Now, just before everyone in the Western world hunkers down for some much needed holiday relaxing, it’s time for our most important list: the self-aggrandizing top ten! It’s hard for me to believe that it was only a scant seven months ago that 61 Frames Per Second went from being a glint in Nerve’s eye to the ever-flowing stream of commentary, madness, and love that it is today. When I first started planning the blog, my one goal was to ensure that anyone who stumbled into our colorful corner of the internet would find videogame discussion that was more thoughtful, playful, and free than what they could find elsewhere. These ten articles are the ones that I feel best realize that ambition. In 2009, Joe, Nadia, Derrick, Amber, Cole, Bob, Peter and I will continue doing every thing in our power to make you think about games. Thank you to everyone reading for helping make 2008 the best year of my life. – John Constantine
Crossing the Uncanny Valley, (Part 2), (Part 3), (Part 4), (Part 5) by Amber Ahlborn
"I have a rather strong bias against photo realism. As an artist, I've always been attracted to stylization and the current trend toward photo realism seems less about artistic possibilities and more about graphic processing power. Reality is limiting by nature but art is limited only by imagination. Also, in line with this post series theme, stylized characters are much more forgiving to design and animate. What I perhaps find most offensive about photo realistic graphics is how they more often than not fail to fool my eye and jar me out of the reality of the game than draw me in. But I have to ask, are people these days becoming numbed to the Uncanny Valley affect? More now than at any point in the past, in everything from movies to games to robotics, we are exposed to visual frauds asking that we suspend our disbelief and simply accept them."
Alternate Soundtrack: Donkey Kong vs. Les Savy Fav by Derrick Sanskrit
"Go Forth actually manages to take the innocently bizarre narrative scenario of Donkey Kong '94 and transform it into beautifully desperate drama. (…) Tim Harrington's lyrics paint the portrait of a man on the verge of desperation, battling for his livelihood against seemingly insurmountable odds. Sound familiar yet? This is most apparent in the mantra-like lyrics that Harrington uses to close his songs. "Reprobate's Resume" closes with the repeated pleading, "Please, go easy on me." "Pills" ends with a few aching refrains of, "You and I, we were meant to be together. You and I, we are gonna hang together. You and I, we are going down together." And "Bloom On Demand", the album's final proper song brings it all home with two minutes of Harrington worrying, “This giving in is wearing thin." It’s repeated as he, along with the rest of the band, are slowly washed away by the cold, unfeeling rain clouds of synth keyboards. At the close, despite the previous thirty-seven minutes of flexing their muscles and proving their might, the environment is just more powerful than the band had imagined. Les Savy Fav have become Mario, trying desperately to evade the obstacles in their path that only increase in breadth the further they travel."
Katamari in the Classroom, (Part 2) by Bob Mackey
"One of my goals is life is to turn the rest of the world into as big of a nerd as I am because--wait, why do I need to explain myself here? All I have to say is that my job as a teacher of college writing allows me to force video games on the afraid and unwilling, which is always a good thing. It's all part of making the world just as nerdy as me. Of course, there's a method to my madness. The backbone of my course is a nice little book called Everything Bad is Good For You, which states that video games actually give our brains a cognitive workout, because they require a constant use of the scientific method. And because video games are all about teaching you things within the context of their use, I force my students to write a paper based on a game they choose to play in order to see some of the concepts of our texts embodied in action. But first, I make them play We Love Katamari."
Counterpoint: Too Many Games? by Cole Stryker
We at 61FPS are always dusting off old games. As for our ignorance about the future of games, I won't even get into how much space mainstream gaming sites devote to previews. I'd argue that gamers have a firmer grasp on the medium than any other group of pop culture enthusiasts. We obsess over the trivia and argue about the value of games more than film or music nerds...heck we even rival comic book guys.What's so great about being a gamer today is that we have the luxury to forgo even the excellent games, skimming the sublime, timeless gaming experiences off the top of the pile. With all the new indie development competing with big studios, it's the best of times. Let's enjoy it.
