WhatIfGaming - Game Of The Year 2009 Awards

It is with proud pleasure that we ask all of you to join us to celebrate the 11th year anniversary of our WhatIfGaming and read all about the video game industry’s most exceptional and gratified 2009 titles specially chosen by us here again this year. Similar to the previous year, WhatIfGaming is first to give out Game of the Year Awards this year. We just rolled out the red carpet and the winners for 2009 are here with us live!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Years to our beloved millions of WhatIfGaming readers (this means you)! See you all in 2010.

The Beatles: Rock Band focuses on the influential British band The Beatles, the primary stars in Harmonix’s highly-loved rhythm-game Rock Band. The game has a pretty self-explanatory title: influential British band The Beatles stars in Harmonix’s popular rhythm-game franchise Rock Band. Rock Band: The Beatles offers rare exclusives such as behind-the-scenes pictures, videos, and audio to give players a taste of The Beatles. More importantly, the game gives players a chance to play the music and experience what it felt like to be a popular band. Unfortunately, a limited setlist, narrow gameplay, and a short length makes The Beatles something just to be heard in the car.

Most people will find themselves picking this up for the title alone, and the name alone. The game starts each chapter of its Story Mode with exuding cinematics from the opening movie to the intro for the game’s final level; these very well created snippets are as rewarding as the unlockable pictures and bonus content themselves.  The core reality of the gameplay is exactly as similar to Rock Band, which was probably the easiest aspect for Harmonix to pull off. When Story Mode is done and over there is realistically not much more to do other than try to attempt getting 5 stars on every level, passing through gigs and different background scenarios. Once done, exclusive bonus content is unlocked. The Venue Challenge mode sees itself as an extremely limited function, only allowing any song to be played on different stages, which does not present anything magical. When it comes to The Beatles: Rock Band, there is a great amount of songs to play, but there is a very limited replayability which causes a large problem.

The Beatles: Rock Band is undoubtedly focused on the casual market and Beatles fans. Unfortunately, Beatles fans who have not bought a full set of instruments from previous Rock Band titles face the reality of paying not only for the $60 software, but drums, two guitars, and three mics to get the full game experience. Even with the current bundles, the price is extremely exorbitant considering only a mediocre 45-track setlist. There is not just the problem of an overpriced kit, but also the issue that many songs are missing, especially iconic ones. “Help!”, “Let It Be”, and more that will serve to alienate even the casual forms of the market. Downloadable albums are proposed to fill in these major gaps, but with a price of $14 an album or $2 each song, that is a steep addition to an already expensive game. The Beatles: Rock Band further rubs in the salt on the wounds with the inability to exchange songs or DLC. The Beatles: Rock Band has severe problems in terms of pricing and musical setlist that really needs to be questioned when even thinking of picking this up at the store.

The Beatles: Rock Band does have some decent qualities about it: three-part singing with three players. The vocal note tracking lays out the words and notes for each part using easy to read colored lines. Unfortunately, even the nice aspects of The Beatles: Rock Band has issues.  The game does not allow allow multiple people to play the same instrument Guitar Hero 5 understood this concept extremely well, but Harmonix flailed at this, especially when it is reasonable.

The Beatles: Rock Band is troubled with a lot of issues, not to mention an extremely limited offering. Despite all this, The Beatles: Rock Band still exhibits great traits of Harmonix’s other Rock Band titles: great note tracking, descriptive sound composition, and very life-like venues that add for a great experience. The Beatles: Rock Band still remains a great tribute to a band that deserves, if anything, to have their own game. But unfortunately the “Rock Band” leads to certain quality expectations attributable to Harmonix that sees a severe disappointment in terms of scale and playability. With a huge price tag for newcomers and only 45 songs, The Beatles: Rock Band sadly failed to provide what it set out for: creating an amazing game with The Beatles as the focus. Consumers might feel slightly cheated with only 45 songs, not to mention the experience as far too short. While The Beatles: Rock Band will eventually turn players away to other substantial offerings by either Harmonix or Neversoft, the excitement and thrill will still remain for anyone that wants to catch a glimpse of what the love of music was like for their favorite band: The Beatles.

Guitar Hero 5 sees casual rockers and plastic-instrument pro’s going back to what they love: playing music. Guitar Hero 5 still has its problems, but it manages to create a well balanced system between hardcore and casual that most players will not forget.

Guitar Hero 5 has definitely redesigned the menu interface to suit more casual players, creating a game that is admirable in more than one way.  The system is easier to navigate, with multi-panels and just a few of them. The real negative is that for newcomers, there is no real tutorial that explains any features that might have changed from World Tour. This ends up making Guitar Hero 5 a bit difficult to navigate around gameplay-wise.

