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| Pollyanna 2977th Post
  
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|  "Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sun 2 Jan 06:41  
Hey! 2010 is over! What are your games of the year? You pick the categories, I don't care!
Game of the Year (Console)
My pick is Mass Effect 2, (almost) hands down. I doubt I can say anything about the game that hasn't already been said. It's one of those games that I couldn't stop playing until I won it and I talked about with my friends for months afterward.
Honorable mention:
Mario Galaxy 2 is a truly fantastic game, but is edged out by ME2 for me, because I'm just not that crazy about Mario. Still, I'm glad they made a sequel. One game was simply not enough.
Disqualified, but awesome
Bayonetta, which was my game of 2009.
Game of the Year (Portable):
Monster Hunter Portable 3 snuck in at the end of the year, but made an unexpectedly big splash with me. I always expect that Monster Hunter is going to be old and tired when a new game comes out. 2nd G had so much content that it started to wear on me. Tri, refreshed my passion for the series, but left me hungry for more. Portable 3 gives me everything I could possibly ask for.
I am continually impressed at how Capcom can innovate just enough with the Monster Hunter games. They find just the right things to tweak every time around without changing anything that could upset the experience. MHP3 is deliciously lacking in many of the annoyances of earlier titles and filled with a sea of new wonders. It may seem a bit "kind" to veterans, but there is such a wealth of content that it's easy to create your own challenge.
Honorable Mention:
Ghost Trick is a fantastic experience and has some of the most impressive storytelling I've ever seen in a game. It's as exciting as Gyakuten Saiban was when it first came out and the puzzles are both fun and rewarding to play. Equally impressive is its presentation, which uses the DS' technology without feeling limited by it. MHP3 beats it out only because it's more of a "game".
Disqualified:
Dragon Quest 9, which I played last year. Despite my groans about putting a major sequel on a portable console, the game is arguably my favorite Dragon Quest and certainly the best RPG on the system.
RPG of the Year
I play a lot of RPGs, so I feel the necessity to mention this category above all others. Since ME2 was my overall favorite, my RPG pick goes to Xenoblade. I've already yammered about the game quite a bit, but it really was a great experience. In particular, the tremendous wealth of excellent music, fast-paced (if chaotic) battle system and massive environments make it a winner.
I was a bit nervous when I saw the characters running across massive landscapes in the trailers, but the environments are so well-constructed and so lacking in a feeling of "cut and paste" that they're a joy to explore. Climbing, jumping and swimming to every corner of every map is a (time devouring) blast. Each area, despite their size, feels intimately designed, as if it was based on an illustration.
Also, the story is pretty good and decidedly unique, up until the idiotic ending.
Honorable Mention
Last Ranker which was brimming with fun characters and nail-biting boss fights. Ah, the soundtrack was great, too, especially with its wealth of powerful battle themes. Also powerful were its over the top finishing moves...some of which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL5wJTolZUg&feature=related
If they seem long...well, they are, but they mark the end of a boss fight, not something that occurs over and over in the middle.
The game was almost ruined by its homosexual (WITH THE WRONG GUY!) final 2 minutes. They could've at least let me CHOOSE! I didn't do any side conversations with this guy, I didn't give him the key to my room and I sided against him at every turn only to get what felt like "his ending."
Notable Mentions
Deadly Premonition wins the "Defies All Reason" award. It breaks the scale of "good" and "bad" and enters the realm of "strictly amazing.
Kinect wins the "Technology is Magic" award for actually working and actually being tremendously fun (assuming you have lots of space).
Lords of Shadow wins the "Clusterfuck" award and perhaps the "Too Much Patrick Stewart" award. Here is a game that plays well and has some of the best environments and monster designs I've seen in anything. The sketches and animations in your journal are absolutely magic and the soundtrack is impressive, if not terribly catchy. And yet...the frame rate is abhorrent, so many concepts in the game are obviously derivative, the dialogue is embarrassing and the plot is almost totally nonsensical. So much talent and originality is almost put to waste by Gabriel's rambling, poorly constructed quest.
2010 in general wins the "Good Year for Fighting Games" award. Sure, 2009 probably had more fighters, but 2010 saw the wonderfully improved sequels to Street Fighter 4 and BlazBlue. Two excellent fighters a year beats 5 decent ones for me. Here's hoping SNK irons out a few things for their (inevitable?) home port of KOF13, to make 2011 a good year for me, too.
*An added note...
This last 1/2 of the year has been unusually full of work for me, so I've been able to purchase a wealth of games that I haven't had any time to play. So I feel the need to include:
Disqualified because I haven't played them
Nier, Vanquish, Tactics Ogre, Criminal Girls, Tales of Graces F (although the original was pretty good).
Go on! Tell me what I'm forgetting!
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Gojira 2684th Post
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
|  "Re(1):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sun 2 Jan 07:53
Unfortunately if I had to count on what I liked this year, there was Mass Effect 2, and for the rest it was mostly last year's games. Or earlier.
There were a few new ones that I kind of enjoyed, though. Not enough to snap me out of a new year's coma to sing their praises, but I can say a few words.
Heavy Rain was quite possibly the worst game I've ever enjoyed. I used to think that title went to God Hand, but where God Hand was trying really hard to be bad and failing, Heavy Rain was barely trying to be anything close to a game. Yet in the end I found myself fairly well-engaged by the story and characters, enough to complete the thing and watch one of the many depressing endings.
