You know, I think it is safe to say that 2010 will be the first year in the history of gaming where the first half year of releases will eclipse the second half. For the past several years we have been seeing a growing trend of publishers fearing traditional holiday season juggernauts like Halo and Call of Duty and pushing their titles back into spring. This strategy has paid off so well now that publishers are planning their releases with a Q1 release date in mind. What resulted in 2010 was a first half so jam packed with superb new releases that nearly every month felt like a star studded October or November where we are used to seeing this influx of high-quality titles.

With that said, I can see by the end of the year that at least a few of these titles from the first half will be slipping under the radar when it comes to the game of the year awards coming out. So I went out of the way to make my Top 10 Games for the First Half of 2010 list. That is right, not only was there plenty of games I enjoyed this year to make a top 10, I also have several more honorable mentions!

I was initially really into Darksiders, but as I progressed I realized my Zelda-esque dungeon puzzle skills have some serious rust. I kept getting stumped to the point I could not take it anymore at only several hours into the game. Dante’s Inferno is an enjoyable God of War clone, and I had quite a bit of fun with it, probably more so than most because I have yet to have some serious playtime with any of the God of War games.

Green Day Rock Band was more of the same, and I was having a good time with it playing at a friend’s place until their material from 21st Century Breakdown nearly put me to sleep. Army of Two: The 40th Day was a sequel that alleviated a lot of my core gameplay gripes with the original and was a blast to play through with a friend in coop. However, in the process of doing that EA forgot to attach a meaningful story, and blew it big time on no inclusion of a persistent unlock system for online multiplayer, which seemed like a gimme with how much the single player focuses on gun and armor customization.

UFC 2010 has a fully stacked single player arrangement of modes and features some of the best multiplayer out there. At least in local couch based multiplayer that is, where I spent many hours button mashing my controller to hell. It is too bad the online (from my experience on the 360 anyways) is insanely busted, where on the three separate occasions I was only able to complete three online fights of approximately 20 attempts that was filled with countless glitches and hiccups setting up fights. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing just missed the top 10. It is easily the best Mario Kart clone yet, which is a great thing since I do not own the Wii. Any game that features Shenmue’s Ryo Hazuki and his forklift racer gets a stamp of approval from me!

So now, without further ado is my “Top 10 Games For The First Half of 2010”

10) Split/Second

This is unlike any arcade racer before it. I applaud Black Rock Studios for instead of sticking with the safe route and releasing the sequel to the awesome quad racer, Pure, they went the high road and created an all new IP that I could best relate to as a videogame version of the recent film remake, Death Race, albeit a more family friendly version with all kinds of game changing obstacle “powerplays” that could be triggered to take out your opponents and even yourself if you got careless. It laid a solid foundation that I highly hope this time Black Rock capitalizes on with a sequel.

9) Yakuza 3

Initially, I was having trouble taking the plot seriously for the third Yakuza. Was I really running an orphanage? Then as the hours and chapters went by, I found myself caring for those kids and attached to their personalities. Before I knew it, Yakuza’s trademark fighting system grabbed me again, and I was reeled in and convinced that I must defend that orphanage against all its opposition by any means necessary!

8 – Super Street Fighter IV

This game convinced me to finally pick up my first console fight stick since the NES Advantage! As much as a fighting newb as I am, Street Fighter is so easy to pick up (but insane to master!) that I still found myself rolling out Hadokens and Sonic Booms like I was in the arcade nearly 20 years ago. I never had any problems playing online with friends, and the lobby/quarter matches brings back the incredible feeling of “Winner stays” in the arcades last set of glory years.

7) Splinter Cell Conviction

I usually despise stealth games. I played through Metal Gear Solid 4 on very easy and practically run and gunned through the entire game. Not so much in Conviction. Even though UbiSoft made the game feel like more of a shooter, and quite a good one at that, I was rewarded with sneaking and stealth kills so much that it motivated me to play through roughly 30% of the game with stealth tactics, and for me that is saying something! Throw in another separate campaign designed specifically for online coop and DLC missions currently out, and you have a Splinter Cell game with some serious legs.

6) Blur

Big ups to Bizzare Creations, the former developers of Project Gotham Racing for proving that kart racer style power-ups can be successfully mixed with racing modern day muscle and exotic cars. Blur’s incredibly deep single player features some of the best use of friends leaderboards I have seen on a disc based game that kept swaying me to play just one more race. Its multiplayer component is loaded with persistent unlocks and far superior matchmaking that gives Blur the longevity edge over its rival Split/Second.
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Alright pardners (and Moe), I do believe that it is time for us to saddle up and hit the plains together in a DGR community playdate!  Let’s posse up as many of us as we can in a private server for some Red Dead Redemption Free Roam and Gang War action. The time I would like to propose for such a get together would be this coming Sunday eveing, June 13th, from 8:00 -10:00 CST. 

