Among others. (img: rodgab.com)

2011 was a disappointing concert year for me, so I’ve resolved to make it up extra in 2012. Say hi. I’ll buy you a drink, assuming I have any money left over after Ticketmaster fees.

Feb 16th (9:30 Club) – Sleigh Bells

March 2nd (Rock and Roll Hotel) – Craig Finn

March 7th (Black Cat) – White Rabbits

April 12th (9:30 Club) – The Ting Tings

April 25th (Warner Theatre) – Rodrigo y Gabriela (w/ C.U.B.A.)

Finga gunz and home winz! (photo/caption from the inimitable Brain on Funk)

K and I went to an NBA game last night; specifically, Wizards vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder. Finding a palatable NBA game was a tricky task. We settled on Oklahoma City because, with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, they seemed the most likely to entertain. The Wizards were 1-12 heading into last night’s contest, so it was important to find a matchup that wouldn’t make me want to suck on the business end of a t-shirt cannon after 48 minutes.

K likes the NBA. She got to see a Celtics championship when she was up at Emerson, so I’m sure that helped, but she appreciates the talent, the flow, the movement. I, uh, don’t. Of course, I’m biased: when your basketball schooling takes place standing in the bleachers of Cameron Indoor, one expects you to be an insufferable college-game-first douche, and I am nothing if not reliably predictable in my sectors of douchiness.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to an NBA game. 2009 seems the most likely. I know I’d seen the Wizards once before, so that pegs it anywhere from three to six years ago. I go because I feel like I should like it and I want to see if anything has changed. It’s like when you’re five and your mom gives you brussels sprouts and you scream “NO” and throw them against the wall. Then you’re fourteen and your mom tries again, and you silently push away from the table, sulk your way upstairs, and listen to Fall Out Boy for five hours. Then you’re twenty and you’re on a sorority formal and you choke a few down because maybe it’ll help you get laid but then you think no, that’s stupid, how is eating this vegetable going to help me get laid and hey I could really go for a donut right now and why is my date talking to that other girl’s date and crap my fly has been down the whole time ohgodohgodoh

So yeah, that’s exactly what the NBA is like to me: a long, convoluted metaphor that goes nowhere and leaves you feeling empty at the end.

We accompanied newly-minted season ticket holder Chris, who, along with Luke, is trying to prove that one can watch 33 games of Wizards basketball without developing Stockholm syndrome. (I’m not sure what Wizards Stockholm syndrome would look like, but I think it involves overeating and a crippling lack of self-awareness.)

And I had fun! Granted, the first quarter – which was brutally sloppy – had me more interested in the cheerleaders and making sure the Tiny Tower on my iPhone was doing a brisk commercial trade. But strangely enough for a matchup between the NBA’s best record and its worst, the Wizards kept it close, up three late in the second quarter. “Don’t worry,” Chris said. “That two point lead will turn into fifteen down so gradually you won’t even notice.” When the Wiz were down 12 in the third, I figured he was prescient, but then the home side came back, thanks to a steady dose of Nick Young, who was making the sort of shots that normally lead you to question a man’s conscience and dignity. Even Andray Blatche, who’d been playing so poorly that the home crowd booed him mercilessly during player introductions, had some effort to contribute.

A late lead ballooned and things were looking stellar for the home side, but then the Thunder started putting Wizards on the charity stripe and – well, this is not a team that concerns itself with little details like free-throw shooting. But OKC never got closer than two in the last five minutes, and like that, Chocolate City David had put Corn-fed Goliath on his ass.

And yet.

During that game I got to see exhibitions of skill in a mostly-meaningless regular season game that you don’t get to see even in the National Championships of college hoops. Massive blocks were swatted. Hustle was displayed. The home team, derided all season for a lack of effort, gritted out a huge upset. But when it was all over, there was some back-patting, and the teams shuffled off the court, and I was left wanting. I knew nobody would be rushing the court, I knew players wouldn’t be dancing, I knew Dickie V wasn’t apoplectic on the sideline – but it still bothered me. The crowd was on their feet, but I was out of the moment; it was a stark reminder that even though the game mattered, it didn’t matter. It was just another checkpoint on the long slog before the playoffs. And that, more than anything else, is why it’s tough for me to get behind the NBA.

That, and G-Wiz. What the hell is a G-Wiz?

