My Year in Lists, Part 1: Games and Books and Junk

"My Year in Lists" by Los Campesinos!

So as I said before, despite running this SUPER MEGA SUGOI-NYA blog about entertainment, I'm actually not that culturally relevant. Okay, I'M not culturally ANYTHING, but neither are my interests! Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to write about TV and it's going to be hard picking a numero uno considering the best show I watched this year is 10 years old. But that's what the word "try" exists for! For me to use it! (And fail!)

5 AWESOME GAMES FROM 2010*

*I didn't really play that many new games this year so honestly these are just the games I played. I'm sure that if I had played them, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Mass Effect 2, and whatever other games you liked would be on here. But games are expensive.

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

Okay! I know you hate this game! Everyone does! ...Except me. Final Fantasy XIII might not have lived up to the hype - but that would have been impossible. It may not be one of the better Final Fantasies - I, for one, cannot stand how the shopping system works, and despise how hard it is to make any money. The game is literally linear, as well, but I don't mind some hand-holding. What I do mind is a terrible battle system, and thankfully this game has perfected the FF ATB system and created one that is extremely fun, even addicting, to use. I loved the Paradigm Shift idea as well as staggering your opponent for massive damage. FF13 is a game where you basically run from one monster to the next, so it's great that fighting them is so enjoyable.

P.S. I LIKED HOPE. Sorry. And Lightning is awesome, but everyone knows that. (I also love Sazh. And the music in this game! And, GASP, I like the cut scenes!)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Movie: The Game (PS3)

This PSN timed-exclusive provided me with many, many hours of fun multiplayer entertainment. I do think my friends would agree with me that this was the best multiplayer experience of our year (resurgence of Super Smash Bros. Brawl love aside). Is the game better than the movie? In some ways, yes. Look at that character design! Paul Robertson's sprite work was great; it had me longing for some kind of 8-bit Scott animated show. Also, the music in this game, by Anamanaguchi (did I spell that right? I did? YES), is phenomenal. I can hear it in my head right now, actually. That's what playing this game for about 6 hours straight will do to your brain, man. It screws with your mind. 

Super Scribblenauts (DS)

Yes, there was a sequel to Scribblenauts. Yes, it came out this year. Yes, I only just got it for Christmas. But it was AWESOME. AndoneoftheonlygamesIbeatthisyear. While I never got around to playing the original game, it sounds like this sequel took all of the criticisms (can only move with the stylus, too repetitive) and corrected them. The addition of adjectives means that there are so many possibilities in this game that it's impossible to just give it one playthrough. The game is definitely short; I beat it in about 6 hours! But this replayability and just the overall lighthearted tone of the game makes me want to go play it right now. Be right back.

Robot Unicorn Attack (Browser)

Okay! This game is a flash game by Adult Swim! It's pretty stupid! SUE ME BECAUSE I LOVE IT. Yes, this is how pathetic my crop was if this is on my list, but it's actually the most fun I've had with a game all year. Seriously. I played this game for hours straight and never got bored. This also wins my esteemed Fonzie Award for Best Music, with "Always" by Erasure. If you don't have that song stuck in your head within seconds you don't have ears. Or a heart. Why don't you go play the game right now? Take a little break?

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS)

If you didn't see this coming then you don't know me at all. AT ALL. -sob- Pokemon Silver for the GameBoy Color is my favorite game of all-time, so there's no way I could NOT love this game. I think SoulSilver is the reason I didn't really get any games this year; it just took up all of my time. I ended up getting a little bit burned out on it when I started Kanto, but I'm feeling the Pokemon fever again. There are just so many things to do in this game: the Pokeathalon, Gym Leader Rematches, KANTO as I mentioned, the Pokewalker (which I actually haven't used at all), etc. Pokemon is really one of the reasons that I love being a product of the early 90s. I LOVE YOU POKEMON HUGS AND KISSES XOXO

Honorable Mention: Dragon Quest IX (DS), which I just got for Christmas and thus haven't played too much of. I'm loving it so far, though.

Games that I wanted to play but didn't but will, definitely will: Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii), Trauma Team (Wii) (I got it for Christmas so I'll get around to it!), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), Costume Quest (PS3), Red Dead Redemption (PS3), Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)

Games to Look Forward to in 2011!: Catherine (PS3), LittleBigPlanet 2 (PS3) which I am so excited for I can't even describe it, Pokemon Black and White (DS) surely to be my Game of Forever, The Last Story (Wii), Ninokuni (DS and PS3), and most of all the 3DS! which is not a game but a console, a console that will bring me so many games that I want to play that all I'll be able to do is play games all the stinking time.