Why Posse up?  Well after another great night of roaming the plains with Mitchi’s Outlaws, I was reminded about just how GREAT gaming has become since I virtually eliminated the D-bag factor.  Before joining the DGR and surrounding communities I would frequently find myself pulling my hair out (and trust me there isn’t much left these days) putting up with loud-mouthed kids or grievers who found great pleasure in ruining the online experience for us.  Those days are mostly gone, and while I do find myself getting into a public game every now and then, I vastly perfer gaming with the awesome people we have here, many of whom have become dear and good friends in real life.

We have a section with gamertags on the site, but with the influx of folks that have contributed lately, so it may not be a bad time to send the call out for folks to post their gamertags here and join in on the fun.  Hopefully PanicBot can then turn this information into a new up-to-date list of bad ass, drunk gamers! 

I’ll start:

Xbox Live = Ryker XL

PSN = Ryker_XL

Steam = Ryker XL (Hey I see a pattern)

See you Sunday pardner!  Unless yer yella…

Back in 2008, when John asked me to submit the occasional article to Robot Panic, he did so because they were looking for the voice of the new, young generation. A cool, hip guy who can speak to the demographic with the most purchasing power: Late teens and twentysomethings.

“Mitch, I’ll be frank: We’re old fogies. We want someone who can really get a lot of clicks from America’s youth. Sure, we have a pretty dedicated following, but advertisers don’t care about them, and frankly, we only like the people the advertisers like. Get us some college kids! Bring us late teens! The more emotional and vulnerable, the better!”

At least, that’s how I remember it. Honestly, I’m too busy shredding electric guitar and doing sweet skateboard tricks to remember the details of that conversation. Either way, I’m about to inject some lightning bolts and cartoon cheetahs into the bran cereal commercial that is RobotPanic.com. So with that said, here are a few albums from the past ten years that you may have missed because you were too busy listening to Miles Davis and soaking your feet. Wake up, gramps!

Say Anything – “…Is a Real Boy” – In 2004, Say Anything released one of the most intriguing records of the decade. To some, it was a shameless, impeccably produced pop record. To others, it was a twisted look into the diary of a man losing his grip on reality. In a sense, it is both. During the process of writing and recording the album, frontman Max Bemis struggled with severe bipolar disorder and delusions brought on by extreme anxiety that eventually led him to be admitted to a mental institution. The result was …Is a Real Boy, a revealing look into the psyche of a man struggling to create in the face of a loosening grip on his own mental state. The music sounds like a Foo Fighters album after a long heroin bender; Its cheery, up-tempo beats are offset by random bouts of feedback and abrupt shifts in key or time signature, many songs mutating completely halfway through. Even the album’s most danceable track, “Alive With the Glory of Love” is a rumination on love in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. One of the high points of the record is “Yellow Cat (slash) Red Cat,” which deals frankly with Bemis’ attempts to hold onto a sense of self in the face of past failures, while at the same time being consumed by fear, anxiety, cynicism and sexual frustration.  It’s an album seething with insecurity, rage and desperation. It chronicles a musician driven to the brink not only creatively, but also emotionally and mentally.

Motion City Soundtrack – “Commit This to Memory” – To most people, it seems, the phrase “pop punk” is associated with poor, sloppy musicianship. In actuality, the common pitfalls of the genre seem to be that of a lack of restraint. A large majority of pop punk bands are talented technically, but they are often unwilling to sacrifice fast, punchy instrumentals for the common good. This was the case with I Am the Movie, the debut album by Minneapolis natives Motion City Soundtrack. Although it is widely beloved, (even by myself) it is clear that many of the songs on the album were written around melodic keyboard parts and over-complex drumming. Despite its rough sound, it still showed immense promise: promise that payed off on the band’s sophomore album Commit This to Memory. Under the guidance of Blink-182′s Mark Hoppus in his first outing as producer, the band made several modifications: First, they reigned in their songwriting. This time around, it felt as though the band actually wrote the songs collaboratively rather than combining lead parts on each instrument. Their debut was also, as many first albums are, a collection of songs in the band’s repertoire released in album format. But with Commit This to Memory, it was clear that great care went into developing the actual track listing. The album has a discernible arc, opening with the punchy “Attractive Today” and culminating with the gorgeous “Hold Me Down,”–a track that transforms from a fairly simplistic tune to a loud, booming anthem that brings the album to a poignant close–and many valleys in between. It’s this kind of care and respect for the experience of listening to a full album that is becoming far too rare in today’s age of a-la-carte music sales, and stands as a testament to the “old” way of recording an album. Commit This to Memory is a joyous testament to the absolute highs of a genre that many people deem to be strictly for adolescents. It is proof that pop punk music isn’t merely a genre dominated by untalented musicians, but a genre mastered by those with respect for it.
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The star of the show was hardware and firmware advancements. Software and content, while increasing in quantity, took a dump in quality. I can’t think of much culturally that would actually define this decade. Much of it was trying to rehash everything previous to it because…I dunno…people gave up…people gave up. But fuck it, the past is salvageable. Thanks internet!

