VenusGaming

I ended up finding gamerDNA via noticing the ability to log in through OpenID on ElitistJerks today, and wondered, hmm, why the hell not check it out.

gamerDNA kind of strikes me as a mySpace/Facebook of gamers. You can add games you like, don’t like, or anticipate, and flag particular tags as to why you feel that way toward the game. You can add your characters from the games, and link to your identities on things like XFire, XBox, and Steam. You can post experiences/stories about your gaming experiences. There’s also a few quizzes, signature generator, etc. It, of course, also has a forum.

Already there, or need a friend when ya get there? Hook up with me.

I’m a few days late on this “news,” but the BBC recently reported that girls make up over 40% of MMORPG players. Why, what else did you discover?

It found that the most hard-core players are female, that gamers are healthier than average, and that game playing is an increasingly social activity.

. .  the survey revealed an unusually high level of bisexuality among the women who took part in the study - over five times higher than the general population.

Trippy. So now the new stereotype is that if you’re a girl that plays MMOs, you’re bisexual. Hurray ERP guilds! Hurray free love! Hurray biased surveys!

image copyright Sony Online Entertainment

Why biased? Because:

1. The survey was a post-game survey from EverQuest II, and did not cover any other MMOs played
2. The survey was sponsored by Sony Online Entertainment
3. The survey was completely voluntary
4. The survey offered a free in-game item upon completion
5. The survey had people self report their levels of health, activity, and so on.

I love how the BBC reports that these conditions have brought on “some questioning of the results.” Some? Dear god, anyone with a basic education in logic or statistics would know that the the survey results are less stable than a stack of Jenga blocks. Shame on BBC for bothering to report this bullshit.

Are we women playing MMOs? Yes, and I’d bet you’d find that in some MMOs, the player base is well above 50% female, while in others, it’s less than 40%. I bet you’d find that girl gamers feel comfortable and safe in an MMO environment because unlike console games, their play is relatively anonymous: if they’re skilled, or if they’re a fuckup, there’s no real boys to yell at them and tell them to go make them dinner. They find MMOs a safe haven to explore fantasies via roleplay, a place to meet like-minded women who might otherwise hide behind the hulk of their husband’s shoulders. They’ve found a place where they really can escape the kids screaming and the husband dicking around and the housework that’s piling up.

Hello, world: you don’t need BBC to tell you that women like playing games. You don’t need the news to tell you that there’s a lot of us there. Just send us a /whisper, a /tell, a /wave. We’re in the computer, waiting for you to acknowledge we really do exist.

As a blogger, it is our responsibility, nay, our duty, to see what brings you to our blogs - oh screw it, half of us are too lazy to check. As the month draws to an end, it’s time for me to take a look and see what brought some of you here (besides being forced to by Stumble!).

Unsurprisingly, a lot of you were brought here by searches about WoW, LoudCrowd, and Persona 4 (which is friggin’ awesome.) And then there are some that make me wonder what you, and google, are thinking. I present to you the odd search terms of December.

“tents”

Yes. Tents. No, I’m not in the top 10, or even 20, probably even 50, for this search term. The only post here that deals with tents is Part III of our adventures in Wonderland , in which we’re confronted with dozens of tents.

“where are the battlemasters in kalimdor”

. . . dude. Tell me someone didn’t ask this question, much less came HERE looking for the answer. Again, not in Google’s top 50 on this. WoW Patch notes brought this poor soul here. He’s probably still lost on the interwebs.

“wow argument”

Wherever you are, dear seeker, please go to World of Warcraft’s Official Forums . Peruse either the General or Class forums. You will find many, many WoW arguments (and many that will make you go “wow.”)

“little game test game latency”

This has got to be one of the worst search terms I’ve seen. What game? I’m guessing this fellow wanted to test game latency in some way or another. I’m sorry for him ending up here. But he probably knows where the battle masters in Kalimdor are.

How do you explain a game that isn’t really a game?

When I first played The Endless Forest, an online game by Tale of Tales [website here], I was struck by that question. You play a deer, exploring a 3D environment with other deer. There is magic you can obtain to change your appearance or that of other deer. You can interact with your environment via emotes and actions that would be available to a deer: rubbing against trees, sleeping, dancing, and so on. You can even give your deer an identity in the form of a pictograph when registering.

TEF’s world is small, yet beautiful. But unlike any other game, there is no progression. There’s no special items to collect, no changes to your character that are permanent, no experience, no stages of the game. You can’t call TEF a glorified chat room either: there is no way to type or speak in the game. So what do you call the game?

