It may be well into the new year, but the guys at Area5 haven’t forgotten about 2009 just yet. This week they lapse from their normal formula and head back to the format of the very first episode of CO-OP, a bunch of friends sitting around talking about their favorite games of the year.
After a quick stop on games with twitter integration, open world games become the first focus of conversation. David Ellis of 1up cites Infamous as one of his favorites, while Kat Bailey recounts her first experience with Red Faction: Guerrilla. Two heavy hitters of this past year are given their due in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed II. David Ellis was again very much behind Batman and loved complimented the rhythm aspects of the combat whereas Ryan O’Donnell loved Assassin’s Creed II so much that he played the entire game in Italian with subtitles to get the full effect.
Dan Hsu speaks up to voice some of his frustration with the PS3 online model which kept him from fully enjoying games like Fat Princess and Uncharted 2. A bit of six degrees of separation then plays out as the conversation goes from Uncharted to Halo 3: ODST to Shadow Complex and finally to Metroid Prime: Triology. This first half show closes out with smaller games such as Trine and Plants vs. Zombies.
2009 was a very good year–for video games. While much of the rest of the world is suffering an “economic downturn,” to put it politely, the creators of gaming goodness out there haven’t seemed to notice. We gather a bunch of CO-OP regulars for a giant, two-parter round table that delves into what was truly an epic year for the greatest medium ever invented by humankind.
Runtime – 38:43
I was just curious who voted this episode down? I thought it was a great first half show with a bunch of the regulars