Mashups
At the turn of the century, commercial music creatively lit itself on fire and pranced around until it collapsed on the ground and rolled around a lot. Sure good music has come out this decade and sure most of it is difficult to discover, but what else happened? What band took the world by storm? The answer is none. As much fun as it is watching Radiohead, Tool, Killers, and Arctic Monkeys fans try to stab each other to death, the winner of the decade was the culture movement to shatter the copyright hold on music culture. Bloc Party mixed with Nine Inch Nails, Kanye West thrown against Oasis, Eminem vs Miles Davis, Metallica vs Dolly Parton. Stealing music in waves meant little up against smashing it all together into seventy minute balls worth hundreds of infringement lawsuits. Everything from creation, possession, to listening to most of the products of this subgenre is all kinds of illegal, but the product done well is so worth it. Thank you to TimG, Girl Talk, PartyBen, McSleazy, 2 Many DJs, DJ Food, Soulwax, and countless others for making the spectrum of music suck far, far less than it otherwise would.
(honorable mention: P2P services)

MP3 players.
Remember when music skipped? That sucked. Remember when portable music was limited to fifteen disc tracks or a hundred on a MP3 cd? That sucked. Remember carrying some large disc piece of shit that couldn’t fit in a pocket to save your life? That sucked. If you still carried around a cassette player? Sweet jesus god help your soul. MP3 players came along and made the world a better place. Now you can play music from your pocket, your phone, your watch, your shoe, your hat, anywhere you damn well please. If it exists, there’s probably a version with a MP3 player stuck in it.
(honorable mention: Podcasting)

Custom Soundtracks
Sorry friends, most videogame music sucks. Gaming should be the combined art of visuals, interactivity, and sound. In practice, most works just meh their way through two thirds of those qualities. Thankfully, being able to replace most Xbox 360 soundtracks with your own saves you from 1/3rd of the mediocre qualities in a videogame. Bless their hearts for forcing that. Now if Sony could force this on all developers, we’d be in good business.
(honorable mention: Custom Ringtones/Ringback)

HD Projectors
You’re stuck in a classroom watching a powerpoint of some halfhearted lecture, you look in the back of the machine and see all the A/V inputs that you use for your awesome things, then you think to yourself, “holy shit wouldn’t it be sweet to have this in my house?!” Well friend, for $500 you can. The results are the best any priest could hope for. You can have the biggest personal TV screen in your city if you play your alignment right. The other shocker is I have nothing but contempt for HDTVs when I’m not watching the game. The input lag on almost all of them makes twitch video gaming almost impossible. HD Projectors don’t have these problems. Fuck you HDTV, bless you HD projector.
(honorable mention: free streamed porn)

Touch Smartphones/Personal Digital Assistants
Nothing made me look like I knew what I was doing more than having a personal organizer in my pocket. I had a Palm PDA for the longest time with a 4GB MP3 player in it. This was years before the iTouch. Nowadays, phones with touch capability often have competent organizers built into it. In addition, hundreds of random applications can be hosted by your phone to do any electronic task you can think of. Smartphones are a work of wonder, even if the cell phone service powering them is overpriced junk.
(honorable mention: Nintendo DS)
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iPhone 3GS: I know, I know. The obvious choice for the Apple Fanboy in the audience but bear with me. I never bought a 3G back when Steve and Co. debuted the new “faster internet” version of the iPhone. My old 2G hooked into the web just fine, ran Apps decently and did everything I wanted it too. Or so I thought. With this little beauty, not only do I have a much needed compass to help me find my own house when I’m lost, it allows me to stream podcasts and music on the fly and take videos of my kids before they turn into teenagers tomorrow. Hell, I can even mistakenly send that picture of me with no pants to my loan officer instead of just texting him insults to his mother. Technology is, truly, grand. What was already a device that had my very life housed inside it has somehow become an even more important and valuable piece of equipment. I’m never without it.

