? Yeah, there's a lot of that. So next up,
but it's quite it's quite dull. Actually, it's Marjong on the iPad.
Yeah, so he's doing because of a particular reason for it. Again,
it's a one finger input, which I think the iPad excels at and
mar Young is really interesting in that it's it's a slow sedate you can play
while waiting for your aeroplane in the back of a car. It's a marker
of those type of games becoming popular again. It's it's one more weight onto
the scales of we've gone into a new super mainstream. You and I wouldn't
necessarily have gone, oh dude, Mark John coming out in the Xbox,
We wouldn't have done it. There's definitely like one of the early iPad releases
I ended up buying was Shanghai, and it's just that same type of just
like tile matching or well, not the same type of time, but but
it was. It was definitely that moment of just like man, I used
to play this on the Atari links, I used to play this on this
and having that in kind of a new portable format, yeah, I could
see the appeal. And so it's you know, there's quite a lot of
them now, but if you look at the games that are moving on the
Ice Store, it is all that sort of stuff. Whereas you know,
I went to visit the Epic guys. I like them a lot, but
I had to look at Infinity Blade and I should have went, yeah,
well, no, it's nice, but it doesn't feel right on the iPad.
You're actually talking to you about it, and you're explaining until there's a
there's a sort of a bluetooth joystick input. Yeah, which it's never going
to feel which I don't think that even solves the problem because no one's going
to carry that around with them ever where they go. So it's a ridiculous
thing it is, But but it's just not you know, like Infinity Blade.
It's beautiful, but beautiful is not what I'm looking for from a portable
platform. It's the same problem the PSP ran into, and then it actually
had the right controls of At some point the game start to look so good
you just start seeing console games or computer games and thinking, well, I
would much rather play this sitting in front of a gigantic type. It's some
problem with the Red Shooter as well. I just didn't like it. It
just doesn't have that technically kind of impressive you look gonna go it's pretty the
graphics. This is a phone that's interesting, which is why if other than
showing someone who's a tech right person who wants to Google, I would go
that versus look at, which then led to Angry Birds. Sure. Now
I like Angry Birds because it's it doesn't look was it seven million units moved
on Android? Yeah? Yeah, I mean that's one platform, comes out
on one platform, boom. Never mind how much it's done on the iPhone.
And I believe that you can't even technically buy it on the Android.
I believe it's all on and they're making a fortune on their answers. Certainly.
So I think Angry is another one where you put it down making a
curt tune and they're going completely cross media. But it's it's another there's another
one explaining the widening of the market. The one finger input, the simplistic
idea delivered well, and you sort of go, well, that really is
changing game designing, game theory the highest possible level in a way that makes
you go, oh, we're off the iPad, now mine cut the rope.
No, No, I don't like too many fingers. Too many fingers.
Yeah, yeah, it's just it's just it's a bit too clever,
you know. Basically, I watched my daughter and if she just got this
is rubbish, dad, then I just knock it off the list, because
you know, she's part of the deal. We need to have some kids.
Man, we could be reviewing these games twice as fast if we employed
this system. I don't want to know about you having kids, the two
of you. One. I don't think they figured that out yet. Okay,
right, still working on my Minecraft is the next one. So it's
just supposed to be games. Yeah, so so so I was challenged on
this, Yeah, like like, Minecraft isn't even out, isn't it out?
Well, you can look at two ways. You can look at it
as something that was initially available in two thousand and nine or something that is
entering beta on December twentieth, and therefore isn't technically out. We've decided to
allow it because they're taking money for it. And that's the deal I have.
If you're if you can pay money for it and play it, I
think it's out. Yeah. That's so just to get Minecraft sorted out.
It's not in because I think it's any bloody good. Okay, that's not
why it's in because I don't think it is any bloody good. I think
it's curious and a sandbox and fun and interesting for all at least two hours.
