BOARD GAMES:

• Virgin Queen. Most people here will never be inclined to play VQ, given that a proper game of it lasts anywhere from five to nine hours – I managed to play it three times in 2012 and consider that a mammoth accomplishment. But it is a near-perfect game if you want to do what it does, which is reasonably simulate Elizabethan-era Europe within a not-insanely-complex game structure. It’s still quite complex, of course, because this is a game where all six factions (one of whom isn’t even a country, but simply “the Protestants”) have their own ways to win and their own distinct advantages, and where you can earn victory points in any number of ways – by promoting or crushing Protestantism, by colonizing the Americas, by advancing scientific discoveries or great works of art, by arranging politically-beneficial marriages with other players, or of course by going to war and stomping face. But all of it requires that you delve into truly deep diplomacy on a level that few games ever approach. What an experience.
• The Manhattan Project. Too many new worker placement games just leave me thinking “well, why didn’t I just play Caylus instead of this, because it’s a better game than this was.” TMP bucks that trend by actually doing something very novel and different with worker placement – instead of having organized rounds of “okay, we all place workers – and now we resolve the workers,” TMP goes free-form and makes placement of workers and removal of workers a player choice. This, combined with gameplay that encourages players to metaphorically punch one another in the face, made it a definite favorite for the year. Tzolkin, recently out, does much the same thing but with a giant gimmicky set of plastic gears, and Tzolkin is a fine game, but I still prefer TMP.
• Hanabi. I generally am not interested in most cooperative games because they tend to end up being a thing where the loudest/pushiest player dominates everybody else’s gameplay. Hanabi neatly kills that off by making it impossible: this is a cooperative card-laying game where you never see your hand and where the other players are strictly limited as to what they may tell you. It’s a brilliant little design that rewards ingenuity and deductive skills. Great game.
• Android: Netrunner. Unlike many I am old enough to remember the original Netrunner CCG, which was brilliant in theory but brutally flawed in practice – it arrived at the dawn of CCG design when people still didn’t quite realize how to balance games, so Richard Garfield’s excellent two-player asymmetrical bluffing duel CCG, which was superb right out of the starter deck, collapsed when you started designing actual decks. The modern revamp basically fixes all of that and adds some new, interactive mechanics to up the tension level, but other than that is still the same great game – just better on all counts.
• Love Letter. AEG takes a genius design from Japan – a deduction/bluffing game with only sixteen cards that plays up to four players – and then inexplicably rethemes it to their stupid new pre-made Tempest setting, on the assumption that anybody will care about their stupid new Tempest setting. Whatever, the game is still amazing.
• The Twelve Doctors. A print-and-play asymmetrical two-player dueling game based on Doctor Who where one player is the Doctor and one player is the Master, reaching into every corner of the Who mythos for its cards, and which manages the almost-impossible combination of both being a richly thematic game about Doctor Who while also being a very good game in its own right, a tactical blend of area control and San Juan-style hand management. And yes, there is a Jelly Babies card.
• Colonial. An aggressive 18th-century economic/exploitation game with a lot of clever mechanics. It’s abstract, but the good kind of abstract that exists to simplify rather than make overly simple – and it of course has numerous brutal diplomatic options as well. Terrific fun, with gorgeous components and cheerfully amoral gameplay.

MUSIC:

• Skrillex feat. Ellie Goulding, “Summit.” Skrillex gets possibly more undeserved shit than any musical act going, whether it is cheap WUBWUBWUB jokes or stupid gags about his nom de plume, but this is a perfect counter to that – it’s not dubstep at all, but instead a contemplative and somehow epic bit of melodic trance. It’s gorgeous.
• Lumineers, “Ho Hey.” On the non-technological side of things, we have this almost painfully simple and earnest love song, a love song stripped down to bare essentials, if you will – if it were a car, it would be one of those barely-a-cars where you have a seat, an engine, an undercarriage and wheels, and nothing else. But it works. Basically it is like listening to Mumford and Sons except, and this is the key bit, you don’t actually have to listen to Mumford and Sons.
• Pegboard Nerds, “Revenge of the Nerds.” Lovely crossover between 16-bit chiptuning and dubstep. I think that is enough to say right there, except that I will add I first heard this as part of a fake “Wreck-It Ralph” soundtrack and I like this better than anything on the actual soundtrack (which is hardly bad, come to think).
• Florence and the Machine, “Spectrum.” (Also the Calvin Harris remix.) Because every generation gets the Tori Amos it deserves – and every generation deserves a Tori Amos, really – and Florence Welch is apparently proof that this generation is particularly deserving for some reason I do not yet understand, but I’m willing to run with it if I get to snag stuff like this for my iPod on the side.
• July Talk, “Paper Girl.” This song is so. Fucking. Dirty. Loved this Tom Waits-meets-Dido brawler months ago, still love the fuck out of it. Feel like I need a shower after I listen to it, every time, and that is the highest compliment I can pay it.
• Azealia Banks, “1991.” Because it has been too long since I heard a true machine-gun female MC spit out rhymes like that.
• Everything from Madeon’s new album this year but especially “Finale.” Because it’s great. This is what I wanted electronic music to be twenty years ago and it is just getting to doing it now. Took you goddamn enough, you broad musical genre you.
• Japandroids, “The House That Heaven Built.” Because duh.