Hokuto Musou aka Ken's RAGE was a personal bucket of fun for me, but if you asked me seriously what was so good or fun about it, I probably couldn't answer. It just was. It was like setting an elephant loose on a sea of rabbits and watching stuff happen.
Then there was Metroid: Other M. If one could tear the vapid and sickeningly dull story and characters out of this game, one might find a flawed but fundamentally engaging title between the stretches of perspective imprisonment. The free sections and exploration for powerups were still as fun as they've ever been, it's just the story reasoning for what Samus had to do was plain awful.
Honorable mentions go out to Layton 3, Dragon Quest IX, and Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, none of which were actually new for 2010 but all of which I enjoyed.
Also this was the year I finally played Oboro Muramasa and cried myself to sleep wishing more games could look like that.
Finally, jeer of the year goes to Final Fantasy XIII. Sorry, I understand forgoing conventions in a genre but sometimes those things exist for a reason. FF13 literally had NOTHING TO DO. No towns, no sidequests, not even a freaking NPC to interact with. All you do is fight, and even then the fighting isn't all that good until you get 30 hours in. At least I can always listen to the soundtrack thanks to the magic of CD players. Square-enix still has yet to prove to me that they can take care of themselves without Sakaguchi, or whoever else left them in this confusing state.
So on with 2011! 3DS, I'm looking at you!
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| Iggy 9207th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sun 2 Jan 08:01
That's quite a lot of games... Everything she said about Mario Galaxy2 and Ghost Trick. Oh, and that game with T-Hawk and Hakan! Need more T-Hawk and Hakan. Everywhere.
Let's see what we can add...
Well, first and foremost, TACTICS OGRE is fantastic. It's an entirely new game, with the same sprites and maps as the old one, but with an entirely rethought system. It lost the elegant simplicity of the old one, but what you get in exchange is the best SquarEnix game of the year, a challenging, time consuming, modern, beautiful and clever tactical. With a great story that we already know, but who cares!
Basara3 was interesting, in that it showed the people in command know what they are doing with the series and do their best not to end up in the endless repetition that plagues Musou. The new characters are fun, and the old ones are either tweaked to be more interesting to play or entirely redone. The game is dead serious, which is a shame, but it still retains some unforgettable sparks of craziness. Of course, it's 5 years late in terms of engine and concepts, the character roaster is incredibly small, several iconic characters are missing, you keep doing the same things over and over, there are not enough stages... Will I buy the inevitable Basara3+ when it's released? Day one.
Almost on the same track, Pokémon B&W is amazing in terms of concepts. The developers had to make the impossible, an entirely new game that would use each available communication device, while staying at heart the exact same game as 15 years ago. And they managed to do so; the game is the same good old, and at the same time, brand new. Like always, some designs are good and some are total abominations, but even that stays on track with the legacy of the series.
Speaking of abominations, Deadly Premonition outclasses everything. It is a game that ought to be studied in university, by videogames students, to show them everything a game should NEVER DO.
Except stealing everything good in Mizuurna Falls. That was good. The rest has to be seen to be believed, if possible with friends and booze. That will be your best spent 5 bucks.
Civilization5 started out as a horribly unbalanced wrench crippled with bugs and abrupt shutdowns, which is to say it was a normal PC game on its release. After a few patch, most of the glaring issues have been solved, and the resulting game is a solid Civ, that solves several of the horrible issues that have existed since the first game (I cannot come back to a game with unit stacking anymore) but lacks the polish in writing Civ4 had. No victory screen, horribly forced script, poor dubbing, awkward sentences, no Leonard Nimoy are all issues that will never be solved in any future expansion, unfortunately. Let's just hope the game expands enough to reach the impressive balance Civ4BtS achieved, because right now, with all its flaws, I already like playing it more than any other game of the series.
I would never have thought I would ever say that, but that Lara Croft game (the one with a top-view that is not called Tomb Raider) is incredibly good. It's fun, it has puzzle-solving, platforming, excellent controls, clever level design... Its only fault it, well, to be a Tomb Raider and not an entirely new franchise. But the idea of mixing the world's worst archaeologist with the rules of Bomberman is a stroke of genius.
Super Scribblenauts was adorable, fun, and I have nothing else to say about it.
I missed DKC, Xenoblade and Kirby, so I'll try to make time for them. I was supposed to play EoE, FFCCCC and Last Remnant in 2010, but failed... Oh well. I could say I don't have time to play JRPG anymore, but then, I already have over 200 hours of Civ5, so...
2011, here we go.
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| Spoon 2075th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Best Game Featuring Black Operations" , posted Sun 2 Jan 14:23
Any year a game comes out that I've worked on, I can't help but feel that game is special to me. I will invariably hate it, love it, and quite simply care for it more than any other game, no matter how sick of that game I've gotten.
So Mass Effect 2 is above judgement for me. You can only judge your own children so much.
In a completely different way, Deadly Premonition is above judgement. How many games can you name with 3+ years of development time and a budget that are a total trainwreck in more ways than can be named, and yet manages to succeed on a number of intentional fronts?
Super Meat Boy is very well-crafted, but it is possibly too pure of a platformer even for me.
Lost Planet 2 needs to get some kind of award for "most awesome scenes involving a train". The slo-mo sequence of the cutscene where half of the trailers are flying overhead has this wonderful surreal quality to it; like when you see cows flying inside a tornado, and it's too crazy to be real BUT IT IS HAPPENING RIGHT DAMN NOW. I have a rant about 3rd person shooters that I'll save for later. The game is very very pretty, though, and the Akrid creatures are startlingly rendered and animated.
Kinect should win some kind of award for being the academic device of the year. I really don't think that MS expected it to become the darling of hackers and universities the world over upon its release, but hey, I guess that's a "blue ocean", too.
999 was pretty fun, and I really was hooked into the story, but I've found that I can't be arsed to actually play it through to the true ending. That should mean that it isn't GOTY material for me.
Sin and Punishment 2 is incredibly fun. The only reason I haven't beaten it is because I don't have a Wii with me here. It's really too bad that the two player mode is so comparatively uninvolving for the second player, though. I'll just say it's the best STG of the year.
Speaking of STGs, Deathsmiles got a US release this year!
But I didn't get to play it, so I can't give it anything. Sorry.
Sonic Colors deserves an award for being a Sonic game that doesn't suck.
3rd Birthday gets an award for sneaking in just before the year ends. I've heard awful things about it, though.
Ys 7 gets an award for being an RPG that I actually played to the end. That doesn't happen too often for me these days, so it's gotta be good!
KOF13 deserves an award for the most comically unfortunate top tier grappler ever: Raiden. I still can't tell if the stuff he can pull is totally awesome or totally stupid.
I had fun playing Starcraft 2, even in spite of its "too happy" ending. I can't tell if I like playing it more than the original Starcraft, which says something about how seminal SC is, more than it says anything about how good SC2 is.
I get the feeling that MGS Peace Walker deserves some kind of mention. One thing it definitely deserves mention for is managing to cram so much stuff into a hud and still keeping it workable! One thing it also deserves mention for is offering so many control schemes, but still none of them feel "just right"... there's always something I find myself wishing I had from one of the other schemes.
The Last Window is the game I wanted to play the most that I was unable to bring myself to play for more than like 10 minutes. I just didn't feel that I had a single chunk of time big enough to really enjoy it!
Heavy Rain is yet another one of David Cage's over-ambitious projects with ultimately ridiculous writing and acting, but I can't deny that my friends and I had a good time goofing around through it. It's certainly easier to stomach than the (equally?) also ridiculous Deadly Premonition, and its technical achievements in modelling and rendering people are not without merit. Maybe least worst best worst but not actually mediocre game?
The English localization of Recettear deserves an award for the charming phrase, "Capitalism, ho!"
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| Pollyanna 2978th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(2):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Mon 3 Jan 06:32
quote:
I would never have thought I would ever say that, but that Lara Croft game (the one with a top-view that is not called Tomb Raider) is incredibly good.
I thought it looked kinda fun, but never bothered because...y'know...Lara Croft. Hopefully there's a demo...?
quote:
Best lousy game I played: Lost Planet 2
I unlocked everything in this damned game so I could take out mechs with a swordgun and look cool doing it only to become infuriated by the deathmatches because they were filled with Japanese people who were killing me from a different dimension. Sold to buy a new computer.
quote:
Best Big Budget Game: Red Dead Redemption
This game looked amazing and had outstanding dialogue, but the story was really offensive to me. John was the biggest pushover in the history of game characters. He would literally do anything for anyone and be strung along as long as anyone would be willing to string him along. I understand that his hands were tied in some situations, but most of the game was like a classic RPG of the most forced variety. How can you make such a rich world and write such clever dialogue only to slam the player with one unlikely fetch quest after another?
The game certainly gave me some entertaining glitches, but it ended up getting sold, same as Lost Planet.
quote:
NBA JAM
I got this for a friend for Christmas. We played it on New Years. Well...he played, I watched. I have never laughed so hard at a game in my life. The players are lost in spaced out expressions looking at...someone in the audience? The mascots look like they're trying to...summon the power of the Ancients? The bench is the same for every team and always has this messed up looking guy who is FLIPPING THE FUCK OUT.
quote:
Sonic Colors deserves an award for being a Sonic game that doesn't suck.
Yeah! It's pretty good! I feel like people who aren't satisfied with it don't actually want a good Sonic game, they just want to be 12 again.
quote:
3rd Birthday gets an award for sneaking in just before the year ends. I've heard awful things about it, though.
It looks pretty, but I was reluctant because I'm not really a PE fan. Maybe I'll put it at the bottom of my list. Is there anything in particular that's supposed to be terrible?
quote:
I get the feeling that MGS Peace Walker deserves some kind of mention. One thing it definitely deserves mention for is managing to cram so much stuff into a hud and still keeping it workable! One thing it also deserves mention for is offering so many control schemes, but still none of them feel "just right"... there's always something I find myself wishing I had from one of the other schemes.
I had the same problem. That game was just weird to me. They obviously did some amazing things with the PSP, but they were also obviously hampered by it. The whole setup of the game just felt a little awkward. As a result, I jumped to Last Ranker and never got back to it.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Grave 1347th Post
PSN: Drakee
XBL: Mikelson
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Red Carpet Executive Member
| "shames of the year" , posted Mon 3 Jan 06:38
Didn't play that many games this year. Bought a bunch in the latter half but haven't really given most of them the kind of time I want to yet. It kind of bums me out that every year I find myself less and less interested in the "big" titles everyone's buzzing about but as long as there's stuff I like to play somewhere in the mix I guess it's not that bad. So! PREPARE FOR RAMBLING AND ZERO PROOFREADING:
Only Good Fighting Game:
Why, it's Blazblue Continuum Shift, of course. I want to say SSF4 was good for the enormous improvements over SF4... but the truth is that no matter how hard I tried to push myself to like it I still think it's an ugly, ill-conceived, regressive game that holds little appeal for me to learn. Fun to goof around with when the guys come over to drink, but really, what fighting game isn't?
Hey, did they ever fix the PS3 voice chat in SSF4? Knowing Capcom I highly doubt it, but...
The focus here is BBCS! It was everything a home version of a fighting game should be and lots more. As if Capcom shouldn't be embarrassed enough as it is, the stuff here puts them to shame in terms of giving players the tools to improve their skills in-game without having to seek external resources, whereas all SF4 and SSF4 really do is try to stump you with stupid trials and purposefully difficult input timing. I know a number of newcomers who found BBCS comfortable to ease into as a result of the tutorials... which is great for me, because GG terrified them for years and now they'll play games with me! Also: Hazama and Makoto are the best fighting game characters in years.
Only PSP Game I Played:
AND THE AWARD GOES TO PERSONA 3 PORTABLE. It was very... Persona 3. I really should be picking up Xseed's Ys releases because I'm a huge fan of the series... but I have no idea where my PSP is right now. Also the idea brings back bad memories of Ark of Napishtim loading times on PSP! I remember playing it in bed in my old dormroom and falling asleep while rooms loaded. Pitiful. Anyway, I tried to play Peace Walker but I found the controls to be frustrating and I gave up pretty quickly. Very impressive production values and all, just seems like a miserable waste to leave it on a system where every control scheme is a weak compromise at best. A PSN or XBLA release would be extremely nice.
Most Inexplicably Mediocre:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I don't really get it at all, when I started playing that game I loved it. Like, really loved it! I was thrilled that we were free from the tyranny of Igavania, thrilled that we weren't trying to shoehorn this game into the cluttered CV timeline, very excited that it seemed to take chances and was different. Then, of course, I played it for a number of hours and found it to be a less God of War-y God of War. Still agreeable though. But at some point I found myself having less and less fun and then I just quit about halfway through. Don't know if I'll ever intend to go back to it.
I think a lot of the problem is that they overcomplicated combat very quickly. There are a lot of moves that aren't very useful but you feel pressured to learn them all anyway, and there are the moves you use with the light powers and moves you use with the dark powers and... yeah. Like Polly said, it's a clusterfuck. There's nothing glaringly wrong with how it plays and the art direction is just fantastic, but something here doesn't quite click and it's a shame.
Most Inexplicably Good:
Nier. I really like this game! I don't understand! Granted, I'm far from being done with it so that could all change but I'm surprised how much fun it is despite being terribly clunky in some aspects. Grimoire Weiss's English voice is key to the experience so far, and some of Nier's dialogue has been just amazing.
Best Worst Game:
Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage! If you're a fan of HnK, you will love everything about this game. If you're not, you'll hate everything about this game. It's about as simple as that. I don't even have the attention span for RPGs longer than 20 hours most of the time but I spent 50+ hours punching the crap out of things in my first few weeks with this game and got my first platinum trophy on PSN. When they announce a sequel I'm not waiting for it to come out in English this time. And of course, when it does, I'll just buy it again!
Best Co-Op Game:
It has to be Lost Planet 2 for me. Which is great, because the single player is about as dull as it gets. Playing this game with 3 friends is an absolute blast. Now that it's cheaper and I know more people picking it up I've been meaning to get back into it when I have time. Looks like my hours have been cut so that might be really soon!
It's a flawed game, sure, but I'm really irritated with the approach that a lot of reviewers took to it, which seems to be "it's not Gears of War so it's not good" and so forth. LP2 is probably the most excited I've been for a game's release in years. I logged countless hours into that 4P demo in anticipation and for the first time actually followed a company's twitter/facebook/etc marketing campaign for a game and got a bunch of nice loot for it, including an LP2 print signed by Jun Takeuchi. I wasn't at all disappointed with the final product so it makes me really sad that we probably won't see an LP3.
Best Beat 'Em Up:
That would probably be Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which is sad because it's not actually that great of a game. The initial release was plagued with tons and tons of crippling bugs and even post-patching console-crashing stuff happens. Happened to me again today! And in 2010, releasing a game like this without netplay should have been considered a criminal act... but then again, with a game so shoddily programmed we're probably better off that they didn't even try.
Buuuut then there's the issue of the absolutely fantastic sprite artwork by Paul Robertson and friends and the insanely good soundtrack by Anamanaguchi and the fact that the local multiplayer is stupid amounts of fun... Everything wrong with this game kind of fades away at that point. Beat 'em ups that emphasize stat improvement over actual skill improvement irritate me but I'm not gonna say that I didn't play the game long enough to unlock Nega-Scott and I didn't buy the Knives DLC. So I guess the point is that, like every other game I liked this year, there's a lot wrong with it but the overall package is really pleasing!
Best Online Game Nobody Else Will Buy:
Dead Nation on PSN! Seriously guys! This game is great! Combine L4D with a bit of Smash TV and a lot of Super Stardust HD and you're balancing survival against earning insane multipliers and it's just great. If this game had a demo everyone would be all over this shit, but PSN's stupid non-mandatory-demo policy keeps people from trying the best downloadable titles on there. Frustrating. It's only 2P at a time but if you have a headset I promise I will play the shit out of this game with you!
