The following are selections for our fave-rave games of the year. These aren’t meant to be consensus picks, nor should this be mistaken for a definitive list. I just asked people to submit their choices, along with their justifications. Beg to differ? Have something else to add? You know what to do.

8BL Quick Picks:

• Fallout: New Vegas (Erin Mischak)
• Just Dance (Laverne Mann)
• Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Justin Hoenke)
• Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX (Toby Greenwalt)
• Red Dead Redemption (Chris Murray)
• Rock Band 3 (JP Porcaro)

See the full reviews after the jump.

Fallout: New Vegas – selected by Erin Mischak

WHAT? Fallout New Vegas is a RPG post-apocalyptic romp through the desert wasteland, for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It’s essentially Fallout 3 redux with new characters, weapons and quests. But New Vegas also brings a few interesting additions, such as a reputation system that affects a player’s interactions with different factions, and Hardcore Mode, which among other things requires your character to eat, drink and sleep to avoid, you know, death.

WHY? If you like RPGs, the Fallout universe is a great place to be – the maps are enormous with lots to explore, there are myriad quests and NPCs, and lots of opportunities to really customize your experience. Like Fallout 3, this is a game you can play again and again — your character’s karma and reputation with different factions open up different opportunities for dialog and quests, and the “perks” you choose as you level up add yet another dimension to the mix.

WHO? If you couldn’t get enough of Fallout 3, you’ll love having another chance to immerse yourself in the Fallout universe. Also, the tweaks they’ve made since 3 make the game a little more challenging, which will appeal to the serious gamer. But if you’re looking for a totally new experience from Fallout 3, look elsewhere. This is basically the same game, just more of it. (Which is just fine by me.)
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Just Dance – selected by Laverne Mann

WHAT? Some serious cardio can be done dancing to songs like Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Girls and Boys, Hot and Cold, and even some rock like Lump (wow, saw the Presidents of the USA do this live years ago at the Masquerade in Atlanta!) Oddly, even annoying songs I’d never listen to are ok in Just Dance – Cotton Eyed Joe and Who Let the Dogs Out? were great hits with my 5 year old greatniece. The song selection is limited (guess that’s why Just Dance II is a best seller), but the variety does range from Mashed Potato, Surfin’ Bird to disco to 80s to rock. You can compete for points if you pull off a move perfect. There is also a last person standing competition.

WHY? Just Dance is the rare game where it’s entertaining enough to play by myself; or as a fun social party game. Even watchers are amused while players do moves like the lasso and punch and move.

WHO? In the library it could be great for all ages– from little kids who don’t care about points; teens who want to dance; to seniors who are game for a mashed potato contest!
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Kirby’s Epic Yarn – selected by Justin Hoenke

WHAT? Kirby’s Epic Yarn isn’t the most revolutionary platforming game to come out in the past few years, but it is tons of fun. You control Kirby who is on a quest to find 7 pieces of magic yarn to reunite Patch Land. Simple yet unique game.

WHY? Kirby’s Epic Yarn is both super enjoyable and ridiculously cute. Combine those two with excellent game play and beautiful graphics and you have a winner on your hands.

WHO? Anyone looking for a fun adventure game should check out Kirby’s Epic Yarn. It’s a must for libraries to have…patrons of all ages who own a Wii will get something out of this title.
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Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX – selected by Toby Greenwalt

WHAT? On the surface, it’s the Pac-Man we’ve seen in countless iterations. Our hero races through the maze, chomping pellets and avoiding ghosts. If he gets a power pellet, he can turn the tables and chow down on the ghosts for a few seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. The principle is the same here with Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX, but altered just enough to make things new and refreshing. For most of us, success in the original games was something of a limited prospect. We’d race through the maze, hoping to stave off the spectres of death long enough to feel like we hadn’t wasted our time (or our quarters). Instead of avoiding failure, the DX edition is about chasing success. Dying is hardly an issue. Between the bombs (which knock the ghosts out of the way) and the bullet-time (which kicks the game into slow-motion during close calls, providing ample escape opportunities), you’re unlikely to lose a single life in a round, let alone all of them. Instead you’re chasing the Score – and given an endless route of changing maps, scoring opportunities, and power pellets with which to do so. And it’s there that the game becomes a thing of beauty. Instead of telling the player “don’t fail too badly,” the game asks “sure, you can succeed – but by how much?”

WHY? Because they took a perfect game, and perfected it. Because you’ll be searching for ways to build on your high scores or shave seconds off your Time Trial bests for hours on end. Because plowing through thirty ghosts in one go is a thrill that never gets old. Because for a measly ten dollars, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX will show you the secrets of the universe.

