Game Year in Review: 2010

Well, 2010 was quite a year. Sony's attempt to hang onto its thin lead in the gaming market by only selling the PlayStation 4 to six carefully chosen celebrities seemed like it might backfire, but the hype has never been hotter. Children's crayon drawings of the PS4 are going for over $400 on eBay, and Paris Hilton is reported to have held the new console briefly at arm's length before throwing it in a closet. Better yet, Sony is expecting to ship over 38 units to the general public next week, and gaming fans are already lining up outside their local Thunderdome waiting for a chance to fight for them.

Games Without Frontiers guest columnist Lore Sjöberg
Games Without Frontiers
Meanwhile, Nintendo has once again drawn controversy by announcing that its upcoming console, the Nintendo Apocalypse, will lack any sort of game controller whatsoever. Instead, you will direct the onscreen action by grabbing a household pet by the front legs and "making it do a little dance." Gamers reacted with shock and disbelief, but Nintendo faithful pointed out that this will still be better than a gamepad for first-person shooters.

On the handheld front, Sony and Nintendo continue their fight for the minds and backpacks of the nation's gamers by releasing ever-larger portable consoles. The Nintendo XL features six screens, a folding seat and a selection of overpriced candy bars, while the PlayStation Still Ostensibly Portable can now play all known forms of media, including 2-ton cuneiform tablets. The cuneiform tablet version of Ghostbusters is reportedly flying off the shelves, or possibly collapsing them.

As for the current generation of video games, the big news was the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto: West Bloodbath. Gamers were appalled by the violence, specifically the wussiness of it. "Wait," they said. "I'm still limited to shooting, beating or running over hookers? Kill Death Die Hurt Maim let me chop off their fingers one by one while they begged for mercy, their cheap eyeliner merging with their tears and darkening the pools of blood at their feet. Are you sure Mario isn't in this wimpfest?"

Speaking of Mario, Nintendo and LucasArts are still locked in competition to bring their aging iconic characters to every genre ever invented. The year 2010 saw the release of Darth Maul's Star Wars Tennis, Mario MMORPG, Clone Trooper Golf, Mario's Dating Sim, Jar-Jar's Dating Sim and Mario Storms the Beach at Normandy. Plus, handheld versions of all those.

2010 was also the year that the world got tired of Katamari Damacy. Katamari 6: Now You Can Roll Up a Total of 1,024 Types of Sushi came out, along with the usual glut of Katamari clones, including Roll Things Up, Let's Roll, Mario Rolls Stuff Up in a Big Ball and Star Wars: Adhesive Death Star. A spokesman for the gaming press made this announcement: "Dear game developers: We are so sorry. When we praised Katamari Damacy for bringing a zephyr of originality into the moribund miasma of sequels and me-too clones, we didn't know what we were unleashing. Never again will we praise a quirky, low-cost game full of whimsy and joy. Please stop. We beg of you." In related news, Tommy Lee Jones has been tapped to play the King of All Cosmos in the movie.

The mainstream gaming public finally started to go online in droves this year, motivated by increasing ease of use, fatter broadband pipes and more sophisticated online experiences, but mostly by the Xbox's revolutionary Verified Gender technology. By guaranteeing that the hot, busty elf chick next to you is biologically female -- if not actually hot, busty or an elf -- Microsoft attracted millions of horny consumers looking for awkward, semi-anonymous online avatar sex. Microsoft is looking to expand this previously untapped market further by introducing cybersex ranking ladders.

Perhaps the biggest newsmaker of 2010 was the announcement by a number of major online gaming sites that they were going to abandon the pretense of reviewing video games. Instead, they explained, they will now simply assign a numerical ranking to the press release and go back to playing World of Warcraft. "This will allow the consumer to receive our objective, well-reasoned review of the game weeks ahead of time, making their purchasing decisions easier. Plus, the game companies have promised to keep sending us free stuff either way."