Here we are at the midpoint of my Best Of 2013 lists with my first movie-themed countdown. This year I decided to delay starting the movie-specific lists to allow for the last traditional release date of the year for new movies, Boxing Day, to pass by. Hopefully this will avoid a repeat of last year’s situation where I had to ignore Wreck It Ralph and Les Miserables. That said, let’s count down some memorable characters.
The characters on this list need not be appearing for the first time in a film; fresh interpretations of other material, recurring players in a series and even depictions of real-life people are all fair game. 2013 gave us examples of all these types, and while each character on this list stimulated a different set of emotions from audiences, all managed to be memorable in some way. Many of them are villains, but there are some good guys thrown in there too. Some were actually more memorable than the movies they came from, while others helped their movies to reach great heights. In any case, these are the scene stealers I enjoyed watching the most in 2013. Some spoilers will probably follow.
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10. Niki Lauda – Rush
Though Niki Lauda is, of course, an actual person, the version of him put to screen in Rush by Daniel Bruhl (of Inglorious Basterds fame) is at once frustrating and admirable. Though his real-life Formula One rivalry with Liam Hemsworth’s James Hunt is exaggerated in the film to the point where Lauda is portrayed as obsessive over beating Hunt (at one moment even lamenting that “happiness is the enemy” if he wants to be successful in his pursuit), Bruhl sells enough of Lauda’s vulnerable and/or appreciative moments to make him the highlight of the film. Though much of the marketing for the film sells Rush as a movie about Hunt’s champion 1976 season, it really belongs to Lauda (and Bruhl).
Merry Christmas everyone! Here’s a new kind of list that I can see myself coming back to next year. It’s a smaller list to counteract the length of the last one.
There were many videogame platforms vying for the attention of consumers in 2013, which was overall a pretty spectacular year for memorable gaming experiences. Some of these consoles struggled on the sales charts more than others, but most of them enjoyed at least a few worthwhile game releases. So what if someone were to rank them with sales factors out of the equation, based on user experience and, above all, the quality of their game releases throughout the year? An answer to that question, albeit a subjective one, is coming at you right now.
. -◊-◊-◊-◊- VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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5. Xbox One
Of the two exciting “next-gen” consoles released worldwide at the end of the year, the Xbox One probably had the slight edge in terms of early game library. The excellent visual showcase Ryse impressed many right from day one, despite its repetitive combat mechanics, while Dead Rising 3 by all accounts fixed many of the problems the series has suffered from since its inception and Forza 5 leveraged the power of the console to great effect with its hyper-realistic car models and innovative “Drivatar” AI augmenting system. Peggle 2 followed soon after launch and received great critical acclaim, with Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare and Titanfall to follow early next year. Its current position is remarkable given the hate thrown its way in the middle of the year, when it was looking like quite a different beast.
2013, much like any other year, saw an insane amount of movement in the Korean popular music industry. Its lightning-fast trends and short attention span continued to make the rest of the music world seem like it was moving at a snail’s pace, and while the obscene rate of new groups debuting in 2012 slowed considerably this year, there was still a constant stream of new material to ensure boredom was near-impossible. While I didn’t quite follow the industry as comprehensively as I did in 2012, and despite some stretches of time without any remarkable releases, the sheer volume of music on offer meant that I sat down to chisel this countdown out of a shortlist of no less than 39 tracks. I honestly struggled to keep the honorable mentions at just ten.
Just like last year, this list is devoted to “K-Pop Singles” only (they’re technically “title tracks”, but no need to confuse things too much). No album-only tracks, or ‘B-sides’, if you will, or else we would be here for a while. This year there will be a list dedicated to K-Pop albums anyway. Once again, I’ve ignored every 2013 K-Pop single released in Japanese or other non-Korean languages. But don’t let that stop you from checking some of them out (particularly when it comes to SNSD). Tracks are ordered based on visual factors as well as musical ones (such is K-Pop) but audio strength is given preference where applicable. Let’s get started.
. -◊-◊-◊-◊- VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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15. Gentleman – PSY
Let’s kick things off by giving credit where credit is due. PSY may not have lit up the world like he did in 2012 with Gangnam Style, but his 2013 follow-up Gentleman still managed to smash several YouTube viewing records. Though the song no doubt shares deliberate similarities with last year’s mega-hit, it maintains its own character through a more aggressive style of humour, a larger scale and a partnership – both in personnel and in borrowed choreography – with veteran girl group Brown Eyed Girls. Ga In of the influential foursome brings her famous Abracadabra moves to PSY’s set to enhance an already hilarious and catchy package.
