The Year in Review - 2008

This week, a series of our favorite Zero Punctuation jokes. Sorry for the clip show, but we'll make it up to you with a contest for a shiny new badge!

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
So we have scenarios where you're sitting on a nuclear stockpile to shame North Korea and are throwing peas at a giant robot crab on the off-chance that there might be a bigger giant robot crab just around the corner.

Ninja Gaiden II
Also the Wii totally has lasting appeal, Atari have released some good games and Cliff Bleszinski isn't an extremely sexy man! Har har har... sorry.

Super Mario Galaxy
Mario's hateful, emotionally-retarded ball and chain has been kidnapped again, but before you can do the rescue you have to collect a whole bunch of stars - and it is always stars, for some utterly arbitrary reason.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Engineering a scenario in which Mario can brutally beat the stupid out of Princess Peach while the crowd screams for blood is very satisfying.

God of War: Chains of Olympus
There's nothing about God of War that really needs changing. It all fits quite nicely together like furious blood-stained Stickle Bricks.

Mailbag Showdown
"I'm not a fanboy - (yes you are) - ..."

Devil May Cry 4
The combat is all I can really recommend, but it's hardly worth buying it for that. You can probably replicate it by putting a wasp next to a spider, playing some Slipknot in the background, and pouring red and green gummi bears on whoever wins.

Turok
...I kind of thought we abandoned realism around the time space marines were stabbing dinosaurs on the planet Zog.

Braid
And you know who I blame for all this? You! Yes, you, the public. Especially you, Adrian! (That probably isn't your name, but it was worth it to mess with the heads of all the Adrians in the world.)

Prince of Persia Retrospective
Never stick your dick in a pudding. It might still be good pudding, and you can spend all afternoon explaining that, but no one's gonna eat it because you stuck your dick in it!

Haze
Combining that with whizz-bang shooty fun strikes me as trying to have one's cake and eat it - a phrase I never really understood. I mean, I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to eat a cake that you have; there's not much else you can do with a cake except maybe hide in one if you're a stripper. Sorry, lost my train of thought.

Metal Gear Solid 4
Somebody once said that a politician is a person who can talk for hours and never actually say anything. If that's true, Hideo Kojima could run for government and be emperor of the universe by mid-afternoon.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
I mean once you accept Lego Star Wars, where does it end? Playmobil Battlestar Galactica? Duplo Firefly? Mechano Dune? Yeah, I'm done milking that joke. I guess at first I - ''wait, I've got another one! Stickle Bricks Babylon 5''?

Painkiller
...I could mention the hugely satisfying penis-extension gun that pins baddies to walls with entire trees but all you really need to know is that there's a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning. I wish I could make something like that up. It shoots shurikens and lightning; it could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire.

The World Ends With You
What I'm saying is that I like games where the story and gameplay go hand in hand, while in most JRPGs the story and gameplay are kept either side of a wrought-iron fence made of tigers

The E3 Trailer Park
Those of you that are paying attention will no doubt notice that all of these games are sequels, and for those of you who aren't paying attention, *clap clap* OI!

Too Human
... Huge repetitive environments that only exacerbate the frustration caused by Baldur's toe-curlingly slow movement speed (or perhaps I should call it "Baldur's Gait").

SimCity Societies
Ultimately, you can have an equally fulfilling time just drawing a city in MS Paint. That way, you don't have to spend sixty bucks and you can get additional entertainment by drawing all the buildings with tits.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Personally, I would slap George's hands away from the editing desk, give him a colouring book, then remake the prequel trilogy so that Darth Vader uses the Force to win break dancing competions and chokes to death anyone who utters the word "midichlorians".

No More Heroes
First you take a low-paying part-time job which unlocks some higher paying assassination sub-missions, there being a lot of overlap in the industries of litter-picking and professional murder.

The Witcher
There's your inventory screen, your character screen, your alchemy screen, your glossary, your quests, your map, you have to switch between Combat mode and Stand-Around-Picking-Your-Nose-While-Enemies-Carve-Like-Turducken mode. And once you're in Combat mode, do you fight in Strong, Fast, or Group style? And if you'll be wanting to mix potions, then I hope you've gone through the necessary 8-week correspondence course.

Silent Hill: Origins
If Silent Hill 5 convinces me otherwise, then I will remove three of my own vertebrae, curl my spine back and eat my own arse!

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
It's gratifying to see Capcom continue their proud tradition of unintentionally hilarious dialogue. "I have a bad feeling about this," announces Jill Valentine, after having been repeatedly savaged by the undead, demonstrating her vital intuitive ability to sense danger about an hour after it has commenced.

Army of Two
... While mercenaries are unstoppable immortal badasses who make tons more money and like it rough from men with hairy bums. ''No! Bad Yahtzee! ''I meant to say, "and you get to wear funky skull masks like it's Halloween every day, except that it's you giving out the candy and the candy is bullets."

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Oh yeah, and some guns take so long to reload that it'd be faster just to send off for a new one by mail order.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
You couldn't get away with releasing a buggy game in the cartridge and cassette days - you'd get sentenced to a trampling under the company brontosaurus. But I'll tell you the worst part ab-worst part-the worst part ab-worst part ab-worst part ab-worst part ab-worst part- (Windows shutdown dialog box)

"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

Angry policemen are en route and resistance will only make them angrier."

(TV test card) (static) and whistled for a baboon!

Addenda
This episode has no addenda.