I know some of you readers might choose to celebrate Vandalhkah rather than No Doubtmas, and we celebrate diversity of course, but this is how we do things here:

(yes, we all know it’s a takeoff from Mickey Avalon)

Via Leah, this is fantastic:

ME: What are you doing on my internet?
FLAPJACKS: I’m reading Nelson’s Wikipedia entry.
ME: …why?
FLAPJACKS: Because.
ME: I don’t think I can actually get a more honest explanation than that.
FLAPJACKS: Did you know they released an album called Because They Can? Nelson have some big balls.
ME: I did not know that.
FLAPJACKS: I’m also pretty sure that they wrote their Wikipedia entry. “In addition to touring as NELSON, the twin singer-songwriters also perform a separate tribute act for their father, called “Ricky Nelson Remembered.” Plus, they perform with celebrity all-star rock and roll rat pack SCRAP METAL.”
ME: Wow, I could hear the all-caps.
FLAPJACKS: Only because I say the all-caps parts in a bass voice.
ME: Well, yes. Say, do we know who Scrap Metal – excuse me, SCRAP METAL – are?
FLAPJACKS: I Googled and it turns out it is Nelson plus other people from formerly famous rock bands. Like, the “about” section says that it was founded by Nelson and the former lead singers of Mr. Big, Slaughter and Night Ranger.
ME: Night Ranger? Are they a real band? I thought they were the band in Left 4 Dead 2 that had the concert where you fight zombies.
FLAPJACKS: I think that’s someone else. But anyway, apparently Scrap Metal are mostly just Nelson, and whoever Nelson can get to tour with them that week. Like, here’s a press release where Scrap Metal played before “2,000 of our country’s future military leaders” in Annapolis -
ME: So basically they’re the guys you get for your high school prom or something.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t judge. But for this event, they had Nelson, plus the former lead singer of Vixen, and some guy who is described as being “of Ted Nugent.” I guess Ted Nugent is a band now, otherwise they would have said “this guy who used to play with Ted Nugent.”
ME: I believe technically Ted Nugent is an institution now, thanks to an official recognition from Congress in 2003.
FLAPJACKS: Oh, here’s something where they welcome the former lead singer of Motley Crue -
ME: Vince Neil? How did Nelson get Vince Neil to do anything with them? Vince Neil is still sort of famous.
FLAPJACKS: They got John Corabi.
ME: Oh, come on. Calling John Corabi “the lead singer of Motley Crue” is only technically correct. He was there for like four years where Motley Crue barely did anything and then they fired him and brought back Vince Neil. That would be like bringing in Guy from Extreme and then calling him “the lead singer of Van Halen” when you don’t even have Sammy Hagar.
FLAPJACKS: Are you sure you want to call out John Corabi like that? I mean, the guy probably doesn’t get mentioned on the internet that often. I bet with a couple weeks this will become the #1 Google result for “John Corabi.”
ME: I’m fine with it, because unlike Steven Seagal, John Corabi does not have his own brand of knife.
FLAPJACKS: You promised never to mention Steven Seagal again! Oh god, now I’m saying it! Stop it! Stop it!
ME: Maybe we could talk about more long-dead hair rock bands. It’s like internet camouflage.

But, as it is this site’s Christmas tradition:

And, as always, if you do not celebrate No Doubtmas:

So I’m at my friend’s place and her daughter is showing off her candy haul to me excitedly and explaining how much she got of each type of candy (including an ungodly number of Coffee Crisps, but if you’re going to get a lot of one type of fun-sized bar, you might as well get a good one) and when she gets to the lollipops I recoil in shock, because now they are making “fun-size” Tootsie Roll Pops.

I mean, seriously? Fun-sized lollipops? These things looked like little candy pellets on tiny sticks. These would not even take one lick to get to the centre. It would have been cute if it wasn’t so clearly a total destruction of my youth, which was far more awesome than any present childhood because the damn Tootsie Roll Pops were at least the right size.

