It’s that time of the year that we are going to reflect upon the games we have played over the year 2010, without those contrived best-of / worst-of lists that everyone is already sick of, we have a list of the disappointments, the excellence, and what falls in between.
The Bad:
Crackdown 2 — A few years ago we played an excellent game called Crackdown. And a few months ago we were playing the exact same game, with worse graphics and gameplay.
Fable 3 — Please, just boot up Fable 2 instead and you don’t have to deal with all the annoying improvements they have made to the game which only made it infinitely worse.
Metroid Other M — almost didn’t make it to the bad list, but Samus’ incessant whining just pushed it through the threshold.
Final Fantasy XIII — if you wanted to see a movie, the Spirits Within would have been a better choice. FF XIII is simply the worst FF ever, its not even a game. While the core combat system was refreshing enough, the rest of the game with straight corridors and uninteresting plot makes it a disappointment for even long time fans. The minimal fun you could possibly have with it, is after you have finished the game.
Epic Mickey — unlike the title has suggested, Epic Mickey is actually far from epic. Annoying camera problem throughout the game will simply stop you from enjoying otherwise a competent platformer. Our opinion — Warren Spector should have stuck to making Ultima Underworld and Deus Ex.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep — Kingdom Hearts 1 all over again on the PSP, worse yet — you actually have to play the same game 3 damn times to get the whole story, which doesn’t tell you much of anything at all. When is Square Enix going to make KH3? When they stopped milking fans dry of their savings, our guess is maybe 10 years from now.
The Ambivalent:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow –Â While the underlying core mechanics of the game is competent enough, it can’t shake the fact that the reboot of the franchise is a God of War clone meet Shadow of the Colosus, marred with really really bad writing and wasted voice talents. We spoiled it in our review but we are going to spoil it again, you play as Dracula. And that is dropped to the player after he finishes the game, without any foreshadowing at all. But hay, we still saw that coming a third of the way through the game.
Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands — at least it is much better than the movie
Enslaved — an enjoyable enough title that is just so unremarkable in its gameplay that it underwhelmed its excellent writing and competent acting — though we suggest actually picking up Journey to the West, the book, and guarantee you will have a better time with it.
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom — nobody knows this game exists, and it probably should remain so. It had some great idea, but just really poor execution with some dated technology. Would have been impressed if we played the game 3 years ago.
Deadly Premonition — while nobody should have known this game existed, everybody ended up hearing about it. Playing Deadly Premonition is like watching a really really bad B movie, with some serious dated graphics and annoying gameplay mechanics, but as a budget title it manages to really make fun of itself with its unique style of bad writing and voice acting and quirky characters. It is a either love it or hate it title, if you can see past its flaws, you would probably have a blast with it. We couldn’t.
Minecraft — while the rest of the world is crazy about this indie title, we aren’t. To us it is like getting Little Big Planet with just the world editor and not the actual game. Though we recognize the uniqueness of this title, well we just don’t enjoying playing it.
Starcraft 2 — Starcraft the remake. Mind you, we had a blast playing this on Battle.net, this is still the best RTS ever, now enjoyable in a modern computer, But seriously, with its lackluster campaign story and lack of innovation, it doesn’t deserve a place in the “Good” list.
Alan Wake — It is a video game version of a popular Stephen King novel. You know it is going to be a best seller yet you know it isn’t going to win the Bram Stoker’s best horror novel award, for many reasons that are too evident to be even put into words.
Bayonetta — the equivalent of eating a whole bag of potato chips in the sitting of a lap dance, the actual lap-dance happening — the stripper with gorgeous black-rimmed glasses and un-proportionally long legs. Its tasty, in a mind-numbing sort of way, but it just isn’t good for you, in a totally-devoid-of-substance sort of way.
Bioshock 2 –Â We played this exact same game back in Bioshock. Wait, even then, we had played the exact same game called System Shock 2.
Super Street Fighter 4 — SF4 with more characters. It is still a bad game, now with more bad characters.
No More Heroes 2 — More No More Heroes should have been the title. We wish we weren’t playing this on the Wii.
DarkSiders — Zelda meets God of War with a really uninteresting main character and backstory, wait, that IS God of War.
Scribblenauts 2 — Scribblenauts now with adjectives. It would have been a really really good game if the levels weren’t so uninspiring and the adjectives so useless.
Yakuza 3 — Yakuza with slightly better graphics, minus fun stuff like the hostess club. Afterall, Americans can’t possibly understand why Japanese men would pay to talk to women, just like Asian men not being able to understand why Americans pay to see women strip and not actually have sex with them. Hay, at least Sega didn’t butcher the game with dubs.
God of War 3 — One word , uninspiring. Kratos kill Zeus, Kratos dies, which already happened at the end of God of War 2. There’s another sex mini game, so teenage boys should love it.
God of War: Ghost of Sparta — better than God of War 3, and can be played on the handheld PSP looking almost as good as the PS3 version, slightly better than uninspiring is still… uninspiring. Teenage boys can now play it in the bathroom jerking off to the sex mini game without getting caught by parents.