The great new feature about Guitar Hero 5 is the ability to access any and every song through Quickplay without having to spend hours unlocking them.  To continue to an ease of play, players in a band can synchronize to play music on the same instrument. The multiplayer and local-cooperative play with multiple instruments makes for a more exciting title and game session.

The most noticeable change of Guitar Hero 5 is the individual Star Power meters. Players will no longer share the same bar for songs, which in World Tour and past titles created a hassle. One of the most annoying aspects of previous Guitar Hero’s was if your band mate flops on a song, the entire band would go down. With Guitar Hero 5, there is a “saving” band mates feature, which has no consequences or gimmicks. Should anyone in your band not keep up and drop out, as long as the other instrumentalists keep playing well, the game will automatically bring the fallen player back in the song. This was a well requested feature by all fans hardcore or casual for the series, and Neversoft has delivered.

The only sore problem in Guitar Hero 5 is the singing. Singing on the same note is difficult to synchronize. If anyone ends up missing a note, then synchronization is really impossible since the other players keep going, which just delays everything. Even though it is called “Guitar Hero,” there should be more of a welcome interface with regards to the songs and singing with your friends.

Rock Band 2 has been great for incredible DLC while also giving players the ability to import every song from Rock Band 1. But there is one thing that Rock Band does not match up to with Guitar Hero 5: a balance. Guitar Hero 5 is definitely the best iteration of the game to date, with newer additions and more of a welcome entourage to casual and hardcore players alike. The multiplayer is much easier to manage, and the difficulty still provides an incentive for people to play. Guitar Hero 5 has problems, but it does manage to make up for them in through more than one improvement.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is remarkable. Remarkably unentertaining and hideous, that is. It manages to shatter that border that distinguishes a bad game from a good one, and puts itself into its own dreary category of the Worst “Game” of 2009 by far and for a long while. The story is incoherent, the dialogue is as dull as the previous title, and the gameplay makes Atari Console games seem next-generation.

There is not much more to say about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. While reviewing something takes a lot of energy to pinpoint details and concepts on a developer’s title, EA Bright Light gave us a very easy time to review Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Why? EA Bright Light’s work on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is so tragic, and their dependency on the name “Harry Potter” as a franchisee profit cow-machine, that there is absolutely nothing to review.

The first problem, rather catastrophe, becomes apparent with spells. The game begins with a grudging task of learning basic-set skills for the gameplay to proceed: Wingardium Leviosa, Lumos, etc. The use of spells boils down to a very simplistic interaction with items around the game for the most part. Using Leviosa, Harry Potter is tasked to get rid of cauldrons in the beginning of the game into a river to avoid Ron Weasley from getting into trouble. While the originality lacks with spell-casting, it further continues onto insulting levels for the players later on. Players will find themselves being harangued around with drone tasks of repairing levers, to setting off vacuous fireworks and other monkey-like tasks for the making. While EA Bright Light tries to incorporate spells into Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it begrudgingly fails to the dismay of the players and also to the cause of consistent headaches.

Harry Potter continues this trend of a demurral of bad gameplay through to the Duel Club. The duels are as painful as the spells in the game, and have little to no action. Throughout carrying on tasks in Hogwarts, many people/bullies want a piece of Potter for a challenge. Any challenge can be feasibly won by constantly sending out stupefy a bunch of times, followed by some charged attacks that are used by holding the right analog stick backwards then lunging it forward in the direction of the spell. Duels are candidly useless as the storyline, and does not help the game one bit.

For anyone to ever play a game, it needs to make sense. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince completely falters at this, making it shocking to title it a “video game.” The storyline, whatever little there is, verges on ingenuous disappointment. The game just starts off at a random point at Ron Weasley’s house. From there, it jumps to a big newspaper article of Harry Potter as ‘the chosen one,’ deeming his fame to publicity and annoyance at the public, to a very confusing sequence of Draco Malfoy around a cauldron with other evil-doers of ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named.’

From there, it idiotically hops to a sequence in a train where Harry Potter puts on an invisibility cloak and then gets beat around by Malfoy. Another example comes where a quidditch match starts right away, not exactly subtle transition. An hour later, another confusing cutscene happens with a necklace, and a girl. The stupidity continues and it is far too much to list. For the sake of the readers, we will stop here.The level of chaos and the amount of migraines we had at the remarkably half-baked assets of the game cannot even begin to summarize Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I Am Never Coming Back to Hogwarts

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is an OK piece of “interactive entertainment.” But let us be real, EA Bright Light. Calling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a video game is wrong, and that is more than enough of a fact. There is virtually any decent gameplay, zero originality with any sort of concepts if there are any, and a confusing story that is not frankly a story. While Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will arrive in theaters July 15th, 2009 worldwide, there is no reason to make software that is completely reliant on the franchise name and fearful of ruining anything for the movie. It would have been better to just wait until the film came out to provide a full experience to actually “Relive the Action of the Movie” and not “Relive a Nightmare” in the mask of a video game. The only thing done right was the environment design, so give that developer a medal. For Harry Potter fans and new fans alike, straying away from this title is the logical option. Renting it from the bottom rack would be a tough decision to consider.

