A Fresh Start

When Stephen Colbert ended his last episode in 2011, he stated a statistic of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll about how 76% of participants said that 2011 was below average to one of the worst years of their lives. I for one agree with the majority since 2011 was one of the roughest years of my life.

While the first half was swarmed with the tail end of my senior year of my bachelor’s program, it was only followed by a summer of disappointment with a lack of potential career leads. After my parents had enough of my failings, they forced me into an unrewarding second job that had me working eighty hours a week without all that nice overtime… or time to continue looking. With no potential to better myself, I chose to leave my home and the second job to start a new life.

I love my new home now but its issues took a lot of my time and sleep, most notably the mice crawling in the walls. After a month of failed attempts to kick them out of the cottage, my landlord gave up and just redid a chunk of the entire outside of the place. The mice did their damage though with me not having sleep for days on end.

Throughout that horrible year, I wanted to update Never Unplaying so bad. All I could do was my Dead or Alive Dimensions review during the only part of the year that I had personal time. Through a plentiful holiday season and the ups and downs of the industry, I wasn’t able to even jot down opinions. Most notably, I couldn’t create a Game of the Year article this year even after most of my issues, though that was due to another problem I had:

None of the games I played deserved it.

Nothing that came out in 2011 grabbed me and explicated video game design. This lack of quality was heartbreaking since I had such issues debating with choosing the greatness of 2010 with stuff like Mario Galaxy 2 and Halo Reach. Everything from Pokémon Black/White to Deus Ex: Human Revolution to Batman Arkham City just didn’t reach the potential I expected. Even the big dog of 2011, the somewhat-impressive Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim couldn’t keep my interest when it put me to sleep every time I roamed its massive terrain. In this case, something would normally come from nowhere and surprise me like how Rune Factory Frontier or Arkham Asylum blew my mind in 2009. This year did contain a notable shocker, however for much different reasons.

There lies a game in 2011 that triggered a legendary heartbreak within me due to its deplorable execution in every way. That cream of the crap disappointment of a lifetime was without a doubt The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It tried to be the jack-of-all-trades with Zelda with Wind Waker’s exploration, Ocarina of Time’s epic adventure and a mixture of their visual prowess… all sprinkled with a unique control scheme. I craved reviewing Skyward Sword since it broke everything it tied to be while spitting on what Zelda and Nintendo games in general stand for thanks to its busted art style, disgusting game design and most importantly: abysmal controls.

If I had to award the GotY to something in 2011, it would reluctantly be Super Mario 3D Land. It was a great twist to the gameplay of 3D Marios by having more of a sidescroller motif. While it loses more of its freedoms to play and roam around, it still garners a bit of exploration with hidden goodies. 3D Land’s controls are as tight as Mario has always been, meaning it gives complete ownership to any errors made to the player. No excuses. The only issues 3D Land has is length, while it has 16 worlds (Well 8 original and 8 remixed versions of the originals), their stages are only a few minutes long. Not too shabby for a triple-A Nintendo title that was teased, announced and released in less than nine months.

When 2011 ended and 2012 started, I played games when time allowed, but it really felt like work more than fun. This is a pastime! January 2012 was a terrible month that focused on nothing but the lousy releases of the holiday’s fallout. I was also depressed between adjusting to a new life I never expected and doing it alone.

Then on the last day of the month, Final Fantasy XIII-2 came out.

Let’s get this straight - I strongly disliked Final Fantasy XIII. It felt too designed to tell a story about six outcasts destined to save a world who want them dead instead of indulging the player in a epic quest where THEY go out and save that world. It’s like Square-Enix really wants to make another Final Fantasy movie, but is afraid to risk bankruptcy again, so they put their fans through sheer crap.

It’s only sad that Final Fantasy XIII-2’s biggest flaw is that it’s attached to Final Fantasy XIII-1 because design-wise, the two are polar opposites. XIII-2 gives freedom, offers choices, encourages exploration, contains an appealing soundtrack, pokes fun, and it offers kooky DLC, like Mass Effect armor. It’s extremely fun and gives off that vibe I always wanted in XIII-1. Final Fantasy XIII-2 should have come out a month earlier, so I could have easily awarded it the Game of the Year without hesitation.

After dumping eighty-something hours in Final Fantasy, something crazy happened: Resident Evil Revelations and Mass Effect 3 arrived one after another, and they were also amazing! Resident Evil Revelations is the best game on the Nintendo 3DS and one of my favorite installments of the series with a wonderful blend of classic horror, modern controls and shockingly good presentation. Mass Effect 3, however, is my favorite installment of that series, offering an incredible campaign that made me on the edge of my seat during the action. Shame the ending didn’t deliver, or made sense. It is only March and already I have three excellent games I would consider awarding.

I hope this proves that 2012 will be a better year for me. My life has finally come to a new normality, one completely in my control. While I hate that I lost so much time with worthless forces beyond my ability, it was only made my resolve stronger since I have less time to fulfill my life goals. This week I will restart my regularly scheduled blogging and there is no better place to start than PAX East. I’ll deliver demo impressions on as many things as possible and hopefully meet many influential people.

I don’t want 2012 to be another statistic of a year like 2011 was.

For everyone who clicked on this link or typed this URL in via my business card, I thank you for spending your time to visit my page. It hurts like hell to see such a lack of updates of my work, but I assure it won’t look like this for long. Please don’t hesitate to comment this post, reply on my Twitter (@NeverUnplaying) or email me at neverunplaying@gmail.com.

-Sonny Oliveira