Welcome to d to the ecoy decoy's list of 2011's best games. Now these games aren't necessarily the best games released in 2011, but the best games I've played in the past year. And while most people's lists are 10 games, I've decided to split mine up to the best 5 games I've played and the 5 most disappointing games of this year. It's my list and my name is not Pitchfork so you know I'm not held to a higher standard!
THE 5 BEST GAMES I PLAYED IN 2011
Honorable Mention: Cave Story
This is really good game!
5.) Fallout: New Vegas
I loved Fallout 3 despite the mutants that loved Fallout 1 or 2 and yelling to anyone who would listen BUT IT ISN't FALLOUT, and then New Vegas came out made by Obsidian who's run by some of the people who originally worked on Fallout 1 and 2 so maybe people would enjoy it?
I did and that's all that matters. I put 35 hours into the game on PC and another 60 on Xbox 360 probably most of which was playing through the DLC for this game which is leaps and bounds better than any DLC for Fallout 3.
The story is open ended compared to Fallout 3, where F3 was Purify the water and maybe kill the mutants? Whereas New Vegas is an open book. You can be a dick and join the Legion (Double fun if you play as a woman because the Legion hat woman!) be boring and join the NCR or make New Vegas free. It's all pretty much up to you, and it's one of those games that hooks you because you want to know how the game plays out if you make different choices make a bruiser make a scientist, etc. But I'd wait for a Game of the Year so you can play the excellent DLC (Except Dead money, you go sit in the corner.)
4.) Starcraft II
For a game to hold my interest like Starcraft 2 has, it's got to be great. At its most basic level you can learn the most simple strategies (Cannon Rush, 6 Pool, Proxy Barracks) and win against other people for a while, but eventually you will run into people who are actually competent and then you have to evolve or be destroyed. Build Orders, timing pushes, keeping your actions per minute up. Yes it's a lot to learn but when you do finally break through and beat someone who's better than you it couldn't be any sweeter if it was made by the Coca-Cola corporation (The proud sponsor of SMPS.)
3.) Gears of War 3
Every complaint you can have against Gears 1 and 2 does not apply to Gears 3. Where Gears 1 had a horrible vehicle sequence and Gears 2 dragged a bit with its gameplay, Gears 3 grabs you by the throat calls you a bitch and drags you through a rollercoaster (Admittedly 100X more fun with 3 other real people playing with you online) ride that brings the Gears saga to a close.
Epic seemed to hear people's bitching about how Gears 2 multiplayer had become SHOTGUNS OF WAR since most people only used the Gnasher shotgun because of it's deadly range and stopping power by introducing the Retro Lancer, which will drop someone who's using a Gnasher before they'll drop you and the double barrel shotgun. It's great fun and has raised my blood pressure many a time and I can just envision the pitch CliffyB gave for it:
"Ok so I like shotguns but I WANT MORE POWER"
"Ok sir so we'll make one that's 3X more powerful than the regular shotgun, but make it one shot and have a reload time of about 13 seconds, so if someone gets killed while waiting for you to reload they're a horrendous player"
"My god, my erection is palpable!"
Gears 3's story is actually really good, and ends on a really good note and this is mostly thanks to Karen Traviss (Who wrote the Gears series of books which I highly recommend as well), and while there are some bro bro moments for the whole of the game, there's never a moment that I felt the gameplay was lagging or unfun and besides one character I hated because he replaced Cole. (Jace NO REDEEMING QUALITIES) Everyone is back and has something about them I enjoyed.
2.) I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Sometimes you come across a game so fascinating that you have to find out everything about it, play through it, and make sure you do everything so you don't miss a scrap of anything. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is that game. I only found out about this game due to Game Informer (I know.) It's an older-type point and click like King's Quest before Telltale games existed (Who now has the rights to King's Quest and I fully expect it to suck and breast feeding type of difficulty) where everyone on the planet is dead except for 5 people and a super computer named AM. In the original Harlan Ellison short story, none of the 5 involved characters had much of a back story, in this it's all fleshed out and you have to find out what these peoples' major malfunction is to understand how to help them. Some of the puzzles are a bit obtuse, and it's in the vein of the Roberta Williams school of thinking (Oh I missed saving that mouse and now I fucked my whole game thanks King's Quest V), but the voice acting is not bad (Even with Harlan Ellison himself hamming it up as AM) but sadly this game is damn near impossible to get legit. GOG doesn't sell it nor does Steam but if you somehow luck into a copy you won't be sorry.
1.) VVVVVV
Sometimes a game comes together and creates a perfect storm of fun challenging (But not unfair like Super Meat Boy) great music and endearing graphics to make a damn near perfect gaming experience, and VVVVVV fits the bill.
It's a simplistic game in that you only move left to right and can change gravity by hitting the space bar (Or a button if you use a controller) and there is no game over, you just go back to a check point if you hit spikes or any other obstacle. And you will go back to checkpoints. A LOT, especially if you decide to go for some of the game's more deviously hidden collectable orbs. Most of the time a game can be hard it will frustrate you, but not VVVVVV. The music is calming and most of the time if you can't make a jump or your timing is off you know what you have to do to get it right.
It's a simple story about a captain and his crew crash landing and being separated but most of the game is a part exploration and another part rescue mission, but don't take my word for it, this game is usually on sale (Now in the newest humble bundle!) and worth the coin.
So enough waxing nostalgic for great games! Now time for me to rabble rouse and write what games disappointed me in 2011
5.) Portal 2
Holy shit. You know how I know this game was disappointing? I don't remember all that about the actual game itself. I remember Wheatley, spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace, and the ending song not being as good as Still Alive, and Cave Johnson. That's not good. I remember between actual testing rooms trying to get to the next room being too much wasted time and being bored shitless while looking for the one wall or pillar or kitten I could throw a portal on so I could get to the next test room, which weren't all that ingenious like Portal 1's rooms.
Look valve, it was nice and what not but can you do Half-Life 3? And don't try to call it HL2 Episode 3 because Episodic content is supposed to come out every so many months not every 6 years.
It may seem like I'm saying Portal 2 sucks. It does not, but it could've been a lot more than just a bunch of repeatable catchphrases and content that stands up spins around and gets in your face yelling I AM BETTER THAN PORTAL 1.
Portal 1 was like a 4 hour game which was perfect, Portal 2 was a lot longer and overstayed its welcome. gg next map vote dustbowl.
4.) Modern Warfare 3
Yeah I should have known better. The only thing I learned from this was don't spend $60 purely to play a game with friends.
3.) Rage
If you had told me iD the legendary FPS creator (Doom, Quake) was capable of making a bad FPS I would've struck you dead on the spot, but here we are. Rage isn't ugly, doesn't control badly, it's just boooooooooooring. I liked this type of game a lot more when it was called Borderlands and allowed me to alleviate the boredom by playing with friends and the multiplayer is cart racing, and this shit is 3 DVD's? God damn and you had John Goodman in this just to sucker me in.
I should've known something was up when a friend offered to sell me his new copy for $40 not more than a week after it came out. Thankfully I traded it in before it was worthless (Now going for about $20 new)
2.) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Oh man did you see the new Elder Scrolls they added dragons and they'll just randomly come down and attack you it's so neat! Why are they flying backwards? Why is that one never landing?
Good ol bethesda they make these huge open world games and they're full of bugs most of the time. There was plenty of times my person got stuck in concrete in Fallout 3. But Skyrim is new and improved and I went through the following:
- Deleting my saves then rebooting my PS3 and they're magically there again.
- Quest Essential NPC's getting stuck in speech loops making me reset.
- Hardlocking my PS3 to the point I had to unplug it.
- My horse disappearing and reappearing whenever it feels like it.
But these are technical glitches and deal-with-able, how is the gameplay and the story? In a word, and I hate to be this guy, but Oblivion did it better. If you're going to make transportation to take me to any major city, why not just enable fast travel for the major cities like you did in Oblivion? You're just making me pay a one time fee to access cities. Why are none of the quest lines as fun or as intriguing as Oblivion? I mean my favorite guild the Dark Brotherhood is boring as fuck. Every quest is kill a guy but not in a unique way which boils down to wait for person to be semi-alone kill them and run or pay guards to leave.
My final nail in the coffin was after I finished the dragon quest line and then started the turmoil in skyrim quest where you can join the rebels or empire, and admittedly I only did like 5 or so of the quests and maybe it gets better but they were scout this location kill X people rinse repeat eject disc find something better to do.
Yes, skyrim you are a lot prettier than Oblivion ever was, but you have no personality.
1.) Marvel Versus Capcom 3
Capcom still gets the benefit of the doubt from me, yeah they fuck up every once in while but you take a step back and say "But Capcom made Resident Evil/Mega Man/Ducktales/Bionic Commando!" I remember how much me and two friends were hyped for this. We all threw down for the special edition so we could get the DLC people, I bought an arcade stick to play I even went to the fucking Midnight release, and after the WOW THIS REALLY IS A NEW MARVEL VERSUS CAPCOM GAME wore off I knew the game was kind of shitty.
- No Mega Man (X isn't the same sorry.)
- Every character is pretty much the same. With the exception of Akuma and Phoenix who do a lot of damage and are made out of toilet paper, no one team can overpower another like some teams could in MvC2, and there's no really useless people (Besides Phoenix honestly) that you could get good with to kind of show off (I loved servbot)
- Combos are pretty much do a few hits, launcher, oh look I got three super bars.
- Galactius, while not the worst fighting game boss (sup abyss), is still really easy once you learn the timing of his moves.
- Seriously charging $10 for two characters on the disc already is shitty and does nothing to restore faith.
- SERIOUSLY out of all the people you could choose from the Street Fighter universe you choose C. Viper? Where's Guile? E. Honda? BALROG M BISON DHALSIM ANYONE BUT C. VIPER.
- Then you release an "updated" version 9 months later that isn't any better and adds 12 people you could've just added to the original without fragmenting the player base?
- Voodoo Groove hurt me internally.
- Then instead of adding anyone cool you add Vergil who plays pretty much like Dante anyway?
Why the fuck do I keep giving my money to Capcom especially since they hate me?