Apropos of nothing, here is a Halloweeny video for everybody: the Pet Shop Boys with “Heart,” which has a Dracula in it. And get this: the Dracula is actually Ian McKellen, which I only learned very recently, and which explains why this Dracula is such a swinging dancer.

So this is a song by Foster the People called “Houdini.” It’s a perfectly good song. I wouldn’t call it “great,” but as indie rockers go it’s solid enough: good beat, tuneful, distinctive.

See? Not bad at all, really.

But this is the same song as re-envisioned by Remix Artist Collective:

RAC turn the song into a nu-century riff on early 80s New Wave in a lot of ways – the Tron-like keytar riff omnipresent through the song gives it a harder edge, for example. And the upped tempo of the backing music against the unchanged vocals makes the song more dramatic. I know that judgements about musical quality are so often subjective, but my subjective judgement here is that the remix is quite simply a pure upgrade to the original, a case of a B-grade song becoming an A, and remixes are rarely, to my eye, so unambigiously better than their original material.

It is a live cover of dubstep! (Specifically, Skrillex, so you know in advance it’s going to be at least a cover of dubstep that has art to it.)

So here is Snowgoons:

What are you listening to lately? Youtube link in the comments if possible.

Kazahkstan. A nice, dramatic anthem that’s kind of spoiled because when you listen to it from the start you feel like you came in halfway through instead. 68

Kenya. Sounds like the soundtrack to the most awesome mid-60s nature documentary ever, and specifically the track for the part where the elephants majestically stride across the savannah. This is good, because elephants are awesome and anything one associates with elephants becomes that much better as a result. 84

Kiribati. Generic Anglo-ish castoff, which is not unsuitable for a country which gets its name from the local dialect version of the name the English people gave it when they “discovered” it. 34

North Korea. Look, you knew going in this was going to sound like a song extolling the virtues of a beloved dictator, and if you’re surprised it’s really only your own damn fault, but what’s depressing is how damn sedate this anthem is. Where are the death lasers? I was promised death lasers! 44

South Korea. Fun trivia: this anthem was originally sung to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.” It may well be horribly ethnocentric to say this, but I think that would have been better than this. 52

Kuwait. Unreasonably cheerful. Kuwait is a tiny little chunk of desert in the middle of the world constantly beset by war. Their anthem should not be so damned perky, you know? I mean, some countries can get away with sentimental, maudlin anthems. It feels like Kuwait missed a golden opportunity here. 37

Kyrgyzstan. Like Kuwait, has a national anthem which is simply named “National Anthem,” which is another reason I marked Kuwait so low. (Come on, Kuwait! Quit slacking!) But Kyrgyzstan’s anthem sounds like some awesome quest music set in an fantasy world, and Kuwait’s doesn’t. That is why this anthem owns. Now, if only it had a title… 76

Laos. Yet another anthem with no title other than “National Anthem” (man, what is up with that?), but this one sounds like some awesome Martian version of Bonanza so we can forgive it. 86

Latvia. You know that scene in Amadeus where King Jeffrey Jones says “there are too many notes” to Mozart? Somebody said “you know what would be great? If my nine-year-old kid and his beginning music class could play this” to the composer of Latvia’s national anthem. 15

Lebanon. Yet another anthem merely titled “National Anthem,” which is starting to get worrisome. This one sounds kind like of the one you might have sung at summer camp. The really good summer camp, mind you, rather than the summer camp where you made up lyrics to make fun of your counselors and maybe also include Batman in there somewhere. 55

Lesotho. Nothing particularly inspired about this anthem, but it is short and sweet, much like Lesotho itself, and gets nothing wrong, and that is admirable. 70

Liberia. Although the blending of African-style call and response with Western-style anthemic composition is a nice idea, the problem is that this anthem was written in English and therefore does not get the “translation excuse” for its terrible, terrible lyrics. “With heart and hand our country’s cause defending / We’ll meet the foe with valour unpretending” just makes you think the composer got really desperate towards the end. 46

Libya. I know I’m supposed to be reviewing Libya’s anthem here, but what really gets me is that every single comment on every single one of the Libyan anthem clips on Youtube is about how Libya’s all-green flag is silly (or occasionally “no, fuck you, we’re awesome and so is our green flag”). The Libyan flag is the Godwin of all discussion about Libya. I’m pretty sure if you watched enough newscasts back during the Lockerbie bombing, sooner or later one of the newscasters would point out that Libya’s flag is just all-green. Anyway, this anthem feels like taking a bunch of anthems and sewing the openings of all them together into a Frankenstein’s Overture. Which would probably be dressed in green. 28