Your first tentative step towards Alex saying something inappropriate to you on the air.

On Friday, I got an email from friend of the blog Aaron over at Whiskey and Car Keys seeking advice on his first Jeopardy! online test. This was win-win for me; if he succeeds, I can lay claim to some of that sweet sweet cash, and even if he doesn’t I get free blog fodder. THAT’S THE BEST FODDER

Sadly, registration has closed, so at this point you’re either taking the test this week or hoping the Brain Bus comes to your town. (Or going to California to audition, but that’s kinda crazy-sauce if you don’t live near LA.) If you are taking the test, though, let me tell you the same stuff I told him. You know it’s good because it’s from a Bonafide Guy Who Passed The Test At Least Once.

Log in early. The site is going to be swarmed, so eliminate the chance that you have to wait until next year.

Eliminate distractions. You’re going to need a half an hour to take the test (50 questions at 15 seconds apiece) and you want to concentrate on it fully, especially given how few questions you can miss (it’s generally agreed that 35/50 is considered passing). Shut down all the other windows on your desktop. Turn off your cellphone. Make sure nothing in your apartment is on fire or threatening to catch fire in the next 30 minutes. If you have a child, sell it. I liked listening to music while taking the test, but your mileage may vary.

Don’t bother studying. At this point, either you know the answers or you don’t. The questions seem to be mostly calibrated in the $600-$1200 range, although that’s a pretty wide range. You’ll get a wide mix of everything, just like on the show. (The most persistent rumor I debunked among people I’ve met is that the show in any way tips you off to categories and questions you can expect. Nope. Go watch Quiz Show.)

Speed counts. You only have 15 seconds and you have to type the answers, although you don’t have to put in any of that “who is” “what is” stuff. They claim to be lenient on spelling but given that I’m sure most of the test is machine scored you probably won’t have a human looking at your results, so I’d get it as close as you possibly can. Just make sure if you’re debating two answers that you get one typed in in the event that the test rolls over to your next question.

Don’t keep score. You don’t know for sure what you got right and it wastes time and brainspace. You’re not going to get a score when the test is over. Live with it. Even if you pass the test there’s a chance you won’t get called – no local audition, bad luck of the draw, your cellphone falls in a toilet. So don’t bother.

Stay relaxed. There’ll probably be at least one question that flusters you or that you remember the answer to later. Put it aside and move on. Don’t let previous questions interfere with getting the next one. 35 of 50 doesn’t leave a lot of margin of error.

Respect the luck monster. You may not get the categories you want. You may just get a rough bunch of questions. That’s luck; that’s Jeopardy!. My first game, I was extremely lucky a really strong player hit a Final question she didn’t know. In my last game, I didn’t get to the Daily Doubles and caught an Art question in the end. Oh well; that’s the game. There were a truckload of strong players unlucky enough to get on the show during Ken Jennings’ run. The sooner you get used to it, the better you’ll do in the audition process.

Have fun. Trying to get on the show for ten years (even putting my name on audition lists before there was an online tests), I waited for the day when I wouldn’t have to do it anymore. Now, I’m thinking about making up a fake name just to play it as my annual ritual. I missed it last year.

Jose Aldo over Chad Mendes (KO-2): Aldo, who is defending his title for the fifth time in a new and exciting weight class for UFC, should really be getting more hype for this fight. But with three decisions in his last four fights, the “boring fighter” label is starting to migrate south from Canada to rest on the Brazilian’s head. I like Aldo to get back to his quick-destruction ways in this one. Mendes will be looking to get things to the ground, and takedown attempts could give Aldo a way to land some vicious knees, especially since he’ll be looking to keep things standing up. Call it a hunch.

Anthony Johnson over Vitor Belfort (KO-1): Cutting weight is hard. Right now, I’m looking to drop a weight class (light heavyweight to middleweight – thanks for asking). I count calories and exercise, and I love to eat so it’s a giant pain in the ass. But it’ll all be worth it when I get that nice five figure check to refund me for all that hard work.

Wait, I’m not getting a check for this? Oh, that’s right: I’m not a PROFESSIONAL FIGHTER WHO GETS PAID TO MAKE WEIGHT FOR FIGHTS.