And then basically three things happen if you're actually playing it. One is
you just stop playing it because you go, yeah, whatever. The other
one is you suddenly find out that all those beautiful things that have been built
on it, we're actually built in a three D CAD system and imported,
so they didn't even build them, Like what's all that about? And another
one is you like it because you're sort of like snobbishly downloading texture packs and
showing how clever and cool you are. Now. The reason it's in my
list is because I think there is a level of super genius in how it
was virally monetized, and he's actually done two attacks on it, both of
which are fabulous. The first one was if you give me money now,
then it's free forever when I finally get round to releasing it, and it's
probably gonna be really expensive when I finally release it. It is the Star
Trek Online lifetime subscription now, but done virally, as in, it went
wild and it went to a very particular nerd group. You were like,
oh, this is it. Gaming is still huge, and they poured millions
and millions of dollars into his bank account, and so that I think is
impressive. Then his second one that he's just done is his announcement that if
you have bought it before the twentieth of December, then you're still guaranteed the
forever, forever, forever, for everse. She's got this like second limited
time ll introduction. And so the reason it's in my list is because I've
not seen anyone pull that gag with such panash and just sheer income training and
my hat, I tip my hat and I go, you know what,
it's not a game for me. I think it might not be particularly interesting,
But by hell, did he go viral? Did he take his chances?
And did he monetize the heck out of that in a way that I
just go, I don't care. As a multimillionaire he deserves to be and
I don't care what the whether the game's any good. Look what he did,
and I think, you know, that's something that he can get away
with because he is one man. And also, if a publicly traded company
came out there and tried to pull something like this, they would be raked
over the coals. And you know, hung out the drive and no,
but it was also five bucks. Yeah, like the the the it was
seven fie. But the ten euros, the costs, I don't know what
that means. Ten euarros could be a thousand dollars, could be five out.
The cost to the consumer was not great. Oh but it was not
It was not a huge amount of money. But but look at some of
the stuff that happened massively supported by the community for free. Yeah right,
and they got nothing. And he sort of go, wow, it's like
ultra capitalism. It's like every have you been running forums supporting me? Oh,
what are you doing? And I'm buying an island. I'm just just
gonna buy me those servers, going guys. So what I what I really
like about it is it's a community orientated, crazy PC thing, viraly frontloaded
on income, and therefore it is astonishing. It's a reason I think it
will never happen again. It's also the reason I think it's actually a game
design dead end, because I think it's it's being built by laser disc players,
people who buy laser discs. It's it's like a it's a you want
it to be successful because it justifies a version of gaming that you think should
be dominant, but actually it's not. Everyone's buying angry birds, right.
I think it's really interesting. I think that the part where Minecraft got away
from me is Yeah, when I once I learned that everything was imported from
CAD programs, I was like, okay, this is forget it. But
it was. It's the part where he keeps trying to make it more like
a game. It's like, Okay, we're gonna add more zombies and add
more of this and and more. It's like, that's not what makes it
interesting. Just building. Have you have you spent a lot of time playing
Gary Mod I haven't, but the loads of our people would do you just
build all the crazy contraptions. Yeah, so I had spent you know,
and it's something sense. It's something you can do as a group. You
know. It'd be like me and five other people on a weekend, just
spending an entire Saturday. It's like, look at this. It launches dominoes
that explode, and if I hit the button enough times, it crashes the
server and destroys all of your creations. Because that's hilarious, and those sorts
of experiences like that's the sort of thing that Minecraft seems like it's doing,
but it didn't do it in as interesting a way to me. I like
the whole idea of like, we're gonna build this whole world. Why I
don't know, because higher barrier to entry on the Gary's mod, but you
can end up doing it more. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess
so. But you know, as far as as far as lightly interactive chat
rooms go, yeah, I think that that they both kind of scratched that
similar itch of like we as a group are going to hang out and talk
shit, but then also build something weird along the way and make a ton
of money and yeah, and make a ton of money and go viral and
and and be a really as much as as much as it doesn't grab me
as a long term play, I still think it's astounding. I think it's
an astounding piece of work for the reasons, which is why it's on my
top ten Games of the Year. However, perfect justification, all of that
is dwarfed into insignificance with the game of the Year the number one with a
bullet It's the It's under the woman with a bullets Number one, with like
every piece of weaponry in the Universe sent from Mars in a sort of slow
motion attack. Yes, it's fist down, it's it's very vulgar, and
actually I have to I have to admit a weakness on my part in it.
