So I pinpointed what I thought of what I thought were the best games, movies and TV series of the year. For some there were some surprising omissions and for others I didn't talk about other pieces of entertainment like literature, comics and music. So this for those people.
First off new albums that I loved this year, include Metric's Synthetica, Marilyn Manson's Born Villain, the new Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen and Beach Boys albums. In terms of comics, buy Saga. It is amazing, if a comic that combines Star Wars and Game of Thrones doesn't catch your interest nothing will . China Mieville's books are currently disliked by myself but his work on turning the formerly shitty 70s Dial H concept into a deeply bizarre piece of science fiction/fantasy blend. Also from DC Earth two is a fun book that is better than the actual Justice League book (I'm only buying until the Shazam backup becomes its own book). From Marvel the first issue of the new Hawkeye series caught my interest, and the new Captain Marvel series is another one to pick up as you pick up the Marvel NOW reload thing. Finally if you ever wanted a political drama mix with Close Encounters than buy Saucer County.
Books are a bit harder for me. Not because I don't read quite the opposite, I read much buts usually catch-up of reading recently critically acclaimed books from years past or reading/re-reading the classics for example I'm reading Ben Hur again instead of 50 Shades of Porn. But books I've read this year that I love include the fun Arabian influenced fantasy novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, the hilarious SF comedy Redshirts, the gripping thriller Gone Girl, Hilary Mantel's awesome new historical fantasy Bring Up the Bodies, and Martin Amis' wonderful new book Lionel Asbo.
Now on to why certain things didn't make my list first up being film. The Hunger Games isn't on my list because while I don't hate it, and I think its not a bad movie, it didn't really grab me perhaps because of the lack of violent detail the books certainly had. The Dictator was very funny at times, but nothing came close to Borat or even Bruno and it was full of painfully unfunny tropes. Men in Black 3 was a terrible, terrible movie and I hope and pray they don't try to make a fourth. Prometheus was a movie that I liked but definitely thinks its a lot smarter than it is and is plagued with plot holes. The Amazing Spider Man might actually the second best Spider Man movie but that doesn't raise it above being just good.
In terms of new TV shows obviously there wasn't a lot of great, but that's standard before the fall releases the deluge from the big 4 networks. A lot of friends of mine were disappointed with the death of Alcatraz, but I thought it was an awful idea and execution of a TV show with sub par writing and a terrible hook with prisoners popping up. Smash wasn't a bad show, its first season was mediocre at parts by I think it has the making of being a pretty good show. House of Lies seemed to go back and forth between episodes in being very funny and painfully unfunny, so I'm mixed or maybe that's just me wanting Don Cheadle to do more movies. Touch was good at showing how capable an actor Kiefer Sutherland is outside of Jack Bauer, but didn't really hook me so I stopped watching. Finally I was very excited with the return of Dallas, and I liked its return but it needs to bump up the writing because this show could be just as great as the original but for now is a sub-par imitation .
Finally video games and here only two need to be addressed Fez, Diablo III and Max Payne 3. First off Fez, Fez is a good game however I don't think its a great game or the next Braid or Limbo. Its gameplay mechanic is fun and intriguing but its full of pretention of greatness. Like puzzles that involve morse code or barcode scanning. Still not bad just not a favorite. Max Payne 3 is fun but contains serious problems in the story and character department. First of all while nihilism is fine for a character its important to have moments of enjoyment to balance it something that Max Payne does not receive in 3. I'd actually like to get into this with more detail at a later date so more on this than. Diablo III isn't a bad game either but to put it bluntly I never had much fun with it. Maybe I'm simply bored of the dungeon crawler or the was annoyed by paper thin random dungeon mechanic. I don't know why I didn't like it as much as so many others but I definetly knew not to put it on my list.
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