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Writer of the Year 2009

Published: Mon 25 Jan, 2010 | 20 Comments
Tags: Munkah, Angus Deacon, GamesCom, Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Scribblenauts, GCA 2009, Armageddon, BioShock 2, Pokemon, Red Dead Redemption, Hungry Eyes

Morgan started this tradition in 2008, when he took out the first annual NZGamer.com Writer of the Year. So I guess it's not really a tradition yet, is it? But consistency is everything, so here I am adding my two cents: thanks everyone. It's really cool to have won Writer of the Year for 2009. Kudos especially to Angus Deacon, who took Runner Up (thanks for not beating me!). Angus's work in 2009 took him to Cologne, Germany, where he covered GamesCom and sent us back some truly awesome coverage. NZGamer.com prides itself on its writers and I'm really very lucky to have won against such a sharp group. You guys are all the goodest of peoples and the bestest of writerers.

 

I love working with NZGamer.com, and cribbing from Morg's blog about how he came to be a writer on the team, I thought I'd do the same: it was through a friend of a friend.

 

I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to sustain a blog about Writer of the Year over a sufficient length to balance out humility and self promotion, so I'm going to stop here. I thought what I would do instead is talk about some of the events and reviews that conspired in 2009 to give me the opportunity to work hard at what I love doing: playing and writing about games. I had a great year. NZGamer.com had a great year. We especially hope that all of our readers had a great year, getting the games you wanted, the stories you needed and the joy we all crave from games freshly unwrapped and put in those disc trays for the first time.

 

Best Game of 2009

I mentioned this on the NZGamer.com Podcast a number of times; Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Yes. A DS game. And the BEST of 2009. The design is genius, the special attacks are a delight and the dialogue is actually laugh out loud funny. LOL funny, even. I was incredibly impressed, and the review reflects that I think.

 

Biggest disappointment of 2009

It wasn't even a case of wanting Scribblenauts to be the best game I had ever played. I made the mistake of assuming it would be. Whoops. I gave the game as honest a review as I was able, based on the categories we have, but that 'value' score bothers me a bit now. It should have been lower; not because the game failed to deliver on its promise of every object ever, a squillion levels and plenty of options... no. But because it got boring. After, like, a second. Okay, that's a nice piece of hyperbole there, but the fact is I was bored of Scribblenauts well before I thought I would be. And damn... it hurt.

 

Favourite event of 2009

This is barely a competition: GCA 2009 gets it. What an eye opener! Three days in Singapore was a unique way to go to work. I met some friendly people and saw some fantastic presentations at the DICE Summit. I don't know how many times I have said this since, but GCA was far more "academic and business-y" than I thought it would be. The show floor was a bit light on content (Angus had covered most of it at GamesCom not long before) but the speakers really knew their stuff. This was also where I interviewed industry titan Ian Livingstone, which is a 2009 highlight all of its own.

 

Let me just say: Armageddon Auckland 2009? A very close second.

 

Most looking forward to in 2010 

Sorry, BioShock 2. You look really, really good. But I am actually most looking forward to Red Dead Redemption, and Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver. RDR I think has that potential to consume me, and I've been a Pokeb*tch since I first played Pokemon Silver in Alberta, Canada, in 2001 when it was too cold to go outside for about three days. Bring it on 2010.

 

Thanks for reading everyone. Without your hungry eyes (I feel the magic between you and I) we would have to find other creative outlets. And I'm sure there's enough crappy pottery and stained glass in the world as it is. 

 

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