Fortunately for the readers here at GamingAngels.com, I won’t mention any half-asian athletes that rhyme with “Lyger.” I won’t be talking about celebrity offspring living better than most of us ever will. I won’t be talking about the mass confusion that swarmed my brain when Obama was handed the Nobel Peace Prize after deploying 30,000 troops. Kinda makes you feel depressed, doesn’t it? For now, let’s talk pure games. 2000-2009 really evolved the gaming world; The industry became rich women gamers and developers, the quintessential “superhero” game proved it didn’t have to be forgettable, Sony learned they couldn’t rule the coop by their past alone, and concepts like ProjectNatal and OnLive turned the gears of our imagination. 2010 is here, ladies and gentleman. A new decade is upon us, but before we journey to the end of the road, there is a quintessential article to be written about the good, the bad, and the stupid. Here are my top picks in said categories.

Will Wright Says “Bye-Bye”…Kinda.

Will Wright busted his hump at Electronic Arts, having found vidja-game company Maxis and birthing the most successful PC game on the planet, The Sims. The Sims is likely a game I could conjure-up while sitting on the toilet, but the point is I didn’t and Mr. Wright did; people went crazy because they were eager to live their stressful lives in a more light-hearted and charming way. He let us experience what it’s like to be a mayor, a spouse, a movie star, a slacker, a frugal college student crashing wild dorm parties. Will Wright made us enjoy life a little bit more, that is, until I used the “motherlode” money cheat-code and inevitably drowned my Sims and killed their children as a result of boredom–Er, yeah. I’ve since made peace with my virtual family however, when Wright announced his departure from Electronic Arts, I panicked thinking the apocalypse was nigh. Never fear, Wright still periodically pays a visit to his homeland, continuing progress on future versions of Spore. Wright is also a shareholder of “Stupid Fun Club” along with EA, an entertainment development studio aimed at providing ideas for the video-game industry and beyond. Wright has already been immortalized as a “Game God” in numerous publications as well as the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. GG, Sir William!

More Mainstream Than Ever.

By the way of the UK, Hollywood has taken a backseat to video-games. Dave Rosenberg of CNET reported that the amount of consumers purchasing video-game titles far outweighed the amount of money spent on films, including trips to the theatre and DVD sales—a whopping 30% more to be precise. Not too long ago, I had an unpleasant conversation with my best friend, also referred to as the now “video-game skeptic.” Yes, “Mr.VGS” and I have shared many late-night PC gaming stints, lasting into the mega-early A.M. During these years, we would speak intensely, but only in gamer acronyms exclusively familiar to Final Fantasy XI players. We built a steady linkshell of fantastic people, spent two summers hunting  “NMs,” “HNMs,” and gathering a sixty-some party of players from all over the world in order to crush the mighty beastlords of “Dynamis.” For over two hours, he remained adamant on convincing me that video-games will never be a part of “mainstream” media. On these memories alone, popping in a DVD will never substitute the experiences I’ve gained through playing video-games. Second, the numbers don’t lie—eight out of ten UK homes own a console and this is strictly counting “next-gen” systems. Though not “recession proof” as often noted, the industry is a multi-billion dollar one with over $823 million spent on just getting us gamers excited a.k.a. advertisements. While it’s likely that Amazon UK chart topper Modern Warfare 2 contributed to this financial boom, video-games are no longer looked upon as the gender-biased underdog with little to offer ‘sides sex and violence. Now women make-up more than 43% of gamers and numerous Wii titles along with the DS are breaking the age barrier. Even casual games such as Facebook’s “Farmville” are raking-in 11 million players daily. The definition of a “gamer” may vary from person to person, but the fact of the matter is this: games are being played and numbers are steadily rising.

OnLive: Death To Console?

