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Chaos Theory: The best of The Secret World in 2013
When December wrapped up, so too did The Secret World's first full calendar year, having debuted the summer prior. Coincidentally, the timing also marked the first year of the buy-to-play business model; the game transitioned in December 2012. Looking back over those 12 months, I wonder what can be said of the horror-themed MMO. Certainly updates and new content didn't come as quickly as players would have preferred (what game can ever deliver that?!), but there was still plenty of activity during that time. We're going to delve into highlights of TSW's year that started with awarding all players a coveted pet to counter an exploit discovered during the 2012 holiday event and ended with Hel on earth.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: The Last of Us
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. There's a certain dulling of expectations every time the next big-huge blockbuster game comes together. We've grown accustomed to the tradeoffs inherent in a product that grows and grows until it fits the proportions of cinema, having shaken off its boldest facets to safely stand a chance of earning a wide audience – and enough money to pay for that beautifully rendered jumble of furniture blocking the top of a stairway, not meant to be explored. How could a game like The Last of Us overcome those barriers? It doesn't, not always, but it pushes harder than you expect.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. As charming as it was, I thought The Wind Waker became a chore by the end. I never finished Twilight Princess. And for all of its brilliant swordplay and well-crafted dungeons, Skyward Sword was burdened by unnecessary and unentertaining filler. Imagine my surprise, then, when Nintendo gave us The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, one of the most effortless, weightless Zelda games in years. A Link Between Worlds manages to recapture the adventure of the original Zelda, which was content to drop players at an empty crossroads without a word, your only clue of what to do being a cave beckoning in the distance. At the same time, A Link Between Worlds succeeds in reinvigorating a well-trodden formula without alienating the players who already adore it. That's quite a trick.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. At first glance, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons isn't a particularly novel game. It offers an emotional rollercoaster of an adventure without the need for actual dialog. Big deal, right? Journey was a clear favorite last year, Limbo before that, and both had some stylistic similarities. And yet, Brothers is a true rarity, as it places the gravity of its compact story right in your hands. Brothers places you at the feet of a journey in which two boys set out to retrieve a cure for their father's illness from a mystical tree. The game never bothers you with trivial details like names of the characters, the town, or just where the hell you're going the whole while. That information, often window dressing used to bring some sense of reality and purpose to any story, is discarded in favor of the game's stripped-down, puzzle-platformer design: See obstacle, get through it. More specifically, get through it together.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Super Mario 3D World
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Mario and his extended family has been our constant companion for quite some time now, and his adventures were starting to feel just a bit too ... familiar. There wasn't anything wrong with them, really, but they did lack that certain sparkle that made us fall for him all those years ago. We still loved him, of course, but we'd be lying if we said our eye hadn't started to wander. Then Super Mario 3D World came along to remind us that Mario is now, and forever shall be, our hero. Super Mario 3D World imbues the franchise with fresh energy, crafting ingenious, secret-stuffed levels and slathering them in a fresh coat of Wii U-colored pretty. New power-ups like the clone-producing cherry and the adorable-yet-incredibly-useful kitty suit provided new ways to explore while also reminding us that jumping, running and smacking into blocks is still an incredibly fun way to spend your time. Just making it to the flag at the end of a level (and getting the 10,000 point bonus for landing on the top, natch) is a pleasure, but snagging all the hidden green stars and the rubber stamp in the process is a joy.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Tomb Raider
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Lara Croft has now spent approximately half her life with Crystal Dynamics, but it was only In 2013 that their relationship truly bloomed. In the past, Tomb Raider games excelled through a zesty blend of platforming, exploration, and silly gunplay. As adventures to play and romp through, they were riveting, but ask what they were about beyond physical features and it'd be hard to come up with an answer. Tomb Raider was the series about the lady in the short shorts jumping through Incan booby traps, not tales about people changing and growing. They weren't human. In rebooting the series, Crystal Dynamics finally broke totally free of the mold defining what a Tomb Raider game could be. They made it a good story.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Gone Home