So I never played pac Man Championship Edition. Okay, I missed it.
I don't know how that happened. I was in a coma, there
was a flood. I don't know what it was I was. I don't
know what happened, but somehow I completely missed it. On paper, that
sounds crazy. Someone tells you like, we've made a new pac Man,
it's like you're who. I completely missed it. So so I actually had
a really bizarre introduction because get my pac Man Championship Edition d X. And
so I've never played a Championship Edition. So the only thing I have in
my head is pac Man. So you go directly from from Man straight into
Championship d X. And I only get it because I'm I'm on the Twitter
verse and I follow very particular people, of which follow Boff you Goes,
and enough people who I give a damn about had started making noises about it,
and I thought, okay, I'll give that a try. One of
the great things about the Xbox. You don't even get online download it.
And so I'm playing it, and I'm getting this wave of emotion and challenge
and attack in a way that hasn't happened to me for a long time,
and in a way that is deeply life altering. Yes, so at its
lowest level, here I am someone who allegedly designs games, who's supposed to
know what they're doing, and I'm looking at a game that he is making
strong, brilliant, multiple design decisions that are all way better than anything I
can do, that that have been executed to a level that I could never
even contemplate. And it's like I've like, it's like someone had said to
me, this is a spoon. Take the spoon home when you come back
next week and make us a better spoon. And you short of god,
well, it can't be done. It's a spoon. I mean, I
can put a nice handle on it, philigree maybe, but a spoon is
a spoon. Is a spoon. If someone had said to me, here's
pac Man, make pac Man better, I juge Actually don't know where I
would have gone. And then there I am loading it up, going and
they said here Oh, that's very good. Oh that's actually very good.
Oh that's very good. Wow, that's astonishing. So have you actually gone
back and seen cees. I've stayed away because I need to be I need
to be pure. But then I had a really strange experience with the game
because I'm playing it and I realize you can link together. And then you
friended me on Nextbook Live and I was checking and I'm thirty percent under the
skill curve. It doesn't matter what I You were thirty percent better than me
every single right, And it really started bothering me. So I'm like,
God, I've lost it, right, I've totally lost it. I can't
play, and so I'm playing and I'm going I just don't get it.
I'm really I was really I was like at the top of my game,
played for eight hours straight energy drinks, and I was still Every time I
thought I'd done well, I didn't check Ryan scoring thirty percent. God damn
it. And then like out of nowhere, by accident, I hit the
button and the bomb goes off, and I go, how was that?
I did? I did? I do remember getting the message from you hours
after you had discovered the game of like, oh, I didn't even know
there was a Oh of a sudden, I was like, God, damn
it, everything tired game. I haven't been playing. You had created you
unknowingly created your own metagame within Championship Edition d X with the the the Bomb's
free mode, but bombs make a difference. Well, all of a sudden,
I realized i'd been it was a trainer mode because now all of a
sudden, I had bombs, And I was like, unstoppable if you play
without bombs. Suddenly having bombs at your disposal. Yeah, because I cracked
my first million on one of the waves, and I thought, god,
I've cracked him. When I checked you like one point three million, Oh
damn. Once his side the bombs, it was like, this is so
much easier. I didn't realize it where I think you're both probably pretty far
ahead of me right now. I need to that's gonna be over over the
break here, over this like two three weeks or whatever much time I end
up taking off. That's a big part of it. I won five bets
at work, five dollars each bet one dollar. I walked in and I
said, I'm playing Championship Edition the X. I think it's one of the
greatest games I've played. And they all said rubbish, And so we put
five dollars on the table and they all came in the following day and they
all folded. I'll give you that. It's it's unbelievably good. And it's
really weird. Like my little boy never played pac Man, and so I
bought him a copy Think you Bop, sent it to download. He's obsessed
with it. And what we do is do how many ghosts can you eat?