OnLive is presumably digital delivery at it’s finest and before watching CEO Steve Perlman conduct a fifty minute presentation at Columbia University, you could imagine I suffered from doubt. This doubt however, has since turned my perception of this product into a feasible possibility. If OnLive can effectively live up to it’s claim of being able to stream high-end games at full-settings on virtually any console sans the lag, where the hell has it been all my life? The premise of OnLive may leave you with more questions than answers, but Perlman has supposedly resolved one of the biggest crisis’ in gaming: platform transitions. According to the fine executive team behind this monster, the need to purchase multiple consoles will cease to exist because it’s essentially gaming “on-demand.” This would not only make it easier on consumers, but it would also save the publisher the trouble of porting; ultimately, the OnLive may also impact the “used game” market and cancel piracy. I don’t know about you, but any plan that could halt business at Poopstop has me at full attention. OnLive strikes me as an obvious financial win for both parties. While it’s true that OnLive will require it’s own controllers to reduce latency, I’d unquestionably opt for a controller over a console. In retrospect, I often drown myself in the fond memories of being a PC gamer. I never dreamed of “in a land far, far away when PCs updated themselves” would be a concept on the horizon. Maybe it hasn’t reached that point quite yet, but if frequently updated servers can allow me to rid of expensive hardware and give me a little piece of my past back, then I’m totes on board for this “Process of Invention” thing. How will OnLive equip motion-control that Nintendo has grown to be successful for? Furthermore, how will this product implement voice-control, facial recognition, or motion sensing where inventions like Project Natal are concerned? You can view Perlman’s full presentation here.

(Not) The Year Of The PS3

Final Fantasy XIII has dropped a wicked 1.8 million units to Japanese retailers and has already boosted PS3 sales considerably. Its no secret Final Fantasy is probably the Star Wars of video-games with over 92 million units sold world-wide. Seriously Final Fantasy Fanatics? GTFO. Perhaps “Year Of The (Please Be) Better PS3 Titles” is more fitting. I can’t say 2009 disappointed the gamer in me with titles like Demon’s Souls, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Infamous along with a few, solid PSN downloads. The question remains, when will the “Year Of The PS3” make it’s arrival? These past years have rightfully deflated the heads of Sony devs who were still high off of the PS2’s success. Yes, the Playstation 2 is probably one of the greatest consoles of all time with an incredible library of gaming titles to prove this claim, but I’d like to inquire as of why I purchased a $500 doorstop. Well, 2010 may earn my Playstation 3 a rightful place on my Entertainment Center with exclusive titles drying-up my tears. Titles like MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, White Knight Chronicles, MAG, and (especially) Heavy Rain are steadily lowering my disappointment meter. In any case, Sony clearly isn’t a fan of priorities. I’ve never seen PS3 as a strong multi-player console albeit a strong single-player one, but when Sony decided to focus their finances on creating an entertainment powerhouse instead of a sensible gaming console, it automatically lost by default to the 360 and Wii’s “family game night” status. On a side-note, PS3 is also on-board for “true 3D viewing,” although PS3 owners will more than likely have to upgrade to a TV that can handle such a momentous task. While it looks to be a more solid year for the PS3 now at a more consumer bearable pricetag, if they don’t top announcements for things like a PS3 motion controller or PS3 Home (which is still in Beta, by the way), it’s going in a storage box until someone convinces me why we really had to make the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray.

Superheroes Don’t Suck.

2009 proved that Super-Hero games did not have to suck Donkey’s you-know-what. Where was this applauded Batman adaption all my life? Amid the strong, artistic value and the clutter of cleverly concocted criminals, a superb and visionary Batman game had been waiting to fall into my lap only to be failed, excused, or mediocre. In 2009 I had my long-awaited appointment with “Arkham Asylum” and have since been freed from the waiting room. Is there really a convincing rationale for why we lost so much of our valuable time that shall never be returned!? Arkham Asylum is easily one of my favorite titles among the 360 and PS3 and I adamantly demanded it should’ve snagged “Game of the Year,”  because I feel it’s superior enough to run with the sequel’d big dogs like Assassin’s Creed 2, Uncharted 2, and Modern Warfare 2 (Jeebus). Arkham Asylum has broken the Guinness World Record of being the Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever and took home a Golden Game Award as well as a Spike Video Game Award. Above all, I’m happy I didn’t empty my wallet for another “Big Screen” rehash of ultimate doodoo. Films and books are two mediums that crumble under the pressure of the dreaded video-game adaption, but Rocksteady had the actual dudes responsible for the comic book on-board, including Paul Dini, who worked as a writer, producer, and editor for Batman: The Animated Series. The Result? A well-balanced mixture of Batman and video-game; a plethora of puzzles, satisfying combat and smart gameplay, not to mention perfect storytelling all while keeping the spirit of this cultural icon alive. The only thing better than Arkham Asylum will soon be the sequel, with even more villainous goodness to continue causing mischief in Arkham.

Alright, so maybe this article should’ve been called “Most Memorable Gaming Moments Of 2009,” because this list is extremely condensed and extremely 09. I didn’t want to call it that however, because I felt that 2009 really shaped the decade for the future of gaming, so much in fact, that it was overwhelming. Bring on 2010!