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Gone Home breaks gaming conventions to the point that critics (and some fans) hyperbolically question if it's even a video game, really. It's not narrative-driven – it is narrative. Much of the game plays out in the sparks of the player's synapses, filling in the story told by the notes that Kaitlin, our protagonist, finds scattered around her family's abandoned home. The notes come from her sister, Sam, in 1995 as she enrolls at a new school and meets the love of her young life. Each note is heartfelt and raw, as if ripped from the pages of a best friend's diary, and reading them becomes an almost-guilty obsession and the crux of the gameplay. Though we never play as Sam, she becomes the main character, and her tormented teenage life – complete with feminist rock, Street Fighter arcade cabinets and self-discovery – becomes the game's stage, though we never leave the walls of her deserted home.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Device 6
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Infused with a skewed 1960s spy-fiction flare, Device 6 intrigues as soon as the precisely styled opening credits slide across the screen. They shift aside to make way for a surreal mystery and an isolated protagonist, wandering through rooms and gardens that surprise, unsettle and connect in ways that don't quite make sense. Device 6 is a classic text adventure that augments its descriptions – and what you imagine from them – with creepy imagery and ingenious sound design. As a rickety radio plays in a distant room, hovering in your periphery like the buzz of an electrical cable overhead, Device 6 leads you up, down and through, implying tunnels and stairways in its twisting text. Every swipe is a step, and every literal turn of your tablet spirals you further into a test of cognition, orchestrated both by the game's designers and the rarely seen creators of your puppet's island prison.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Saints Row 4
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Saints Row 4 is a deceptively smart, dumb game. The developers at Volition Inc. have successfully mated the tightest gameplay in the Saints Row series to date with its most over-the-top weapons (including flight, telekinesis and other superpowers), most drawn out, ridiculous celebrity cameos, and some of the finest funny video game writing ever scribbled down. Granted, the game has its fair share of lowbrow poop jokes (not to mention weaponized sex toys), but at the same time it's apparent that the writers at Volition are some very clever people. Saints Row 4 rarely relies on memes or easy humor, and the surprisingly deep level of satire underlying the experience is simultaneously welcome and totally unnecessary to your enjoyment of the game.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: The Stanley Parable
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. If you could bring yourself to describe and spoil them, it would be much easier to write about the marvelous moments that make The Stanley Parable such a special piece of entertainment. These moments, some of which commandeer the game and some of which seem insignificant as they pass you by, shape the outcome of Stanley's story. Whether you decide to go along with the narrator's dialog, following his every command to the letter, or completely ignore him and forge your own path, or just stand still, The Stanley Parable has something to say about your decision.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2013: Fire Emblem: Awakening
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. The last time I fell so deeply in love with a strategy-RPG was with Shining Force on the Sega Genesis, so Fire Emblem: Awakening was one of this year's most pleasant surprises. It rekindled an addiction I'd long thought dead, and its deep mechanics kept me hooked through several playthroughs. Previously, the Fire Emblem games scared me away with their brutal permadeath mechanics; earlier series entries kill off major characters for good if they fall in battle, often leaving players with a gaping hole in their ranks if an enemy should land a lucky critical strike. Awakening allays these fears with its new "Casual" mode, which mercifully allows characters to retreat after being defeated, instead of croaking on the spot. Casual mode is a boon for fretful players (and obsessed micro-managers), and it allows both casual fans and hardcore veterans to customize their experience to a degree never before seen in the series. For instance, if you want to sample Fire Emblem's traditional high-stakes gameplay but don't want to risk losing several units during each battle, you may want to set the game's difficulty to Easy while opting out of Casual mode. During my second playthrough, I chose to play on "Hard Casual," a seemingly oxymoronic combination that provides a satisfying level of difficulty without the stomach-churning risk of permanent character loss. It proved to be an ideal solution for me, emphasizing everything I like about the genre while downplaying the elements I didn't especially enjoy.