Vintage 1952 Telecaster Reissue: Like every red-blooded American boy, I’ve always wanted to be a guitar player. Aided by the impending Classic Rock inspired Shmopera 3.0, I decided it was time to stop fucking around and do it. I’ve had my eye on this guitar since I first saw Springsteen playing on an actual 1952 Telecaster as a kid and when it came time to buy my first serious guitar, there could be no other. It may be a reissue but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock the shit out of everything you play. It’s a dream and plays like a classic American guitar should: loud and sexy. Add in a new VOX tube amp and I’m in rock and roll heaven. Tom Petty cover band, here I come. If I wasn’t married, I would sleep with this thing. I’m in love.

Up!: I’ve heard tell of animated movies that made crowds weep with emotion. I’ve never had an animated movie move me that way, until Pete Doctor’s Up!, that is. In the course of about three minutes, the story of a man and his wife goes by and ends with the main character sitting alone and holding a balloon after the funeral of his wife. An animated movie had me crying in the theater. Call me a baby, call me a wimp. I call Pete Doctor and the artists at Pixar some of the best storytellers and craftsmen that have ever lived. Thank God they exist.

Twitter: Hilden from 2008 wants to punch the Hilden of 2009 right in his pussy fucking face with this pick. It’s true, however, that Twitter has become one of the most important communication tools for Drunken Gamers Radio and it’s community of kick ass listeners. Not to mention, it’s a great way to keep in touch with what’s going on in world of entertainment, politics, comedy, music, comics and anything else I have an interest in. It’s everything I love about forums but without all the shit I hate. It’s what I wanted Facebook to be before a shit ton of people I didn’t even talk to in High School made the social network the equivalent of a yearbook popularity contest. Twitter is how I like to keep in touch with people. Short and to the point communications with a link to more shit if you want it. Twitter, I hate to say it, is the missing piece to the DGR/Robot Panic puzzle that started with a forum burned to the ground by a merciless robot. I love to Tweet. There. I said it. Fuck you.

LOST: For a show that really started to flounder around Season 3, this show really found it’s stride and once again sits as one of the best shows on television. In it’s 2009 Season, the element of time travel was used, not as a groan-inducing “we don’t know where to go from here” cop-out but as a brilliantly executed tool that was integral to a compelling and pivotal story arc. With only one season to go, LOST has taken it’s place as one of the most engaging stories I have witnessed on television and in 2009, it consistently delivered on it’s promise. My only regret is that it’s only got one more season before it’s over.

The Beatles Re-Masters: I’ve always been a Beatles fan but I’ve never seriously delved into their music. I’m not sure if it just wasn’t the right time in my life or what, but I’ve always had a passing fancy with the group. When the Re-Masters hit this year, the aspiring audio engineer in me decided to pick them up just to learn something about the mastering process. What ended up happening is a multiple month long voyage of musical discovery regarding song writing and construction. Those lessons ended up infusing most of my contributions to the ZomBOOsical! and gave me a whole new insight into what makes a great band great. My only regret is that it took me this long to really understand what the Beatles were all about. The new versions of these classic albums not only sound fantastic but they also restored my love of the physical medium of the CD for my music purchases. While I still download many songs digitally, if it’s anything of worth, I’m back to buying it on CD thanks to these albums.

The Protomen: Act II-The Father of Death: We’re obviously big fans of the rock “opera” thing here at Robot Panic. As such, The Protomen’s latest offering is one of my favorite albums of the year. Yes, it tells a great little story that is set in the world of one of my favorite videogames. However, it’s the songs themselves that set this album apart. They all have great hooks, some fantastic 80′s synth action and they’re catchy as hell. It’s a really well produced album and from a musical perspective, it sets the bar high for other folks hoping to do much the same. Um..yeah…that would be us.

Dexter: I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but I have to mention that Dexter goes down as one of the most cleverly crafted shows to appear on television. It got my wife and I to plunk down another $10.00 a month we don’t have just to see them all in time. I was in love with Season 3, even though many didn’t like it as much. I, however, thought it would be pretty hard to top. With Season 4′s scary, disturbing, brilliant and completely shocking story now over, I have NO idea where things go from here but I’ve never been more anxious to see a season of television start.

And that season finale ending scene will haunt me for months. I’m fucking serious.

