Games of 2011

[Ryuu-Jin882]

Tomorrow is a new year, which means new games but the games of 2011 were absolutely stellar. What games did you play, new or old? What was your favorite? The one you hated most, etc?

Early 2011 feels like it was light years away. I started the year half way through playing SMT: Persona 3. Good game, but it lacked the difficulty that MegaTen is known for.

Donkey Kong Country Returns was a pretty neat game. The visuals and new gameplay elements were great but something was lacking, I shelved it and never finished.

Then in March came the release of PKMN White/Black. It is everything you would expect from a traditional PKMN game. That can be a good or bad thing. I still play it from time to time.

Only a month later the parts of time I was not spending playing PKMN White I spent with Mortal Kombat after it released. Absolutely fantastic game, I would still be playing it if I knew anyone else that played the game...

In the Summer I sat down and finally dug into Heavy Rain. Of course, it's not a traditional kind of video game and I think that is what is so appealing to me about it. The story is great and really leaves you guessing all the way through.

In October Dark Souls was released. In less than two months I have put over seventy hours into it (unprecedented for me these days). Too bad I'll be starting school again in about two weeks.

Put a little time into the ICO/SotC release but Dark Souls beckoned me back. ICO in 3D is not nearly as impressive or worthwhile as SotC.

Still playing Skyward Sword a little bit, it's hard to find time around the holidays but it's an OK game. DO NOT like the new motion controls, but the rest of the game is good.

Favorite game of 2011:
Mortal Kombat
I would love to say Dark Souls because it is just so great but the online component is broken compared to the original Demon's Souls. From Software tried a lot of new things with Dark Souls and only about half of them worked. On the other hand everything Mortal Kombat does, it does with absolute perfection. If you are not a fan of MK, try it out. It's a rehash on the original with outstanding gameplay elements and excellent presentation.

Worst game of 2011
Donkey Kong Country Returns
A good game, but it was the most disappointing for me. Prolly won't ever finish it.

Backlog
Wii: Metroid Prime Trilogy
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

PS3: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Vanquish

DS: Fire Emblem

PS2: SMT: P3 was the last game I had to play for the PS2!!

[Jonny Connor]

Worst game of 2011: One of my absolute favorites from 2010 Also, go fucking play Shattered Memories, I loved that game.

Anyhoo.

Favorite game of 2011: Deus Ex Human Revolution. In preparation for this game, I finally made myself beat the first level of the original game, and then proceeded to play through it exclusively over the course of like 3 or 4 days. Took me 24 hours or so, so you know, 6-8 hours of Deus Ex a day. I fucking LOVED it, as I never do that with games anymore. I also played the sequel, but that was like 8-10 hours.

But yes, Human Revolution. I really wish more games were like this. That is, you have so many options on how to do things. Sure, it's more like 3 or 4 now compared to the original's 20, but it's still really fun. I also love how they kept it in there that you can stack shit up and just sorta jankily make your way over to objectives if you wish. Game's not perfect, and still felt a little weaker than the original, but it blows away anything else this year. Runner Up: Portal 2

Multiplayer game of the year: Battlefield 3. I love me some Conquest mode, large conquest. On PC. On back to Karkand maps especially. Mmm baby. Runner up: Red Orchestra 2

Best PS3 game: Shadows of the Damned. God I love this game, I mean, the gameplay is sorta toned down RE4, but it's still really fun. The dialogue and characters are the reason to play it though. Never before have dick jokes been so funny.

Best Wii Game: Zelda, I guess. I dunno, I've only put like 5 hours into it, and from what I hear it really gets amazing the more you play it. I haven't had the time and totally forgot it at my apartment.

Best Music: Shadows of the Damned. Srsly. Runner Up: Deus Ex HR

Random ass game I played: El Shaddai. The gameplay is sorta mediocre, but the style is really goddamn cool. I should probably say something good about bastion too, but I've only played a half hour of it.

My backlog is stupidly long and still includes Persona 4, so, yeah. There's that. I did finish up some games though, so I'm happy about that. Cleared out the Deus Ex games, and I think I'm pretty close to beating Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, so that's cool. Still need to finish Vanquish too <.<

In conclusion: games with witty british characters were awesome (Portal 2, Shadows of the Damned), but fucking Deus Ex man. Goddamn. Hell, I didn't even mention The Witcher 2 yet, which I'm pretty sure was better than skyrim.