I realize how desperate this sounds but I just don't care anymore. 
Best Motion Control Horseshit:
I'm absolutely stunned by Kinect. Hated the idea, hated the lame demos at E3 etc, but when I finally got to use it the technology floored me. Truly impressive stuff. My roommate plans to get one for us to use here but hell if I know how that's gonna work in our little living room.
Best Overall Game of 2010:
Style Savvy! I know it came out in 2009 but it's still the best game that was available in 2010. There is no excuse for not playing it. It is amazing.
Other shit:
Deathsmiles came out in the US and that was good despite the controversy over slowdown that doesn't bother me one way or the other. Would love to have spent more time with it but I don't get to play the Xbox a lot these days and if you see me on Live it's probably one of my roommates and not me. Our own Red Falcon was cleaning up on the scoreboards! Last time I was playing this regularly he was #1 in the US on at least one of them, so that was pretty awesome.
Picross 3D hit the US this year also and it's a lot of fun. Got a little tiring by the time I reached the end of the puzzles. Regular picross is infinitely better but it's a really clever idea and for the $10 I paid for it I got a whole lot of play.
Some older games I finally played or am playing:
Ketsui Death Label is totally impossible on the original DS. Can't see shit! Still kind of trying on a Lite but considering this is the closest I can get to the real thing right now it's kind of cool.
Contra 4 is awesome! WayForward nailed it. Another game I wish was on a regular console, but maybe the Arc System Works Contra will be good?
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire came into my work and I had to try it because of the absolutely miserable reviews when it first came out. I was kind of disappointed because I've played bad Gundam games before and it's really not any worse. The graphics and framerate are hilarious but the gameplay didn't really offend me that much. I'm a monster.
I guess that's it. I'll finally play Mass Effect 2 (well, after I finish the first one) when my new computer is here so I can join the rest of 2011 in a month or so!
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| badoor
158th Post
PSN: BadoorSNK
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Regular Customer
| "Re(3):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Mon 3 Jan 08:50
Best I thought I was done with this series but I actually enjoyed and had more fun in it way more than I thought award goes to MGS:PW. Most playable friendly not much story bog down MGS ever, Cool stat building & upgrades, Best co-op mutiplayer experince I ever had AND the fact that you didn't need to change your camo index every few min lead me to playing this for over 50 hours.
Best I AM actually done with this series award goes to Skate 3. Diminishing returns plus splitting up the city and most of all removing local multiplayer means that its now become the new Tony Hawk to me.
Best Most sentimentally effective game due to it reflecting my life award goes to Last Window: The Secret of Cape West. I was already feeling a bit down when I purchased the game because of the developer CING's closure. But Playing as Kyle who isn't doing well career wise, spends his days inside his sad little apartment, only going out to eat and for coffee in this small cafe, and his only real outlet is his investigations that really fires him up and transport him back to the good old days when he was a detective really resonated with me and is eerily reflective of my current life status.
Best I wish I played more and might need to buy soon award goes to BlazBlue:CS. I tried it at a friend's house but Hazama and Tsubaki didn't click for me. But now that it's out in europe and supposedly all the DLC characters were released I might get it soon.
Best Inverse Facebook: A Social Network that is contained inside a game award goes to Call of duty: Black Ops. Everyone and their family has it. Seriously, I spend more time communicating with friends in there than in any other means.
Best This is a fun game but when I play it I just wish it was something else award goes to Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!. Its a really good Lemmings clone, but playing it I'm constantly thinking that it would've been better if Nintendo just made a real sequel to Mario vs. DK on GBA. Previous winner of this award went to Metal Gear Acid.
Best The Arkham Asylum of 2010 ie: A no name developer making a new game in a franchise that's not known for its 3D iterations but turned out to be an excellent game award goes to Castlevania: LoS. Great Art, great Combat, nice but maybe a little plain & forgettable soundtrack, and in many manners besting on the popular benchmark series of this genre (God of War) means that I am really looking forward to LoS2.
Best I wish I loved it but I didn't award goes to Enslaved. At least it was good and original.
Also, Best Worst game to showcase in your CV if you want to be the developer of the next Devil May Cry game award goes to Enslaved. The combat there is boring, filled with random hit detection, button-mashy damage sponge bosses, and just all around wonkiness is not the best indication that you are capable of making the next DMC.
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| Baines 271th Post
Copper Customer
| "Re(1):shames of the year" , posted Mon 3 Jan 09:07
quote:
Best Beat 'Em Up:
That would probably be Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which is sad because it's not actually that great of a game. The initial release was plagued with tons and tons of crippling bugs and even post-patching console-crashing stuff happens. Happened to me again today!
I played this with friends and we were unable to beat it not because it was difficult, but rather because one stage kept glitching. In the restaurant garden, when you fight a group of enemies near a bridge crossing a river, an enemy (not always the same one) would *always* somehow end up in the water where they couldn't get out and we couldn't hit them. Of course it is an area where you can't advance unless you kill all the enemies. We tried staying away from the bridge and water to lure everyone away, and we still had a ninja teleport himself into the water.
The game looks pretty, but it just doesn't seem that well designed. And yes, they wanted to remake River City Ransom, but keeping RCR's rebounding item damage was a really bad idea in a four player game. Heck, it wasn't even a good idea in RCR, where you risked beaning yourself if you threw something at someone else. But Pilgrim has four players and then fills the screen with throwable and knockable objects, so you were pretty much guaranteed to be hitting each other unless you were extremely careful.