A miss can be forgiven, but when you have a history of missing weight (this is his third second time doing so EDIT: Forgot the Clementi fight was technically a sanctioned catchweight, but still - he had a huge weight advantage in that one too), move up a weight class to alleviate the problem, blast people on Twitter the one time you DO make weight, and still miss by an insane 11 pounds, you deserve your inevitable pinkslip the moment you step out of the cage.

That said, given that I was going to pick Johnson anyway – well, I’ll be cheering my ass off for Vitor, but this seems like an uphill climb. Johnson had better get an escort post-fight, though, because when he knocks out the hometown boy (who, I should add, was never not going to take this fight given the location), Rio’s going to be out for blood.

Rousimar Palhares over Mike Massenzio (Sub-1)
Erick Silva over Carlo Prater (Sub-3)
Edson Barbosa over Terry Etim (Decision)

2012 Record: 0-0 

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE

My Stuff List is a year in review of the various objects, arts, and… stuff… that I had opinions about in 2011. Join me on our vague, slightly behind the times journey this week and the next, won’t you?

Board Game I Got Hooked On in 2011: Dominion has become an obsession for me – it’s best the best parts of Magic deck building without the compulsive need to collect all the cards (until you start buying expansions, that is. Which I have. Pity me). The online version – semi-endorsed by the game’s creator! – has become a nightly staple with my college buddies.

Funniest Game I Played in 2011: between the insanely quotable writing, the fantastic characters, and stellar voice work from Ellen McLain, Stephen Merchant, and J.K Simmons, Portal 2 had me rolling on the floor when I wasn’t banging my head against the wall. Lemons! Potatoes! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE. Honorable mention to You Don’t Know Jack, a welcome return that was like being hugged in the face with a baseball bat. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH.

Best Return to Form in 2011: I enjoyed Brutal Legend two years ago but in some ways it was kind of a bummer – it just never crossed over into that sort of smart, quirky place I expect Tim Schafer and Double Fine to go. DF put out a couple of good releases last year, but my favorite was Stacking, cute and funny with addictive puzzle solving and that great sort of one sentence recap you get with Timmy’s best stuff – “Russian nesting doll puzzle solving set in the Industrial Age with silent film sensibilities” joins “skeletal travel agent in the Mexican afterlife” as an instant classic premise.

Game That Disappointed Me The Most in 2011: I’m not sure why I held out hope for Civ Facebook, but blergh.

Game I Really Should Have Loved, but Didn’t in 2011: That I didn’t enjoy L.A. Noire is probably more a failing on my part than on Rockstar’s. I adored the premise and I can’t call the game anything short of an achievement. It is a good game! Unfortunately, it’s a good game I didn’t have the patience for, falling into what I like to call my “JRPG blind spot” that gets me hung up on procedure-heavy games. It’s possible I just like reading about detectives more than I like being them.

Biggest Gaming Story That Was Seriously Under-Covered By The Videogaming Media in 2011: What if you woke up one morning and weren’t able to play Call of Duty because all the servers had been shut down by the DOJ? What if there was a small but significant subset of the population who made their rent money playing Call of Duty? What if it turns out that Congress had snuck in a rider to a terrorism-appropriation bill that attempt to stop you from playing Call of Duty altogether? What if the rest of the world could just go on playing? And – oh yeah – what if Call of Duty was an integral part of American history and culture, deep as chess and played by almost every President, including the current one? Story of the year, right? Yet when the DOJ put what has amounted to a shutdown on United States online poker in effect by closing down PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, there was barely a peep in the gaming media, even when the Full Tilt saga deepened and kept thousands of U.S. players away from their legally-earned money throughout the year. If they can come after the quintessential American game on moral grounds – neglecting the literally BILLIONS that can be made in tax revenue by regulating online poker - don’t think for a second they can’t come after your Diablo.

Best Game I Played in 2011: It’s a close call this year, and this acknowledges that there were a number of supposedly excellent games that I just didn’t have the time to get around to this year. In the end, it was a two-horse race for me between Portal 2 and Batman: Arkham City, and I have to give the nod to Batman simply because there was so much it did right. It wasn’t as well-written as P2, but the action and stealth sequences were both dead on, the Riddler stuff added some great puzzles, and it had the visceral feel of perfection all about it. I couldn’t put either game down once I started it, but it’s Batman by the nose on his cowl. Honorable mentions go to You Don’t Know Jack, League of Legends (which was a 2010 release but really came into its own this year), and Bastion.