WHO? You, that’s who. Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX provides ideally-sized portions of Pure Gaming Excitement that would be a hit at any library gaming event. Games are short, allowing many people to participate. The difficulty curve is set in such a way that even rank newbies can feel like Billy Mitchell, and experts will be racing to find ways to build on their high scores. And if the bullet-time near-misses don’t generate shouts and claps from the crowd, I’ll eat my hat. If you can work a joystick, this game has your number.
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Red Dead Redemption – selected by Chris Murray

A paddlewheel pulls into a large Western town. Among the disembarking passengers is a grizzled, scarred cowboy, escorted by two lawmen. The cowboy is perp walked onto a train, where he sits quietly listening to his high-class fellow passengers talk about how the American West is finally becoming civilized; motorcars are replacing horses, naive young girls are replacing cowboys, and the white man is here to gentrify the savages. Red Dead Redemption is the story of John Marston, the taciturn former outlaw. Marston quit his gang and was attempting to live the rest of his life peacefully with his wife and son, giving up bank-robbing and horse-thieving for a simpler life of farming and ranching. But, as so often is the case, his past will not leave him behind. The gang of which he was formerly a member is terrorising the Southwest, and the FBI have, let us say, transported his wife and children to a remote — but safe — location, where they will stay until Marston brings the rest of his former gang to justice and clear his name (the “Redemption” of the title).

In true sandbox tradition, there is more to do than simply follow the plot from A to B. You learn to lasso and break horses; you can find herbs for local doctors or flowers for lost wanderers; you can hunt deer or buffalo, skin and butcher them, and sell their hides and meat. You can play poker in the local saloon, or practice your coordination with a knife in a back alley. You can hunt down local troublemakers and collect the bounty on their heads, or you can be hunted yourself by bears, mountain lions, or particularly vicious javelinas.

You are drawn into the story and the setting from the start, and the game doesn’t let go. The West is a wide, wild, lonesome place, and is gorgeously rendered. The music is the familiar, atmospheric, whistle-harmonica-and-snare of the best Western movie tradition; even without the visuals, simply close your eyes and you can imagine the tumbleweeds blowing through the sagebrush, feel the dry desert wind in your hair, taste the gritty red dust in your teeth. You feel the confusion and bitterness as Marston is strung along, a pawn in a game he never wanted to play in the first place. You fight off gangs, you rescue hostages, and you even take part in a revolution south of the border; but through it all, Marston never loses his determination to reunite with his family and finally put the past to rest.

There is a fairly intensive online multiplayer element, but as a firm believer in the sad truth of John Gabriel’s GIFT, i have not ventured into that particular wilderness. There is also downloadable content available; standing out from the rest is the brilliant “Undead Nightmare”, where Marston must save New Austin from a zombie outbreak. I recommend waiting until near the end of the game to play it, as while it takes place in an alternate universe, it starting point is about 9/10ths of the way into the plot, and much could be spoiled by playing it too early. Not only is this game my choice for “best of the year”, but it is one of the best of this generation, and far and away the best of its genre. Red Dead Redemption takes every element of the Western — every cliche, every stock character, every overarching theme — and rolls them up into a beautiful, immersive, and overall incredibly fun game.

WHAT? The best Western game on this or any other platform ever, Red Dead Redemption is a well-told tale that proves that even the hoariest cliches can be put to novel use.

WHY? A beautifully bittersweet run through an underappreciated genre; one of the best sandbox games of this generation, even if you don’t like the Old West.

WHO? Adults. This isn’t the sanitized Davy Crockett Old West; there is death and blood and sex and cursing and skinless animals just lying there all pink and grody. Seriously, ew.

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Rock Band 3 – selected by JP Porcaro

What? The funnest party game of the year. Rock Band took all the fun of music gaming, but tried to remove the “staleness” of the genre by adding a real MIDI Keyboard (Keytar!), real guitars, 3-part-vocal-harmonies, and doubled the amount of drum pads. On top of that, it nearly doubled the amount of simultaneous players per song.

Why? The game has 80+ on-disk songs, a library of over 2000+ songs to download, and allows you to export almost all the songs from Rock Band, Rock Band 2, and Lego Rock Band for use in this game. My personal song library is nearing 500 songs. This in itself makes for hours of karaoke fun at a time.