TUAW Editor's Choice Award Winners for 2013
Today is the last day of 2013, which means that it is time to announce the TUAW Editor's Choice Awards. This is a compendium of the best of the best, the apps and physical products that we felt best represented the top of a specific category. Some of the products are brand-new, others are old favorites, but all of them earned a place in our list. You probably have favorites that we didn't include in our list, so feel free to use the comments below to add your own "best of" items for 2013. Happy New Year! iPad Accessory -- Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad Air With the release of the thinner, lighter iPad Air from Apple this year, Logitech somehow managed to make the popular Ultrathin Keyboard Cover even more svelte. At this time, it's simply the best keyboard available for the newest iPad. Long battery life, easy pairing and lightweight, durable construction make this the top iPad accessory for 2013. (US$99.99, available in black or white) Steve Sande Sleeve/Case -- (Tie) DODOcase Durables Sleeve / Pad & Quill Aria Case If you're just looking for en-route protection for a naked iPad of any vintage, you can't go wrong with the DODOcase Durables Sleeves ($69.95 for full-size iPads, $59.95 for iPad mini). Stylish, thin and protective, these waxed canvas and twill sleeves are well-made. For more complete protection and propping up your iPad Air or mini, there's simply nothing better than Pad & Quill's Aria Case. The luxury of leather, subtle embossments and Pad & Quill's durable and beautiful Baltic Birch frames make this the Mona Lisa of iPad cases and an instant classic. ($129.99 for iPad Air, $99.99 for iPad mini) Steve Sande Game App -- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Grand Theft Auto San Andreas may have originally released for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2004, but its triumphant return to the modern gaming landscape via the iPhone was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2013. Yes, the year was filled with Candy Crushes and Clashes of Clans, but this saga of crime, tragedy and redemption simply can't be missed. ($6.99, universal) Mike Wehner Music App -- AudioPhile Music Player I like the high-quality music playback that AudioPhile Music Player offers for headphone users. It also sounds great on external Bluetooth speakers. (Free, iPhone app also available) Mel Martin Photo App -- FaceTune We had a lot of fun with FaceTune earlier this year thanks to its ability to perform digital portrait makeovers. In a crowded app genre, it stood out for its ease of use and surprisingly powerful tool selection, and for its ability to make mugshots look like glamour shots. ($3.99, iPhone app available for $2.99) Mike Wehner Productivity App -- DeskConnect The ease with which DeskConnect lets you transfer files, links or contacts from iPad to computer or between iOS devices is a wonder. (Free, universal and for Mac) Mike Rose Social Networking App -- Flipboard Flipboard turns your favorite social network content and news sources into an easy-to-read magazine made just for your iPad. (Free, universal) Kelly Hodgkins Utility App -- Delivery Status Touch Delivery Status Touch tracks multiple packages from multiple sources and looks great on the large screen of the iPad. ($4.99, universal) Kelly Hodgkins Video App -- TwitchTV TwitchTV is a website for watching people play video games live and chatting with the broadcasters, and its popularity is skyrocketing. The TwitchTV app has seen some serious growing pains, but in the second half of 2013, a few key updates have helped it evolve from frustrating to fantastic. If you had previously given up on the app, give it another try and you'll be blown away. (Free, universal) Mike Wehner iPhone Accessory -- Motrr Galileo Despite growing pains as a Kickstarter project, Motrr's polished Galileo robotic iPhone mount shipped this year and it was worth waiting for. A growing number of photography apps work with the Galileo to provide precise motion control of the iPhone. It's the perfect companion to another Editor's Choice Award winner for 2013 -- Sphere: 360 Camera. ($149.95) Steve Sande Case/Sleeve -- Mophie Juice Pack Helium I have reviewed hundreds of iPhone cases, but the one I use every single day is the Mophie Juice Pack Helium. The iPhone 5 version of this classic battery case works with the iPhone 5s, providing plenty of power to go for those days when your iPhone use goes a little crazy... ($79.95, also available with more capacity as the Juice Pack Air ($99.95) or Juice Pack Plus ($119.95) Steve Sande Game App -- QuizUp QuizUp's claim to be the biggest trivia game in the world certainly seems to have become reality, with the free app (with in-app purchases) taking over the hearts and, more importantly, minds of the App Store