TEF is best defined as interactive art. It exists for enjoyment, understanding, and fun. Its design prohibits the things that gamers are used to, but once you get past that point, TEF actually becomes understandable. Delightful. Enjoyable. You may not spend 6 hours a day playing it, but the time you spend there in the forest can certainly bring a smile to your face.

When last we left off, we did our first quest in this village, saving a Shiba Inu from the terrible pig slop he was about to ingest. Coconuts in hand from our good deed, let us continue seeing how we can help the village.Oh, look, here’s Boll and Doll cooking some soup or something (I don’t see any people parts in it, that’s a good sign.)

… what? Well, I lie and tell Doll that I’m a native. He says I can have some soup, but first. . .

Apparently Emilie has some hill pepper for us, and she’s right by the cave entrance. But in order to earn our hill pepper, we need to answer some questions. Okay then, Emilie, what gives?

Math? Oi vey. Well, I tell her just how old she is (23, by the way), and she gives me the hill pepper. I guess Doll doesn’t know math as well as his fellow villagers. He thanks me for the pepper, tells me my name is special, and gives me a radio set that he found on the beach. Something inedible, finally! What’s it do?

… oh. I guess I’m not going back home from my cruise any time soon. Ever the snoop (all RPGs must be in order to survive), I slip inside the hut behind the stew pot.

Now, why am I reminded of a story about Noah? Well, what’s wrong with the old man?

A comb? Thankfully, my character clarifies that we’re looking for a honeycomb. I wish all diseases were so easily cured. Just behind the house, in the trees, I find some baby bees floating around a honeycomb.

Well, I’ll take that -

- oops. Wait! I’m allergic to bee stings! Oh well. EhSteve takes the sting of the baby bees, we take our honeycomb back to the old man -

Umm, wouldn’t that hurt?

Sounds like it did.

Probably not if he just swallowed a honeycomb, wax and all. Well, he just needs some rest I guess. As a gift, he gives me Beast Bracers. What, something useful?

Why, yes! I just can’t use them until level 4. Well then, off to the village to continue more adventures. . .

Don’t you hate it when, in the process of complaining about a game not being available, someone tells you to “go read a book,” or better yet, “go outside and see the real world”? Pah, me too. Sure, there are basement gamers out there, but most of us are normal people with normal activities in our lives. I read books, I craft, I watch movies, I write - but when I want to play a game, dammit, I want to play a game.

With the economy looking worse and worse every day, gaming is starting to hurt a lot of our pocketbooks. It’s time for us to take a look at our gaming budget. We can’t be without games, but we can be smarter on how we spend our money on them.

Some basic tips? First of all, cut out anything you’re paying for (particularly MMOs) on a regular basis but not really playing or getting enjoyment out of. I’ve known many friends to pay for three or four MMOs, but only spend about two or three hours average per week on all but one of them. Second, game for less: consider renting games through services such as GameFly instead of purchasing games, or buying used for games you just have to have for your own library. Finally, invest more time in free games, which can be designed just as wonderfully as games you have to pay for. Don’t forget about replaying games too!

My main character in World of Warcraft is a restoration spec’d shaman. On my way to 80, I heard a lot of terrible things about resto shamans in the new end game: that our mana was raped in heroics, that we had to stack three stats to be effective, that healing wave was suddenly all you could rely on outside of Riptide/Earth Shield. Couple that with the fact that caster mail items are very hard to find outside of instances in WotLK, and I was quite apprehensive about hitting 80 and being dragged to heroics.

But after a few days of heroics - including heroic Halls of Stone and heroic Utgarde Pinnacle - my fears were assuaged. Going into heroics with around +1400 healing with Earthliving only, I found I was in relative ease. Hitting around 1400 average heals per second, I’m doing just fine so far. The only thing I’m finding as any concern is mana during long fights (which is intended for all classes, since those fights are about endurance), and dealing with burst damage effectively. Still, I’ve pulled my groups out of some hairy situations, and haven’t been the cause of a wipe (which has been scare as it is).

Yes, things are looking solid for resto shaman. Earth Shield, coupled with Lesser Healing Wave (glyphed), and Riptide + Chain Heal, is keeping the group topped off with ease. Hope you other healers are doing the same.

So today we continue our look at 3.0.8 for World of Warcraft, looking at class changes. Updated Test Realm patch notes for 3.0.8 can be found here.