Oh? Yeah, that's it. We're just chaining, just just to
see how many we can get, and then we're in competition. Now it's
it's it's son, father, who can win? Who can win? Who
can win? And I have to do certain things like I have to put
the background into type. H sure, I have I have my I have
my type for the music everything. Otherwise I get very very confused at your
table and then you play, and yes, so I think that game is
utterly astounding. It's it's one of my top ten. I will say that
much. I don't know when this is jowing up, so I will not
I will not let let lose more than that. But Christmas Day, it's
it's uh it's it's genius how they're able to modernize that game and still have
it be recognizably pac Man. But the big thing for me is is that
they've it recognizes the difference of game design between the eighties and now, which
is eighties. It was. It was there was the chase. It was
you know, you were we were always wanting for something. You could get
the power pellet, but it only last year for so long. You're always
at the mercy of the Ghost. It was it was panic. You were
constantly under stress, under duress. Right, you were underpowered and outnumbered,
right. Uh, And now that is the exact opposited. Video games are
empowering. It's it's very much. It's it's still skill based, right,
but it's more about these are the abilities that I had. You're gonna hit
this button and make everything explode and feel like a badass the whole time exactly,
And the fact that they're able to like kind of combine these two things
because like for me, I was never very good at pac Man, so
playing playing traditional original pac Man is a is a stressful, unpleasant experience for
me. So suddenly to have this game that says, like no, that
you are the pac Man. You are going to go and destroy all of
these doesn't matter if there's a million ghosts out there, you are going to
go and eat every single one of them. And that in that register that
sounds going to hit faster and higher every time that you eat the next ghost
in a row. And it's it's the way they key those those kind of
those nostalgic markers, those things that are burned into your brain from you know,
twenty years of this stuff. It's it's impressive how they're able to access
that stuff. I really do think it's it's it's pretty brilliant. So for
you and me, it's the same thing. It's that revisiting our youth and
and and settling a score. Yes, it's therapy. But what I really
admire about it is if you don't know pac Man, yeah, you can
play it and have a great experience and feel really good. It fools you
into thinking you're good at pac Man. That's how that game works to play.
I tell you, we were around a guy's house. He's got a
miss pac Man and just kicked our ass. Oh yeah, but it fools
you into think makes you feel good about playing a game. And it's it's
got lots of all the the new modern era. It's all interconnected with its
friends tables and its leagues and the rest of it. It's not as not
as elegantly done as it could be, things like the need for speed hole
pursuit. I think there's a better job of getting people to understand how to
you know company they had a ghost log, Yeah, but things like you
can coord videos and the rest of it. So it does that beautifully.
It does the unlocking beautifully, It does the achievements beautifully. It gives you
all these different game styles beautifully, gives you another thing to go out,
and you never feel I've never felt cheated by it because all the bits it
could have done. It's like they wrote down all the things about pac Man
that make you happy and all the things about pac Man that that piss you
off, and then they purposely designed it to neutralize the second list, like
dying because you just move the wrong direction at the last minute, solving it
by giving you effectively bullet time right moment of clarity, and you go,
gosh, that's brilliant. Reducing the pixel collision on the ghosts so that you
can actually squeeze between the moment of clarity, allowing you to pick up lots
of the fruit. Having the picking up of the fruit extending the is yeah,
supreme moment of clarity. So so it's not a question of oh do
I get the like, No, I have to get it. That's how
the game gets better, having lots of power pills and having the ghosts,
having the ghosts follow you in that sort of crazy train. Yeah, so
that you can then literally turn around and eat thousands of them just beautiful people
and and you know, just little things like I'm figuring out that ghosts that
have got a pill inside their tummy extend the pill time, so you go,
ah, new thing I do. So I yeah, I really admired
it. I still really admire it. I'm sad I missed Championship Edition.