That’s right, it’s time for another round of aesthetic appreciation of the plastic and cardboard kind. 2013 saw the release of plenty of great games and some stellar box art to boot. This list counts down my ten favourite physical game cases of the year, decided based on factors such as uniqueness, originality and, as always, colour! While there were certainly a whole heap of download-exclusive games to get excited about in 2013 and there will continue to be, the future of the physical game case appears perhaps a little more secure in the short term than some naysayers would have you believe, predominantly due to factors like the obscene sales success of GTA V and the ridiculous download sizes of PS4 and Xbox One games. This makes me rather happy, because I love the art of game case presentation perhaps a little too much.
. -◊-◊-◊-◊- VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. FIFA 14 (“next-gen”)
EA Sports has a reputation of iterating on its annual releases, like FIFA, year after year, changing only a little each time. Even though this is only true of the mega-hit football series if you don’t actually play it yourself, few could have expected that the general experience of playing (and watching) FIFA 14 would improve so much in the transition from PS3 and Xbox 360 to PS4 / Xbox One. To get the message across that the next-gen equivalent of the game might be worth playing even if you already bought the last-gen version, the company made the smart marketing decision to abandon the predominantly white and red design of the last half-dozen years in favour of a darker colour palette, a player close-up rather than an action shot and a new yellow logo. The Madden and NBA Live series followed suit to give the feel of a clean, fresh virtual sporting experience. I’m a big fan of the change.
Let’s kick off a new year of way-too-convenient summary lists by getting the bad stuff out of the way. I like to think of myself as an optimistic person, content to look on the bright side of things most of the time, and this is more true in the case of popular media than anything else. Some say I am easily impressed and I will admit that it takes a lot for me to be genuinely disappointed by something. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Across movies, music and videogames, what follows are the ten 2013 situations that gave me most cause to be disappointed. They cover deflating news stories, poor quality of products relative to expectations and relevant situations in general. While I doubt I’m alone with some of these, the list is still, naturally, quite personal.
. -◊-◊-◊-◊- VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Rayman Legends was delayed to be spread out
Rayman Legends ended up being one of my absolute favourite games of the year, and quite possibly my favourite 2D platformer ever, when it was released this September on PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii U and PS Vita. However, it was originally slated to be released in February as a very exciting Wii U exclusive. Set to be a strong argument for picking up a Wii U early in the console’s life, it was unceremoniously delayed by seven months so that versions could be developed for other platforms. While I’m all for seeing more people have access to the truly stunning game, the game was for all intents and purposes ready to ship in February on Wii U so the delay showed the cold and ugly side of modern videogame business. And as a Nintendo fan, I was crushed.
We are now mere hours away from the long-awaited (there’s an understatement) first ever 3D entries in the main Pokemon video game series, Pokemon X and Pokemon Y. To celebrate and, quite honestly, to kill some time while enduring the wait, I decided to have a look back at some of my favourite memories the series has given me in-game. I use the term “in-game” to mean anything taking place during the game’s story (that is, anything before and possibly immediately after the Elite Four), as opposed to, say, any awesome competitive battles I have had the pleasure of participating in using EV trained, IV bred fighting machines.
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10. Patrat, the Purpose-Built Annoyer – Pokemon White
Nearly every Pokemon release has been an inherently multiplayer experience for me, because in my book that’s the way it was designed to be played. There is a tradition among my close friends and family who play Pokemon that whenever a new game comes out, we try to get together and play the first few hours alongside one another, battling after the first gym and sometimes after the second as well. As a result I try to catch and train Pokemon that my fellow players aren’t likely to pay attention to, just to make the battles more interesting. Never has this been more true than at the start of the fifth generation of Pokemon, when I caught a super-common Patrat and trained it to the mid-teens solely because its movepool seemed deliberately stacked with the most annoying moves possible. Detect, Sand-Attack, Bite, Hypnosis… I mean, really, how could I not? In our first battle Patrat was my highest-level Pokemon and I used its full irritating potential against my brother, only to dump it in a box forever afterwards. If not for that tradition, I wouldn’t have looked twice at the caffeinated chipmunk for my in-game team. .
