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The Alternative Edge Awards 2008
The gongs go to the big hitters, but sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference. Here's a selection of the bits and pieces that, in their own special way, marked out 2008.
BEST FLOP
Boom Blox
BEST FLOP
Boom Blox
Oh, Boom Blox. Though boss-man Riccitiello says that you reached internal sales expectations, you’re worth more than 60,000 sales in your first month in the US. Perhaps it was because you were released against GTAIV and Smash Bros Brawl. Perhaps EA didn’t market you right. Perhaps it was both. But we still love you. And at least you did enough to spawn a sequel.
BEST CHEWED SCENERY
Gears of War 2
No wonder Epic’s romp has such mighty backdrops when Dominic Santiago’s chewing the scenery all around him. Elated: “Hoo-rah! You want summa that, giant worm? How about you?” Pensive: “Hoo-rah! You want summa that, wretches? Oh, you too?” Devastated: “No! She can’t be…! You want summa that, metal sarcophagus? Hoo-rah!” Now that’s versatility.
MOST UNSATISFACTORY WHORING
Fallout 3
We tried this simply out of academic interest, of course, but we hoped our solicitations might have a better payoff. It’s not that we need a Hot Coffee-style QTE, but lying fully clothed on a bed before the screen blanks and awakening, often with the object of your investment still wandering about the room, does little for us. At least Fable II gives a chance of contracting an STD.
MOST SPECIAL SPECIAL EDITIONS
EA
A gun-metal PS3, a flimsy plastic bobblehead PipBoy, a pistol-shaped box and a replica Lancer: this year, everyone had us paying over the odds to be entirely underwhelmed with ephemera. EA takes the crown with its $130 Mirror’s Edge courier bag (it proves less hip in the real world than it looks in-game) and $150 Dead Space boxset (next time, at least let consumers see it first).
MOST CUNNINGLY ENGINEERED HUD
Dead Space
Anxious to immerse players in games, developers tend to strip HUDs down as if they are a dirty secret, only revealing them when necessary. Dead Space turns this around by immersing the HUD in the gameworld – Clarke’s suit displaying his health, his guns their ammo stock, his inventory projected into the world. All with virtually tangible fidelity, and no loss of functionality.
BEST CREATOR'S INTENTIONS
Peter Molyneux
It was the year of the letter from the developer. Riff: Everyday Shooter came with a short missive explaining Jon Mak’s intentions, while Jonathan Blow wrote a FAQ for Braid. But it’s Peter Molyneux who gets the gong for writing a set of notes to accompany the Fable II code about how to review it, and in a later interview even offering his own score (9/10).
WETTEST HATS
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Gearbox may have produced an otherwise largely unremarkable game of erratic quality, but no other title has yet matched Hell’s Highway in the sheer moistness of its helmets. Huge investment must have been made in special shaders for Unreal Engine 3 – could next year’s Sou’wester Soaker 4 manage to cap this triumph in sodden bonnet technology?
MOST PROLONGED INACTIVITY
Metal Gear Solid 4
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One of the most hotly debated elements of MGS4 just before release was not about the storyline, the action or the graphics, but how long you spend not playing it. And, with boldly innovative features such as briefings, which deftly weave nominal interactivity with long, rambling talks about fantasy geopolitics, MGS effortlessly stays ahead of the competition once again.
HARDEST SELL
Penumbra: Black Plague
Could Penumbra: Black Plague have had the hardest sell of any game title ever? A word that makes you feel ignorant, coupled with a reference to a disease that killed 75 million people in the 14th century. Did they focus group that? If it somehow sold well, perhaps next year we can hope for Chronosynclasm: Whooping Cough? Or Splenogonadal Cell? We can but dream.
DUMEST THING IN CONDEMED 2
Condemned 2: Bloodshot
An award, surely, for the point at which nonsense and misadventure become slapstick comedy. If we had to guess, we’d say Ethan Thomas didn’t see coming the bit where, having overcome the walking suit of armour, an army of exploding dolls, a mad magician and a rampaging grizzly bear, he’d make heads explode by shouting at them. And it rather surprised us, too.
LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT
Far Cry 2
Few games announce so proudly their developers’ successful completion of the GCSE English reading list asFar Cry 2. Its unabashed trawl through Heart Of Darkness and Beyond Good And Evil is expounded by voice actors breathlessly keen to get to the next erudite line and, in case you hadn’t gotten it, there’s a couple of Achievements to really bash the Conrad home.
BEST IMMORAL ACT
Fallout 3
How much do you dislike the potato-head people of a Bethesda RPG? Enough to make friends with their enemies? Enough to murder their enemies, steal a garden gnome and use it to murder their friends? Enough to blast their heads 50 storeys off a balcony so you can wear their red velvet hunting jacket? Wait, what’s this? An unexploded atomic bomb?
MOST ACCIDENTAL PIES
Fable II
It’s happened to us all. You’re standing in a verdant glen beside your dog, which has just found a chest. You begin to press right on the the context-sensitive D-pad to thank it, but it moves, changing your action from ‘pat’ to ‘eat pie’. Suddenly – munch – you’re ten points fatter, angry, and in desperate need of slimming celery. A whole new quandary in videogaming indeed.
BEST WORST GAME
Alone in the Dark
There’s barely a feature in Alone In The Dark that doesn’t have significant problems. The combat, the controls, the story, the world design – all deeply flawed. It’s ugly and awkward, buggy and unfinished. And yet it boasts broad vision and a robust core of well-paced and arresting set-pieces. AITD is frustrating, not just because of its faults, but also because of what it could have been.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
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Subscribe To Edge Magazine / Corrections / Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I think they should offer alternative reviews in the style all the time.
I'm thinking I should finally take the time to check out boom blox...
Me too. As well as Tetris and World of Goo.