Fresh Loaf

A Beatles-centric Rock Band game was announced last fall, but until this morning there’d been very little concrete information from anybody involved. The Beatles: Rock Band is the official title. It hits America Sept. 9 both as a stand-alone disc and in full instrument bundles for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Those whose living rooms are already cluttered with fake plastic instruments will be happy to hear that all Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour peripherals will work with the game. No word yet on a track list, but I’m pretty sure “Revolution #9″ won’t make the cut.

From the press release:

The Beatles: Rock Band will allow fans to pick up the guitar, bass, mic or drums and experience The Beatles extraordinary catalogue of music through gameplay that takes players on a journey through the legacy and evolution of the band’s legendary career. In addition, The Beatles: Rock Band will offer a limited number of new hardware offerings modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career.

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Without further ado, here are my top five video games of the year. You can find numbers ten through six here.

5. Braid (Xbox Live Arcade)

Braid, a puzzle-platformer built around a unique time-manipulation mechanic, would be one of the best games of the year even without its narrative ambitions. (more…)

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Oh, 2008: some might remember you for your global economic meltdown, or your historical presidential election, but to me, you’ll always be the year I struggled with malaria in an anonymous war-torn Sub-Saharan country. You know, in a video game. Overall 2008 didn’t see quite as large a crop of great games as 2007, but there was still no lack of high-quality experiences to be found. I’ll be counting down my top ten favorite games of the year here today and tomorrow, and here’s a look at the first five. For more video game year-in-review nonsense, feel free to take a look at my blog, Hot Fighting History.

10. Bionic Commando Rearmed (Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PC)

Sure, it’s just a remake, and a surprisingly faithful one at that, but it’s a remake of the greatest NES game ever, so it totally deserves to make this list. (more…)

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Mirror’s Edge
Rated T for Teen
Released Nov. 12
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Developed by Digital Illusions CE
Published by Electronic Arts

Some video game players aren’t especially into violence. Not every gamer is dying to play through graphic recreations of historical and modern warfare. Sometimes there’s a limit to how many aliens, Nazis, and zombies one can willingly perforate any given day, much less alien Nazi zombies. The industry needs more high-quality nonviolent games, or even just less realistically violent games. But as awesome as Super Mario Galaxy, Animal Crossing and Viva Piñata are, an adult can’t survive entirely on child-friendly games. So thank the maker for EA’s new first-person parkour action-adventure Mirror’s Edge, as now gamers can experience some fast-paced action-packed thrills without either exploding heads or feeling like a 10 year old. (more…)

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Gears of War 2
Released Nov. 7
Xbox 360
Developed by Epic Games
Published by Microsoft Game Studios

Con Air is one of the best movies ever made. It’s also one of the most misunderstood. It’s a pitch-perfect parody of big dumb action movies, hitting every idiotic note with outsized aplomb, and with a roster of fully committed actors who play their cartoonish stereotypes with conviction. Those idiots that make Epic Movie and Date Movie never need to do an Action Movie, because Con Air got there first more than a decade ago, and did it with far more subtlety than those guys could ever hope for.

Gears of War 2 just might be the Con Air of video games. (more…)

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Fable II
Released Oct. 21
Xbox 360
Developed by Lionhead Studios
Published by Microsoft Game Studios

The concept of choice in video games is tricky. Does free will really exist in a situation where every possible decision has been programmed in by another person? Fable II wants to say it does, and the game impressively presents an illusion of meaningful decision making. At heart, though, no matter what the player chooses, he or she is merely treading down one of many branching paths laid by an overworked team of programmers and game designers. That doesn’t make Fable II a failure by any measure, but knowledge of the fundamental lack of free will does run somewhat counter to a large part of the game’s appeal. (more…)

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LittleBigPlanet
Released Oct. 27
PlayStation 3
Developed by Media Molecule
Published by Sony Computer Entertainment

Earlier this month, I wrote down some thoughts after poking around in LittleBigPlanet’s online beta testing period. Newsflash: I liked it, a lot. The beta revealed how far the game’s potential reached, as user-created levels both fantastic and mundane continually sprouted up. It didn’t give a good impression of the single-player mode, though, as only the first few tutorial stages were available. Well, after months of hype, and a last-minute one-week delay, the game has finally arrived, along with the 50 or so levels designed by the developer. They didn’t change my mind about the game one iota. Although fundamentally an old-school 2-D platformer, LittleBigPlanet transcends its limited run-jump-and-grab game play via a comprehensive suite of editing tools and an irrepressibly adorable design aesthetic. It may not be the best game of 2008, but it’s hard to think there’ll be one memorable and important than LittleBigPlanet. (more…)

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Rock Band 2
Available now for the XBOX 360; in November for the PS3, Wii and PS2
Designed by Harmonix
Published by Electronic Arts/MTV Games

It’s been less than a year since Rock Band debuted and immediately made its precursor and chief competitor, Guitar Hero, irrelevant. Developer Harmonix, who created both games, consistently referred to Rock Band as a platform more than a game, seemingly precluding the endless series of ever-diminishing sequels that plague the video game industry. Still, it’s not at all surprising to see Rock Band 2 arrive so soon after the original. No entertainment industry is as crazed about sequels and name recognition as this one, and Rock Band’s publisher, Electronic Arts, is one of the worst offenders. There’ve been enough Madden Footballs to choke Madden himself, even though the annual installments’ chief selling point, updated rosters, could easily be released as downloadable content. With video games, if something sells, it will be repackaged, remade, and retailed at full price; so, Rock Band 2 was inevitable.

It’d be easy (and not entirely inaccurate) to dismiss Rock Band 2 as an expansion pack. The core game play is identical to the original. You’ll still be covering various rock hits of the last four decades on chintzy, space-wasting plastic instruments, while playing through a tour mode full of tongue-in-cheek humor. (more…)

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