Who? Up to 7 players at a time means that this game supports more play action than every Xbox game in any genre. For that reason, it fits better in a library setting than most games, because the more engagement we have, the better. With the addition of Pro mode and multiple microphones, the game has raised both the top level and lowered the bottom: even the most hardcore music gamers can have new challenges, and those who’s never even played a video game could jump on a microphone and get the full gaming experience.
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What are your Games of the Year? Share your opinions in the comments.

One word: KEYTAR!

There’s a problem with these games, however.  They’ve gone stale.  DDR all but died out after Guitar Hero caught fire, and neither Guitar Hero nor Rock Band have offered much of anything new in their most recent incarnations.  True, both Activision and EA have offered new music for download that gamers can use with their respective franchises, but that’s about it.  This is great for casual gamers who just want to hang out and enjoy some music while experiencing some degree of interaction, but hardcore gamers (such as myself) have moved on.

True, with a library gaming program, you’ll always have patrons who have never played a music game before; there will always be an audience for anything.  But what about your most enthusiastic gamers?  What do you do when the teenage boys who crash the doors get tired of Rock Band?

Why, you expand, of course!  There are some music games out there that offer the same boons as the more familiar series’ but serve up some fresh game play.

DJ Hero

DJ Hero was released late last year.  It received generous reviews,but was something of a commercial flop.  This has led to Activision, the game’s publisher, being less than supportive when it comes to downloadable content.  It’s a shame, really, that this game didn’t get set any sales records; that means there are a good number of gamers missing out on a great experience.  Instead of a guitar or drum kit, gamers get a controller shaped as a DJ turntable.  The basic game play is the same: press the colored buttons in time with the on-screen display.  However, the techniques that DJs use–scratching, sampling, crossfading, and rewinding–are thrown in to spice things up and encourage gamers to get creative.  Noticeably more difficult, but also packed with much more personality, than any previous music games, DJ Hero makes incredible demands on a gamer’s dexterity and situational awareness, requiring almost as much raw skill as the most intense shooters.  Of course, there are multiple difficulty levels and game play modes (including one that uses a guitar controller for some DJ/guitarist duets), so there’s no need for novice gamers to be intimidated.  One thing I really like about this game is its music selection: the soundtrack is comprised of mash-ups of popular songs spanning numerous decades and genres.  It’s available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Playstation 2.  It might be a bit pricey, but imagine a DJ battle at your next library gaming event.

Audiosurf

This is a game that is just plain fun no matter how you look at it.  Like the great video games of the past, it is inherently simple, rewards success while allowing for massive failure, has a clearly-defined goal, and–despite its repetitive nature–never gets old.

Developed independently by Dylan Fitterer, Audiosurf uses your music collection to render its levels.  You select the song from your hard drive or external storage device (it supports any non-DRM protected format), and from that song the game engine will create an obstacle course.  You then pilot a ship down that obstacle course, avoiding gray blocks while picking up colored ones.  As the music intensifies, so does the obstacle course: gray blocks are more frequent, while colored blocks are worth more points.  There are multiple ships to choose from over three different difficulty levels, and the game comes with some tracks, should you find your digital music collection lacking.

Audiosurf is available for PC either through the Steam online marketplace.  If you want it on multiple computers, you’ll need multiple Steam accounts (which are themselves free) and buy a copy for each account.

Beat Hazard

If Audiosurf is inherently simple and approachable, Beat Hazard is one for the hardcore crowd.  An intense experience in both difficulty and presentation, Beat Hazard shares many of the same features as Audiosurft–including using the music from your digital collection to render its levels–and thus many of the same social benefits.  Except where Audiosurft is a delightful experience in discovering music, Beat Hazard is a brutal test of skill, timing, and coordination.

As with Audiosurf, the more intense the music, the more intense the difficulty.  Norwegian black metal will generate a more difficult game play experience than easy listening.  However, the difficulty seems to revved up all over the board in this game; you would think The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love” wouldn’t be that intense of a song, but it produced a tricky level in Beat Hazard.

Beat Hazard’s main differentiation from Audiosurf is that it’s not a racing game, but a twin-stick shooter (also called an arena shooter).  I highly recommend a wired Xbox 360 controller for this game (you can hook it up via USB to your PC) as it’s built for this kind of game play.  You use one joystick to move a spaceship through the 2D space while you shoot with the other stick, the ship shooting in whatever direction you aim.  This makes it possible to move and shoot in two different directions–handy when you’re weaving in and out through waves of enemies.  If an enemy touches you, you lose a life; lose all of your lives, and it’s game over.  You’re given two screen-clearing bombs to help even the odds, and you can earn additional lives and bombs.