faithful. With a whopping 150,000 questions spanning 280 topics, there's something here for everyone. Mike Wehner Music App -- Rdio With personalized music service, new "stations" feature (which works great in my experience) and streaming that almost never stalls out, Rdio is my favorite music experience on the iPhone. (Free, universal, with in-app purchases) Dave Caolo Navigation App -- Navigon Still the best of the navigation apps, although there are many to choose from. Onboard maps, Google search and Street View and integration with the Garmin HUD make Navigon the best of breed. (Price varies depending on country/region, universal, with in-app purchases) Mel Martin Photo App -- Sphere: 360 Camera Whether you're "connecting the dots" to take a manual spherical image with your iOS device or using a Motrr Galileo robotic mount to do the snapping for you automatically, the Sphere: 360 Camera app brings a whole new meaning to panoramic photography. An update this week brought "brushstroke recording" to the app for even more fun. Creating immersive, wrap-around images that anyone can view is a winner. (Free, universal) Steve Sande Productivity App -- OmniFocus 2 Last September, The Omni Group released OmniFocus 2 for the iPhone, and there was much rejoicing. It looks fantastic on iOS 7 and continues to be my go-to project manager. ($19.99, separate iPad app available for $39.99) Dave Caolo Social Networking App -- Tweetbot 3 Tweetbot 3 is the iOS 7-optimized version of arguably the most powerful Twitter client available on iPhone and iPad. ($4.99, Tweetbot 2 available for iPad for $2.99) Kelly Hodgkins Utility App -- DeskConnect No AirDrop between iOS and OS X? No problem! DeskConnect manages this magic, works perfectly and is free. I use it almost daily. Did I mention that it's free? Dave Caolo Video App -- Vine When Vine launched in January nobody really knew what to make of it, but in the months since its debut, it has blossomed into a massive social force. Its brief, GIF-like video format has become a standard for self-expression and it's showing no signs of slowing down. (Free) Mike Wehner Mac Accessory -- Audioengine D3 DAC A relatively reasonable way to improve the audio coming from your Mac, the Audioengine D3 is a high-quality DAC (digital to analog converter) that plugs into a USB port and lets your music come alive. ($189) Mel Martin Peripheral -- Logitech Easy-Switch Bluetooth Keyboard What's better than a really great backlit Bluetooth keyboard for Mac? How about a backlit Bluetooth keyboard that can also link to two iOS devices (think iPad Air and iPad mini) and switch between the three devices with the push of a button. The Logitech Easy-Switch Bluetooth Keyboard has it all, and is simply one of the best keyboards I've ever used. ($99.99) Steve Sande Game App -- BioShock Infinite BioShock Infinite is a ridiculously fantastic game that bridges first-person shooter mechanics with action and a story that will bend your mind. It's being offered on the Mac App Store for a rock-bottom price of $19.99, which will leave you feeling like a thief. Play it, and you won't regret it. Mike Wehner Music App -- Anytune Anytune is a music practice app that allows you to import music from your iTunes library, adjust the pitch and tempo with great detail -- without affecting sound quality -- and select and mark certain parts of the song to loop for focused practicing. ($29.99) Kelly Hodgkins Photo App -- Photomatix Now at version 5.0, Photomatix still leads the field for processing of high-dynamic range (HDR) photos. There are a least half a dozen similar apps for the Mac, but Photomatix trumps them all. ($99 for Photomatix Pro, $39 for Photomatix Essentials) Mel Martin Productivity App -- Dragon Dictate 3 Recently updated for OS X Mavericks, Dragon Dictate 3 is the standard-bearer for voice dictation. Apple has added very sophisticated speech recognition to OS X, but nothing is as powerful or accurate as Dragon Dictate. You can even play a digital file of speech into it and it transcribes it quite well. ($179.99) Mel Martin Social Networking App -- MenuTab Pro for Facebook MenuTab Pro for Facebook sits in your menu bar, providing instant access to your Facebook account. The app's outstanding feature is its notifications that allow you to see whether you have a new friend request, new wall post or new message. ($1.99) Kelly Hodgkins Utility App -- Shush A cough button for your Mac, so that you can mute yucky noises when recording audio. Shush works in FaceTime, iChat, Skype, Podcast Capture and more. I recently used it during the Talkcast, and it blocked every snuffle and cough! ($2.99) Mike Rose Video App -- MPlayerX MPlayerX ranks up there with VLC as a must-have playback app. It bundles up the FFmpeg and MPlayer libraries, enabling it to handle a wide range of media codecs without