Winner. (Photo by Darrow Montgomery, Washington City Paper)

My Stuff List is a year in review of the various objects, arts, and… stuff… that I had opinions about in 2011. Join me on our vague, slightly behind the times journey this week and the next, won’t you?

Food I Got Most Hooked on in 2011: There’s one food that I don’t let a Thanksgiving pass without eating, and that’s my mom’s breaded, fried cauliflower. The problem with that dish is that if you do it right, it’s messy and a lot of work. Olive-oil drizzled, parmesan-topped roasted cauliflower with a little bit of black pepper, though? Easy peasy, and tasty as hell. There was a point where I was breaking a head of cauliflower down once a week to do it up. Just make sure you leave it in the oven a little longer than you think.

Biggest Personal Cooking Achievement of 2011: They were knocking on my door to pull my Guinea card, so this year I finally started screwing around with formulating my own tomato sauce. I haven’t gotten much further than the glorious base that is the classic Marcella Hazan butter-tomato-onion special, but hey: progress.

Best Pizza I Had In DC, Delivery Edition, in 2011: This was not the best pizza I had period (see below), and indeed I think there are better pies at Pizzeria Paradiso and Red Rocks. But: delivery pizza sucks a big fat one in Washington, so I was thrilled an Upper Crust migrated from Boston to DC this year. No more crappy Domino’s for me! They get the thickness right (thin!), the crust right (crunchy!), the cheese right (slathered!) and the toppings are quality. I’m a happy camper, at least until I move outside their delivery radius (sniffle, sob).

Restaurant that Got Me through 2011: I ate at Taylor Gourmet damn near every day I was on grand jury duty this summer, and I’m not sure I would have made it the five weeks had I not been able to take an hour each day to retreat to the comfort and safety of the Taylor on K St. I grabbed a seat at the counter, plowed through three or four books in a month, and alternated between the pork with broccoli rabe, the meatball, and the chicken cutlet with provolone (with the occasional classic Italian thrown in). Saved my life.

Best Cocktail I Had in 2011: I’m not a huge cocktail guy, but I had the “Swinekiller” at Cochon in New Orleans this spring and it blew my mind that it existed in the same city as yard-long neon green Hand Grenades. Take Citadelle gin (quite a bit), add a dash of rhubarb bitters, top with limeade, and float a cherry on top. Perfection in an Old Fashioned glass.

Gin I Loved in 2011: The Citadelle was nice and I have a bottle at home, but rediscovering the classic that is Plymouth will carry me into 2012, I think. Although I’ve heard damn good things about the Bluecoat American gin and may need to get a bottle to keep the English gins in line. No libation without representation, I say.

Best Sandwich I Ate in 2011: It took me until the next-to-last day of the year to get there, but a trip to the Russell House Tavern in Boston produced the One Sandwich: their PT Farms Meatloaf Melt. Start with juicy, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth meatloaf; none of that dried up diner garbage. Top with super-fresh Berkshire Bleu Cheese, sprigs of lemony arugula, and a hearty dollop of caramelized onions to get a blend of tang and earthy flavors that complement the meat perfectly. Put it all on warm ciabatta bread and you’ve got a major winner. I wanted to order another one to-go when I left.

Gonna Be Big in DC Next Year in 2011: I’ve been to ShopHouse quite a few times since it’s opened – you know, the Asian Chipotle? And I think it hits the right blend of food quality and price to become a serious Thing in the next year or two. (The name’s still throwing me off, though, because I grew up surrounded by ShopRites in NJ.) The owners have already declared that this is a bit of a “test run”, and there are a few issues to work out, I think: the menu confuses people and needs better explanation (I’m constantly behind people who are totally lost) and some of the items suffer in the prep occasionally  (I’ve had very dry noodles and some soaked green beans as well). But the food is good, lots of spice and flavor, and I see no reason why expansion shouldn’t be in the cards.

Best Meal I Had in 2011: There are three that really stand out for me. Establishing Perry St. as my beachhead into fine NYC cuisine was an altogether-excellent choice and leaves me wanting to get up North more and eat my way through a city I’ve really had no excuse not to nosh on. My trip to Cochon for Iracane’s bachelor party produced a spread of pig from snout to tail (to alligator!) that won’t be soon forgotten (and eating one table over from three legitimate stars of film and TV didn’t hurt the memorability either.) But the best meal I had in 2011 – and maybe ever – was my experience at Graffiato. Ride Isabella for his general celebritosity all you want, but if you live in DC, you were enjoying him when he was kicking ass at Zaytinya before the Top Chef thing ever rolled down the tracks. Set it aside because the food, ladies and gents, is f—ing GOOD there.