For Love of the Game: Quest For Glory II by Peter Smith
"When it comes to expansion, AGDI's take on QfGII treads softly; added elements are completely optional, and many of them are simply subtle enrichments of the game universe. You can now ask many characters about the settings of the later games. You can challenge the magic-shop owner to a magical duel — an element cut from the original game for lack of time. And in a lovely touch, if you return to the inn around midnight, you can sit with the innkeepers, sip a cup of tea and talk about your friendship. Tasteful expansions like this only make an already rich world richer, deepening the mythic sense of place and the satisfaction of saving the land from evil. Every great classic game should be retouched so lovingly — but then, there aren't many games this classic to begin with. With Quest for Glory II, the Coles made one of the greatest adventures ever; AGDI has made one of the greatest fan games, and — the highest praise available — a fitting tribute."
Overworld: Yakuza by Joe Keiser
"The Yakuza games are about the Japanese criminal underworld, but they’re also about loneliness—we’re talking about a series where the protagonist is an orphan, who continues to watch the people he loves die, who starts the second game in the series by leaving his adopted daughter behind, alone, as he goes off to bust some skulls. The Japan that was built to highlight this loneliness is a masterwork of isolation—it’s a densely populated world where friendly conversation costs cold cash, where drunken stumbling is noticed only by opportunistic vagrants. The fact that many of the places are real world locations and chains, and that the meaningless material comforts like liquor are likewise licensed, make this sad city almost real. Which makes it even more unsettling when you, as Kazuma Kiryu, lash out against it."
Ceci N'Est Pas Une 1-Up: The Surrealist Future of Postpunk Gaming by John Constantine
"In order for a game to be successfully surrealist, its mode of expression will have to be tied directly to play and not traditional presentation. The game has to subvert expectation based on established mechanical tropes to garner the desired subconscious effect. The seeds for this are out there, in places you might not expect. Mario tends to be associated with childlike psychedelia, but the manipulation of perspective and gravity in Super Mario Galaxy are a larval form of potential surrealist play; for twenty years, Mario would die if he jumped into a void, and here the void propels him to new heights. A game can be most anything the designer wants it to be. In the coming years, the most difficult task for both designers and players will be looking backward, seeing what games are and have been, and figuring how they can break them to create something brand new for the future."
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes and Five That Weren’t So Great, (Part 2), (Part 3), Rebuttal: Say What About Metroid Zero Mission?, and Rebuttal Rebuttal: I Stand With Metroid by John Constantine, Peter Smith and Amber Ahlborn
This trio of posts started out as an attempt to make a regular old fashioned top ten list. Within a week of the list going live, it had turned into the most widely hated thing we’d published. It had also triggered one of our most spirited debates, one between both our staff and our readership. Read on through part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the list, then hit up Amber and Peter’s mutual rebuttals to relive the whole sordid affair.
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All. by Nadia Oxford
"Growing up, we all kind of hated the rich kid. Even if he was the sweetest child in the world who only wanted to share his toys and candy and have us come over and play in his hedge maze (remember that episode of Care Bears? If not, silly me, I just made up another euphemism for sex), we'd lapse into an uncomfortable, cringing silence around him, like dogs in the presence of an alpha. When he wasn't around, we'd seethe and hiss in his direction. There are gamers in this world who are similarly intimidated by the existence of our hairy king, Mario. He benevolently brought many of us into this glorious, mind-gelling hobby. He has walked, run and jumped with us since we were children. Thanks to Mushroom Kingdom logic, we have baffled our teachers with adamant declarations about raccoons flying and fireballs bouncing underwater. Just last year, we soared through space with our magic plumber and visited more fantastic planes than the Little Prince. Mario is grand. And that's why the latest Internet fad, in which bloggers call for his retirement, is impotent and sad."
Nobody Puts Bionic Commando in a Corner
"Bionic Commando ran from the room, sobbing. My tea had grown cold. How dare he. Bionic Commando is a vision, a treasured paragon of tight rules and lusciously precise gameplay that has endured for two decades. Nostalgia may reign for trollops like Battletoads, but my Bionic Commando is as pure a game as Pac-man, an ageless bit of programming as entertaining today as it was in years passed thanks to fundamental quality, not its association with some fool’s salad days. I write this from aboard a sturdy ship, The Radd Spenceria, sailing west across the pacific. I carry only this journal, a pistol, and my love on this journey. I do not know what I will do when I encounter this Croshaw, but I fear that I will no longer be able to be called a gentleman in polite society."
