Monday, December 31, 2012

2012: A Year In Review

So, I kinda sorta fouled up the whole "daily update" idea, as I always do when I promise daily updates. So instead, I thought I would close out 2012 by talking about some of the highlights of the year.

Best Movie of 2012


Okay, it's really hard to find a good poster of Les Miserables on short notice, so tolerate the limited German. There were a number of great movies this year. The Avengers had an unprecedented effort towards cross-film continuity and was an excellent summer action film. The Dark Knight Rises concluded Nolan's excellent Batman trilogy and actually closed the story of Batman effectively and happily, something that no comic book writer likes to do because then you can't sell more comic books. However, they both pale in comparison to Les Miserables which manages to bring one of Broadway's best musicals to the silver screen in a creative and compelling fashion. They could've been lazy about it and just done the musical but with better special effects or just done a screen play with a few of the songs from the musical in it. In a worst case scenario, they would highlight Taylor Swift's hot new single "On My Own (Remix) ft. Harry Styles".  But they managed to walk the line between adapting all of the highlights of the musical while making necessary concessions to the medium of film, such as a few lines of spoken dialogue. I could go on for hours about Les Mis, but the new years is only 90 minutes away and I have a three more categories to go over! In summary, I shed tears at the end of the movie because it was that movie. I mean, tear. A single manly tear. I didn't just admit to crying at the end of a musical. I'm totally virile, fine honeys, I swear.



Best Retail Game




I have a long-standing love of the Halo series, but Halo 4 came seriously close to turning me off the series. It seemed like a needless cash grab that was vainly trying to finish a story that had already been concluded. But as we got closer to release, the ancillary materials such as Forward Unto Dawn really showed a high level of detail. The game manages to do a great job of resetting the stakes by making the story much more about Master Chief instead of the fate of the galaxy. It really plays like the best Halo there is, taking the finest parts of all the previous Halo games (the VISR from ODST, the Pistol from Halo 1, armor loadouts from Reach, the return of the Battle Rifle from Halo 2, and the Health System of Halo 3) and adding its own new ideas and weapons. I was fully prepared for this to be awful and it surprised me.

Best Downloadable Game



The Walking Dead by Telltale Games should, by all accounts, been a complete disaster. It was an episodic adventure game based off a TV series. None of those words inspire confidence that the project will be finished with a great deal of competence. Especially after the calamitously bad Jurassic Park game Telltale made in 2011 (so bad I refuse to talk of it and took pleasure in seeing the characters get eaten), I had to see the demo before I made my decision. Much like Halo 4, The Walking Dead surprised me completely. Eschewing the traditional appeal of zombie games (i.e. shooting many bad guys without remorse), it focused on the character dynamics and had a series of simple but clever puzzles punctuated by button mashing combined with Mass Effect style dialogue decisions made for a brilliantly paced game. Most shockingly, all 5 episode of the game were released in a fairly timely fashion with a new episode being released within two months of the last installment. There were some issues with the game, such as the obvious paring down of important decisions in later episodes in order to decrease production time. However, the fact that The Walking Dead overcame every disadvantage a game could have and still make a spectacular final product clinches its spot as the downloadable game of the year. Plus, Bastion came out last year.

TV Show of the Year



As I write this, I'm down to 58 minutes before 2013 falls upon us. I will keep this brief. Game of Thrones manages to improve on the book its based on (Clash of Kings) and be a cross-cultural sensation. I really can't say how stunned I am to see how many kinds of people enjoy watching a low fantasy show based around feudal politics. As Ben from Parks and Rec puts it "They would never cancel Game of Thrones. It's human stories in a fantasy setting." I really like how grounded the characters feel. For instance, Arya Stark could very easily have been your standard "princess who wants to fight but can't because patriarchy" but instead, the show infuses her with a lot of personality and being a tomboy is one aspect of her personality (as opposed to, say, Meridia of Brave, whose tomboyishness is the extent of her personality). Plus, Tyrion and Bronn are hysterical and have a brilliant rapport. In fact, I want a show based off of those two guys on a road trip, buddy comedy style. Oh wait, someone has already made that.


No comments: