henke on 22/12/2011 at 16:01

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We are nearing the end of what has been one of the best years for videogames IN LIVING MEMORY! Is that hyperbole? Maybe. Discuss! No wait, first post your top 10 lists, then discuss. Go!

1. Frozen Synapse (PC)
I didn't expect to like this. Truth is I didn't even buy it. Sulphur asked me if I wanted to have his spare copy so I said “sure”. I gave it a spin just to see what it was like, and ended up spending 30 hours of the following week playing through the singleplayer campaign. After that I got into the multiplayer and have since had many many matches with fellow TTLGers and complete strangers alike. This is a game I expect to stay on my harddrive for many years to come(as well as on my iPad when that version is released).

2. Dark Souls (X-BOX 360)
It's hard to say what is the hardest game I've ever played. Certainly there are games I've given up on much earlier than I did Dark Souls, though not neccesarily because they were harder. They just weren't fun and rewarding enough to play for me to stick with them when things got tough. Even if there were times I was about to give up on this game, it wouldn't let me. It'd come to me, uninvited, while I was making dinner or at work. Suddenly I'd think “Aha! If I just grind enough to get the key to that door then I can get the thingy that'll let me defeat that boss!” etc.

I'm not done with this game yet. I'll get back to eventually. There are still things I have to do, and I already have a strategy planned out for what to do when I return to it.

3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC)
It was when I first got to explore the city-hub that it hit me: this isn't just a good game, this is a good Deus Ex-game. I did not expect that. It was, frankly, more than a jaded fan of the series could have been asked to expect.

4. L.A. Noire (X-BOX 360)
A bit too slow in parts, and with a few design choices that were a bit annoying. But the last 5 hours of this game were the most gripping I've played this year.

5. Portal 2 (PC)
Big, fun, and funny. Playing co-op with Sulphur was a blast too.

6. The Little Crane That Could (iPad)
Like “Tricky Truck” last year, this is an indietitle whose childlike title hides a brilliant, uncompromising simulator. What I love about it is that there's nothing “gamey” about it save for the conditions of which a level's completion depends. The rest is pure math. If you don't bother gripping what you're lifing properly it might wobble loose if you rotate your crane too quickly. Spend half an hour stacking objects on an elevator to bring them up a tower and then accidentally have one of the objects fall of the ledge once you get up there there's no rewind or quckload button. You'll simply have to chose between giving up or spending another half hour going back down to get it.

And just like “Tricky Truck”, TLCTC was only going to appeal to a small niche of wierdoes, like me. And judging from the fact that the developer tracked down my small “review” of the game from half a year ago and linked to it from (http://www.stolk.org/tlctc/) the game's official site, I'd guess the fanbase is quite small.

7. Test Drive Unlimited 2 (PC)
Did not expect to enjoy this one as much as I am. It's the locations, and the vehiclehandling that does it for me. This may be one of the best games ever for just cruising around.

8. APB: Reloaded (PC)
Had a lot of fun with this for about a week last summer.

9. Dead Space 2 (PC)
Good, but I still got bored of it halfway through. Took me half a year before I got around to finishing it. Glad I did, some pretty fucked up shit happens at the end.

10. Nitronic Rush (PC)
Only played this for about a week. Not because I got bored with it but rather because it ran out of content. After I'd beaten all the tracks several times over I'd had enough. The team behind this would do well to make a sequel and charge money for it. I'd also like a more open-world sandbox racing game with this gameplay; the thrusters are a great way of scaling buildings and getting around town.


Honorable mentions:
Orcs Must Die! (PC)
Good fun, but only for a few hours. It eventually starts feeling formulaic and the story wasn't enough to keep my interest.
GIRP (PC)
Most inventive use of the keyboard I've seen in ever.
Stealth Bastard (PC)
Hockey? (PC)
Ace of Spades (PC)
Wild Chords (iPad)


Honorable mention of a 2010 game that I didn't get around to playing until this year:
Super Stickman Golf (iOS)
Next to Frozen Synapse and Dark Souls, this is the game I spent the most time playing this year.

Still have to play/properly evaluate: Driver: SF, Batman: AC, Saints Row 3, Skyrim, Off-Road Drive

Koki on 22/12/2011 at 16:36

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Yes

Very

june gloom on 22/12/2011 at 21:04

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LA Noire and DXHR really made my year for me.

henke on 23/12/2011 at 10:11

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I return to this thread and what do I see? Not a top 10 list in sight. I'm sorry, I thought I was dealing with a forum of hardcore gamers, but all I see is a bunch of fucking casuals! Pfff. You guys disgust me.

*turns up nose, plays some Super Stickman Golf*

Malf on 23/12/2011 at 11:08

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Cross-post from another forum I visit:

There's a couple of games that I still want to play that I suspect I may get for Christmas that I'm sure would make the list (Skyrim and Serious Sam), but otherwise...

Witcher 2
Batman Arkham City
Crysis 2
Dark Souls
Driver San Francisco
Saints Row The Third
Dead Island
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Portal 2
DC Universe Online

Lots of "D" games in that list :D

Not released this year, but thoroughly enjoyed anyway:
Mount & Blade Warband. Better melee and horse combat in this than pretty much anything else out there. Brilliant.
Age of Conan. Re-released as F2P this year and one of the better MMOs I've played. Better than DCUO to be honest, and I would swap it into my final list if I were able to.

Disappointments:
Uncharted 3 should have been a shoe-in for the list, but felt far too scripted and formulaic. Excellent voice acting and a good pace plus that spectacular bar fight intro couldn't save it from a certain apathy. Plus, they did something bad to Elena's face :(

LA Noire was compelling up to a point, but got several things incredibly, badly wrong, such as the interrogations. The Point & Click bits were fun, although they could have been a bit more involved I felt, but the interrogations were just downright bad.

Assassin's Creed Revelations just didn't do enough new and also introduced the most out of place Tower Defense game that just stank of focus grouping. Plus, no real revelation regarding why Juno forced Desmond to kill wotserface at the end of Brotherhood.
Ezio and Altair's story segments were fantastic mind you.

Rage promised so much with how it initially looked, then delivered so little, with quite possibly the worst ending I've experienced in years. It also couldn't stand up to scrutiny with textures blurring to garbled messes when inspected closely. Great for delivering interesting vistas, crap at the fine detail.
And most of the interesting things you could see in the game were all on the horizon, unreachable behind invisible barriers.

The biggest disappointment however lies with...
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
Zelda was tedious, annoying and amateurish.
Waggle controls ended up frustrating more than enthralling, frequently taking control away from the player. Alarm bells should have been ringing when the developers found themselves having to bind controller calibration to a button to ensure easily accessible re-centering.
Unskippable conversations went beyond patronising into farcical and out the other side through to downright disgusting.
There was far too much retreading of old ground, and where in previous Zelda games I've felt compelled to collect everything, in this one I just couldn't be arsed.
In the end I was just glad to get it over with. This is without being distracted by the low resolution graphics, which I learned to live with, but still found hard to tolerate after so many years of HD gaming.
It's a tragedy, as the core story was good (as ever).
The music was leaps and bounds ahead of anything else out there in its ability to conjure feelings. It was also masterfully crafted, flawlessly changing character with the environment (different composition for in and out of water for example, with no break between the two).
But it couldn't save the game.
I also found out that New Game + offers shorter conversations that are easily skipped. Why the fuck they didn't include that as a core game option is beyond me.
And the news that Zelda will now forever be a motion controlled game basically means I won't be buying another Zelda game thank you very much.

Oh yeah, it's also the first game I've bought for Wii in 3 years. I think the Wii may be going back into indefinite storage.