WotR #70 - "Copy cat Santa"

Game of the Year.
And the winner is?

The Perfect Moment.
Why games are important. Part 1.

Christmas Gaming.
Getting away with it.

Adaptive Tech.
Why games are important. Part 2.

3D Glasses.
It's not all about looking like a twat.

Starting Over.
To grow, sometimes you have to destroy.

The local bar's secret?
Now that's a hot sauce.

Staying Retro.
Got your pipe and slippers ready?

This Gaming Life.
Koworld.

Mario Kart DS.
Stop making us want to buy things!

Touch Golf DS.
What can possibly go wrong?

Shadow of the Colossus.
The loneliness of the long distance slayer.

Zombie Zone.
No-budget brilliance, or just plain shite?

Railroad Tycoon.
Nobody knows it but we've got a secret shame.

Starforce.
Shooty greatness.

Rodent Game Trumps.
In no way top trumps, oh no!

Alternative Game Art.
What if artists played games?

The Christmas Return.
Kun-Tor Lives! A bit.

Image of the Month.
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock.

The Queen's Speech.
Rodent Proudly Presents: her maj.

Shewrog
In a single post, Shewrog, captured the very answer to the question ‘Why do we play videogames’ – so accurate is he while talking about playing StarWars BFII on his PSP that I cried a bit: “And yes, this game is a corker, taking up far to much of my time, I was actually pleased when somebody collapsed on the train today, and we had to wait half an hour for an ambulance. ‘yessssss!’ I thought, ‘he looks well ill!’ as he fell to the floor.”

Dogg
"We made Evil Athletic on Fifa 2000 at uni. Death was a prolific striker, we had a back four made up entirely of dictators and we even had chants - 'Ming on the Wing', 'Fu Manchu and there's nothing you can do' and so on."

Chad Sexington
On product localisation: "The US is a great place to curl off a shitty behemoth - the water level in the toilet bowl is so much higher over there than here that you're pretty much letting go straight into the water. As a result it comes out as one big long poo!

Case in point: when I was in San Francisco last month I easily did one that was over a foot long. It truly is the home of the brave."

We present Rodent's world famous bid to list the top 5 of everything in the world.

Rodents'
Top 5 Consoles That Are A Bit Like Jesus.

The 3D0 because Trip Hawkins promised it would rise again.

Dreamcast because it loves you unconditionally and was crucified.

The PSP because it's creator has forsaken us and when the miracles proved to be dust we just stopped believing.

The Amiga, because she's the friend that's always there for you, just like jesus.

The BBC Micro, because you were taught about it at school whether you wanted to be or not.

Rodent's
Featured favourite indie game.

Wirehang Redux
Itroduced by: Matt
"It started as just another Friday afternoon web game Bog posted up. Seconds later it was my latest addiction. But a Java game on a web page is not the best platform, especially when you've not got that great a PC at work to play it on. I thought about how it works and was confident I could remake it myself from scratch with a few screen grabs of the graphics. I had a bad cold one weekend and managed to knock the game up in a day - it all just came together. Tweaking and quirk-fixing took a week or so after that. Mac version followed when Blitz Max came out."
Get it here.

Rodent T-shirt: Never Mind the Blocks
Location: Egypt for fucksake
How can I possible purchase
such a good thing? How: Why here!

Complete set of back issues here

#70 Christmas

Christmas eh?

Hopefully, by now, all of your preparations for the festive period are over and you can now sit back in front of a roaring log fire with nothing to distract you from the joys of Xbox Live Arcade other than the prospect of Santa’s sack popping down your chimney.

Of course, in the real world, you’ll undoubtably (like many of the rodent team) be having to deal with in-fighting families, cooking the bastard turkey, screaming at your children and dealing with a distinct lack of batteries. And Argos will have messed up your Xbox 360 order and delivered a 300 block set of Duplo instead.

Never mind, Way of the Rodent is here to save Christmas with our annual serving of the Original Spirit. Like in that film with Jimmy Stewart. Or was it Doris Day? I forget.

It’s been a big year for WotR. We’ve grown, we’ve changed, we’ve shrunk and we’ve grown again – and we will continue to change and to grow next year. It has also been an important year for many of you. We asked what your perfect moment was this year, the moment which will stay with you as your abiding memory of 2005. The results don’t always make comfortable reading but, if you still harbour any doubts about the role that videogames play in modern life, well, read it and decide for yourself.

There is also have the now traditional (well, two years running is a tradition right?) run down of the top 25 games of the year – as voted for by whichever of our readers could be bothered to write in and tell us. We thank you all. Hopefully it’s not too late for you to inadvertently bookmark in a strategic location.

I’d like to be wanky and pretend to tie in all the rest of the content in little bundles of Original Spirit Past, Present and Future. But I can’t be bothered. It’s Christmas and I’m going drinking now. If you do nothing else, check out Orava’s fantastic exposé about what really happens during the Queen’s speech and TT Ace Reporter’s delve into the world of One Button Gaming alongside the usual reviews of games that you’ve already imported.

Enjoy, don’t drink Koworld’s special Egg Nog, but do remember to drink Santa’s Whisky (don’t worry, he shouldn’t drink and drive anyway) and we’ll see you next year.

Cheers

Chris, Editor - December 2005

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