Good evening, Destructoid.



With the Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday, I'll have been a part of the recap team for a full year. I always respected what Ceark and the other volunteers did for the site, but it took me a while to nut up and volunteer myself. It's been a lot of work, but I don't regret a minute of it. When I began, I had two objectives: perform a service to the community, and try to get my name (or avatar, at least) out there a little, so I wouldn't feel like such a face in the crowd. While the success or failure of the first objective is not something I can objectively judge, the latter has been very successful, and I thank you all for that. My service here gave me the confidence to introduce myself at PAX this year to many of you, and to send friend requests on services like Steam and PSN to many others. If you've read my 10 things post, you know that opening up to people is a struggle for me, but the feedback and support the recap blogs get are a fine motivator. I rarely have time to post my own blogs... you've probably noticed that my personal blog hasn't been updated since August. The -isms section here has provided the outlet that my own blog once provided.

I thought you might like a little behind the scenes insight into the recaps. Recap team business is handled on Google groups. We report to Conrad Zimmerman, who was doing the recaps for like three days of the week before he got greyscaled and kicked upstairs. Although we have a template for use on the Google group page, I keep a .txt document on my desktop that I can copy and paste a blank recap into the browser. I use IE and Firefox simultaneously to do recaps... I read the blogs in IE and do all the copy-pasting in Firefox, because it autosaves changes made. Recaps are, just like any other blog, posted in BBcode. As a result I've gotten a LOT better at BBcode since I began. Each recap takes me between 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours, depending on how many blogs there were that day and their length. I do read every blog from beginning to end to try to find the best category match, but sometimes there's just something that doesn't fit and the ?- category is pressed into service.

I do my best to include each blogger's name with their blog's tagline, so it's easier for them to find in the recap. The exceptions to this are the Fail and Could Be Better categories-- I try to spare people's feelings, if only in a small way. I never post a name with either of these two categories.

In closing, here are a few of my favorite moments from the last year. It always seemed as though I was the one on duty whenever a meme hit the blogs...

My first recap, from Thanksgiving 2008.
10 things. This is still my favorite meme.
Why I love Destructoid, the daily post...
And the special edition.



*-Dexter's Musing shines the harsh light of reality on procrastination.
*- Kauza.
*-Megastryke.
*-New meme inbound: #Stackyourgadgets.
*-Pixelated Lilac wrote a great Musing about one of my favorite games from the last generation-- Eternal Darkness.


A-TheMizarkShow wrote about his disappointment with Nintendo. I agree with most of it, but I don't think NSMB Wii would necessarily be improved with online Co-op. That game's chaotic enough without adding lag to the mix.
A-GDHamell wrote about the struggle against censorship, and how it's sort of a rite of passage for each type of new media.
A-Novakaine has some helpful suggestions to Capcom for the inevitable Resident Evil 6.
S-Most of the major releases are now available, so why not let NihonTiger90 know What'd You Get?
P-Podcasto del borracho con Knivy está ahora disponible.
P-Your princess is in another podcast recorded episode 2 earlier. And here it is.


Nope.


Nuh uh.


N-Crunshii brings us some news about the Cell processor, the heart of the PS3.
N-Zippyduda wants to alert our friends in Great Britain about the Digital Economy bill. It's bad. Real bad.
R-Balth wiped the blood from his eyes to review Dragon Age: Origins on the PC.
R-Perhaps inspired by the awesome Crysis mod on the front page, Rider Chop did a retro review of Back to the Future on the MSX.
R-Yakulto27 reviewed Modern Warfare 2 for all three platforms.
T-UberSunTzu thinks Assassin's Creed 2 might be a little better if it were a little worse.
T- BillytheK1dd thinks you should try AC2 even if you were put off by the repetition in the original.
T-Locke thinks Infinity Ward might have pulled something shady.
T-HBL has been playing one of the overlooked titles of the holiday hype season: Tropico 3.
T-Grimhound thinks Gearbox and 2K are making the PC version of Borderlands a lower priority than the console versions.


A-SuitcoatAvenger brings arty goodness to the cblogs once again.
M-Everyday Legend takes command of the red and green turntables of dTunes for the week.
F-Analoge's Mindf*ck Monday movie this week is The Fall.


V-OGmaster's list of the 10 saddest gaming moments, in video form.
V-Mudkip5000 and friends made a L4D2 themed video.
C-Promoting your other blogs with a new blog post just seems a little unnecessary. Maybe it's me.
C-This isn't Yahoo Answers. It's OK to ask questions, but this type of thing would make more sense as a forum post.


F-Parody or no, this is unacceptable.
F-Error, for sho'.
F-Dammit, three in a row. I need a drink.
F-I don't usually fail people's first efforts. Unless there isn't any effort.
F-Take it to Twitter. This post only has 70 characters, so you could fit it in there twice.


-(Qalamari)

FPoTD