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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Joe McKay - Top ten games I played this year.
(Board games, video games, casual and intense I threw them all in together so they are in no particular order.)
Agricola
A resource management board game built around the super exciting world of 17th century dirt farming. If you're really good, you might eventually make a carrot. It takes playing it a few few times before you begin to form a strategy, but the game is deep and balanced and fricking fun. Plus the joy of putting your newborn child to work in the field is very cathartic.
duc de Berry Book of Hours - June
Cosmic Encounters (2008 edition)
Technically not a new game, but the rerelease of this classic board game finally gets the details right. Flares? check. 50 powers? check. attack 40? check. Technology (WTF?). check. My favorite part of CE is the fact that players can collaborate for a win. So you may have a super power, but if everyone teams up against you, you're fucked. Pure crazy gameplay joy - you're never out of a game of CE.
[OK, the Delville painting of Satan isn't really in Cosmic Encounters' interface, and neither is the Book of Hours in the interface
of Agricola, BUT WOULDN'T IT BE AWESOME IF THEY WERE???? - L.M.]
Race for the Galaxy
From the creator of Puerto Rico, this card based game is a sea of indecipherable icons and rules. But if you spend the time it's deep and fun, even if (ahem) you always lose (except for that one time you played the military strategy and you drew all the cards you needed in just the right order).
Little Big Planet
A reason to get a PS3? Not quite, but if you're looking for a next gen system it should tip the balance towards the sony machine. It's the natural progression of mario style side scrolling platformer. And user created levels will ensure extra hours of gameplay. Trust me, it's really really fun even if it looks childish. [as opposed to very adult like the new improved version of Cosmic Encounters that I'm pitching - L.M.]
Fantastic Contraption
You will know by the end of the 20 demo levels weather this physics puzzle game is for you. For me it was hours and hours (and hours) of fun, but attempts to addict like minded game players has been met with mixed results, in spite of it being the best flash game since Desktop Tower Defense. User created levels ensure more late night you-should-really-go-to-bed fun than you can handle.
Gears of War 2
Stupid stupid stupid stupid Xbox 360 3rd person shooter. Stupid. Fun? Sir, yes sir!
[Joe mentioned that this comercial oversold the game, hell, it made me want to join the military, kill things, feel bad, kill more,
come home with PTSD, kill things at home. Kill kill killl, and to a very nice song. - L.M.]
Armagedtron
Light cycles done right - finally! This game may require homework that involves watching Tron again (best Disney movie ever). BTW, you suck compared to me, guaranteed.
Cash n Guns
Any game that includes six orange foam handguns has to be fun. This is easy to learn and fun to play party game is the funest way to kill your friends this side of Mafia (werewolf to some). On a count of three everyone points their gun at someone in a massive Mexican standoff. It's actually kinda scary. Then on a count of three everyone has a chance to put down their weapon, wusssing out. Then cards are revealed. Was your gun even loaded? It's like a giant 6-way scissor paper stone game, with guns.
Pitchcar
I love this game for two reasons. 1 it's fun and 2 I've only played with Americans who wouldn't know a Crokinole board from a curling rink. Yes this racing game utilizes the awesome game dynamic of flicking little wooden disks, a skill I mastered as a youth and have long assumed was generally wasted as an adult. In short, I rule this fucking game and fear only my mother (Crokinole wizard).
I made this. you play this. we are enemies
simple gameplay, but ya gotta love the messy style. Game are always so bloody clean looking, no? Saying more will spoil it, just give it a shot.
Tonik Wojtyra's Top Ten List
1. Gifts by Artists at Art Metropole - Lots of work has sold out or it's well on it's way to selling out but it's up until January 10 2009, if you've slept on it thus far.
Miles Collyer & Tonik Wojtyra Granola by Artists 2008 500 grams for only $10.00
2. Jonathan Meese at GPCA. Was it the best painting show in 2008 in Toronto? Well second best but a delightful show just as well.
Jonathan Meese DON MASOSCHISSILI 2007 Oil on canvas 24 x 18,40 x 2 cm/ 9 1/2 x 7 1/4 x 0 3/4 in
3. Piotr Uklanski, BIALO CZERWONA at Gagosian, NYC. Jak sie masz?
PIOTR UKLAN'SKI
4. Tino Sehgal podcast at Magasin 3, Stockholm recorded March 6. 2008 - It's not exactly easy listening but it's smart like heaven on earth. Artist talk by Tino Sehgal, March 6, 2008. Duration: 64 min. Language: English. A conversation between Tino Sehgal and Richard Julin, chief curator at Magasin 3. http://www.magasin3.com/mp3/tino_sehgal_podcast.m4a
5. Le Silence de Lorna, Dardenne Brothers at TIFF. Lorna appears in every scene of this wonderful and intense story.
6. The new MacBook Pro from Apple - Like a Harvey's hamburger: A beautiful thing.
7. Despite all odds, Damien Hirst trumps, as Lehman Brothers dumps. If you can't appreciate that, your whole perspective is wack.
8. Paul Butler at MKG127 lambasting Canadian Art's coverage of Toronto's art scene in his type tight Toronto Now Suite. Pull up your sockSSSSS bitches!
Paul Butler Toronto Now Suite 2008 detail, archival tape on magazine pages
9. Season 5, The Wire. Sad sad sad Baltimore!
10. Michael Phelps' 8 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics. Baltimore homeboy Phelps has more Olympic gold medals than all of us; 14 if you wanna get technical, plus 2 bronzes from 2004. Eat that.