However, I'm also, on the other hand, really pleased because it meant
that the the endworphin high I hit. It was super extreme because literally,
if they have started with d X there wasn't a Championship podition, then I
would just you'd have to quit and kill yourself and never design again because it's
too awesome. So now that you've seen someone make a better pac Man,
can you look at games, other games of that era. Can you look
at dig Dug and say like, well, here's clearly that's what I want.
I want to see that we want. We've been all kind of racking
our brains thinking about how do you how do you do that to dig Dug?
Oh wow, another another nameco classic or Mappy, it's you like mister
doos do is just the mister is dig Dug Championship at this champiship editions beyond
a clown and it kill a clown. I know it's beyond me, and
I think that's what's great about it. I love finding things that make you
go oh, I couldn't do that. I wouldn't think about doing that.
I don't think i'd go into that space. But actually, every decision you've
made makes me nod and go that's obvious. And if ever you meet something
that makes you go, oh, that's obvious, then it's a piece of
wonderful thinking. Yeah, wonderful thinking makes you go, oh, I could
have come up with that, And that's that's You're gonna be very respectful to
those people. So yes, that's my game. It might be my game
of the year. Fantastic Paul, thank you so much for very much for
coming with the gifts, the gifts, and for for spend some time and
coming up with your list and and telling us all about these these games.
And by the way, I'm very impressed with you guys living the dream.
Thank you. Yes, I mean you are living well. Yeah. For
for people who've never been here, never been to Fortress Giant Bomb. Yes,
you've got like a bunker, but it's the bunker Hitler would have wanted.
It's got a bomb here, it's got a bar, it's got an
arcade, it's got comfy seats, it's it's it's interestingly laid out. It's
full of really hip and happening people who are young and have tight skin,
and they have hope in their eyes. It's given another year. It's got
lots of like mandols and toys and the rest of it. It literally you
walk in and you go, yeah, actually, this is awesome. This
is exactly what it's supposed to be. And it's good and life affirming for
me to realize that we have people like you doing what you do. I
don't mean that in a bad women a good word. What I mean is
it's like like you're not corporate shills. You're not just mirrdock people being told
to do stuff. You actually care and love and live it, and actually
your surroundings show all that. I'd be happy if this was what I was
aiming for to do in game reviewing, if I got here, because it's
like awesome, Yeah, it's it's do you have a bar as well?
It takes a while before you get to unlock the bar level. Yeah,
as a game reviewer, normally you have to go to the bar. They
don't let the bar come to you until you've been doing it for a decade
or so. It's it's been you know, lucky and blessed for sure.
It's it's it's it's been a good experience. It means because you two,
you're basically you're the Lester Bangs of computer game. You know, everyone's always
hunting for I don't know why. If they're not hunting for Lester Bangs,
they're hunting for Roger Ebert. Yeah, it's that someone someone who wears a
scar for Yeah, I don't look good in the scar. I'd rather I
don't know, I'd rather be the hunter. S Thompson of reviewing. Well,
you could be that as well, But what I mean is being able
to speak with a voice that people can live with, understand, and have
character Like you, You've actually got an ability to put your personality into what
you're talking about. Well, I think you know, context is everything,
and if you don't have any context of who the person is that's telling you
their opinion on a thing, then what you know, what value is there
in that opinion? Well, and I get extra value from what you do
because things like I follow you on Twitter and actually who you are and what
you are and what you talk about is reflected in how you're broadcast in your
social media as well, which makes me realize that you're real people, not
frauds and fakes. So we've been fooling people, is what you're saying that
you haven't been. It's working. So we keep meeting at shows, although
I keep meeting you at shows. Yeah, you goes far too many.
So yes, it's very very good to be here, very honored. Liked
it a lot and enjoyed it a lot. Well, thank you for your
time, Paul. Are our game of the year content I don't even know
feature? What do you want to call it? Our suite of stuff?
End? Of the year free stuff. We get things that we're feeling time
with while we're on vacation. Basically, I kid you so once again,
Paul Rent, thank you so much for your time in your top ten games
of twenty ten.