You just got done unwrapping all of your brand new systems and games, you were named Time magazine's Person of the Year, and after much skepticism you realized that Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was one of the best handheld games ever made! It sounds like you just barely survived the last month of 2006! It's a month that brought us a racist Michael Richards, tons of hilarious Wii videos and a fight between Rosie and Donald Trump! But you can keep your panties on, Britney Spears, because Defunct Games is here to make sure you don't forget anything about December 2006! This is Defunct Games RECAPPED!!, your monthly guide to the best and worst of the last 31 days. This is all the stuff you missed, all the stuff you forgot about and all the stuff you can't wait to see again! So just because you partied a little too hard for your average pageant lover, Miss USA, that doesn't mean you have to miss a single review or article! Who cares that none of your 2006 resolutions were fulfilled? We think it's about time you check out the best (and worst) articles of December 2006!
Why This Article?
This is the second time we have recognized the 33 Consoles of Christmas as our favorite article of the month. Last month it only a third of the systems had been reviewed, but now that December is a thing of the past (and we've unwrapped all of our holiday gifts) it's time to say for certain that this is one of the best articles on Defunct Games. Not just in December, but for the entire year. Where else are you going to find two people willing to review the looks of 33 different consoles? Others may be able to do it, but Defunct Games was the first to really pull it off.
But there's more to this article than just 33 episodes of system reviews, Defunct Games has also gone ahead and recapped the entire event in a nice, easy to read feature. We cover the best and worst systems, we see what our staff's favorites were and we show you the eight things we learned from doing this experiment. Did you know that Chad is clumsy and we don't particularly like the CD-i? Well, now you do. And you can learn a lot more when you read the full 33 Consoles of Christmas recap. And while you're at it, how about you read the rest of the 33 days and let us know what you think. This is an epic feature that spans over thirty pages, it's a fun read and there's no question that it's the best article we posted in December. If you haven't had a chance to read these reviews then don't delay, it's about time you see what all the fuss is about and why we feel it's special enough to put at the top of our list ... twice!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"It was easy to choose a favorite article this month, especially with all the extremely positive feedback we received during and after posting the articles. This is one of the few articles where I felt like I actually learned more about my fellow Defunct Games staffers. For example, who knew that Chad could be so wrong about the Super Famicom? And did he really give the Super NES an A? Oh goodness. But all joking aside, the 33 Consoles of Christmas was a lot of fun to write and post, I actually hope that this is something we can continue in another form past the holidays. It wasn't easy making sure we posted a new review every day, but now that it's over I'm glad we were able to get the 33 Consoles of Christmas up on time every day. I appreciate all of the support emails, and I had a good time reading those letters from people who disagreed with my thoughts. After posting our reviews I decided to check out a few system-specific forums and see what others thought. It shouldn't surprise you that the Dreamcast forums all loved the list while our friends at the CD-i forum hated it. You can't please everybody, and that seems especially true when you're talking about your opinion on old video game systems."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
It seems like a perfect fit for us, Defunct Games loves classic games and Nintendo seems ready to give us a steady diet of great games from twenty years ago. But some of us just aren't happy with only being able to select from
the NES, Super NES, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16 and Nintendo 64. Some of us would like to see the Super Grafx get some love. Or what about the Neo Geo, Sega 32x or Jaguar? These systems deserve at least a couple of Virtual Console games. And even if Nintendo never goes after SNK and Atari, they have no excuse when it comes to giving us Sega Master System games. These are the systems we would love to play on the Wii, and we feel that we offer a convincing argument for each of them. And that is why we feel that Designing a Better Virtual Console is our second best article of December 2006!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"Few articles make me feel optimistic and pessimistic at the exact same time. But Designing a Better Virtual Console is that kind of article. As I thought about all of the systems I realized that there's a lot of potential in Nintendo's Virtual Console, but most of it is going to be capped by the Wii's small amount of memory. It's true that you can fit a lot of 8-bit titles on the flash memory, but how many Nintendo 64 titles are you really going to be able to download? I would love to see Neo Geo games on the system, but without being able to save them to a memory card it seems like the most you will ever be able to hold is four or five. Nintendo has the right idea, they just haven't figured out how to make the system accessible for those who really want to buy a lot of these classic games. It's not hard to believe that after four years there will be people who have completely filled up their Wii's with 8- and 16-bit games. Heck, I could probably already fill up the memory just with what is in the Virtual Console store!"