All of You: Excuse the bit of cheese that’s about to be written here. I have to say that one of my favorite things of 2009 was all of you who read, listen and contribute to our little home on the web. I’m not gonna lie. A little over a year ago, I was done with websites, forums and podcasts. For reasons of my own addled brain, I was fighting hard to kill everything and shut it all down. Thanks to my good friends talking me down off the ledge, we managed to find what was missing and move things in a more positive direction for the three of us.

In turn, all of you who have been with us since the beginning of Team Fremont (or even GWX) and those of you only a week old have written in, called, submitted articles, left iTunes reviews and (most shockingly) donated your hard earned money to our show. There are simply no words to express how grateful I am for all of you and your contributions. I only hope that our show and site continue to entertain you or at least make you laugh once before you unsubscribe in disgust.

Thank you for making 2009 the best year we’ve ever had.

44th Presidential Inauguration - Calm down.  This isn’t about him, it’s about you.  On one hand, this was another routine (yet fascinating) display of our model of government; on the other, it was completely different.  The year began with a sight I thought I would never see: a black man sworn in as the president of the United States.  If you have lived where I’ve lived and been where I’ve been, you know what I’m talking about.  There was a time, and it was within the life span of millions who voted in 2008, that even the suggestion of a black president would have incited riots and widespread hate crimes.  But once again, a peaceful and surprisingly quick transfer of power took place for the 44th time in our young nation’s history, and nobody died.  Those two things are remarkable if you consider the tremendous political power at stake and, that little chestnut, the Civil War.  It is a subtle and welcome reminder that, while I don’t like everything that happens here (admit it, nobody does), we live in a pretty amazing place.  We can say what we like and we can disagree, vehemently at times, but we aren’t going to disappear in the night or be stoned in the street.  For these things, I am grateful.

HDTV - Well, I’ll be slapped and called a tree frog, broadcast High Definition Television has FINALLY arrived as the standard.  Men on the moon… 1969.  HDTV…. 2009.  Somebody has been manipulating my wallet.  Don’t give me your technical mumbo jumbo explanations, I’m not even listening.  It’s all a lie!  But there is a sunny side, a certain weather anchor is now even more defined than before!  If only I could remember where I put those spurs…

Michael Jackson - June 25, 2009, provided us with one of those moments where many people will remember where they were and what they were doing when the news broke: out of nowhere, Michael Jackson was dead.  Plenty can be said of his private life, much of it embarrassing and awkward, but few need many words, if any, to describe his music.  In particular, I’m thinking about the music he recorded in the late 1970s through the end of the 1980s.  The day after Jackson died, I was off with a high school marching band at a parade in another state.  It was a big parade with 15-20 marching bands, which amounts to a lot of noise.  Simply out of the need to manage a crowd that large, all the bands were housed in a baseball stadium and fed hot dogs and Mountain Dew: excellent idea.  To keep the band members occupied, music was playing over the loud speakers; a constant variety of whatever it is the kids like these days.  But when Thriller came on, much to my delight, about 1000 high school students got up and started dancing.  And they continued through Billy Jean and Bad.  Then I saw the same phenomenon happening nearly everywhere I went, be it the mall, stadium, or outside on a sidewalk. All these people were wrapped up in a moment of total bliss and, in my opinion, the finest tribute to pay a musician.  No need to further eulogize or demonize the man, there’s nothing more that need be said about Michael Jackson.  Just dance.

Airplanes - Because of these marvels of engineering, we had Philthy Phil Haymes (the official 4th stool at the bar) in our loving embrace for another couple of weeks.  It’s special because he’s from London or England, I can’t remember, which is super far from here.  Either way, considering the spectacular conclusion to Shmopera #2, significantly enhanced by the meedly, meedly, shreddy guitar of one Philthy (via the intertubes), the thought of recording more of this nonsense in the same room was too much to bear.  Not only did he show up ready to play, but he also had 4 bottles of Old Rosie Cloudy Scrumpy.  It’s an apple booze about a tractor.  In a word, London.  Or England.  I can’t remember.

South Carolina - Governor Mark Sanford’s Argentinian-Appalachian adventure; Representative Joe Wilson’s State of the Union flatulent ; “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” – some poor schmuck at a town hall meeting.  Oh, South Carolina, you crazy, eight-toothed bastard, you’re too much!

Roland V-Drums - These have been around for many years, but out of nowhere, they came rushing in to save… or inspire the day!  I started off with the entry level kit I bought off Craig’s List for an unreasonably low price, but have already upgraded due to extreme badassitude.  The internal sound bank is a bit shitty and really not intended for live performance, but we only needed the set to function as a MIDI controller we could hit with sticks… and not break.  Digital keyboards don’t work like that.  Weird.  Anyway, those beauties allowed us to begin recording via digital drum set.  Until now, everything we did had been a combination of loops or a keyboard kit, which is hard as hell to play.  While we thought this was going to be a handy little tool for recording the Shmopera, it instead led us down an entirely different path, which brings us to….

