You really want to avoid this: you want a game that can be played without constantly saving & reloading in case of mistakes, which effectively removes the challenge. This is a cross platform game so you can challenge your friends on both iOS and Android. Unfortunately, their body armor slows them to the point that controlling them can sometimes be a pain. • In the map, you can explore areas like Oil Rig, Bunker, Ware House, Dockyard, and the others. Like many nerds, I have a bit of a collecting problem. As a single player game, I have never been terribly impressed with either of the Gears games. But Gears of War 2 is an absolute blast to play coop. However, my cousin, who doesn't play games not named Magic: the Gathering, is also in town, which may dampen my efforts somewhat. The awards are supposed to be awarded to outstanding games released between May 22, 2008 and May 22, 2009. I say "supposed to" because some of the chronology in here is a little messed up, and some of the games that shouldn't be on the ballot are.

Anyways, I'll go through my ballot (pictured at right) and talk about my decision. Anyways, the game has something like 136 levels. Ever since Corbin was born (last summer), I have felt like I've been in a relative famine with regards to playtesting (and gaming in general). Mobile Game of the Year - Bejeweled 2: This was definitely the category that I am least familiar with, but Bejeweled has really taken hold in casual gaming and my bosses (for whatever reason) really love it. While I liked Pokemon Platinum and Chrono Trigger, neither of these titles really added substantially to gaming. While World of Goo was certainly a tempting pick, I couldn't get past how different a game like Free Realms is from the average MMO, and how much potential it has to change our perceptions of MMO games. I might also have that the tech upgrades get marked out of your supply of colony markers. Occasionally, I might call an overly complex but not that hard to understand system elegant, but that would be pretty rare. To me, an elegant game or system is one in which t here is a great deal of complexity which is slowly introduced to the player or is immediately very understandable.

Ships can merely ram into one another. Family Game of the Year - Free Realms: This one was one of my easier decisions. Well, I started taking my blog seriously a little too late to post during most of the GotY awards earlier this year for 2008, but I can use the Golden Joystick GotY awards as a proxy for those, I suppose. Handheld Game of the Year - Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars: I didn't get to play many of the games that were up for this award. However, I wanted Schizoid to prove to me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it a great, arcadey, coop experience, and it didn't quite get there. Schizoid is billed as a simple coop game in which a team of two ships, orange and blue, team together to fight hordes of alien monsters. There are two slots on the NetworkManager Inspector for scenes: the Offline Scene and the Online Scene.

While the controls are a far, far cry away from the "please kill me now" control experiences of games like Stormrise, some aspect of the movement system has always put me off. You need more skills and control to survive and complete the levels. The power-ups that I played around with were definitely fun, and I wish I could have seen some more. I have spent a little time recently talking about the resurgence of cooperative play as seen in Left 4 Dead. If I had another dedicated player who wanted to really give this game their all with me, I would probably get it, but given that I don't have anyone living with me that would be willing to make the sacrifice, I suppose Left 4 Dead will have to do for now. Players of all ages can get into the game, and it is simply a phenomenal game.

The Xbox Live system, of course, really makes the magic happen, as you get about two-thirds the benefit of having your ally right there with you, but don't have to split off any precious screen real estate. Of course, the next thing that came to my mind was a mental list of other "elegant" games that I have played over the past few years. Schizoid is overall a pretty intense experience, if the last few levels of the demo were any indication. I haven't really gotten into horde mode much yet, but our experience with it has been very positive thusfar, and I'm looking forward to trying it some more in the next few weeks. However, GTA Chinatown Wars re-examined the original GTA games and reworked them to be much more entertaining, intuitive and exciting. SCI would be used for puzzle games (Dr. Brain series) and board games (Jones in the Fast Lane, Hoyle's Book of Games Volume III).