Bossfight Game of The Decade : Kickoff

Putting together a '50 best games of the decade' feature isn't easy. Even in the process of drawing up our final lists, we've had to deal with heated arguments, diverse opinions, and suggestions that games such as 'Zeus' and 'Football Manager' should be in the top 10. Like we said, it isn't easy. So, before we begin, a few things to note :

1. This is OUR list of what WE think are the 50 finest games of the last ten years. It's also limited to games WE have played - and obviously we haven't played every single game to have been released in the period.We can't rank games we haven't experienced. Your opinion of what constitutes the best games could of course differ completely. If you think 'Extreme PaintBrawl' is the game of the decade, it's cool. Have a beer. And pay for it yourself.
2. In some cases, such as Halo and Grand Theft Auto, to avoid the futile exercise of repeat entries into the list, we have evaluated their quality as a franchise. In such cases, we've included what we believe is the game that was most crucial in qualification, and grouped the others together into one single entry. However, if the games are competely different games on different platforms, such as Zelda on the Wii and DS, they count as separate entries.
3. There is no 'item 3'.

Oh - and some of this applies to the GoTY as well.

All right. Here we go. The fun begins in a bit.

Bossfight Game of the Year 2009 : Special Awards part One

Special Awards Part 1

1. Best contribution to video gaming: Claudia Black (Morrigan / Chloe Frazer / The only good thing about the Spike VGAs / Sexy / English). Fact: did voices for games as far back as 2005 -- in God of War, no less.

2. VGBoTY (another 'o' would be apt, methinks): Chloe Frazer, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves -- remember those 'co-op' sections where booty-watc... er... ladder climbing was involved?


3. Best/Greatest 'Best Of / Greatest Hits' compilation: Hans Zimmer, Call of Duty: MW2, for the most generic military orchestral score ever produced.Elton John's 'Candle in the Wind' album had more variety.





4. Best game featuring a celebrity who has a lightsaber license: Batman: Arkham Asylum featuring Mark 'Luke Skywalker' Hamill. Note: Bossfight seriously considered Afro Samurai: The Game (featuring Samuel L. Jackson) for this award because of SLJ's kvlt-ness and bad-ass-mofo image. In fact, we would have given it without hesitation to AS: TG if SLJ had threatened to go Mace Windu on our asses. He didn't.



5. Best game featuring battle tank-throwing (non-mod): Prototype. Imagine if there were physics mods for Prototype? Wait.. don't.







6. Most confused accents: Assassin's Creed II. This is only game set in renaissance-era Italy where all the people sound like Hispanics from the bronx (Golly gee, that wasn't racist, was it?).












7. Most zombies in a videogame: FIFA 10. Take that, L4D2! Take that, Resident Evil 5! EA Canada has made a game featuring 31 leagues and over 500 licesnsed teams made up entirely of real footballers' undead cousins!! Oh, and Xavi is in the game too. The only thing missing was a survival mode.






8. Best movie ever made: Uncharted 2 (even better than Slumdog Millonaaaayyyre). Of course, in an ideal world, Mario should have been the 'anti-villain' (voiced by Anil Kapoor) in Uncharted 2. Note: 'Anti-villain' archetype also made famous by Kapoor (definition: a questionable character with interesting motives) .





9. Best videogame name: Pirates v/s Ninjas Dodgeball (beating Stalin v/s Martians). We're fans of epic battles here at Bossfight. Both these games did not give us epic battles. But how can you lose if you don't participate?

Announcing the Bossfight India Game of The Year / Game of The Decade awards!

As the year 2009 (which mildly sucked) and the 'knoughties' decade (which totally pwned) come to a close, what better thing to do than celebrate the momentousness of the occasion by . . . er . . . making lists. Think that sounds lame? You're wrong - because our lists are AWESOME! There, that should clear it up.

Beginning today, Bossfight India will honour the games of the year (and the decade) with a slew of awards ranging from the conventional (game of the year, game of the decade, genre awards) to the unusual (genre of the year, platform of the year) to the downright bizarre (game that would have been most improved by the presence of Rajnikanth, game that needs to totally apologize to penguins, game that Videep Vijay Kumar quite unreasonably hates for being 'not realistic') and so on.

So keep dropping by to see what maniacal mubbery (see, the feature hasn't even begun, and already we've invented a new word. \m/ ) we've whipped up each day. We'll also be doing a bunch of polls and discussions, so do participate.
 

Bossfight at NASSCOM Game Developer Summit !

I've been invited to speak at NASSCOM's Game Developer Summit, which is a part of NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Summit 2009. I've attended the event for the past three years, but this is the first time I'll be speaking. (the thought of me speaking at the same event as Ernest Adams is truly amusing, but hey, I'll take it ;)

My talk will be on the creative aspects of game development - and will look at possible ways for Indian game developers to create cool, original game content that has the potential to find global success.

Should be fun. I'll keep posting stuff on this blog as I collect info and feedback from you guys for brain-fuel.

And do let me know if any of you are going to be there in Hyderabad for the summit.

Sony drops PS3 price in India to Rs.19,990/- , PLAYSTATION™ to become PlayStation™

This is probably the best news Indian console gamers have heard for a long time – SONY is dropping the price for all 80GB PS3s in India to Rs.19,990/-, effective immediately. They're also bundling two great titles for free – Uncharted : Drake's fortune, and GT5 Prologue. Now there's a really sweet deal – so people, go out and get one. The PS3 is a great console to own at that price point, and considering it plays Blu-Ray movies as well, it's an offer that's hard to resist.

In India, where console penetration is reasonably low, this is a great move that should see a substantial improvement in PS3 sales. SONY has, by also aggressively marketing and supporting its PS2 and PSP consoles in India, proved to be the smartest and most dedicated of the console giants in India, and surely deserve to dominate the market. Microsoft bungled their first mover advantage, and at this point, I can't see anyone but dedicated online gamers (thanks to Live) choosing the XBOX 360 over the PS3.

But of course, along with the good news, Sony also typically provided some hilarity to please cynical observers such as myself. A sample from Peter Dille, Sony senior VP of marketing : “We track purchase intent very closely and we know that consumers have been interested in buying a PS3 for some time. A lot of people have been waiting for the price to come down. We understand that. That’s why this new unit has been configured and conceived.” Really, Einstein? You finally figured out that lots of people weren't buying your console because it cost about a couple of hundred dollars more than its competitors? Wow.

And, even more stunningly, there's something to keep the marketing retards busy : henceforth, PLAYSTATION™ will be known as PlayStation™. Seriously, SONY, do you think customers give a, pardon the language, fuck? And if the answer is yes, it took you this long to figure it out?

SONY makes a great console that now comes at a very attractive price. If only they would show a little common-sense and listen to their customers, instead of being insufferably arrogant and pompous, they would never have lost so much ground to Microsoft and Nintendo in the console wars. But wait, we're talking about a company which is planning to introduce the PSP Go. I'll shut up now because there's nothing more to say.