As I mentioned before in my fifth 2012 top ten list, I haven’t enjoyed as much musical variety in 2012 as I would have thought I might at the beginning of the year. That’s as much a testament to life’s unpredictability as anything, to be sure (I mean, K-Pop? Where did that come from?), but it doesn’t mean I didn’t spin some awesome records in 2012. All five of the following albums are quality releases and they each now hold a special place in my heart. And no, I’m not just saying that; these albums are good.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
5. Born to Die – Lana del Rey
One of the first major releases of the year, Born to Die rocketed chart debutant Lana del Rey to stardom with a powerful set of songs making more than decent use of her fantastically versatile vocal ability. From the opening note of the title track, a rollercoaster ride of emotions punctuated by the occasional goosebump is in store for the listener. Del Rey oozes ice-cold confidence like she’s been in the business for decades, which is particularly apparent on the smoky Million Dollar Man. Lyrically she moves from wistful (Video Games) to cocky (National Anthem) and back again, her voice always at the forefront of the sum of each track’s parts. Born to Die is enagaging from start to finish.
FULL REVIEW: HERE
Just as there were plenty of segments within movies that stood out in the memory throughout 2012, the videogames of the year provided their own set of unforgettable moments. Many of these were related to the experience of playing around with game mechanics, and thus are both personal to me and by nature spoiler-free. However, there were also plenty of story-related moments that shook me much like a film scene might, so read this list with care.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Third Gym – Pokemon White Version 2
The first Gym in Pokemon White Version 2 is deliberately pretty vanilla and the music is identical to that of all the Gyms in White 1. The second Gym shows you in no uncertain terms that the music will not be staying the same from Gym to Gym this time around, but it isn’t until the third that the potential of such an idea really hits home. A string of creepy malformed chords greet your ears, sounding like cicadas dipped in LSD, and the visuals match the audio perfectly. Stringy cocoons litter the dusty building interior, leading up to a mega cocoon housing a psychedelic rainbow paint pool and the Gym leader. Trippy and awesome.
There’s nothing like a great film scene. When you’re sitting in the theatre and something happens onscreen to make you lean forward in your seat, or sit bolt upright, or cower into a fetal position, that’s what going to the movies is all about. In 2012, I experienced quite a few of those moments. Here they are, arranged in convenient order for your reading pleasure. Please note that while I won’t be going out of my way to include spoilers, the very fact that I am talking about impactful scenes within movies should suggest the kind of caution with which you might want to approach this list.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Sky Ball – Chronicle
Chronicle is a film with some pretty dark interpretations of the age-old “What would it be like if normal teenagers actually got superpowers?” question. Yet the most memorable scene of the movie for me was the joyous initial expression of physical freedom in which the three main characters engage soon after recieving their new telekinetic abilities. Once they learn to levitate themselves, the wonders of flight are shown in all their shackle-less glory through a wonderfully shot sequence culminating in a sky-high game of catch. It really feels like you’re there, thanks to the film’s “found footage” gimmick.
When I envisioned writing this year-end list way back at the start of 2012, I did not expect it to look like this. The amount of albums I did not pick up in 2012, that I fully expected to when I was looking forward to the year ahead, is a little embarrassing. I also barely touched the radio this year. Just about every mainstream airplay hit that I listened to came through dodgy work speakers and was repeated way too many times to allow me to appreciate. There was also that whole K-Pop thing. As a result of these factors, this list is being drawn from an alarmingly small pool.
Having said that, there were some real musical highlights for me in 2012 anyway. From upbeat tracks to soaring ballads, I did enjoy plenty of tunes throughout the year, and my top ten favourites follow. As I said in my first proper blog post on Vagrant Rant, however, the nature of music as a highly subjective thing probably makes this list the most personal of them all, so don’t expect too much common ground.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Ladykiller – Maroon 5
Stuck in a pretty misfiring album, Ladykiler sees Maroon 5’s Adam Levine putting his trademark falsetto into overdrive to the steady, medium tempo beat of an unusually low-energy yet persistent song. The combination begets a surprisingly refreshing result. Overexposed tries many different things that stray from the classic Maroon 5 sound, and most don’t play out so well, but with Ladykiller the album strikes something worthwhile.
For all the gaming highlights of 2012, there were quite a few moments of frustration, at least for me. They came in many irritating forms. Some were due to glitches in games, some were caused by basic design flaws and/or oversights on the part of developers, some were directly related to my own stupidity or incompetence. All sucked.
There isn’t too much more to say about this list; really, I just want to get it out of the way. It’s not bringing back very pleasant memories.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. “Why am I trapped in the water?” – Sleeping Dogs
Barely seconds into my first opportunity to explore Hong Kong during Sleeping Dogs, I ended up at the docks. It wasn’t something I intentionally aimed for, but my open-world gaming habits, honed during hours of fun with Just Cause 2, dictated that I should explore as much of the game world as possible. Assuming the region was my oyster, I jumped gleefully into the sea, before discovering that ten minutes of aimless swimming were ahead of me. There was no place from which I could get back onto dry land, at least anywhere I could catch a glimpse of. The docks themselves weren’t much better, as I discovered when I finally did get back on land. There weren’t even any people out there; just a maze of crates and a jumping glitch that froze me in midair.
It’s been a crazy year for Korean pop music, mainly because of one man: PSY. His story has been told to death, though. There was quite a lot of other stuff going on in the world of K-Pop in 2012, of course, and though I only started listening to the genre this year, I was fortunate enough to be able to ingest plenty of it. So here’s my third VR Best of 2012 list. For my wider thoughts on K-Pop, check out this post.
