Josh Bycer presents the first annual Josh Bycer award show.


Role-playing survival game is willing to take risks

Welcome to my video game award show, honoring some of the best games of this year. Unfortunately even though this is a blog entry, we went over budget already so no body painted women here. Now it is my duty to tell you that this award show has massively sold out, only games I’ve played this year will be up for awards. Games that the majority loved will probably not be mentioned at all. So if you would like to complain please send a free copy of the insulted game and I will get back to you sometime by next year’s award show. Now let’s begin with no particular order:

Best handheld game:The World Ends With You (NDS) I have to give credit to Square-Enix when they want to make something different and weird they can definitely do that. A J Pop RPG where you control two characters at once in combat fits the bill nicely. Using every feature of the NDS in some regard while throwing out tiresome clichĂ© RPG conventions makes it one of the best handheld games I’ve played.

Best multi player game:Left 4 Dead (PC and 360): It’s not every game that makes gamers want to work together for the greater good instead of high scores. Valve continuing the trend with great shooters after Team Fortress 2 has scored another winner with L4D. This game has been the cause of me gaining over 50 friends on Steam in less then a week, and has providing much in the way of teaching me useful survival tips for when the zombies come.(Yes I know they’re not really zombies but you get my point).

Best RPG:Kings Bounty: The Legend (PC): It’s not everyday when I fall in love with a game that I haven’t heard anything about prior to buying it. From positive posts on game forums and an entry on Rock Paper Shotgun I decided to pick it up while it was on sale. A long time ago I swore off of CRPGs, but I’m glad that I didn’t miss this one. With an excellent combat system, bright visuals and touching that collector’s itch of mine with numerous things to find in the world makes Kings Bounty one of my favorite games this year; also it managed to beat out The World Ends With You for my favorite RPG.

Best Wii game: Um, hold on a second (shifts through notes)……….(Runs down stairs to check game collection)……..(Runs back up) ahem:No More Heroes: Well this was not a good year for the Wii for me, in fact I couldn’t remember the last Wii title I bought this year. Since I have a huge love for Suda 51 we have a unanimous winner for No More Heroes. One part beat em up, one part insane ride with deserts. Also if this is any indication I’m reserving this award now for MadWorld for the 09 award show (Go Clover Studios… part 2).

Best Playstation 2 game:Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4: My love of the SMT series goes back to my time with Nocturne, so it should be no surprised that the latest game in the series gets a mention here. Doubly so for being the last PS2 game release this year that I can remember.

Best 360 game:Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. Easily the biggest surprise this year for me, considering how I almost wrote off the game completely a few weeks ago. With some amazing visuals and scratching every itch of my gotta collect them all side, makes this one of the best. The designers really designed this game for the user to have fun with the challenges and it is such a breath of fresh air to play a game where the rules of the world can work for the player instead of against them.

Best party game:Rock Band 2: (Pick a console) Rock Band 2 wins hands down by being the first game that my entire family actually sat down to watch and play. With three of us on the instruments and the rest rocking out it was a grand time to be sure, however I did not get on the mic, which could have ruined the evening right there.

Most artistic game:Braid (XBLA): Taking the 2d platformer into new strange directions, Braid has been the talk of the internet with amazing visuals, beautiful music and the lovely game mechanic of time manipulation. With a story that is still anyone’s guess makes it the winner of this award.

And there you go the games I truly loved this year. Now as a hardcore gamer I played a lot more games then the ones mentioned here and a lot of them were good, but these are the ones that stood out among the rest in my opinion.