ZomBOOsical! - What is there to say?  Please buy it.  Again and again and again!  Those lobsters are super-the-deliciousist!  And I’ve made a lovely lobster coat and lobster shorts, though the lobster-claw tinkle slot (where the zipper is usually found) can be a bit treacherous to navigate.  In about 3 1/2 weeks we wrote and recorded a musical tome that would make Homer turn and run from his sophomoric Odyssey in shame.  It would have been finished in less than a week, but we had to go to those stupid jobs.  Though, to be fair to Hilden, there were some, we’ll call them “inspired,” tracks that required about 3-4 weeks of editing.  Plus he needed time to brew all that science he pours over the music stuff.  It’s very technical and works exactly as I have described.  He pours science on it.  Out of his science cup.  ZomBOOsical!

Shmups - What a great year for a genre I thought had been left behind!  Inside of 12 months we saw the release of Raiden IV, Raiden Fighters Aces, and Mushihime-sama Futari!  Granted they were all for one system (360), but still… kick ass!

XBox Live - It’s been a full year for me, back in the saddle, as it were.  I dropped my Live account back in Fall 2006, when I decided against investing in a 360 and no longer played with John or Hilden because I moved within a reasonable drive for the the first time in 6 years.  The single reason I bought an Xbox in the first place was so we could still hang, albeit in a virtual sex room, or game lobby, whatever, once a week.  When I moved back to the area, there wasn’t a need to maintain the account anymore.  So I quit.  But after those knuckleheads bought me a 360 for Xmas last year, I had to sign up again.  Not much choice, really.  And it’s been fantastic!  The service itself continues to improve with a generally consistent formula of two steps forward, one step back, thus demonstrating somebody has finally created an online environment that works remarkable well on a home console and interfaces relatively well with much of the social networking and customizable trends in music.  It has also provided some tremendously entertaining moments with some of our good friends from the website, podcast, former lives, and beyond.  In general, I don’t play games nearly as much as I used to, but it is always great to know that when I do log on, there is going to be somebody who’s up for a round or two of digital shenanigans.  Excellent.

In years to come, I’ll look back fondly on 2009 as having some great films, albums, and games, but also as being an all-around good year personally. 2009 was the year I knocked up my wife for the second time and the year my first son started becoming a miniature human, capable of interacting and making me laugh with his great sense of humor. It was the first year I felt even remotely like a musician in nearly a decade and the year that our website and podcast really took shape in the way in which we always intended. So let’s take a look back at the stuff in 2009 that gave me a tingly-in-the-pants feeling.

The Music: Two of my favorite bands put out albums this year. Pearl Jam started off with Backspacer, a tight, rapid-fire album that proved they are still among the best – if not the best – rock and roll bands in existence. They managed to stay relevant after nearly twenty years, outlasting the grunge fad and the dark period of the late 90s and early 00s when musicians were cast aside for pop-star-douchebaggery, and come out better than ever.

And then there’s The Flaming Lips. What can I say about these crazy bastards other than I love them? First, they released an amazingly psychedelic double-album Embryonic, encased in a fuzzy, almost pubic-hair-like material, and then, with hardly any notice, they put out an album covering Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Both are challenging and hypnotic listens and both are among my favorite albums of the year.

Speaking of the Lips, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, a band fronted by Wayne Coyne’s nephew, released their first album, which was a great return to the psychedelic garage band rock that I grew up playing and loving.

But my favorite album of the year was Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective. I have never heard anything quite like the “Phillip Glass meets The Beach Boys” (via Hilden) sound of this album, and it kept me entranced for weeks. They also released the EP Fall Be Kind later in the year.

And finally, there was the debut album by Spinnerette. I only heard of this album because the band includes my all-time favorite drummer, Jack Irons, but I was pleasantly surprised by how great the tunes were. Singer Brody Dalle put together a fun, punchy album that proves chicks don’t need to put out candy-pop shit to be successful these days.

Other albums I dug in 2009 include Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, Sonic Youth’s The Eternal, and The Mars Volta’s Octahedron.
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Video gaming: L4D2, Borderlands and Recessions.

So yeah, L4D2 happened. It’s awesome. If I need to say more, you clearly do not read this site enough.