Also different in Audiosurf is an XP (experience points) system.  You earn XP for shooting down enemy spacecraft and pulling off high-risk moves; you earn bonus points for surviving for an entire song.  Accumulating enough XP will unlock rewards to help you accumulate even more XP.

Beat Hazard is presented with incredibly good graphics; strobe effects, huge explosions, and starships that fill the screen couple with your own music to create some truly memorable gaming moments.  A recent update to the game gives gamers the option of removing the strobe effects so that people sensitive to such can still play and enjoy this game.  It’s available through Steam, so the same DRM apply to it as do Audiosurf.

So what now?

You’ve downloaded Audiosurf and Beat Hazard to a few gaming PCs in your library, and you’re all set for a DJ battle in your multipurpose room.  Use this opportunity to reach out to your teens.  Set up a display of books on music, famous musicians, careers in the music industry, and fiction relating to DJ and rock star culture.  Load some classical music onto the PCs that have Audiosurf and Beat Hazard to show the participants just how intense (and how much like popular music) classical music is.  And don’t forget the opportunities for social interaction and inter-generational gaming.  It’s easy to imagine teens trying to outdo each other with this game, playing the same songs and trying to rack up higher scores–or challenging each other to their own favorite music.  Allow adults to bring in the music they enjoyed as youth and compare the kind of stages the oldies and classic rock render compared to today’s pop hits.

These games, especially Audiosurf and Beat Hazard, are a great way to demonstrate how gaming helps us interact with our favorite works of art on a more personal level: I really liked the Black Crowes, DragonForce, Metallica, the Smashing Pumpkins, Slipknot, and Dinosaur Jr. before, but I really like them now, as they are tied to my favorite hobby, and I’ve visualized their music in a real, interactive way.  I can’t help but listen to a new song without imagining what its Audiosurf or Beat Hazard level would be like.  The chance to experience music in an interactive way, and thus discover a new appreciation for it, was one of the things gamers praised about Rock Band and Guitar Hero, except for now they’re not limited to what EA or Activision is able to get a licensing deal with; any music they own can be used in the game.  It’s mind-blowing at just how much musical education and appreciation can be launched with these games.

Of course, you’ll want to be careful with ripping music to the computer for in-game use; it’s easy to break copyright law, so delete any songs from your hard drive that are not taken from CDs owned by the library after your program to stay on the safe side of the law.

And by the way, don’t get rid of your DDR, Rock Band, and Guitar Hero collections.  You can never have too many games, and you can never have too much music.

In my never ending quest to provide quality games and gaming to my library users, I have hit a road block.

How in the world can I effectively let users borrow out peripherals at my library?

I’m really stumped on this one, so any input would be great.  Let’s use these next few days to share any stories we have with lending out video game peripherals.

What?

Why? Between the 84 songs on the disk, the 20 free downloadable songs, the ability to import songs from Rock Band 1 and Lego Rock Band, over 1,000 songs available as DLC, and the Rock Band Network (with the possibility for a gigantic increase in song availability), I’ve got 100s of songs to choose from on my hard drive. Two players play controllers shaped like guitars, one player plays a drum controller (just like you’d play regular drums), and one player gets to sing along. My kids and my parents play. When I have parties, we play. I play alone. I can play with my friends online. I compete in score competitions online (and can view my leaderboard scores from a web browser). This is the game that librarians play at gaming sessions in conferences. This is one of the best games for library programs. If you purchase it for a collection, it will be loaned constantly.

Who? It’s hard to find a game that you can say is for everyone. Wii Sports is one of those. This is the other one. Because of the GIGANTIC library of songs, you are bound to find a song you like. Because of the scalable levels of difficulty, anyone can pick it up and jam. And probably the most important dimension of this game, the one that brings it from a great party game to the BEST party game, is the microphone. You don’t need to ever have played a video game before to jump right into the Rock Band 2 experience, you just need to be able to sing karaoke. Also, because the game scales up to VERY difficult, hardcore gamers can really get depth and playability out of this title (which is usually a choice that has to be made: good party game or good hardcore game? this one is both).

Rock Band 2 is the game I’ve spent the most time playing since I purchased my 360. It is fun, challenging, and the songs are “great jam”. And just when you think you’ve gotten bored with the game, they release more songs. Besides all the game content, there is an information community built around the game over at rockband.com. You can link your in-game band to your rockband.com profile, link your profile to your facebook account, and you are immediately involved in the Rock Band community. Librarians could take a tip from them and how successful they are at building communities around non-traditional media forms.

Not only should you buy this game for your library, you should buy it for yourself.