So it’s probably pretty safe to say that much of my recent life has been dominated by writing about the Legend of Zelda series. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything else going on worth blogging about during that hectic rush. Here’s a quick summary of the kind of things I might have written about during the last five weeks if I hadn’t wanted to keep Vagrant Rant dedicated to Zelda countdowns:
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Rayman Legends is my favourite 2D platformer of all time.
I reached the end credits of Rayman Legends with my brother a few weeks ago now (which by no means indicates that the game is actually finished) and while reflecting on my experience with the game I struggled to come up with a side-scrolling platformer I’ve enjoyed more. Ever. That includes the Mario games. There’s just so much charm and variety throughout the game, it looks and sounds amazing and its co-op, at least when played with the Wii U gamepad, is incredible. This will be up there in my personal game of the year calculations for sure, because it’s just on another level of amazing.
These last 30 days of list writing have been hard work, but I have enjoyed every moment. Hearing feedback from each individual list has been wonderful (as well as a tad overwhelming) and I’d like to thank everyone who took time out of their days to give each list a read. I can now cross off another writing project from my bucket list, but this may not be the last time I visit the Legend of Zelda series for some countdown goodness.
If you missed any one of the fifteen lists I have posted on Vagrant Rant in the last month or so, here are the links to each and every one!
That lovely Zelda Month logo you see at the top of every list was designed by my very talented sister and one-time Four Swords Adventures ally Jenna. You can view her collection of artworks, photography and clothing designs on her blog jennamarieanne.com, if that tickles your fancy.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play some Wind Waker HD.
To those curious as to how all the Legend of Zelda games stacked up against one another on this blog when it came to raw number of list mentions this last month or so, this is the post you have been looking for! How incredibly exciting!
This list does not include honorable mentions, just the main list material. A mention fully counts even if it shares an entry on a particular list with one or more other games. Entries that do not specifically refer to any particular game do not give a mention to any game for the purposes of this list. The last list, my top ten favourite Zelda games, didn’t count towards this tally.
Here we are at the end of a tiring but very exciting (almost) 30 days of Zelda retrospectives. It has long been a dream of mine to be able to write so many Zelda countdowns and put them all in one place, but this list is the big one. Until last month I would not have considered myself qualified to compile a proper top ten list of my personal favourite Zelda games of all time. But now, at long last, as I have completed ten out of the sixteen currently released titles in the series (with at least every possible heart container in each, I might add), I can finally put my long-dormant thoughts to my keyboard and reach those sweet, sweet double digits. Without further ado, here we go: My top ten favourite videogames in the Legend of Zelda series.
Oh yeah, one quick condition: I am judging each game on this list by what I consider to be the best version of that game (that I have played), even if it isn’t the originally released version.
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VR ZELDA MONTH DISCLAIMER This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome. Spoilers may follow. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Four Swords (GBA, DSi)
What a dream package.
Ah yes, the most forgotten one (or should I say the second most forgotten one? See the next entry on this list). Four Swords may bring up the rear of this list, and by the end of this year if I were to rewrite the list it may not even make it on, but that doesn’t mean I did not enjoy playing it. The game may have had the least amount of mentions these past 30 days out of any Zelda game I have finished, but that’s because it either used Zelda traditions that had already been better established elsewhere or introduced new things that were improved upon in later releases. I didn’t play through the bonus levels featured in the 2011 DSi port of the game, but I did play the original in conjunction with my first ever experience of A Link to the Past on the Game Boy Advance, when the two games were linked together in a very cool way.
There is no avoiding that Four Swords is a multiplayer game at heart, and though the aforementioned DSi release did patch in a single player mode, a lot of the game’s best moments are taken right out of the picture without friends to crawl through the unpredictable dungeons with. Having said that, I only ever played the GBA original with one other person, which doesn’t compare all that well to my four player experience with the next game on the list. Yet some of the really cool puzzles in Four Swords have not been seen since, the semi-random layout of each dungeon every time you re-enter it makes for some nice replay value and the competitive-cooperative slant Nintendo is so good at pulling off is on full show in this title. Thanks to that downloadable DSi port, it is by far the most accessible way to enjoy the surprising joys of multiplayer Zelda nowadays, which cannot be a bad thing.
Oh yeah, and if I were to do a “Top Ten Zelda Title Screens” list, Four Swords would easily run away with the number one spot. I must have watched that first cutscene twenty times back in the day. .