So does this make Marshawn Lynch my new patron saint?

Vaya con Dios, Link.

The Zelda series is to videogaming what Pixar is to film: bright, beautiful, adventurous, polished, and most importantly, a source of wonder for all ages. You can love it as an adult, a college kid, a teen – even a little kid. I count three from the series (Ocarina, Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening, the last of which compelled me to carry around my bricky original Game Boy for a month like a third hand) among my favorite games of all time. I should, then, be utterly chuffed about Skyward Sword, which releases this Sunday. Early reviews say the game is nothing short of stellar; given that it’s currently pulling a 94 on Metacritic with 13 perfect reviews out of a possible 35, I doubt the consensus will have come apart if you’re reading this at a later date.

But I’m not, because I sold my Wii three years ago when it didn’t seem likely that a game of this caliber would ever exist for it.

The Wii sold like hotcakes, so it’s hard to consider it a commercial failure. But it represents a sad turn for longtime Nintendo fans, who watched the brand make missteps, over-leverage Mario (and under-leverage other quality franchises), and generally give a big fat “meh” to the fans that have supported it in the face of heavy encroachment from Sega first, and later, Sony and Microsoft.

As technology has improved, Nintendo has lagged further and further behind in the business of making quality games. Third-party developers had no idea what to do with the Wii, and the fact that it was an SD console in an HD generation led some to abandon it entirely. Ninty tried to pick up the slack – if you look at the best games for the system, pretty much all of them are first party: Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel, both of which were top-shelf platformers, Punch-Out, which recaptured the spirit of the original, Metroid Prime 3, which really added a lot to the franchise and… Wii Sports? Red Steel 2? I struggle to name 10 must-buy games over the last 5 years. Looking at Xbox and PS3, I can name you 10 over the last 5 months. Even if I had a Wii and Zelda in my hands, I’d still want to get through Gears 3, Uncharted 3, Skyrim, and AC: Revelations first (and that’s with FIFA 12 in my tray and Arkham City already beaten.)

I hoped that Nintendo would have learned from its mistakes, but to me, the Wii U looks like another system that developers are going to be completely lost in trying to grasp: underpowered, with a major gimmick (a screen on the controller) that’s going to bump up the price without a match in quality or innovation. Going back to the film analogy, 3D is having its moment right now but already the demand for it is tailing off post-Avatar. None of my friends, a true collection of tech geeks, is really excited about the prospect of purchasing a 3D TV. Motion control faces a similar problem. Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move are trying to graft it on, but the technology doesn’t matter if there aren’t great games to take advantage of it.

I may pick the Wii back up at a later date on the cheap – I’d love to get through what games I missed out on. But for now, I’m going to be sad because Nintendo couldn’t compel me to keep a Wii so I could play the best game for it – a game that should have been one of the first on the system, not one of the last. After a while, Sega released it couldn’t keep up on the hardware end and focused on what it did best: make quality games. For the sake of characters I love, I sincerely hope Nintendo goes the same route.

Jeopardy! is only partially about what you know, which is more a baseline to play than anything else. The rest is reflexes, luck, and nerve. Craig took down his big score by betting the farm on every Daily Double which – if you can get them right – not only gives you a major payout but a vicious psychological edge over your opponents. I wondered though – when Craig had to play nothing but top-tier competition, would he ease off the gas pedal?

As exhibited on last night’s Tournament of Champions final – uh, nope.

(h/t: The Set)

My father reserves a special kind of scorn for players who “play to lose,” as he put it. Discussing betting strategies with him before I went on (namely, the two-thirds rule, which I employed twice during FJ), his response was “What strategy? Bet it all.” I heard his voice in my head every time I hit a Daily Double but – you get up there, and nerves take over, and I played it safe.

Roger, apparently, didn’t have that problem. Well done, man. Well done.

