more or less, a year in popular media reviewed

A little late on the retrospective bandwagon, I know. But I've been compiling this list since early November, in the hopes that I might form it into a coherent post. As noted in my 2003 gaming wrap-up, there weren't too many major occurances on the PC gaming front beyond the brazen theft of the Half Life 2 source code, which effectively delayed it for another six months, and now we're hearing Summer 2004. And then there's the disappointing delay of numerous other big-name releases - but I'll get to those in my picks of 2004.

My primary source of entertainment is gaming, but I do manage to take in the occasional movie when I feel like forking over $26 to sit in the eardrum-popping machine or "movie theatre", behind a bunch of noisy kids or clueless adults. And the few music CDs that I do buy are usually ones I've researched or highly recommended by friends, so I did my fair share of borrowing from people last year. I figure I'll start with the bad stuff, because it can only get better from there, right?

Biggest Disappointments of 2003

• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Way to take a perfect setting, a well-respected comic and completely ruin it. Alan Moore's distinct storytelling was thrown out the window in favour of god awful effects and mailed-in performances from the entire cast. Sean Connery is getting way too old for this - seeing his action hero impression was like watching a bar fight in a nursing home.

• The Matrix Reloaded (and by extension, Revolutions): I covered Reloaded in one of my earlier posts, and never bothered to go see Revolutions. This franchise collapsed under its own hype and the inflated egos of its creators. Why do you think The Lord of the Rings was so successful? There was no time in between filming for the press to kiss Jackson's ass.

• 28 Days Later: I was really expecting a lot from Danny Boyle's latest film. My only question is, what the fuck happened? I tried to salvage what I could in my review, but in hindsight there really wasn't much to it. Did you know that Cillian Murphy was cast as Scarecrow in Batman 5?

• Closure of Black Isle Studios: I was deeply troubled by this news, because it put an end to a team of truly talented RPG developers. Then at the beginning of 2004 we saw Atari close the doors of Legend Entertainment, who provided a free multiplayer expansion to Unreal 2. Is that how this business works?

• Theft of SOURCE engine and subsequent delay of Half life 2: It was a given that this game was coming after Half Life's head-over-heels reception in 1999, and to have it quietly sneak up on people at E3 last year for a September 30th release date was a PC gamer's dream come true. This bump in the road has done more damage to Valve's hype machine than we know. A lot of people are still looking forward to this game, and it remains one of my top picks for 2004 - but the lateness of HL2 has also delayed games that licensed the SOURCE engine, like Troika's RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

• Enter the Matrix (PC): The game was rushed out the door so it would be released at the same time as Reloaded. It was also published by Atari. Suprised? After the hype for both the movie and game in 2002, I think a lot of gamers were - especially when it came to the annoying camera system, console-ported graphics and lackluster maps. Now that the Wachowskis have successfully alienated the fans, only the magnitude of the apathy surrounding the launch of The Matrix Online is yet to be determined.

• The White Stripes - Elephant: The only thing more annoying than Jack White's molester moustache is Meg White's drumming. Garage rockers imitating musicians with little skill or too much time spent in the studio being clever? Probably the most spectacularly unimpressive album of the year. And I have listened to, and legitimately enjoyed White Blood Cells. We get the point, you've played the music press. Can we move on please?

• The Strokes - Room on Fire: Casablancas groans on the opening track "I want to be forgotten." Done and done. As an aside, there aren't nearly enough lasers on this CD.

• Lionheart (PC): Black Isle's last title and legacy to CRPGs, which is pretty god damned depressing. My review says it all.

• Master of Orion 3 (PC): This one was sufficiently slagged at my end-of-summer retrospective. Just the thought of reinstalling it makes me ill.

• Shining Soul (GBA): The media response to this game was lukewarm at best. Luckily, Sword of Mana really did satisfy me in this regard, and made it into the next list. In terms of the Shining series of games, both Shining Soul 2 and Resurrection of the Dark Dragon should alleviate the damage done.

• The rise of Music CD copy protection: Radiohead, A Perfect Circle, and others fall victim to their respective record companies. The worst part is if you want to play these CDs on your computer, you have to install a proprietary player that has the bare minimum of features. Someone was kind enough to create a list of CDs employing this technology, so you can at least know before you buy.

• The breakup of Zwan: Now that Billy has made his trip back into the studio official, this doesn't hurt as much. It was still sad to see this über-band split up, though.

• Take Two submits to the lawyers and promises to remove all "offending content" from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: What they didn't see then was that interest groups would see this oporrtunity for more related lawsuits and accusations. And now the case has been moved to to the US Federal court system. Throwing around words like "virtual genocide" and "racially insensitive gameplay" is a bit heavy for a video game taking its inspiration from a 20 year old movie. I still have a hard time believing these legal pursuits have nothing to do with money, as they started up long after the game had been released for the PS2.

• SecuRom: Their tainted hands touched many of the year's releases: Enter the Matrix, both Neverwinter Nights expansions, Temple of Elemental Evil, Call of Duty, and even Knights of the Old Republic. Piracy has always remained a constant threat to the industry, but at what point does copy protection infringe too much on the rights of consumers? Better get used to it, because it might just be the future of PC gaming.

Biggest Surprises of 2003

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory: id Software and Splash Damage decided to do the fans a favour, and instead of releasing their promised expansion pack in stores, it became a stand alone, free product. And the class-based gameplay is really good, but not enough to drag me away from Battlefield 1942. If you haven't played Enemy Territory, go get it right now. Splash Damage even recently announced the eventual release of the source code.

• Release of Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe free: In preparation for the release of Hidden and Dangerous 2, Godgames decided to release this squad-based shooter from 1999 and its expansion as a little present to the fans. Once again I am amazed at the generosity of publishers and developers alike.

• Sword of Mana (GBA): Despite the average reviews, this game is gripping in a Diablo II sort of way. It's all about levelling up, forging new weapons, and trudging along through the massive game world. The combat system is far from perfect, but I find that this is the only game I've been playing on my GBA lately.

• The Used and Billy Talent: Completely high school in terms of musical and lyrical content, but I considered them guilty pleasures when I first got the albums. Now I listen to them on a regular basis, and would easily recommend them to anyone comfortable with the genre. But whatever you do, don't call them Punk (some Good Charlotte fans might get upset).

• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: I did not expect a console platformer to grab me as deeply and sincerely as this one has. That's it. I promise to stop talking about it now.

• Gamecube sales and Nintendo's performance overall: Ever since I got my Gamecube, I've been following Nintendo's trials within the industry. A lot of people were quick to sound the death knell after the Gamecube's disastrous performance early on in the year. The lack of blockbuster titles and poor sales all but assured the console's demise for some critics. However the price reduction in the Fall managed to secure a decent-sized chunk of the North American install base and mindshare, and they managed to round out a pretty good year. We'll have to see what happens if and when Nintendo reveals any more details about the DS this month and get 2004 off to a good start.
  

Best Fucking Parties, Hands Down, even Happy Tom would have said they "rocked against ass"

• My wedding on October 4th, and of course Beto's wedding December 27th. Both of which probably took a good 5 years of service off of my liver. Each.