Death Knights

• All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
• Anti-Magic Shell: The cooldown has been lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
• Blood Aura now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
• Blood Presence now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
• Bloody Strikes will receive extra bonus damage from Pestilence.
• Bone Shield: The mitigation has been reduced from 40% to 20%.
• Corpse Explosion: Damage increased substantially, added 5 sec. cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
• Dark Command: Range increased to 30 yards.
• Death Knights have access to unique death-knight only facial textures and skin tones. These can be selected at the character creation screen.
• Death Pact now grants 40% instead of 20% healing.
• Frost Presence: The bonus armor has been increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%.
• Heart Strike no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets.
• Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 30 sec cooldown.
• Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but can go higher).
• Night of the Dead now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
• Outbreak will no longer receive bonus damage from pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
• Pestilence no longer has a 10 seconds cooldown.
• Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
  • Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
  • Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.
• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
• Rune Strike: Damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
• Shadow of Death: The duration has been changed from 45 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Unholy Blight had had its cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.
• Wandering Plague will now properly reset after being cast.
• Vampiric Blood: In addition to its current effects, also adds 20% health temporarily.
• Will of the Necropolis will now reduce the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded.

Major changes to death knights this patch. One of the aims has been to make Blood spec viable for tanking (it’s been a very bottom third among the three specs for that objective.) Of particular note are the changes to Heart Strike, Frost Presence, Vampiric Blood, and Pestilence. Although I haven’t intended to make her a tank, looks like this will make my blood DK reasonably viable for tanking if called upon.

Druids

• Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.
• Remove Curse and Abolish Poison can now be used in Moonkin form.
• Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
• Growl: Range increased to 30 yards.
• King of the Jungle - The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
• Nature’s Grace - Now also effects Revive.
• Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
• Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
• Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
• Starfall will now be cancelled by any shapeshifting.
• Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects.
• Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260% weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.
• Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown.

Some hopeful looking changes here. Cat AoE DPS? Legasp. Also, I see that they’re bringing back bear armor increases, and increasing the range on our taunt. Whew.

Hunters

• All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
• Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
• Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only the Hunter and their own pet.
• Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to “deflect” spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 sec. 60 sec. cooldown.
• Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
• Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Venom (Scorpid) has been lowered.
• Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
• Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
• Serpent’s Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
• Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
• Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack power scaling).

Mhm, lots of nerfs: Steady Shot, Volley, Unleashed Fury, Serpent’s Swiftness, Kindred Spirits . . . what data was showing hunters were OP? Also, the Deterrence change is incredibly strange and seems far out of place for a hunter.

Mages

• Arcane Blast: This ability has been significantly changed. Arcane Blast now increases the damage of the next Arcane spell by 15%. However, using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge itself. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of Arcane spells is increased by 15% and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 200%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 seconds or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.
• Arcane Flows: Now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by 1m/2m.
• Elemental Precision: Renamed to Precision and now works on all spells.
• Evocation: Cooldown reduced to 4 min.
• Improved Blizzard: The snaring effect has been reduced to 20/40/50%.
• Slow Fall is now castable on others.
• Torment the Weak: Now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage against targets afflicted with any type of slow (such as the combat slow from Thunder Clap).

More buffs to Arcane mages? Sweet! (Yes, that’s one in my repetoire.) It’s too bad they still haven’t returned frost to its glory in WotLK Beta, though. I think this change to Arcane Blast is probably the best they have made yet.

Paladins

• Avenging Wrath: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Hand of Protection, and Avenging Wrath cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other anymore. Forbearance removed from Avenging Wrath.
• Divine Protection: The penalty has been removed.
• Divine Shield: The penalty has been changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% in place of an attack speed penalty.
• Hand of Reckoning(NEW): Available on trainers at level 16. It’s a 30 yard range taunt that causes Holy damage.
• Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.
• Judgement of Wisdom: Now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.
• Sacred Duty: Interaction with Divine Shield and Divine Protection removed, but stamina bonus increased.

As I don’t play a paladin currently, I can’t say much on this, except for another hurray for ranged taunts.

Priests

• Abolish Disease and Cure Disease can now be cast while in Shadowform.
• Holy: Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown.
• Levitate is now castable on others.
• Mana Burn: Now burns a percentage of maximum mana.
• Shadow
  • Shadowform: You can now shift into Shadowform while mounted or sitting.
  • Vampiric Embrace- Mana cost of this spell has been removed.

Minor, nice changes for the priest. Otherwise, life as normal.

Rogues

• Fan of Knives: The cooldown has been removed. In addition, now deals 150% of weapon damage when used while daggers are equipped.
• Feint: Rank 8 now reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 50% for 6 seconds in addition to its existing effects.

Eh. Fair. Sorry, forumites, but rogues still aren’t getting the nerf bat like you think they need.