A Kotaku post breaks down some of the specifics from the trailer, and I think the most intriguing facet of the game will be the storyline’s apparent focus on the recession. Most great gangster movies have been centered on taking advantage of opportunity – the rise of heroin in The Godfather; the excesses of the 70s and 80s in Goodfellas (and GTA’s been there before with Vice City; I don’t think that’s Ray Liotta voicing the trailer but maybe that’s his Tommy Vercetti in the suit?); the vulnerable new immigrant populations of Godfather Part 2 and Gangs of New York. What gangster movies and video games haven’t seen a lot of is desperation and survival – that’s a theme that’s been suited more for horror movies and thrillers. But with the economy in the toilet, I think that’s going to be the theme on which GTA V succeeds or fails. On the West Coast, V will also get another shot to present the “immigrant with his back against the wall” motif that fell a little flat in GTA IV because Niko Bellic’s story wasn’t developed well enough.

Does Rockstar have an engrossing, coherent tale to tell this time? GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption were spectacular games, but their stories tended to unravel badly by the third act (although I find no fault with either game’s ending, both of which I liked). Both games had a stellar cast of characters but didn’t develop a story well enough to get me invested in the main character the way you are with a Henry Hill or a Michael Corleone. Rumors say the game is going to have multiple playable characters

I’m sure much of the run-up to this game – perhaps the last big hurrah for this console generation – will focus on the technical aspects and the laundry list of things you can and can’t do in San Andreas. Frankly, I’m not bothered by these; Rockstar games have never been short on things to do (and I 100%ed RDR) and I’m certain you’ll be able to disappear into the world as deeply as you want. What I want from GTA V is proof that you can do an amazing, dramatic storyline in an open-world environment. The best stories in recent gaming, like the Uncharted and Modern Warfare franchises, have all been very linear experiences. Rockstar has already shown us that they can make the best sandboxes around. I think now it’s time for them to give us the best imagination in the business, too.

(img from Leah Libresco, DCist.com)

I’m a bit incensed by the Google Reader changes that finally went live today, and either you’re well aware of what happened or you couldn’t give a damn – so either way I won’t rehash the details.

But for ShareBros, it’s a sad triumph of pageviews over substance for Google. G+ is a flawed product, attempting to be an upscale Facebook but ending up too complicated for its own good. In an attempt to solve privacy problems, they’ve turned keeping your friends organized into a frustrating spreadsheet exercise. I never quite know who’s reading my stuff, or who should be. If Google was trying to drive loyal Google Reader users – and are there any other kind? – to G+, all they’ve succeeded in is ensuring that those users are pissed off. As soon as HiveMined comes online, that’ll be my new RSS solution.

Why cut features? Why force migration? It’s about money for Google, and that makes it a sad day not just for ShareBros but for anybody who got suckered into Google’s slogan in the first place. I use plenty of their products because a lot of them are quality – but anybody who watched the sad final days of gReader now understands that “Don’t Be Evil” has been replaced by “Meh, Profit”.

What has 400 collectible challenges and doesn't make you want to hurl your controller through the television?

Last week I beat the main story mode for Batman: Arkham City. I don’t play enough games in a year to have confidence in calling anything a “Game of the Year”, and I’ve seen the early reviews for Uncharted 3  are stellar although I will not get to it for quite some time (as the original is still sitting on my desk and I’ve only gone through about three chapters in it). That said, I can confidently call Arkham City the best game I’ve played this year and am sure it will be one of yours as well. The story, while a bit meandering, is fun; the gameplay is just a joy (especially the combat system, which Assassin’s Creed should shamelessly pilfer) and the leap from a linear experience to an open city was flawless in a way that many games haven’t mastered. I’ve played some really boring open-worlders in the ten years since Grand Theft Auto shook things up, and while Arkham City is small, there’s so much going on that you never notice you can fly over in a minute or two. (Some games go so big they get it wrong: there are vast swaths of AC‘s Rome I don’t want to visit again, and Just Cause was just overkill for me.)

That’s twice now I’ve compared the game to Assassin’s Creed, so it’s important to note that I loved AC2 and Brotherhood and those negative comparisons shouldn’t tarnish that. But most of the things that bother me about that series, Batman gets better, and no place does it shine harder than in the Riddler’s puzzles and trophies.

Tacking on collectibles is a trope that singleplayer games have used for a while to give you a reason to go back into the game’s world. It’s been especially prevalent in open-worlders and Metroidvania type games, where the sheer amount of geography affords designers plenty of places to hide stuff. I can remember dicking around Liberty City looking for the 100 hidden packages for weeks once I had beaten the game – and being mostly frustrated by it.

