2012 Blacklist

Before I announce my Fave Things of 2012 list, here now are several things that would have been my favourite of the year, if they didn't fuck up spectacularly in some way. Here are the things that I have disqualified.

Here is this year's Blacklist:

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Character Showcase: "Zargabaath"

Final Fantasy XII is not an exceptional product by any means. One of the most troubled development cycles in gaming history led to multiple rewrites, delays, shuffling of creative employees and at least one person who was so screwed up by the bureaucratic process that he became violently ill and stepped down from a producer role. It rips off Star Wars with less shame than any other story I've seen, and tries to hide its tracks by making its events as convoluted as possible. 90% of the recorded dialogue is heavy breathing. Its battle-system allowed zero input from the player, but the level grind demands were fucking atrocious. Basically you did nothing, and had to do nothing for a long damn time.

And you spent that time with a bunch of insufferable transvestites. There is one major protagonist who has some small charm, but he's surrounded by shitheads. It's the Left 4 Dead 2 of JRPGs. So hopefully now you can understand why this character showcase is for a minor background presence. Sometimes a character manages to leave a strong impression even when they don't have a lot of lines or even a substantial screen presence.

Favourite Things of 2010

Every year since about 2005, I've made a list of my Favourite Things from the previous year. They can be anything. Movies, Games, TV Shows, Songs, cupcakes, scented candles shaped like dongs, what have you. If it happened to be one of my favourite things of that year, it got featured with a light writeup.

I of course distinguish between "Favourite" and "Best". I don't think the two are synonyms. When I say "Favourite", I'm not necessarily saying it was the biggest achievement in the history of ever. I'm saying that even though I know not everyone will like it, that it might even be a deeply flawed example, for whatever reason I admired or appreciated it.