This one is a top fifteen rather than a top ten to make up for a later list that is only going to appear as a top five. I’ve taken a number of things into consideration with each single, such as the music video, the dancing (if any), the presentation of the song etc., because such things are definitely important in the K-Pop industry, but above all I’ve tried to prioritise the way the song sounds as an audio-only product when it comes to ordering the list.
Note how I’ve titled this list “K-Pop Singles”. If I included album-only tracks, of which there were plenty of highlights in 2012, we’d be here for days. Also, for the sake of narrowing down the impossible selection, I’ve gone ahead and ignored every 2012 K-Pop single released in Japanese or other non-Korean languages. So no Flower Power, Dazzling Girl or Like Money. Dem’s the breaks.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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15. Sherlock – SHINee
It’s fairly widely agreed upon that SHINee is one of K-Pop’s best and most consistent performers when it comes to making tricky choreography shine (forgive the pun). Though their main Korean hit of 2012, Sherlock , arguably doesn’t quite hit the heights of previous efforts as a song (it’s essentially a mash-up of two other tracks), it certainly does as a dance. The asymmetrical moves picked up even more awards for the talented quintet this year and it isn’t hard to see why.
The movies of 2012 brought with them an avalanche of memorable characters, whose exploits stuck in our minds for a range of reasons. Some made us laugh, some made us cringe, some made us quiver and some just made us want to stand up and applaud. For my second Vagrant Rant Best of 2012 list, I present my top ten favourite movie characters of the year.
The characters on this list need not be brand new creations; fresh interpretations of other material, recurring players in a series and even depictions of real-life people were all fair game when I was putting it together. Regardless of what other people may have been saying about them, I have not included any characters from movies I did not see in 2012. So, sadly, those amazing Boxing Day Australian releases (The Hobbit, Wreck-It Ralph, Les Miserables) are out of the picture.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Sid – The Descendants
The Descendants, released at the very beginning of 2012 here in Australia, is a truly heartfelt triumph on many levels, but its many facets would not come together quite so effectively without the comic relief provided by the female lead’s dimwitted boyfriend, Sid. Nick Krause’s performance lends the role just the right combination of idiocy and believability, with a hint of something poignant thrown in. This ensures that, despite the film’s many character interaction highlights, you just aren’t likely to forget his exchange with those two seniors. Not at all.
Time to kick off my ambitious goal of presenting tentop tens of entertainment media in 2012. This is going to require an unprecedented time management effort, but hey, hopefully I’ve grown enough this year to meet the requirements. First up, something I’ve always paid perhaps a little too much attention to: videogame cases.
We live in an age where games are available as full digital downloads more readily than ever, but physical production is still plenty relevant. When you look at a game on a store shelf, a lot of things go through your mind, whether consciously or (more likely) subconsciously. Is the cover eye-catching? Does it stand out from its brethren? Does it give you an adequate idea of what the game will have you doing? Does it do something other than feature a man looking straight at you while striking a badass pose? All these things and more churned around in my mind before I could spit out this list of my top ten favourite game cases of 2012.
But the list doesn’t just take into account what the front cover of a game looks like; I’ve also considered the back, the spine and, where applicable, even the inside of the case. All facets of physical presentation have been accounted for. Yeah, I’m definitely a cool guy.
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VR BEST OF 2012 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. You have been warned, fanboys. -◊-◊-◊-◊-
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10. Assassin’s Creed III
When compared to the cover art of the first four Assassin’s Creed games, one thing immediately stands out about the front of the ACIII case. Connor, the newest member of the Brotherhood of Assassins to be introduced to series fans, isn’t simply standing in an ominous pose with a hood over his head. No, he’s actually doing something, and something rather violent at that. That redcoat he has in his very capable grasp is not going to be breathing for much longer, or so the implication stands. The motion-blurred battlefield depicted in the background, complete with prototype American flag, adds to the kinetic excitement of the image, suggesting a history-rich experience well worth playing through.
2012 has been the best year of my life thus far. This is mostly due to reasons that have no place on Vagrant Rant (as well as, indeed, the existence of Vagrant Rant itself), but there’s no denying that a quality selection of entertainment media played its part. If you had told me at the start of the year that I would be playing three new games consoles by its end, that The Avengers would out-perform The Dark Knight Rises at the box office or that a thirty-something Korean pop star would be nominated for TIME’s “Person of the Year”, I would have looked at you with stunned disbelief.
Yet here we are, sitting less than a fortnight out from the end of another year (and on the eve of the supposed end of the world), getting all reflective and stuff on what has gone by. What better way to celebrate than with ten top ten lists? Well, I love that idea. In fact I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it.
The DS’ swansong is a real beauty and it’s a relief to get the review for it up on Vagrant Rant, at last. I’ve been playing the game when I can ever since its October 11 release.
According to the in-game timer, that’s how many hours I have spent playing the first Pokemon White Version. As a gamer, the Pokemon franchise is my World of Warcraft. It is my Team Fortress 2, my Counter-Strike, my Minecraft. It is that one series that grabs the addictive part of my personality and doesn’t let go. So understand that when I review a Pokemon game, my opinion is slanted a certain way. I will probably be more forgiving than a more casual fan on some aspects of the game’s design, but I will also be harsher on others.
Having said that, Pokemon White Version 2 is the best and most complete Pokemon game I have ever played. There you go.