Oh, and FUCKING SAINTS ROW 3. WHAT THE FUCK THAT GAME'S AWESOME.

[Lucky]

I think I beat like, two games this year.

GotY had to be Portal 2 for me. I have no idea how many times I've beaten it now.
Most disappointing was Pokemon Black. I got to the third gym and lost interest. Haven't touched it in months.

PC: See above.

360: I bought all of three games released this year. MvC 3, Catherine, and BF3. Didn't play a ton of any of them. I still have yet to play BF3 online. However I just got/beat Arkham Asylum and it's fucking fantastic. Must get Arkham City now.

DS: Again I only bought one game for it. Black was eh.

3DS: I just got one and I have OoT. It looks really nice and is fun.


I have so many other games I have need to play it's not funny. Damn you humble bundles. Also still need to beat P4 (inb4 Illu says something, I'm at least farther than Jonny) and SotC. And Deus Ex. And Spirit Tracks. And Assassin's Creed II. And Cave Story. And...

Well you get the picture.

Really I've had more fun playing old games than anything else. Bought both Banjo Kazooie's on XBL and beat the first one with 100%. And it only took me 13 years to do so. Actually it took me 13 years to beat it at all. OoT 3D is fun too. Grabbed a GBA emulator and threw it on my phone and I've played Minish Cap (which I still have yet to beat) and Pokemon Emerald quite a bit. Played through Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker on my Gamecube not too long ago. I love that system.

Some other games I played that I've found interesting are LoL, Ace Combat 5, IL 2 Sturmotvik, Bioshock 2, and probably other things I forgot.

[STEEV XXIV: STEVETTE'S REVENGE]

GAMES FOR A STEEV:

Singleplayer GotY: Human Revolution, for all the reasons Jonny pointed out.

Multiplayer GotY: Toss-Up between DotA 2 and Tribes: Ascend. Both are excellent recreations of classic multiplayer games.

RTSotY: Men of War: Assault Squad. This is incredible. It's so utterly like no other RTS out there. I really wasn't expecting to have any RTS upstage Company of Heroes for a long, long time. . . but this really does.

Board Game of the year: Star Trek: Fleet Captains. Amazing. Title makes no sense though.

Jonny of the year: Battlefield 3 is a worthy sequel to BF2. But I want mods. ;_;

[AZN]

Let's see here,

Games I played this year-

Pokemon White: Typical pokemon fare. Not quite as good as Heart Gold/Soul Silver were, but I still enjoyed the new experience even though the new pokemon were pretty stupid looking.

Bastion: I can not say enough good things about this game. I very rarely play through games more than once, regardless of how long they are. Despite this, I played through Bastion 2 times in the span of 2 and a half days. That's roughly 15-16 hours of gameplay. I personally think the downloadable games that have come out this generation have been the highlight of this console cycle, and Bastion just reinforces that. Amazing visuals, really fun combat, a surprisingly solid story, and one of the coolest narration styles I've seen in any media forms.

Limbo: It came out in 2010 and I played it in 2010 as well. I did just managed to purchase it on Steam this past week, however. Once again, reinforcing my opinion of downloadable titles. Limbo is one of the most atmospheric and disturbing games I've ever played and as a indie game I really appreciate that. Castle Crashers, Bionic Commando Rearmed 1/2, Trials HD, Braid, Geometry Wars 1/2, Bastion, Super Meat Boy, and Limbo are some of my favorite games of the past couple years.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Although I never could get that into the original Deus Ex, Deus Ex Human Revolution is my new favorite game of all time. I did a no kill playthrough my first run through and am now doing a killing playthrough; having just as much fun as the first time I went through the game. Plus, when Jonny told me shotguns can break down doors I lost my shit. Also, vents, lots of vents.

Skyrim: It's like a prettier, better playing, more impressive version of Oblivion. I fucking loved Oblivion.

Terreria: I have no fucking clue what I'm supposed to be doing in this game. I'm guessing it's a lot of fun, but yeah, I have no clue what I'm supposed to do.