Talk about intense. E3 was packed this year with resellers, and less media —but it got bigger, better, and more selective. We were there to get every exciting moment: from Project Milo to Heavy Rain, and exclusive interviews. As always, it was certainly a great time, and now that time is over. It’s time to look forward, ahead to newer and better releases, and to ennoble titles in this year’s WhatIfGaming’s Best Of E3 Awards 2009.

Criteria: The Best of E3 Awards, a subcategory for the WhatIfGaming Prizes, are given solely to those video games that demonstrate a pure excellence in the field for which they are not only nominated but also chosen. These awards only apply to playable games at E3 given a few exceptional categories.

Nomination & Selection Process: Compared with other site awards, the WhatIfGaming Prize nomination and selection process is long and extremely rigorous. This is the sole reason why WhatIfGaming Prizes have grown in importance over the years to become the most important prizes in their field. Forms, which amount to a personal and exclusive invitation, are sent to about over 1,000 selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations months in advance from the latest builds per video game. Self-nominations are disqualified. For WhatIfGaming Prizes, inquiries are sent to such people as developers, industry experts, analysts, among others. After our deadline passes, the nominations are chosen by permanent committee of 5 selected individuals from staff and only the final stage of nominees remain per category. From all of these, a winner is chosen.

The names of the nominees are not publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the WhatIfGaming Prize. Some are announced publicly by practice. Nomination records are revealed approximately 2 years after each respective award year.

Turn your mouse clickers and scroll wheel timers to WhatIfGaming this upcoming Saturday July 1st, 2009 for an exclusive presentation of our 9th year anniversary of the WhatIfGaming E3 Awards for 2009, with official public listing that celebrated from late 2001.

The WhatIfGaming E3 Prizes had their origins ever since the end of 1999’s E3 ceremony when we revealed to select publishers what our site cherished for their offerings during exclusive press meetings through an official sticker prize from yours truly. Very few gained them, and some were only notified. Over the years, the awards became public but remained even more strenuous in criteria, with no nominees ever being publicly listed until  a future predetermined date. 5 members of our staff in a permanent committee select the winners from a long line of industry related inquiries taken and personal consideration.

Also, feel free to log on Friday June 26th, 2009 for an Overlord II review (with over 46 hours played and timed only from us) and also an exclusive post-release interview with the creative minds behind Overlord II and their future plans!

When there is something strange in your neighborhood, who are you going to call..? A copy of Atari’s incredible Ghostbusters title. After literally dozens of cancellation threats on the project, the long-awaited Ghostbusters game is back – and one that I have personally hoped would come out ever since I watched the original back in the day. The iconic quartet return an excruciating 20 years after their last ghost-busting outing, bringing with them the original humour and feel of the Ghostbusters which is perfectly realized perfectly in game form. The original cast (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson and of course the always witty Bill Murray) return to give the game the authentic feel to make it feel like a sequel to the films and it does nothing short of a simply fantastic job at making players literally feel as if they are a part of it.

Set two years after Ghostbusters II, Manhattan is once again spooked by ghosts and supernatural forces. Ghosts, poltergeists and giant marshmallow men make an effulgent return to the familiar zone of fans of the film. This time the team is kicking it up a notch and hires an experimental technical advisor as a 5th member of the group, or ‘New-Guy’ as Bill Murray’s character calls him. The defining thing about Ghostbusters is simply that the original writers were contumacious and decided to step out of the normal: to write the storyline of the game in all seriousness as if it were a sequel, e.g. Ghostbusters III, thanks to Terminal Reality and RedFly. The plot is controvertible to a relaxing and engaging experience into the world of Ghostbusters that few games manage to pull off. Ghosbusters drives players into the eerie and lets them experience the environment in a strong sense of realism. The beginning of the game starts off with a large electro-pulse emanating from a museum, where a Gozer event is taking place the following day and it is the job of the four ghostbusters plus a stereotypical silent-player controlled character to take down the spirits and ghouls around the city while causing chaos and mess everywhere they shoot their proton stream.

As the new recruit in charge of experimental techniques, players will test a variety of new weapons, equipment, and gadgets to trap the very unique and quirky ghosts out on the loose. The primary weapon is the proton stream pack. When trying out the proton packs for the first time, it seems daunting at first when different methods to capture ghosts is described but after a couple of times it becomes easy. The learning curve is not steep, and makes it easy for any players to get in the action and capture ghosts, although some ghosts may take ages to capture.