Borderlands is a loot-whoring masterpiece. I cannot put it more clearly. This game ripped my arm open, found the same vein that I had blown out with years of Diablo 2 playing, revitalized it, and pumped it full of a new, equally delicious blend of addictiveness. Also, monsters with vagoos for mouths. Awesome.

Let’s speak about how our current state of economic fuckery has helped, if not the gaming industry as a whole, my experience with it. People started swapping more used games, and indeed selling them outright for cheap. As such, I acquired Batman, Borderlands, and a few other titles for far less than I would have, and in that lovely time in which they’re fresh and new and the hype machine hasn’t forgotten about them. This also gave me time to catch up on my backlog of JRPGs, because I hate myself.

Movies: Zombies, yo!

So Zombieland was also awesome. If Woody Harrelson going mental on a zombie with a pair of hedge clippers doesn’t give you a thrill deep inside, you are dead inside, sir. And Woody Harrelson is going to go mental on you with some sort of garden tool.

Like Fido and other, Britishier movies before it, Zombieland takes a classic genre (the teen road trip self-discovery movie) and fills it full of zombie goodness like the cream filling injected into a twinkie (the artificially-flavored pastry, not the pornographic image). It shows us that somewhere out there, someone in Hollywood gets us. We don’t want 90 minutes of splosions, or people in furry suits murdering space marines (Ok, admittedly both of those sound wicked awesome on paper, but bear with me), we want the same nonsense we’ve wanted for the last decade, but full of flesh-eating mutants.

Make it so!

Books

Ok, so Jim Butcher has been writing well before 2009, but I’m going to talk about him now, so deal.

In addition to having a totally metal name, Butcher writes hard-boiled detective fiction in which the detective is a wizard, and kills supernatural evil with fire. Also guns, but usually fire.

Imagine Harry Potter, grown up, bitter, living paycheck to paycheck (oh, and he also accidently ‘splodes anything electronic he comes within 10 feet of). Instead of the grand plotting and investigating, he spends 20 minutes kicking the bajeezus out of Snape, then Hadoukens the big bad guy. With fire.

It’s delightful.

He’s also written a fantasy series about how the one person without magical talent in the world essentially becomes a medievel Batman. Only with more face-murdering. These things deserve perusal. Of the highest order.

Overall (this pretty much means websites)

Beyond that, I have a few favoritest things to throw down.

www.Cracked.com: It may not be the best internet writing. It may not be the cleanest. It is my favorite morning outlet for poop jokes and screaming obscenity this year.

www.Hulu.com: I gave up cable just over a year ago. Occasionally when I jones for bad TV and watch instantly doesn’t slake my thirst, this comes to the rescue. It also enough bad anime to choke a horse that eats other horses on a routine basis (and as such does not choke often).

The Robot Panic Community on XBLA. From the friendly seething emnity DJ and I have for one another, to Moe’s constant jump from apathy to frenzied rage, to Tiggermango and Apoch’s cheerful acceptance of my jerkassness, to Skreesha’s continuing polite laughter, to BNerdy and the like who give me things they know I will never appreciate, and to everyone else who dies a little inside as I’m inflicted upon them in a L4D2 room, I love you guys. Part of the reason I don’t pay attention to the console hype and competition is it simply does not matter to me anymore. The community I hang out with is on XBLA. When that moves, so shall I. You all have made my L4D2 games hilarious, Borderlands fun(ner), and bad movies hysterical.

And as I said last year. My avatar violates your avatar in the night. In every way imaginable.

Toodles!

The Shield Season 7 DVD Set – The last season of my favorite cop drama, and possibly one of my all time favorite television series. If you have yet to give The Shield a shot, you are missing out on something special. The last season especially does not skip a beat, and features a very shocking, yet fitting conclusion.

PSN/Microsoft/WII Points Cards – Previous years have seen many high caliber PSN/XBLA/Wii Ware releases. 2009 is arguably one of the best years in download releases with studs like Shadow Complex, Trine and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years to name a few of many. Additionally, it has been a killer year for game add-on content with Neversoft and Harmonix still strongly supporting their respective music games, and titles like Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2, FallOut 3, Little Big Planet, Killzone 2 and many more being consistently fed new DLC throughout the year to increae the lifespan and replay value of their titles. I do not know about you, but I have at least bought well into the double digits of PSN/MS cards this year alone. If you keep a keen eye to online retailers, you can find many of those going at huge bargains for big savings on that oh-so-easy-to-impulse buy DLC.

I Love You, Man – It was a close battle between this and The Hangover for my favorite comedy this year. But after seeing both a second time several months after the fact, I Love You Man surprisingly holds up better. The jokes still hit home for me, with the highlight being the vomit gag, which is easily one of the best shock laughs in all of film.

Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker – At Wrestlemania XXIV this year, I witnessed hands down, the best wrestling match of all time. This is somewhat strange since it featured none of the over the top gimmicks or stipulations from the wrestling world like ladders, thumbtacks, cages or other props. Strangest of all, this bout was between two wrestlers that many consider are both well past their prime and rapidly approaching retirement. Just like Brett Favre has proven skeptics in Minnesota this year, athletes can be like abottle of fine wine and improve with age as Undertaker and Shawn Michaels put on a five star mat classic for the ages. If you ever watched wrestling at one point in the past then by all means rent/Netflix Wrestlemania XXIV just f this match, I guarantee you will not regret it.

10 Year Anniversary of the Dreamcast – Sega’s dream may be long gone, but at least it was honored and remembered this year with class. Across the web, many videogame press outlets had a ten year anniversary nod towards the Dreamcast, and even a few new indie games were released for it this year. Someday, somewhere, Shenmue III will see the light of day.

Taken – Note to self, do not kidnap Liam Neeson’s daughter.

Engagement Ring
Sure I know the diamond industry is artificial supply and other price fixing garbage, but when I proposed to me pre-wife, her ongoing mushing over this ring have made the whole mess worth it. Also, I’m gettin’ married, bitches! My girl is cooler than all’y’all’s girls. In the most non-whipped tool way possible, gettin’ my ass married is at the top of the list stuff. Oreganoh fo lyfe!

PSPgo
Fuck you smartphones, this thing is what’s in my pocket ever since I got it. 28Gigs of music, PS2 games, and television all up on me thanks to Amazon M2 christmas deals. I’ve dropped this thing like, seven times and thank the jesus it doesn’t break. Well I dunno about you early adaptors, but I can’t recommend this thing enough. What a great lifestyle device. Good times, good times.

Mushihimesama Futari
Cave making this region free is a huge deal. The game is evil, crazy, and screeching on the ears, but what you gonna do when you’re up against some of the hardest bullet patterns conceived? Buy more copies so Espgaluda 2 goes region free as well.

Raiden Comeback
Between Raiden Fighters Aces and Raiden IV, STGs had a lot of good things going for them; all for $62 total. Raiden Fighters series was a great thing to port with leaderboards, as those scoring systems are some of the strangest I’ve played. Raiden IV is more like a Raiden III-DX, but a formula worth upgrading. I’m not worried about $2 DLC. I’d like to think purchasing that was less money going to Gamestop and more going to Moss and UFO.

Watchmen
We hope you enjoyed the last serious attempt at a R movie made from a comic. I don’t buy the printed version of anything after watching it, but this film is probably the first and last exception I’ll make to the rule. You did good David Hayter…you did good.

DJ Hero
Anytime I tried Rock Band or Guitar Hero alone, I got bored. Quickly. This turntable hero business tailors itself better to a 1-player style. I love mashups and original mixes to explore while practicing faux scratching is an experience I wouldn’t put down till the very end.

Wireless N Gaming
With the release of N wireless gaming adaptors, I can finally get good online play without hauling my box to a SDTV upstairs cramped in a small room. I can play online at my theater with less of the lagtastic bullshit from my end. I wish this was the standard and all G and B were flat-out outlawed. That’d be a good day. Now if only we can get the frikkin’ ISPs to cooperate…

Gameyard
Dunno where this place came from, but it appears every Thursday in Garden City, Michigan, the fighting game scene meets up to play Street Fighter 4 and Tekken 6 for $6 a day. Six large HD screens side by side, 20 players all bringing their own arcade sticks, money matches, shit talking, deep information exchanges, no input lag, and I can’t make a dent in any of these players. Holy shit I actually gotta practice. Terrific! If you’re ever chillin’ in the Murda Mitten state, this is where the party is.

Left 4 Dead 2
A few steps forward on single player, a few steps back on multiplayer. Scavenge is cool, Hard Rain is sweet, new infected are neat, but goddammit I don’t wanna wait 9 months to get the new game up to the optimized speed of the first game. Currently, framerate drops like a rock in all modes when shit goes down, lag issues are ongoing in multiplayer, collision detection sucks more and not something to have when you gotta make a Charger work. Also, why the hell can’t I pick what infected I wanna use? Team Fortress devs are probably crying right now. It sucks widespread community won’t go back to old game, but oh well, new coat of paint, still a slick game.

Saw VI
Good god did a lot of movies suck this year. Nobody knows why effort is still being put into this series, but it’s there and still a great time. Die insurance adjusters, die! Weee!