Backlog:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat

[Jonny Connor]

So yeah, finally got skyrim after my friends told me they liked it despite hating Oblivion as I did.

It's really good. I've played quite a bit of it in the past two days. I wouldn't call it a GOTY since it's consistently a pretty good experience so far, but not an amazing one. Mods should only make it better.

[Ped0duck]

Ok, guess I'll finally contribute to this one.

RPG of the Year: The Witcher 2. This game is a phenomenal sequel to a phenomenal game. Between complex, interesting characters who all feel human, a storyline which has so many twists and turns you can take its silly, a soundtrack that gives eargasms and the most gorgeously detailed enviornments I've ever seen it is most likely the most immersive game I've ever played. Fantastic.

Honorable mentions:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This game is miles ahead of most stuff that comes out these days, but it missed a few notes and just wasn't as good an experiences as TW2.

Bastion. This game came highly recommended, and it still surprised me. The narration is a brilliant piece of storytelling, the storyline itself (though I haven't quite finished it) is surprisingly good, the gameplay is as challenging as you want it to be, and satisfying. The characters themselves are also much better than you'd think at first glance, the main character in particular. Love it.

Skyrim. Definitely not as good as the other 3 here, but still warrants mentioning (yes, I just called Bastion better than Skyrim. Deal with it). A better game than I was expecting. Wasn't planning on buying it as too much of what I'd seen made it look like they'd cawwadoody'd the Elder Scrolls franchise, and to an extent they did, but I still found a very solid game. It suffers from some of the same immersion-breaking factors of Oblivion, however it is more immersive by miles and a good deal of fun. The real brilliance of the game is how they made it an Action-RPG for the console kids who just fast travel everywhere and finish the main storyline and drool over achievements, but there's still an honest to god Elder Scrolls game underneath there if you bother to go looking for it.


FPS of the Year: Tribes: Ascend. Admittedly, I'm not that big a fan of the genre, and haven't played much of this, but the fact that it wasn't tacticool got it immediate respect and the fact that it's actually very good got it this.

Honorable Mentions: I really don't give 2 shits.


Strategy Game of the Year: A toss up between Men of War: Assault Squad and Sins of a Solar Empire.

Men of War is an absurdity engine built into an RTS that still somehow works as an actual game. Lots of fun to co-op, and just when I thought WW2 was done for good here comes this. Excellent game.

Sins of a Solar Empire is definitely the largest scale and slowest-moving Grand Strategy game I've ever played, but it may also be the best. Wonderful number of options of how you go about conquering the known universe, great potential for multiplayer if you have 8 hours to play with a few friends.

Honorable Mentions: DotA 2. It's still in beta, so these other 2 got off lucky. It's also fucking brilliant.


Action/Adventure Game of the Year:EDIT: Damn, I forgot about Magicka. That was early 2011 but was still 2011. Sorry Batman, but you've been bumped down. Magicka blends innovative, fun gameplay that's only seeming limit is your imagination with one of the funniest and most charming campaigns out there.

Honorable Mentions: Psychonauts. The only reason it didn't win is that it didn't come out this year (or at all recently for that matter). I only just got around to playing it, haven't finished it, it's magnificent.

Batman: Arkham City. Same great gameplay you got from Arkham Asylum, but more polished. Fun, interesting story and the usual interesting, beloved characters you get in Gotham. Aside from a couple plot holes, a very solid game.



Multiplayer Game of the Year: Artemis Space Simulator. I cannot stress how fun this game is at LAN parties. Or how amusing it is when STEEV takes the Engineering Console and declares himsef "Mister Nailbrain" in his best Orky voice. Or the utter joy of locking your weapons onto "The Queen Illu's Revenge" before they've raised their shields and blowing them to hell and back. Ha.


Soundtrack of the Year: Tied. An all-out battle between Bastion and The Witcher 2 shows no clear winner. God I love them both.


Flop of the Year: Dragon Age 2. Jesus Christ I can't begin to describe how phenomenally bad this game was. And all this after Bioware promised a return to their roots. Fuck you, Bioware, you traitorous scum. Fuck you.