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| Maou 2138th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "G-g-games of the year" , posted Mon 3 Jan 18:27:
I'm gonna do this my way, since as usual I play games in a time continuum shift and am usually several years behind outside a few big ones.
Best game: it's still Fuurai No Shiren.
I believe I played Fuurai for 140 hours this year according to the in-game clock. I...don't play games for that long anymore, I thought! At least not since FF VII and VIII or so. Yeah, it's a 2006 remake of the 1996 original, but every time I play Shiren, I'm reminded of how much I'd rather be playing it than other games, even if I can't beat Fei's post-game 100-floor superdungeon after all these years.
Best writing: Last Window
Like Spoon, I haven't gotten to play Last Window for hardly at all even though I bought it back in July (and that was after six months of delaying) just because I love the writers so much that I insist on being in a noir mood and having 30 hours to spare to finish it uninterrupted. I may schedule it in somewhere around April 2011.
Best fightin': SSFIV
Fighting games are the only games I ever play "on time" it seems. I played SSFIV when it came out and actually had much more fun than I did with the original, which just struck me as kind of joyless. But with HAKAN, the joy never stops ringing in my heart. I don't know about Juri's yin-yang motif, but I do appreciate that she's crazy.
Best game device news: 3DS
I haven't been this excited about a console release since...well, never, actually! There's no good reason for it other than the fact that the electric blue is gorgeous and I'd like an analogue pad since DS is all I play nowadays.
Best awful game: Estpolis II remake
The hideous remake of Estpolis II is so hilariously off and wrong in every way that I can't help but think of it as a benign gag for my amusement rather than a desecration of a classic. It is 1000% hysterical that the character "artist" decided to rip off Squall Leonhart for Maxim's new "design" 11 years after VIII was the big news. Oops.
Best game I dug up after meaning to for years: Ico
FINALLY, I got around to playing Ico, which I love, as I knew I would, what with Colossus being just about my favorite game of the past decade. In order to tie it to this "modern" thread, I will note that the game is still fabulously gorgeous, even after Colossus and even in 2010, to say nothing of the artistry of the whole thing that's well-known by now.
Best game I wish I'd played in 2010: Xenoblade
I don't have a Wii, but if I did, I'd be playing this resounding spectacle (to me) right now.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Mon 3 Jan 18:37] |
| karasu99 497th Post
PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
Wii: n/a
Gold Customer
| "Re(2):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Tue 4 Jan 02:25
Now that I am holiday-free I can post my thoughts on this with more clarity. I'm too all over the map to categorize these very well, but here goes:
As I said before, for me the most beautiful game of the year with gameplay to back it up was Super Mario Galaxy 2. As a person who loves to complain, I can't recall the last time I played a game that I could level no criticism at. Okay, maybe not exactly none. I wish Yoshi didn't just feel like a means toward accomplishing a certain kind of level. See? Criticism!
Also, not the best game for a number of reasons but still a tremendous amount of fun, Bayonetta has its share of issues, but the last time I played a game through to completion within a week, then immediately started over and played it through again was probably sometime in the early 90's.
Next, a game that I liked as much as I disliked its prequel was Super Street Fighter IV. I can't really quantify it, but Hakkan was certainly at least a fraction of what I enjoyed about it. He was like a throwback to the unquantifiable delight of early Street Fighter character design.
On the other side of the coin, I really thought that BlazBlue Continuum Shift would make me like BlazBlue a little more, but it just never did. While I really wanted to like BB:CS, and BB in general, I just can't bring myself to love it, mostly because of its aesthetic and character designs. That makes BB:CS my official "game that I tried to like but just couldn't" of the year.
The game that I thought I would hate but ended up loving, but not enough for me to finish just yet: Castlevania LOS. Enjoyed it, played probably 2/3 of it, but it's dropped out of the queue for the moment. What can I say?
Lastly, my game that I never managed to play for more than a few minutes, despite being excited to play it and buying it on release day: Vanquish. Looks great, the demo was great fun, and it looks beautiful, but I had so much else in line that I never got to it. I guess that is what January is for!
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| Nekros 323th Post
Bronze Customer
| "Re(3):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Tue 4 Jan 04:06:
This year I spent more on books to study than playing games. So don't expect much variety:
Mass Effect 2 (my best 360 game) is a given, although I find the whole story too childish and stupid (too "human perspective oriented"). The worlds and races are very well pace and descripted, the main characters are simple but still interesting and not boring. I don't dig the shooter approach too much but the "rpg" factor is still present and add more to the game and the fights themselves.
Donkey Kong Country Returns (my best Wii game) is very addictive and challenging. Sure it has not the appeal of the originals (not has rendered graphics nor the ambient soundtrack, most of characters disappeared) but is funny, silly and you have to learn how to take advantage of abilities and situations like in the 16-bit era. So, this over Mario Galaxy? Yes, more old-school oriented, more fun to me. The REAL 2D platforming beats 3D instantly. MG2 is a great game too, but I had to choose one.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World (my best dd game) is a tribute to 80s and early 90s youth. Music, quotes, graphics: all screams MY TEEN YEARS, and it's very moving and fun at the same time. The game per se is not bad, not outstanding, there are better games released this year on digital delivery services, but for me Scott Pilgrim has something special.
Blaz Blue: Continuum Shift (my best PS3 game) Ok, it's not an exclusive but I find more interesting playing it online without paying a cent. This improves BB in every part and adds more complexity (a bit too much maybe?). The caracter design is good ONLY in-game, we have the original art replaced with moe-oriented style, a great lowdonw to me. Other flaws are irrelevant and this game is fun, competitive, hard to master and above all: sprite-based.
SSFIV is also a great game (good graphics and characters, very well balanced, awesome music remixes) but not too appealing to me because of the old attitude of the gameplay. Usually I like tribute to old gaming styles, but this compared to BB is less "free in movement". You can't defend during jump, your dash is too slow, you can't cancel every action, the ultra moves are a bit cheap. In some ways I find SSFIV an awesome product (especially compared to Vanilla SFIV), but I'm not into the gameplay and never will because I find it outdated in some aspects.
[this message was edited by Nekros on Tue 4 Jan 04:09] |
| Pollyanna 2979th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
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Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(9):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Wed 5 Jan 06:49
quote:
After the Tekken 6 debacle
I was not aware of the Tekken 6 Debacle. What do you mean?
quote:
Most Inexplicably Mediocre:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
It's easy to give up on this game, especially since it wanders aimlessly through its murky plot, but I would recommend finishing it to anyone who started it, simply to see all of the environments. If they don't impress you, then don't bother, I guess...
quote:
Also, Best Worst game to showcase in your CV if you want to be the developer of the next Devil May Cry game award goes to Enslaved.
No kidding. I'm a big Journey West fan, so I had to try the game out, but the combat is a joke. After you realize that you're in no particular danger as you perform (seemingly) death-defying leaps, the whole game just seems kind of...tepid? Is that the word I'm looking for?
quote:
Scott Pilgrim
I enjoyed this one a lot as well and thankfully never encountered any game-breaking glitches. I'm hearing a lot of "it's not THAT great", but what's the competition? Tell me a better 2-D beat 'em up in recent history.
Rrgh...gotta get back to work.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| karasu99 500th Post
PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
Wii: n/a
New Red Carpet Member
| "Re(10):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Wed 5 Jan 07:15
quote:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
It's easy to give up on this game, especially since it wanders aimlessly through its murky plot, but I would recommend finishing it to anyone who started it, simply to see all of the environments. If they don't impress you, then don't bother, I guess...
Yah, I probably will... the only thing is I've slotted so many games in ahead of it in my queue it may be hard to get back to it.
quote:
Also, Best Worst game to showcase in your CV if you want to be the developer of the next Devil May Cry game award goes to Enslaved.
No kidding. I'm a big Journey West fan, so I had to try the game out, but the combat is a joke. After you realize that you're in no particular danger as you perform (seemingly) death-defying leaps, the whole game just seems kind of...tepid? Is that the word I'm looking for?
I tried this one as well, and had the same kinds of hopes (I suspect that there are quite a few Journey to the West fans around here, if only for the amazing artistic representations it's been given over the years) and really wanted to like it, but it just came across as bland.
quote:
Scott Pilgrim
I enjoyed this one a lot as well and thankfully never encountered any game-breaking glitches. I'm hearing a lot of "it's not THAT great", but what's the competition? Tell me a better 2-D beat 'em up in recent history.
Totally forgot to mention this one! Like any games in its genre, it ends up being somewhat repetitive, but then I love the genre so much that I don't really mind. All of the little jokes and special touches are great, and the art is... well, it's just gorgeous. And I've not encountered any glitches either, but I also haven't played multiplayer, so who knows. I think people just like to hate on some games.
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| Pollyanna 2985th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(4):Re(10):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sat 22 Jan 12:30
quote:
First, I can see why so many people put this game on their "like" list. I'm only a few hours in and it's already proven to be an enjoyable ride. Second, playing the game with a female avatar is a hoot. Not only can I make her charge into battle wearing armor colored to look like something out of Bubblegum Crisis but her interactions with the characters are also a real draw.
Glad female Shepard is working out for you. Even though she's just supposed to be your avatar, she ended up being my favorite character. After a while, the choices I made weren't based on "what I wanted", but "what seemed right for her." I guess.
It must be the voice, but I really don't like male Shepard. Also, I've never seen a render of him that I liked (Obama Shepard doesn't count...haha).
I couldn't resist doing pink and black armor for a while, though I think I settled on something a little less silly in the end. I recently got the game on PC for a second playthrough, so I'm thinking about modding it to wear civilian clothes this time around.
quote:
Deadly Premonition was utterly ridiculous and absurd yet charming and heart warming. I felt for Francis so much! Besides being pretty cute main character his overall journey throughout the game was engrossing and thought provoking. I don't own a 360 so I had to bribe my friend in using his console. The gameplay was frustrating at times (driving and those wall monsters especially) but its characters and overall tone stole my heart.
I don't know if I would call York "cute", but I think he's one of the greatest game protagonists of all time. Truly a unique character and strangely relatable considering how odd he is.
I've been playing the game a lot lately, but I the map system/driving is hampering my enjoyment so much. I want to do everything and see everything...I want to talk to everyone in the town, but the fact that the map does not indicate if a location is "open" or not results in a lot of wasted time (and gas, which goes SO FAST!) Also, the maximum zoomed out option on the map is closer than you would ever want to be. This is a massive oversight! It's too hard to find anything!
Still, I had heard the game was "so bad it's good", but that's not really the case. What's good about really is tremendously good.