requiring you to install anything extra on your machine. (Free) Kelly Hodgkins Multi-platform Headphones -- JBL Synchros S700 JBL has nailed balanced, neutral headphones with the Synchros S700. These are comfortable, sturdy and built for anyone who appreciates clear, balanced audio. A special LiveStage audio enhancer, when activated, adds even more brightness to recorded audio. ($349.95) Victor Agreda, Jr. Speakers -- Wren V5BT and V5AP Hands-down, Wren's V5 speakers are the best-looking high-end speakers I've seen all year. The AirPlay-compatible V5AP and Bluetooth-friendly V5BT speakers don't come cheap at $399, but provide awesome sound and complement any decor. Save your pennies and buy one; you'll be very happy you did. ($399) Steve Sande
Best iOS apps of 2013, as chosen by the Talkcast team
'Tis the season for wrapping up the year that was into a neat bundle of best-of reviews, and who are we to argue with tradition? On Sunday's live Talkcast, I gathered a gang of eloquent experts to dive into the best iOS apps of 2013. Here, organized by recommender, are their picks and suggestions. Remember, you can subscribe to the Talkcast in iTunes -- and keep an eye out for a new feed for the show in the new year! Julio Ojeda-Zapata (technology writer for the Pioneer Press, author of The Mobile Writer): The visually impressive Yahoo Weather app; the "Uber of snowplowing" Plowz app; the Xfinity TV Go app; Google's steadily improving suite of iOS apps like Hangouts, YouTube Capture, QuickOffice and Google Drive; Pocket Casts; and Feedly. Gedeon Maheux (principal and co-founder of The Iconfactory): Kingdom Rush Frontiers (game); Oceanhorn (game); Drawquest (game, new for iPhone); Groove Music App (music player); and a second vote for Yahoo Weather. Jeff Gamet (managing editor of The Mac Observer): Paper by 53; Status Board; ComiXology; Bungie's legendary FPS Marathon Trilogy -- Marathon, Durandal and Infinity; and SkySafari Pro 4. Runners-up: Bossjock, MyCreate and Forbidden Island. Brett Terpstra (TUAW contributor, mad scientist, developer of Marked 2): Editorial, MindNode and Drafts. Runners-up: BTT Remote, Camera+, SneakyPix and ReadQuick. Ben Roethig (host at GeekBeat.tv): Spiral Episode 1, Fantastical 2 and Calendars 5. Steve Sande: Apple's revamped iWork for iOS, the Pages/Keynote/Numbers "2013 edition" apps; Parallels Access (see Steve's review here); the Dropcam client; Sphere (360 Camera); United Airlines; and Knock. Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd: 2013's GarageBand; Plex; Terminology; the smart-ass Carrot to-do app; DeskConnect; Square Cash; XScope Mirror; Droplr; and SmartGlass for Xbox One. Kelly Guimont: Riposte; Dark Horse Digital; AirVideo; The Room TWO, from Fireproof Games; Favd (AdN photo sharing); Springpad; and PDFPen Scan +. Mike Rose: Spin (previewed here); Citymapper; DeskConnect; Dumb Ways to Die; Minecraft Pocket Edition; Uber; Sleep Cycle; and -- with the appropriate disclaimer that I do work for Salesforce -- the awesome Salesforce 1. Did we miss any must-haves? Please let us know in the comments!
Talkcast tonight, 10 pm ET: 2013's best iOS apps + year in review
New dial-in experience! Set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live. You know what Sunday night means -- time for the TUAW talkcast! It's our final show of 2013, so we'll review our top picks for the best iOS apps of the year. We'll also welcome a few special guests (including the legendary Brett Terpstra, the delightful Jeff Gamet, the Iconfactory's Ged Maheux and the Pioneer Press's Julio Ojeda-Zapata) for a roundup of the top Apple stories of the year that was. Do join us! Reminder on new-style talkcasting: With some help from the fine folks at Fuze, we're using a new system to record the show. This should let everyone listen in live -- and, if you want, raise your hand as you would in the Talkshoe room to get unmuted and chime in. You can join the call in progress (meeting # is 20099010) at 10 pm ET from any computer via this link; if you download the Mac or Windows Fuze clients ahead of time, you'll get better audio and a slicker experience, but browser-only will work fine. Just click the phone icon to join the audio once you're in. Using an iPhone or iPad? Grab the native clients from the App Store and get busy. (Even Android users can join the party.) Still feel like using the conventional phone dial-in? Just call 775-996-3562 and enter the meeting number 20099010, then press #. While the Fuze web and native clients have a chat channel, we'd like to reserve that for host participants, requests to talk and other real-time alerts... so the full-on chat for the show will appear in a second Talkcast post at 10 pm tonight. You'll need Twitter, Facebook or Chatroll credentials to participate in the chat. We'll remind everyone to check back in at that time.