THE 1 BOOK I READ FROM 2010*

*According to my Goodreads account, I've read 18 books this year. This is 7 less than last year but still a pretty solid number. However, only this book was released this year. Stuck in the past, I tell you! (Oh, although I did read this awful kid's book, Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation, which I got for free. Despite the "love interest" of sorts being named Allegra, it was terrible.)

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

I guess it wasn't really necessary for me to mention this, but I liked it a lot and Jonathan Franzen (plus Jonathan Safran Foer; more on that later maybe) basically made my year with this and The Corrections. I LOVED The Corrections; it's easily one of my favorite books. Almost immediately after finishing that one I began this one. Freedom touches upon similar themes, which is both good and bad. However, in the end it just did not hold a candle to Franzen's last book. 

Freedom made me physically ill at times, between the "turd excavation" scene and the sheer awfulness of lead female Patty Berglund, but I think for a book to elicit such a strong emotional response from me means that it must be doing something right. I think I would love this book if it weren't for the fact that I now have to write an essay about it. That's proving to be impossible. Oprah's Book Club! Help me! 

Books I read and loved this year that were from last year or earlier: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, which I still think about often; Let the Right One In by John Lindqvist; Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut; A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore even though most people hated it. And I already mentioned The Corrections. Also I totally feel like I read Atonement this year but I guess I didn't but I loved it so read it. Yay.

TOMORROW, on My Year in Lists: The Best TV That I Actually Watched This Year, Plus Some Other Stuff! Vague, I know! Excitement! 

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #1

(Relevant meaning to this blog.)

HELLO :) I'm watching MTV's Return to Fat Camp. I live for the Fat Camp series. It's definitely one of my favorite guilty pleasures.

I could write a whole entry on it, but I've devoted enough space to MTV lately. So instead, I'm going to talk about the pop culture-y things I've been thinking about in my otherwise incessantly dull day! This may or may not become a more frequent thing! SO PREPARE.

• Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber: It is exactly as its name implies. AND IT IS AWESOME. Some of these "Biebians" as the creepy Justin Bieber-lookalike who maintains it calls them looks so much like (male) Justin Bieber it is frightening and amazing. It's interspersed with actual Justin Bieber pics. A lot of the time I see them (BECAUSE I SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON HERE OKAY) and think, "Whoa, that lesbian looks EXACTLY like Justin Bieber!" but then I realize that it IS Justin Bieber. He is pretty girly, though, so it's probs a common mistake.

• Tuesday's episode of Glee: So, remember that it was kind of a make or break it for me? Well, it was pretty good. Neil Patrick Harris was, obviously, awesome. I laughed, bro. I laughed out loud. Kids these days would just be like "lol gleeee <33" to their friends on Facebook, son, without laughing for real, but me? I ACTUALLY LAUGHED. The episode was called "Dream On" so, um, here's the eponymous song (which I don't really like when NPH and Matty Morrison aren't rocking out to it). NPH is scary in it (ETA: clip fix'd): 

• Reruns of The Office on TBS: Tomorrow I plan on doing my FIRST EVAH TV reviews on this here blog. That means there's a 50-50 chance of me actually doing them! And if I do, you may find out about my tumultuous relationship with The Office. Here it is in a nutshell, though: There are only two amazing seasons of the show. One other season is very good. The other three are horrible. So horrible, in fact, that I tell people I have a tumultuous relationship with the show. It's that meaningful to me. Okay? Okay. Yesterday I watched reruns of two excellent Season 3 episodes (Season 3 is the "very good" season, by the way), and it made me sad that the show is so BAD now. They were "The Return" and "Ben Franklin." I stinking love those episodes. Those episodes alone warranted my Season 3 DVD purchase (that and my dream of becoming an Office historian). 

• LittleBigPlanet 2: I'm insanely excited for it. Me and my homie G slice Laur-Laur tear LBP 1 UP. And, I mean, I've known about the sequel for awhile. Come on, I read video game news everyday. But I just read that it'll feature custom voice acting, which is a cool (albeit frightening) proposition. I'm going to definitely put really disturbing voices in my RPG (because you can make RPGs and other types of games in the sequel, too :D).  

• Elliott Smith: He's dead. :( I mean, he's been dead for almost 10 years now. But I was listening to "The Biggest Lie," "Needle in the Hay," and "The White Lady Loves You More" today and bro, it made me sad. People like Conor Oberst (who I do like) try to emulate his style, but there's no one alive who's better. Download: "The Biggest Lie", "The White Lady Loves You More"

• Rotten Tomatoes ranks SNL movies: Obviously, most of them are horrible. I've seen Coneheads, Superstar, Wayne's World, and Wayne's World 2. Didn't like any of them. And isn't it funny that Al Franken starred in Stuart Saves His Family? And that It's Pat! even exists?

Yeah, that's about it. And now, I'm going to return to Fat Camp! Get it?! YES!