Fluidity — It’s a beautiful and innovative game but it is just too damn difficult for its own good, and hardly fun.
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair — if I had a gun to my head and needed to design a Castlevania game under 2 minutes, this is the game I would have come up with.
DeathSpank — Monkey Island meets Diablo with the charm of neither titles.
Spelunker — the remake on the PSN game is exactly like the old one, which is too damn punishing for its own good. It should have learned its lesson from games like Bionic Commando Rearmed, to enhance the core gameplay and make it more accessible to modern times. Well, it didn’t.
Dragon Quest IX — a game belonging to a series that doesn’t evolve.
The Good:
Red Dead Redemption — Grand Theft Auto now in the Wild Wild West and you don’t actually have to steal horses. The whole game just makes sense, much more so than any GTA ever existed. It is damn good with some damn good writing, especially how the ending plays out.
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood — It’s Assassin’s Creed 2.5 like Serpent Isle was to Ultima VII and anyone who gets the reference is just way too old. Brotherhood doesn’t break new ground but it continues the story adequately throwing in a few surprises at the end. Comes in the package also a multi-player mode that contains ideas that nobody has thought of before — which we called a reverse Turing Test. You play against others and try to find ways to determine that they aren’t actually machines, so you can kill them, while someone is hunting your every step.
Valkyria Chronicles 2 — More Valkyria Chronicles, now on the PSP. It is an excellent game no matter how redundant the combat feels.
Monkey Island 2 enhanced edition — the best game ever, now redrawn and can be played in HD, is still the best game ever.
Sam and Max Season 3 — Very good writing and awesome humor made this season standout from the rest of the stuff Telltale puts out.
Mass Effect 2 — the Mass Effect series will never be this good again, not even the third one. Good writing and engaging story, just managed to get rid of stuff that didn’t work from the first title. We loved it.
Super Meat Boy — the best game of 2010? It is certainly the Mario Brothers of this century. It is painfully difficult but never punishing. The short level-play session and brutal difficulty striking such a perfectly harmonious balance that, well, no other game has, or can ever achieve it.
Limbo — a charming indie title that charmed its way into everybody’s heart with its macabre atmosphere and silhouettes.
Alpha Protocol — Despite its short coming, Alpha Protocol has achieved a new cRPG formula that no other developers has attempted. While Obsidian should get an award for it, the game just sold too poorly to get a sequel.
Gray Matter — Gabriel Knight of this decade, not as good, but nowhere near bad.
Fallout New Vegas — A new Fallout from the original makers of Fallout using a dated engine and come with it dated graphics and loads of bugs. If you can look past that, it is an excellent tale written by lovers of the Fallout universe with that branching path RPG philosophy brought over from Alpha Protocol — it is almost like playing Ultima again.
Ultima VI Project — A free mod using the Dungeon Siege engine years in the making by fans labored by their love for the best RPG series ever. One of the best games of this decade.
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker – Hands down the best game on PSP, ever. This is Metal Gear Solid 3 played on the handheld.
3D Dot Game Heroes — Zelda meets Lego.
Pacman Championship DX — Pacman meets bullet-time. The perfect game has been born.
Lara Croft and the Guardians of Light — A surprise hit of this year, more of a Diablo meets Twin-Stick Shooter with some light puzzle-solving, this game was better than any Tomb Raider that has ever existed.
Trauma Team — the best Wii game this year.
Heavy Rain — the more we thought about this game, the more we didn’t like it. It is a lot like watching the movie Identity staring John Cusack, with an avalanche of plot holes. But at the end of the day, we got to admit, Heavy Rain brought the industry something new this year, and left its important mark in the history of gaming, albeit a hugely flawed design, it was a positive experience, and there is nothing quite like it.
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors — the best told story this year, and the best game on the DS.
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West — If not for Nine Nine Nine, Last Window would have been the best adventure on the DS. A worthy successor to Hotel Dusk and swansong of Cinq.
Again — while not as polished as Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Again tells a mature story with twists and turns, highly enjoyable.
Ys7 — its Ys at its best on the PSP.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana — the year of YS for the PSP is indeed a good year. Oath in Felghana is actually a remake of YS 3, while not as good as Ys 7, it is still a very good game.
King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match — the best 2D fighting game ever gets a release on XBLA, after years on waiting. Too bad there just isn’t enough people playing online.
Vanquish — the people who made Godhand made Gears of War. Is there a reason you shouldn’t play this?
Dead Rising 2 — Lots and lots of zombies for you to kill, a much improved game from its predecessor.
Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals — One of the most daring remake titles this year. Curse of the Sinistrals on the DSÂ is a remake of Lufia 2, and turned into an YS-like action RPG instead of Final Fantasy turn-based battles. If you skipped this title, our advice is, don’t.
Cave Story (wii) — One of the best games ever gets an enhanced version on the Wii. If you haven’t played this by now? You deserve to get shot.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 — the epitome of a 3D Mario — Nintendo’s perfect level design at its best, no other platforming game on the Wii comes close — other side of the coin being Epic Mickey.
Scott Pilrgrim Vs the World — River City Ransom of this decade.