That’s the counter-productive aspect to collectables and replayability: sometimes all they add to a game is tedium. I had to stop myself from hunting treasures and side missions in Brotherhood and force myself to focus on the main campaign when I realized I was only doing it out of some latent OCD. 100%ing a game isn’t worth it when the last twenty or thirty percent is mind-numbing boredom, running across a map just to press “A” once or twice.

In that vein, Arkham City (which still has me chasing trophies even though I’ve beaten the campaign and most of the side missions) has gotten collecting right, so right that it inspired me to lay out a 5-point Scavenger’s Manifesto for games that want to use collectibles to add to their depth and replayability.

1) Make collecting engaging and fun. Collecting shouldn’t just be a scavenger hunt: it should require the player to use their abilities and skills to unlock each prize. In Arkham City, you’ll stumble on a few trophies, but the majority require you to consider your gadget arsenal and use the appropriate tool. There are quite a few trophies that are mini-puzzles and require some thought about how to approach them. There are even a few complex deathtraps that give out big rewards but need a few steps to complete. And as you collect, you’re interacting with the Riddler, who’s goading and taunting you along the way. There are even riddles that make you constantly think about flavor in the environment; they make you appreciate the little Batman villain references the art designers have sprinkled throughout the game. That’s good synergy.

2) Make collecting accessible without the Internet. The problem with GTA3′s packages is that they were so small and the world so big that you were never going to find most of them without searching for a map or spoiler on the Internet, which is counterproductive to the spirit of exploration and turns hunting into a chore. In Assassin’s Creed you can buy maps to collectibles, which is a good idea, but Arkham City has the best implementation yet. There are two ways you can get trophies on your minimap; first, when you see one but can’t collect it, you can tag it to your map, which is a brilliant idea for all Metroidvania type games. But you can also interrogate the Riddler’s many planted henchmen in the city; during a combat or predator challenge if you leave one designated enemy for last, you can push them for information which will give you a few locations of trophies, breakable, and riddles (super-helpful!) on the map. In a game where the gameplay is centered around exploiting opportunities to down enemies, interrogation adds a layer of challenge that is so, so smart in its design.

3) Provide constant, valuable rewards for collecting. GTA3 gave you new weapons in your safehouse every 10 packages. AC gave you – well, I can’t remember. I think when you got all the feathers you got a cape which stopped you from becoming notorious so you’d never have to rip another poster – but that’s just exchanging one type of tedium for another. Of course, every game gives you an achievement when you get everything these days. But Arkham City gives you something after almost every trophy and riddle, be it concept art, character model trophies, stories about the characters or (best of all) challenge maps to play through for high scores in combat and predator modes. Those are nice breadcrumbs when you’ve got 400 Riddler challenges staring you down. Additionally, every one rewards experience towards character upgrades.

4) Integrate collecting with the gameplay. Not only does Arkham City reward you constantly with fanservice, unlocking Riddler’s challenges is the only way to progress through his side-story, which involves saving hostages from Saw-lite deathtraps. As I was picking up trophies, I kept telling myself that I was also advancing the story, and that’s rare for games where generally the collectibles feel tacked on. That said, if you want to skip it entirely? You don’t miss anything on the main storyline.

5) Give the player a coherent reason to keep collecting when the main story is over. I can’t remember if it was BioShock or Arkham Asylum, but I remember a game in the past couple of years giving me a warning before I was about to face down the main boss, noting that I wouldn’t be able to go back and grab stuff afterwards. It was jarring and annoying and really took me out of the flow of the game. Additionally, there are a few games where the open-world is such a mess at the end that you wouldn’t want to go back and hunt for stuff. There are parts of Arkham City where you’ll definitely want to put collecting on hold – Protocol 10, for example. But after the final boss fight, not only is there a cutscene transition into Batman going back to “clean up a few things” so you don’t have to load a savegame, but the characters in game actually react to the outcome of the final fight as you listen to them. That’s just above and beyond. And oh yeah: it unlocks a “new game plus” where you get to keep all your gadgets, upgrades, and trophy progress and play through the story again with harder enemies. Nice work, Rocksteady Games.

Collecting can be a great way to extend a game’s shelflife, or it can be a monotonous chore. Arkham City got a lot of things right, but the Riddler trophies and riddles may be the best among them.