Ask Massively: The one where we talk about our 2013 awards
Let's talk about our 2013 awards (not the 2012 awards, though this image demonstrates why we avoid easily manipulable community polls). Some of you agreed with our picks. Some of you didn't. That's OK. Not everyone on the Massively staff agreed with all of them either. A lot of sites just let the Important People reach a consensus on nominations or even the final vote, but we let every staffer vote on the entire pool of everything. Everything, as one columnist put it, was a write-in. Goodness, even TUG scored a vote in there. Of course, TUG is adorable. A bunch of people wrote something to the effect of, "How dare you say subs are the year's biggest mistake? Massively hates subs! You're so biased for F2P!" Specifically, we said that subs were a huge blunder for The Elder Scrolls Online and WildStar. "Massively" is not a hivemind entity, and "Massively" does not hate subs. Quite a lot of us like or even prefer subs. Most of us grew up when subs were the norm. I'm subbed to two games right this very second, even though what I personally prefer was classic Guild Wars' buy-to-play campaign set-up. We also voted for a sub game as our game of the year! But let's be perfectly clear when we're fighting this F2P-vs.-sub war: The sub model we remember so fondly is not the sub model games are deploying now.
Talkcast tonight, 10 pm ET/7 pm PT: Best Mac apps of the year
New dial-in experience! Set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live. Another Sunday, another TUAW talkcast! With our second-to-last show of 2013, it's time to dive into the best Mac apps on the market this year (next week, perhaps, we'll talk iOS). Of course, to talk Mac apps you need Mac experts, and in addition to our usual gang of opinonators we have a couple of special guests tonight! The Mac Observer's Jeff Gamet and our own contributor/mad scientist at large Brett Terpstra will be helping us hold down the show. In addition, there's a new sheriff in town; Apple's new Mac Pro is available for order, and shipping next month. Mmmm, unified thermal core, so yummy. We'll discuss this and all the week's stories, right here on ye olde Talkcast live tonight. Reminder on new-style talkcasting: With some help from the fine folks at Fuze, we're using a new system to record the show. This should let everyone listen in live -- and, if you want, raise your hand as you would in the Talkshoe room to get unmuted and chime in. You can join the call in progress (meeting # is 20099010) at 10 pm ET from any computer via this link; if you download the Mac or Windows Fuze clients ahead of time, you'll get better audio and a slicker experience, but browser-only will work fine. Just click the phone icon to join the audio once you're in. Using an iPhone or iPad? Grab the native clients from the App Store and get busy. (Even Android users can join the party.) Still feel like using the conventional phone dial-in? Just call 775-996-3562 and enter the meeting number 20099010, then press #. While the Fuze web and native clients have a chat channel, we'd like to reserve that for host participants, requests to talk and other real-time alerts... so the full-on chat for the show will appear in a second Talkcast post at 10 pm tonight. You'll need Twitter, Facebook or Chatroll credentials to participate in the chat. We'll remind everyone to check back in at that time.
The Daily Grind: What's your MMO of the year?
Yesterday, we published Massively's 2013 awards, including our pick for MMO of the year, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which carried off that top award in something of a landslide, even if it was tempered by the recent housing patch debacle. Wizardry Online, Defiance, Darkfall Unholy Wars, Age of Wushu, Neverwinter, DUST 514, Marvel Heroes, MechWarrior Online, and a slew of other smaller games were all in the running for MMO of the year, being the short list of MMOs that formally launched in 2013. Did we nail it, or would you have voted for another title? What's your MMO of the year? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Massively's Best of 2013 Awards
It's nearly the end of the year, a time for merriment, camaraderie, and cynical evaluation of all the MMO triumphs and tragedies that 2013 provided us. Today, Massively's staff honors the best of the best (and the worst of the worst) for the year 2013. Every writer was permitted a vote in each category with an anything-goes nomination process. No MMO, company, or headline was off the table, as long as it met the criteria. Can WildStar make it to three years in a row at the top of our "most anticipated" pile, or did its delay dampen our enthusiasm? Can SOE repeat its win for best studio? Which MMO is most likely to flop next year? And just what constituted the biggest MMO screw-up of the last 12 months? Enjoy our picks for the best MMOs, expansions, studios, stories, and innovations of 2013... and our most-anticipated for 2014 and beyond.