Liechtenstein. Is, no kidding, just “God Save The Queen” with new lyrics. You kind of have to admire Liechtenstein’s balls. I mean, it’s a little snippet of a country that only exists because people need somewhere slightly less scrupulous than Switzerland to bank and it’s closer to Paris than the Cayman Islands are, and they just got up and ripped off “God Save The Queen.” Honestly, I’m impressed. 75

Lithuania. I always wondered why, once he revealed that he was not a horrible Commie Soviet but instead a heroic Lithuanian underdog, Nikolai Volkoff did not sing this when he came down to ringside. Instead, he waved an American flag and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Which is a shame, because the Lithuanian anthem is honestly quite pretty. 80

Luxembourg. Luxembourg has had a lot of experience being a dinky little country surrounded by much bigger countries, so it knows how to have an anthem when you are that sort of country: start small and pleasant so nobody thinks you’re putting on airs, but end with a flourish so they know that despite your size you still have heart. That’s how to be small with style. 87

The Social Network. All the for-reals movie critics have already said how brilliant this is and they are basically completely right about everything. People complaining that the movie isn’t completely accurate – other than missing the point of movies generally – are mistaken because the accuracy here is about capturing the entire ethos of ruthless vision that led to the 2000s dotcom re-boom. Jesse Eisenberg gives what’s far and away the most brilliant performance of the year by any actor because he’s simultaneously so compelling and sympathetic while being so unlikeable and cold, and Aaron Sorkin’s script tones down his usual crutches to the point where it’s better than anything else he’s previously written.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game. Out of all the new boardgames I played in 2010, this was my favorite: a three-hour brainburner that genuinely captures the feel of playing a marathon game of Civ on your computer, except there’s no computer and you get the fun of playing against three other opponents face-to-face. Multiple victory conditions, variant civilization rules, tech advancement for strategic purpose – everything you would expect out of a game of Civ is here, and produced with screamingly awesome quality.

The first and third episodes of Sherlock. I can’t in good conscience give the whole series a total endorsement because the second episode, “The Blind Banker,” is just not in the league of the other two; cheap Orientalism plus a less-than-compelling mystery make for teevee that is only passably entertaining at most. But the first and third episodes are fantastic stuff – the best visual description of texting yet put to screen, genuinely inventive and fun mysteries, brilliant renditions of the Holmes thought process and of course Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s superb Holmes and Watson turn what could have been a goofy lark into some of the best long-form telly of the year.

ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae. Any year Janelle Monae drops a new album it will make this list.

Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson. As I get older, and to an extent more productive, the “I wish I had written that” feeling occurs less and less often – that sheer burst of envy you feel when somebody writes something that is so fucking good that is, in retrospect, such an obvious idea that it should have occurred to you years ago, but it didn’t. Beasts of Burden is the only comic all year that made me feel that way: gorgeous, intelligent, crucially not overwritten or overexplained (which would have just ruined it) and mostly just vital. A cat clawing a demon in the eyes felt more urgent than any superhero comic all year long, which says something about superhero comics.

Community. The second half of season one and the first half of season two combine for one of the most virtuosic meta-seasons of any show ever. Community is brilliant not because of the thematic parodies it does (in episodes like “Contemporary American Poultry,” “Epidemiology,” “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design,” and above all “Modern Warfare”), although those are brilliant. No, Community is brilliant because of its exacting attention to detail in crafting its stories: no show is as efficient at using every single inch of screen real estate and every second of running time to cram in as much story as possible. Think Abed’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it subplot in “The Psychology of Letting Go,” or the fact that the show actually gives away the ending of “Cooperative Calligraphy” in the first two minutes in a way that nobody watching will notice the first time through, or the numerous references to the fact that Jeff and Britta keep hooking up on the sly without ever actually bothering to address it in a main plotline (until they do, of course) – but then bear in mind that all of this detail and craft is simultaneously used to further develop and strengthen all of the show’s cast and drop as many gags as humanly possible.

Animal Kingdom. The best crime movie in years. Animal Kingdom features a teenaged protagonist actually acting like a real teenager (sullen and moody), some of the most vivid and genuinely evil characters to come along in a very long time (when one character matter-of-factly explains what is to be done about another – you’ll know it when you see it – it’s just a tour-de-force of the filmmakers daring you to believe that this isn’t happening when it is), and a plot that surprises out of old-school Hitchcockian tension rather than boring old shock value. Staggeringly good movie.

Matt Smith as the Doctor. Because he’s really, really good at it.

I’ve been deathly ill the last few days, hence the lack of content, but since it is the season and all:

Best wishes to all, and I’ll be back to posting when I am done opening my presents.

And for those who are going to complain about Gwen Stefani, well, here:

So in lieu of a fascinating post here is some Wintersleep for you lot.