The gameplay feels extremely responsive, whether trying to capture ghosts or moving to your next mission objective. There is just one problem with Ghostbusters: the lack of a jump button is very annoying. Everything in Ghostbusters is so action-tethered that it seems almost impossible to not include this, unless you count the small dodge button the jump action. It just seems that with a lack of the jump button, Ghostbusters can definitely serve to be more action-packed than it tries to be. The mission design is essentially repetitive: capture a ghost, capture this ghost, evade this ghost, capture a ghost, capture him, and her, and so on.  The A.I. of your fellow ghostbusters can be patchy at times which does not help the mission structure but they come to your aid when your down 99% of the time. Regretabbly, they also will not think twice about running full speed into a group of enemies and being overwhelmed which is frustrating when you have to heal them while also being attacked and flanked from all angles. The missions themselves, however, are well thought out when it comes to gameplay design even though its that same dreaded repetition of a scenario of capture a few ghosts, move on, capture a few more ghosts, move, fight boss type character – you understand the picture. Conducive to repetition aside, the dialogue and fresh humour added on by original voice cast keeps it fresh up to a point.

The multiplayer in Ghostbusters is more of the same old missions and objectives as seen in any other shooter. With several different modes or “jobs” including Containment, Survival, Destruction, Slime Dunk, Protection and Thief,  the gameplay sounds like it could bring new styles to multiplayer. Sadly, these modes are similar to capture the area and destroy enemy-held objectives which are seen everywhere these days. It does not necessarily do anything wrong in this department just brings nothing new to the table.

Ghostbuster’s graphics seem to be too cartoon-influenced for hardcore audience that are used to intensively real graphics and life-like quandries, but they work extremely well for this game and art-style.

Ghostbusters follows in the footsteps of the films and will undeniably serve as a rightful homage to the franchise and something a lot of people can look forward to, regardless of whether they are fans of the witty Ghostbusters group or even have a strong dislike for ghosts in general. Ghostbusters surprisingly faced numerous threats of never coming to the market, which would have been a shame. Whoever initially did deny it publishing rights is rightly a fool and we will stop from embarassing them further. Games like this prove  that fun is still in gaming even though more serious forms are dominant at the moment. Ghostbusters by Terminal Reality and Atari is the most realistic attempt to mimic the film that any game developer has ever achieved and you have to buy it to experience this.

Afro Samurai is a great ninja game, but essentially one with problems ranging from missing storyline to unbelievable characters. In Afro Samurai, important characters are briefly introduced then rehashed into the sub-plot. The reason we call it a sub-plot is that it’s the only thing happening in Afro Samurai. You meet people, you do missions, and essentially slice up bad guys for no clear reason. It’s a bit disheartening to see a title with such a cool box art, and amazing visuals take such a bad plunge into another game with absolutely no bound of sunscald vision. Some levels take place in Afro Samurai’s past, but it’s hard to tell. Ever watch LOST? It’s like the cutscenes back to the island minus the context.

One thing to be thankful for in this game is the music. Afro Samurai’s music completely matches the rhythm and tempo of the beat to create a really unique fight scene between any baddies. RZA, the game’s music coordinator, shows incredible talent and one that does not essentially boil down to too much “yo-yo” rap.

Afro Samurai’s six-hour length is a problem as it just takes away completely from the explanation of what is going on. The combat can be fun since you can slow down time and choose where to strike your enemy to aim for specific appendages or their head but the battles last too long, with repetitive enemies to boot. The moves themselves are limited and there is no real control depth in the game to warrant a purchase on terms of combat ninja action alone.

Afro Samurai falls into the same hole as almost every other game based on a movie or television series: it takes hold of an edited down version of a story that makes sense to fans but is indecipherable to new people of the story with a nice lining of the worst game ever to kick off 2009. It looks great. It sounds great. But, otherwise, it’s a mashup of characters and situations that makes little sense. Just stick to the TV show.

Here’s some great reviews we have coming up:

Killzone 2 [We will be releasing this closer to launch than the February 2nd 'Permission Date' Sony set up for those with early copies of the game] Why? Because as you all know already, we take a more intense and thorough process than most and it does not get done in a day.

Skate 2 Review [This one might be a bit late from our end]

Resident Evil 5 Review [You all read the E3 Impressions already, but this final game is just alive from Capcom. Note: US will be covering all Capcom UK titles in the future since they have some very ignorant media people there].

Best of all: We have a surprise interview with a LEGEND from Japan and Anime Entertainment. Here’s a guess: it starts with ‘Ha’ and ends with ‘Ki’.

Sandisk Imagemate All-in-One Reader/Writer Review

Some other things in the pipeline.