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
When Time came out with their pick for the Person of the Year none of us could believe it. They named us the persons of the year. Does that mean that they are acknowledging the entire staff of Defunct Games? Probably not, but it's fun to think they are. But the more we thought about the person of the year (which was "You," in case you missed it), the more we realized that some of us weren't going to get the praise they deserved. Are "You" the real person
of the year? Nah, as far as we're concerned the Mii is the real person of the year, and we have photographic proof to back it up. Regardless of whether you think Time's person of the year was a cop out or not, chances are you will agree that Nintendo's Mii characters are worth a mention ... if nothing more. Feel free to bask in the glow of knowing you are the person of the year, but as far as we're concerned the Mii is the real winner. And that's why we feel that Time's Rejected Person of the Year is worthy of the number three spot on our list of the best articles of December 2006!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"If you go back and read our month of articles you will see that this has been a very Wii centric month. The top three articles have something to do with the Wii, which is certainly good for Nintendo but bad for everybody else. But we can go ahead and debate how worthy Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft were at another time, because right now is all about laughing at Time Magazine's awful choice for the person of the year. I don't know about you, but I am half tempted to add that I was named Person of the Year to my resume. While I was not especially thrilled with their decision, a part of me is happy that they choice to cop out like that so that I could create this silly article about Miis. While it's not really a game, creating these little characters is definitely more fun than a lot of the games currently available on the Wii (I'm looking at you Excite Truck)."
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
From time to time Defunct Games likes to take a stab at mixing current events with pleasure. Sony, You're Doing a Heckuva Job is our latest attempt at that very thing. This is an article that looks at the way Sony acts in the face of disappointing news
and contrasts it with what our current President does. When Sony is faced with a disastrous launch and non-stop negative press they decide to promote their own, when President Bush has the same thing happen he decides to award the coveted Medal of Freedom to those responsible. Perhaps that's a bit of a stretch, but read our full reasoning and see just how similar Sony and the Bush administration are right now. Controversial? Maybe. But it's still one of the best articles of the month, and that's why we feel it's the fourth best story of December!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"Talk about controversial, after I posted this article I got nasty emails from Sony fans and Bush supporters alike. Some argued that Bush is doing a perfectly good job (which is why his approval is hovering around 30%) and the other group just seemed mad that I would liken Sony to Michael Brown (of FEMA fame). There may be good that comes out of Sony's switcharoo, but as far as I can tell it seems like they are rewarding people who do not deserve to be rewarded. If anything this shows that Defunct Games is not afraid to ruffle some feathers and get political from time to time. This is not the type of thing we want to do with every article, but it's fun to mix games and politics from time to time. Keep those nasty emails coming, I love reading each and every one of them!"
-Cyril Lachel
Why This Article?
With only five articles this month that pretty much a guarantee that everybody was going to get on this Best-Of list. Sure we had 70 updates this month, but half of them were current and classic reviews and the other half was the continuation of the 33 Consoles of Christmas. Thankfully all five articles deserved to be on my list of the five best articles of the month, including this tongue-in-cheek story about our least favorite things about playing online. If you've spent any time on the Xbox Live service than chances are you've already
experienced at least half of these common complaints, and I wouldn't be surprised if you have to deal with the other half the next time you play Gears of War. Can Microsoft, Sony and every other company attempting to make online games do anything about this? Probably not, but that's what's going to keep this Guerilla Scrapbook entry relevant. That is just one of the reasons that we deem Helping GEnie Predict the Future one of the best articles of December 2006!
Post-Article Thoughts:
"This is one of those articles that came to me while I was searching around for advertisements to include in our Commercial Break feature. This GEnie ad is definitely balancing on the thin line between bad and just stupid, but ultimately I realized that this would be something I could use elsewhere and safe the really bad stuff for the next Commercial Break. I don't know about you, but I have a good time watching people predict the future, and it's amazing that from time to time they actually manage to get it right. While this GEnie ad is talking about the current state of online gaming as of 1992, it could just as easily be talking about today's gamer. The idea of giving GEnie a little more ammunition came pretty fast, and as soon as I had the concept the brainstorming was remarkably easy. There are just so many things I would like to see fixed about online games, from the racism to the quitting to the cheating. But I suppose there's only so much game developers can do, some of it is just human nature. Regardless of where you come down on this touchy subject, it's still fun to go back and make fun of the old advertisements ... even when they are 100% accurate!"
-Cyril Lachel
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