Shaman

• Fire Nova Totem: Now no longer generates threat.
• Healing Way: Now only one application is required to reach full benefit. No longer stacks.
• Improved Water Shield: Lesser Healing Wave now has a reduced chance to trigger this talent.
• Magma Totem: The damage and scaling has been increased and no longer generates threat.
• Mental Quickness: Reduced the mana cost of instant cast Shaman spells by 2/4/6% and increases spell power by an amount equal to 23/46/70% of your agility.
• Searing Totem (Rank 4) now does the proper damage for its rank.
• Tremor Totem’s duration has been increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
• Elemental
  • Elemental Shields: This talent has been removed. It has now been merged with Elemental Warding.
  • Elemental Warding: Now reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%. Changed from only reducing Nature, Fire and Frost by 4/7/10%.
  • New Talent: Shamanism-Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional 2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.
  • Storm, Earth and Fire: This talent has been moved up in the tree, and its talent points have been reduced to 3 down from 5. Wind Shock is also included in the range increase (with Earth Shock). The damage bonus to Flame Shock has been increased, up from 10/20/30/40/50 to 20/40/60.
  • Unrelenting Storm: point cost reduced to 3, down from 5. Now does 4/8/12%

Oh my god fire totems no longer generate threat on drop. It only took Blizzard two expansions to change that. I wonder why they still can’t change the threat on Frost Shock? Also, there’s still some confusing discussion about Mental Quickness, which indicates it will still be based off AP.

Warlocks

• Drain Mana: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
• Emberstorm: Now works with Conflagrate.
• Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.

Simple. Nice.

Warriors

• Bloodthirst: Charges have been decreased to 3, but the effect has been raised to 1% per charge.
• Fury: Bloodsurge: Now has a chance to trigger from any hit with Heroic Strike, Bloodthirst, or Whirlwind.
• Fury:Titan’s Grip: The hit chance penalty has been removed.
• Taunt: Range increased to 30 yards.

And warriors get some loving again, particularly with Titan’s Grip. Maybe this time, they’ve made up their mind on TG. Maybe not .  . .

The Test Realm notes for World of Warcraft’s 3.0.8 are now available. Updated Test Realm patch notes can be found here.

Since the notes are long, I’ll only review a few sections today, and come back to the rest in the next few days.

General

• Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach level 55.
• Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.
• Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You’re not seeing things.
• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.
• A new mailbox is now available at the Crows Tavern in the Dalaran Sewers.
• We have added over 60 new graveyards to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
• The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves in Wisp form will now move at 75% speed.

%(@&@ you Blizzard. You realize how many people spent money on transfers, so they could create a DK on another server? You changed your minds a little too soon on that.

Other than that though? These are welcome changes (although no racial restrictions on mounts will admittedly be quite silly.) I’m glad we can run faster as ghosts, although I still believe it’s a retarded racial for Night Elves. More importantly will be that change to tapping. Although it still doesn’t solve the issue of using a timed spell on a target to open up, it does solve the Shadow Word: Pain and Warlock curse openings getting stolen.

Achievements

• The Loremaster of Kalimdor Achievement has had its quest amount reduced.
• The Winds of the North has had its requirements changed. This achievement is now earned by getting Exalted with the Alliance Vanguard or Horde Expedition.

Eh, nothing big here. I was more hoping for another 30 seconds on Rapid Defense. That sucker’s hard.

PvP

 Arenas

• All rage and runic power are set to 0 when an Arena begins and the preparation period is over.

Battlegrounds

Lake Wintergrasp

• Wintergrasp Commendations can now also be purchased for the low low price of 9 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. Players can visit their respective Wintergrasp vendors and put those Marks of Honor to use!
• Elementals should now always despawn when the battle begins.
• Wintergrasp now extends further south so that more revenants can be reached.
• There are now three ranks in Wintergrasp: Recruit, Corporal, and First Lieutenant.
• Players will be eligible for participation rewards after two honorable kills.
• Players will receive increased honor with increased rank.
• Players will receive additional Marks of Honor at Corporal or higher rank.
• Players will receive corporal rank at 5 honorable kills instead of two.

Strand of the Ancients

Antipersonnel Turrets will now gain vehicle immunities, use falloff damage, and damage increased to 4000 + 200 per level to compensate for falloff.

Seaforium charges have been moved closer to the graveyards on the 2nd tier

 
Some nice changes here, particularly in Wintersgrasp. Also, we’re supposedly getting PvP items in 3.0.8, though I haven’t seen official looking lists yet. 

Today, G4’s X-Play announced their Best of 2008 Awards. Here’s what the game-o-vision had to say about gaming this year.

