So far the Best Most Awesome has been games and movies. Because what else is there in life, right?! As I’ve already mentioned, friends are for people who don’t own video games. I do leave the house quite a fair bit tho. To do what?! Well…I ride my bike.

Yep, I ride my bike and shit. Around the yard, and if my mom lets me I can go all the way to the park and back.

Ok, that’s all you need to know about my cycling habits. Back to games! Fun fact: in the history of the known universe there has never been a good video game about bicycling. The closest possible game was Paperboy, which also had chromed freaking handlebars.

Most cycling ‘games’ are pretty stupid boring affairs, with a lot of talk about things like Functional Threshold Power, and video footage of some dude going up a mountain. While MAMILs may enjoy this stuff, everyone I know unanimously can’t stand it. It doesn’t stop tons of companies from making more boring training products thinking that maybe their shiny graph of power output will be cooler than that other company’s.

But then, there is Strava. Is Strava a game, a social network, or just a data tracker? Like many things, its what you want it to be. Keeping track of training data? Great. Want to conquer that KOM? Push for it! Want to meet people and socialize? I use Strava more than any social network.

What makes Strava so much better? I think because, unlike all these other companies, they’ve figured out that, sure, cyclists care about FTP and looking good in lycra, but that’s not the main reason we cycle. I ride my bike because…its fun. I use Strava because…it makes cycling more fun.

That’s a run from someone I don’t really know, who always posts great one-liners for his rides/runs. This fine gentleman, who as you can see is quite popular, has inspired me to do the same. In fact, I keep a joke diary and take notes just to help me come up with good one-liners for Strava. This guy, who I have never met, has driven me to compete on Strava with one-liners.

This is a ride from Niki Terpstra. He won the 2014 Paris-Roubaix, which was, for me, the best ride of the year. It was such an inspiring ride, I went and looked to see if he was on Strava (he was). And the actual Paris-Roubaix race that he recorded was up there!

So…games. I keep coming back to the gamification of cycling that Strava is/is not/could be. Gamification is generally a misguided attempt to manipulate people into working towards a goal they would otherwise not do. But Strava is gamification that works. I compete with others, with myself, and Strava enables me to level up, to engage more often, and ultimately have ‘player stories’.

And that last bit is key. Those stories up there? Player stories. Things that happened while I was using Strava  that were unique and interesting and I wanted to share them. Maybe player stories are the true secret to gamification? I’m not even sure these *are* player stories because I’m not sure Strava is a game. Regardless, if they are ‘just’ stories, Strava is still one of the Best Most Awesome of 2014.

Christopher Nolan’s doesn’t write movies. He writes the ‘beginnings’ of movies. All that stuff that happens at the end? Pft, DETAILS. Because of this, I’ve been sorely wishing for a quality Batman movie. Who would’ve guessed that 2014 would have the BEST Batman movie…EVER?

Yes, the Lego Movie, a toy-driven franchise, could have easily turned out to be one long stupid ad for injection molded bricks. But instead they took the time to look deeper. Lego fully understand the importance those bricks stand for: imagination, critical thinking, deep play. There are few toys that shape minds with the power of Lego.

So when they finally made a movie, they molded it(seewhatididthere) around conformity vs. imagination, and how conformity sometimes wins. The imagination is unadulterated, raw, and liberated. The conformity is a surprisingly adult view on corporate culture and how people can spend their lives as interchangeable automatons living an unremarkable existence. All this comes together with amazing animation, superb acting, and an emotionally powerful and unique ending.

I love seeing great people at work. It shows through in the movie, and also in the voice acting:

I cannot complete this without mentioning Ben, my favorite 1980-something Space Guy.

Benny is a big spaceship nerd. He loves them. He knows that everything can be fixed with them. To him, they are the Golden Hammer of vehicles. And thankfully for our heroes it is the Deus Ex Machina of the movie, saving the day.  He’s also a bit on the outside looking in. He wants to help, he’s got some ideas, but he doesn’t have the social capital to make it happen. He bides his time and he gets his payoff in all its 80s glory.

Lego made a very smart movie because it was not afraid to be dumb. Micromanagement In Progress. Double-decker couches. Everything Is Awesome. Morgan Freeman simply existing in this movie. It took the time to explore and be imaginative, and find things that were beautiful and amazing. And then they made a movie that embodied those ideas and was also about them.

So are you listening, Nolan? You set up something in the beginning, and then you pay it off later. This technique provides the characters with growth. They persevere, and learn, and at the end there’s an interesting outcome called a ‘denoument‘. All those old movies that suddenly and abruptly end? Those movies didn’t have a denoument.

For example, at the beginning of this article, I said Christopher Nolan can’t figure out how to finish his movies. I made a connection to the Lego Movie using Batman. Then at the end I explained how you finish a movie. I even used a self-referential loop, without requiring sticking Leonardo DiCaprio in limbo for 50 years.

SETUP

PAYOFF

OMG, MIND BLOWN!!

My ‘Top Most Awesome’ series is not in any order, mainly because I don’t know if there is one. BUT one thing stands out for me at the top of my list: Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth.

The original BOI was a truly fantastic game with one major flaw: it barely worked. I would get to a certain point in the game, and the frame rate made it unplayable. Rebirth is a complete rewrite, fixing all the issues I had, and giving the game even more features.

2014 is the Year of the Roguelike. That word is thrown around a lot lately. There is a big difference between making a game that is procedural and random, and a roguelike. A roguelike provides a game experience where each playthrough provides a completely unique combination of game mechanics that needs to be mastered. If you are simply randomizing mechanics, levels, layouts, or other items, but not making these interactions interesting, it is not a roguelike, its just random.

This is where Binding of Isaac shines. The combinations of items means each run is unique. And with 400 items, you never know what insanity might await you. Lets watch Mike and Jack from Pre-Rec (Red Letter Media’s video game channel)  play some BOI:

And here’s the sad/wonderful thing about the game: I still haven’t beaten Mom. I’m not even close (I am playing solely on hard). But somehow I love playing it anyway.

The art and concept are crazy over-the-top, adding to its uniqueness. I don’t think there will be a game like it ever again. This game will become a classic, played for years.

PS: Check out this amazing box art for BOI created by none other than Sam Kieth! Phenomenal stuff.

My talented game geek friend (who also happens to be my cousin) Rob is giving out some freebies on his Youtube Channel.

From his youtube description, he’s giving out copies of:

Civilization V
FTL
Don’t Starve
Tropico 4
Just Cause 2
Nuclear Dawn
and possibly other titles from my Steam inventory if I suddenly feel big hearted.

O_O Not too shabby!

Check out the video above for details! And if you like check out some of his other vids, too. We are hoping to record some video together here shortly, and I’ll post up on Enemy Hideout the latest if you want to watch.