PixlBit

Don't ask me. I jumped into the portal and found myself in a swirl of psychedelic color with strange creatures and farm implements circling round me like I was in the eye of a tornado. Every single button made me sick to my stomach with zero-g movement, so I quit, watched a tv episdode and played the following seven games instead. 

Here are my media picks for 2005. They're not CSI, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Resident Evil 4, Green Day's American Idiot or Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, but I like what I like.

Shadow Score is an old board game made digital and then fused to a romance simulator. It's online, streaming, 5v5, mobile, and asynchronous; use your webcams for added intrigue. I hated it because no one liked me even when I won, and I had to watch all the other randos complete the story paring up with faeries, furrys and fembots. So I played the following three games and watched a tv episode instead. 

Dual weilding is a great mechanic, but a whole game based on it? Use the left and right analog sticks to swing Okage's giant muscled arms to punish goblins and orcs on a super colorful farm of Yggdrasil trees. Thought there was only one of those, didn't you? There's always a least two of everything in this game including two ways to annoy: one is the camera which contantly zooms in and out as you punch to dramatise the action but which makes you dizzy as heck; and two is the glitchy gameplay. Yeah, it's fun to see goblin parts flying all over but when your fists get stuck in a ygdrassil and don't come out, it's game over. I played the following four games instead. 

Just an interactive novel where you learn the true depth of sorrow as a valkyrie who rescues the souls of dead soldiers and brings them to valhalla. Did you know crying is quite exhausting after a while? I mean, who can do ten hours of this? I wiped my eyes and played the following three games instead. 

An anthropomorphic animal high school where young furries have to perform trials, not unlike those in Hunger Games, or face starvation. I found the story and relationships gripping, but the targeting controls were terrible. I had to play a pin-the-tail-on-the-furry minigame that was near impossible. That tail looked funny on a nose though. I went and played the following four games and watched a tv episode instead. 

2004 was more pizza and music, but I do remember going to my dad's summer beach house in North Carolina. We had fun fishing, going to book stores and eating out. The drive from Philly was fun too. 7 1/2 hours with a stop on the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel. I also enjoyed the following media.  

My angel faction is so rad! These winged badies can wreck demon butt and perform a mean flying circus to boot. I got them tricked out with platinum wings, diamond mind bullets and radiance shock halos. I'm taking down RAID bosses with ease in this MMO. Thing is, Darla can only play on Wednesdays, Bob on Thursdays, Jeremy on Saturday night and Tamara on Sunday afternoon. It got so tricky getting people together, I played the following three games, watched a tv episode and downloaded two new games instead. 

I've organized this according to my usual routine when I sit down to play stuff on the weekend.

What's a rpg/action platformer/brawler mashup where you also harvest resources like? It's just like Rogue Blob Heroes and its Gears Farm expansion. Thing is, I got annoyed that while I was away jumping and slashing my way to fame and fortune, my farm was getting raided by vacuum goblins sucking up all my juicy fruit. It drove me so nuts, I rage quit and played the following five games instead.