Most original game: Braid (nominees were Boom Blox, Braid, LittleBIGPlanet, Mirror’s Edge, No More Heroes, The World Ends With You)

Best gameplay innovation: “level creation/sharing” - LittleBigPlanet (nominees were “AI director” - Left 4 Dead;
“level creation/sharing” - LittleBigPlanet; “objective-based multiplayer”- Resistance 2; “public quests” - Warhammer Online; “right stick combat” - Too Human; “voice command” -Tom Clancy’s Endwar)

Best multiplayer game: Left 4 Dead (nominees were Gears of War 2; Left 4 Dead; Madden NFL 09; Resistance 2; Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix; Too Human)

Best sports game: Madden NFL 09 (nominees were FIFA 09; Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds; Madden NFL 09;
NBA 2k9; NHL 09)

Best downloadable content: Rock Band 2 (nominees were Burnout Paradise, Call of Duty 4, Rock Band 2,Team Fortress 2, Warhawk)

Best new downloadable game: Braid (nominees were Bionic Commando Rearmed, Braid, Geometry Wars 2, Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix; World of Goo)

Best Strategy Game: Sins Of A Solar Empire (nominees Were Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin, Galactic Civilizations 2: Twighlight Of The Arnor, Sins Of A Solar Empire, Tom Clancy’s Endwar, Valkyria Chronicles)

Best Shooter: Left 4 Dead  (Nominees were Call Of Duty: World At War, Far Cry 2,  Gears Of War 2,  Left 4 Dead, Resistance 2)

Best Rpg: Fallout 3 (Nominees were Fable 2, Fallout 3, Persona 4, Tales Of Vesperia,  The World Ends With You)

Best New Character: Drebin 893 - Metal Gear Solid 4  (Nominees were Drebin 893 - Metal Gear Solid 4,  The Dog - Fable 2,  Niko Bellic- Grand Theft Auto IV,  Sackboy - Littlebigplanet,  Travis Touchdown - No More Heroes)

Best Art Direction: Littlebigplanet ( Nominees  were Fable 2,  Fallout 3,  Far Cry 2 , Littlebigplanet,  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots,  Prince Of Persia)

Best Animation: NBA 2k9 (Nominees were Grand Theft Auto IV,  Left 4 Dead,  Madden NFL 09,  NBA 2k9,  Prince Of Persia,  Resistance 2)

Best Writing/story: Grand Theft Auto IV (Nominees were Fable 2,  Grand Theft Auto IV,  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots,  No More Heroes,  The Witcher: Enhanced Edition)

Best Original Soundtrack: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots (Nominees were Gears Of War 2,  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots , Mirror’s Edge,  No More Heroes,  Resistance 2)

Best Sound Design: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots (Nominees were Battlefield: Bad Company,  Comdemned 2: Bloodshot,  Dead Space,  Fable 2,  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots)

Best Action/adventure Game: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots (Nominees were Dead Space,  God Of War: Chains Of Olympus,  Grand Theft Auto IV,  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots , No More Heroes)

Best Racing Game: Grid (Nominees were Burnout Paradise,  Grid,  Mario Kart Wii,  Motorstorm: Pacific Rift,  Pure)

Best Music/rhythm Game: Rock Band 2  (Nominees were Audiosurf,  Guitar Hero World Tour,  Guitar Hero: Aerosmith,  Patapon,  Rock Band 2)

Best Handheld Game: The World Ends With You (Nominees were Chrono Trigger DS,  God Of War: Chains Of Olympus , Patapon,  Professor Layton And The Curious Village,  The World Ends With You )

Best MMO: Warhammer Online:  Age Of Reckoning (Nominees were Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures,  Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning , World Of Warcraft: Wrath Of The Lich King)

Game Of The Year: Fable 2  (Nominees  were Fable 2 , Fallout 3,  Gears Of War 2,  Grand Theft Auto IV,  Left 4 Dead,  Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots,  Resistance 2)

Unsurprisingly, gamers everywhere, and even Kevin Pereira of G4’s Attack of the Show , are calling out X-Play on their Game of the Year choice. And while Fable 2 may be a good game, I’m going to have to agree: it does not deserve Game of the Year over many other deserving titles.

While we’re at it, I’ll also call them out on WAR being MMO of the year: the game has struggled with maintaining a player base (although it’s done far better than its other nominee Conan), has a multitude of problems, and was released “incomplete.” Meanwhile, WotLK broke sales records and is being lauded by MMO players.

Thankfully, X-Play’s list is far from definitive (I find it’s often biased - look at the reception and laud it gave Gears of War over any and all other games in the past.) But it is also fairly disappointing. Ah well. If you’d like to cool down - or heat up-  about their decisions, maybe you should take their advice and watch Sessler’s Soapbox on the issue.