Still, it's fun to explain the game's oddities in realistic terms. For example, when I found the turkey sandwich trading card in the police kitchen fridge, I thought "Well, Thomas must have opened the fridge and thought "there's supposed to be a turkey sandwich here, but I don't have one! This trading card will have to do!"
Or if you peek in on Keith and Lilly (?) at home, they're sitting on the couch, then Keith saunters up and turns on the TV. Peek again, and the TV is off...Keith turns it on again. I can only assume that Lilly turned it off when I wasn't looking and Keith is like "Aw, c'mon baby, that's my favorite show!" every time.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Evenor 744th Post
PSN: missantroop
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Wii: n/a
Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(5):Re(10):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sat 22 Jan 17:11
quote:
You do, however, randomly pop up and utterly crush me in SSF4 ranked matches so it's like you never really left.
Hahah I hate SSF4! I only play it because to get a quick fix honestly but even then it's a chore. I feel that if the game implemented some sort of guard meter it would make the experience MUCH more enjoyable. I absolutely hate playing against Balrogs and Hondas (and recently good dhalsims!). The last match in this video basically epitomizes what SSF4 is to me.
quote:
Still, it's fun to explain the game's oddities in realistic terms. For example, when I found the turkey sandwich trading card in the police kitchen fridge, I thought "Well, Thomas must have opened the fridge and thought "there's supposed to be a turkey sandwich here, but I don't have one! This trading card will have to do!"
Or if you peek in on Keith and Lilly (?) at home, they're sitting on the couch, then Keith saunters up and turns on the TV. Peek again, and the TV is off...Keith turns it on again. I can only assume that Lilly turned it off when I wasn't looking and Keith is like "Aw, c'mon baby, that's my favorite show!" every time.
The side characters is what made the game for me honestly! I loved how Emily had an uncanny
resemblance to Emily Watts. Willie the dog always got me when he stole my bones. I still am willing to try that Sinners Sandwich!
drink from me and live forever
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| Pollyanna 2986th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(7):Re(10):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sat 22 Jan 21:13
quote:
I despise male Shepard's voice! No matter what he looks like he still sounds like a really crappy dude.
It's cool, 'cause you're playing "Space Assholes", right?
Did anyone hear the removed Tali/Female Shepard pseudo romance conversation? It went like...one step further than the in-game talks with her. It was super cute, but I'm almost glad they took it out because it would be too tough for me to choose between Tali and Garrus.
quote:
Hahah I hate SSF4! I only play it because to get a quick fix honestly but even then it's a chore. I feel that if the game implemented some sort of guard meter it would make the experience MUCH more enjoyable. I absolutely hate playing against Balrogs and Hondas (and recently good dhalsims!). The last match in this video basically epitomizes what SSF4 is to me.
You're making yourself a villain here! What if Ishmael really loves SF4? Then you kick his ass brutally and say "Oh, that stupid game? I don't care about that." And then you go on to use the word "chore" like, "Hmph! Humiliating you is such a chore!" Terrible!
That video was pretty incredible. I wish I had footage like that of all the absurd things that have happened in KOF games throughout the years. I have a friend who tends to find some way to defy the laws of the universe when he plays.
quote:
Game That Nobody Cared Award goes to:
Lost in Shadow/Tower of Shadow/A Shadows Tale - Liked Prince of Persia? No, not the movie...no, not the game based on that movie. I'm talking about the old 2D platforming Prince of Persias. Now make the physics better, the combat a little smoother and throw in a little bit of ICO and you got this...diamond in the rough.
Ooh! You might have just sold a copy of that game! I loved the old Prince of Persia. I had no idea it was like that! Have you ever played Nosferatu? Oddly, that's the game I tend to go to when I think about playing Prince of Persia...since it's a fairly shameless ripoff, but has the advantage of a great atmosphere.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
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| Pollyanna 2988th Post
PSN: Lilly_Dopamine
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(9):Re(10):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sun 23 Jan 12:48:
I'm glad other people played Nosferatu, but I'm more glad that people are enjoying Ghost Trick.
I'm not an expert on Nier, having only played it for a day or so, but I'll chime in...
quote:
In other news, I'm surprised by the number of positive comments about Nier. Here I had thought that it was a game that was confused about its identity but it sounds like there's still fun to be had in there.
It's terribly rough around the edges, but it has its strong points for sure. I think the general consensus is "it's tolerable enough to play for the sake of the excellent story and music". You can get the game for extremely cheap now, so I would certainly recommend it if it looks interesting to you at all.
Unfortunately, one offensively bad thing about it is Nier's face. He looks like someone shaved a monkey, beat its face in with brass knuckles then superglued some of its fur back on (while blindfolded). He has a good design. There's no problem with him not being pretty or being old or whatever. He looks fine in the artwork. The other characters look fine. How his face passed quality testing is a mystery. These people are apparently so used to rendering beautiful people that they flip the fuck out when they have to do a middle aged man. It reminds me of shoujo artists who can't draw old people...they just draw normal people and tack arbitrary lines on their faces.
EDIT: When Nier starts up, they ask for your name. I figured this was for the save file or whatever. I mean, they asked for MY name, not the hero's name! At any rate, Nier ended up with an inappropriately girly name and I had to start over to save his dignity.
青春謳歌 弱肉強食
[this message was edited by Pollyanna on Sun 23 Jan 12:50] |
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"Re(3):Game(s) of the Year" , posted Sun 2 Jan 23:36
