2013 in Games

It turned out that women do exist.

We all tried to figure out the difference between “sexy” and “sexist”.

National Public Radio was successfully duped into jerking off to something it doesn’t even really understand.

Hideo Kojima made baffling decisions more in line with the corporate shills his fans have lambasted for years, including but not limited to 1) creating a single new female character that wears a bikini and can’t talk, 2) splitting the next Metal Gear into two games with console-specific bonuses, and 3) allying with Spike TV to make any major announcements. Meanwhile, Kiefer Sutherland looks on.

Nintendo, like a waking Sauron, amassed power through its once-thought flop, the 3DS, reviving several franchises with entries considered to be the best in their series, mostly by getting rid of all the shitty ideas and mechanics they come up with over the last decade. Yes, Virginia, you can finally level up Magikarp without using it!

Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD took slightly longer to develop than the original game. Meanwhile, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is ported to HD in 6 months.

Call of Duty: Ghosts was critically panned. It still makes 40 zillion dollars.

Meanwhile, AAA developers were still s-s-scared of how expensive it is to make their games:

“It is kind of a bummer that games are getting so hard and difficult to make,” [Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin] added. “People want better and better graphics, they want more realistic looking art assets, and that comes at a cost and that’s a hard thing to have to deal with.”

Poor, needy AAA developers were taken hostage by fat, greedy, thuggish consumers, held at knifepoint, forced to take realistic-looking art assets out of their own children’s mouths.

Several new video game consoles came out but no one is really sure why or what they’re called or what they do

2012 in Games

Blockbuster triple A titles are generally fucked because they’re too goddamned expensive, and people are willing to spend more time on video games that are made by three or less people.

In a similar vein, Mass Effect 3’s ending disappoints literally every living thing that witnesses it, proving that it’s a story worth finishing correctly and that they cannot afford not to try and please every single customer at every single moment. Fortunately, people are still willing to pay money for an imaginary gun.

Some third party Japanese developers dare to give a shit about the worldwide market. Xenoblade Chronicles grants Western-style exploration and accessibility on a console begging for any kind of substance, making Nintendo fans everywhere mumble, “Better late than never, I guess!” ATLUS releases Persona 4 again, demonstrating that they already figured this shit out years ago.

Square Enix releases Final Fantasy IV again to distract consumers from all their other decisions. Mouth-breathing cretin Motomu Toriyama promises Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns next year. North American releases for Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy Versus XIII have been delayed to make time to develop a Nintendo 3DS version of the iOS version of the Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV.

Some YouTube users admit that the trailer for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is “kinda cool”.

Basically everyone is disappointed in the WiiU to the point that some savvier parents convince their children that Santa Claus is dead so they don’t have to buy it.

Nintendo for some reason chooses not to reveal that the best way to play Kid Icarus Uprising is with the thumb-mounted stylus they used with Metroid Prime Hunters fucking, like, six years ago.

Reviewers reveal they have no idea what they’re doing, giving shitty games low ratings and giving equally shitty games generally favorable reviews.

Capcom admits they have no idea what they’re doing, distributing a survey through crowd control service Capcom Unity to find out what the hell the people who buy their games even like. They throw a pile of papers up into the air and shake their heads when man-children clamor for a new Mega Man Battle Network.

With Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on the horizon and the release of The Phantom Pain’s trailer, everyone is forced to trust that Hideo Kojima knows what he’s doing.

The Walking Dead made all developers everywhere realize that they should quit games and that Brendan McNamara, director of L.A. Noire, should kill himself.

“Boy, I really screwed up on that one,” McNamara said as he carried a large stone tied to his ankle toward the edge of a suspension bridge. “L.A. Noire cost exactly a gazillion dollars to make and was shitty as fuck. The development team for the Walking Dead was one-eightieth the size of ours, and they made one of the best video games in history.”

“Well, can’t win ’em all,” McNamara said as he heaved the stone over the side of the bridge.