My Top 5 Games of 2011
If you were one of the odd kids out that never played one of the original Pokémon games as a kid, I feel sorry for you. Pokémon is one of the rare game franchises that nailed its formula so perfectly the first time that it not only became an almost overnight success, but has barely changed since. Black & White, the fifth generation of games in the 15-year series, proves all over again that this is not a bad thing. It starts from scratch, with over 150 new Pokémon in a new world with no access to any previous Pokémon or locations until after you've beaten the game. It is the first game to wipe the slate clean and take you back to square one, and for that it has somewhat of a reboot feel to it that made it instantly appealing for myself and a lot of others like me who haven't exactly been completely faithful to the series over the years. I fell off the wagon at Gen 3 and picked back up at Gen 4. However, B&W is the first time that I have felt the same way about the games that I did the very first time that I played them. There's just something about being in an entirely new setting with none of the old Pokémon to fall back on that gave it an exciting feeling of adventure and exploration that the first one so wholly delivered to my imaginative young mind. But that doesn't mean that B&W feels stale. Far from it. As if the new Pokémon and huge new region weren't enough, there's loads of new moves to be learned, a new seasonal and weather system that not only affects the Pokémon you can find, but the places that you can go, a new gear system that streamlines all the most useful functions from the old Pokégear and includes new ones used for interacting with other players around you, a "Dream World" that lets you sync Pokémon to the web to interact with via your web browser, new 3D graphics, more animated (and much faster paced) battles, and a lot more I can't even remember right now. Holy run-on sentence. It all adds up to what might be the best set of games in the series yet. I've got over 100 hours clocked and still loads more to do. I haven't been consistent with my playing habits, but that's OK, because Pokémon is still a game that you can pick up after a long break and feel like you never put it down. Speaking of, I probably won't be putting my White version down for years to come.
I've found that it's exceedingly difficult to describe a Portal game to someone who has never seen or played one before. So it's in-turn difficult for me to write about why this game deserves it's spot in the list without just assuming those reading have played a Portal game. But, I'll try. Portal was awesome [incredible, outstanding, a triumph!], beyond original, and perfect in almost every regard, or so I thought. Portal 2 improves on nearly everything Portal did and adds an entirely unique coop campaign too. That really puts the nail in the coffin right there, but I'll humor your attention span a little. The story is more engaging, the environments more detailed and more varied, the characters deeper and more plentiful - if Portal 2 was the swan song for Portal single player campaigns (as the developers have suggested), they took every aspect, with the exception of the overall length, to the very limit on it. In fact, the length is really the only complaint I can leverage against this game - but at a measly 6 hours, it's a substantial enough one to drop it from a potential #3 or even #2 spot to where it's at. Of course, if the alternative was going to be more filler puzzles, I'm happy with the final, condensed version that I got. It flows well and never leaves you dangling without story-progressing narrative for too long. It also has a super epic ending. Oh, and one of the best video game soundtracks of all time, bar none. The music is atmospheric, mysterious, tension-building and driving at all the right times, and has regularly recurring themes that never get repetitive. It's got humor that will leave you in stitches; Cave Johnson (J.K. Simmons) steals the limelight (lemonlight?) from GLaDOS numerous times, but still has stiff competition from the lovable/hateable Wheatley. Even the turrets are funny all over again. OK, I've said enough. It may only be 6 hours, but it's some of the best 6 hours you'll ever spend on a video game and puts the ever-present fight between games and movies as the ultimate entertainment and narrative medium on a whole new level. Oh, and did I mention it has coop? It's got that. Why is this my number 4 again?
Undoubtedly the dark horse of my top 5. Fuck the haters though; this game is pure Duke. To call this franchise tongue-in-cheek is a gross understatement, which was the error that a lot of supposed professional reviewers made when they gave this game record breaking low scores (I'm looking at you, 1UP, you stupid twats). Or maybe they were just too scared for their jobs to say it was good. Either way, it's really not that difficult to see that the Duke wears his crudeness, misogyny, and complete lack of self-awareness squarely on his sleeve. He simultaneously riffs on and rips off his competition. He is tactless, motive-less, and senseless. He is the summation of all Hollywood action-hero stereotypes on steroids. But most of all, he does not give a fuck. He is the honey badger of video game protagonists. But enough about the Duke. This game absolutely kills it. I admittedly have a nostalgic soft-spot for him, but that only makes me more aware why this game is so kick-ass. I can't say that it was worth the 12-year wait, but I can say that it at least lived up to my wildest childhood expectations. Right from the start, Forever goes huge, and it just keeps getting bigger (twss). It's an onslaught of violence, debauchery, grotesqueness, and one liners that plays as if the developers said to themselves, "OK, that was good, but how can we TOP it?" every five minutes. And they fucking did. Right up to the final battle. If you've been dying to get your hands dirty in some fast-paced, don't-think-just-run-and-gun FPS action like when you were [hopefully] a kid [and not a sperm in your dad's testes], then DNF is going to put you right at home. If you're looking for the next military FPS to prestige your load onto, the Duke is absolutely not your man, and he's perfectly fine with that, although he may still have a few choice names to call you. And if you're one of the people who trashed on Forever from your high horse, you're all the ammo Duke needs for his next game. In summation: Fuck you, this game rules.
This one kind of came out of nowhere for me. And by that I mean it really wasn't on my radar at all up until about two weeks before its release. I had never, and still have never, played the previous two games in this series, and when I first heard about this very-late prequel, you couldn't have colored me more uninterested. I can't really trace back to the exact thing that turned my stance around on it, but it was a complete 180; suddenly, I was completely sold on it. I have more than a casual affinity for sci-fi, but it takes more than just a general futuristic setting to turn my head. DE:HR is the complete package: Good story, good narrative, backstory rooted in real science and real history, and quite possibly the best stealth mechanics of any video game to-date (and they're not even forced on you). It's got elements of Perfect Dark, Ghost in the Shell, Metal Gear Solid, and Mass Effect, and plays off of each perfectly. In fact, the number of similarities that can be drawn between this game and Mass Effect (one of my all-time favorite games and unquestionably the greatest sci-fi epic ever) are almost dizzying - from the RPG character progression elements down to the music and sound effects (directed by ME1's head audio director). So that may have some play into my love for this game. But those similarities are really on a high level. When you dig into what really makes this game unique, they're worlds apart. The meshing of first person gunplay with third person stealth and futuristic gadgets, all synced up through experience based leveling of bodily 'augments', is near-perfect. Story-altering decisions made during dialogue adds layers on top of an already lofty stack of ways that this game can be experienced based on how you prefer to play. There's a choice at every turn, and a consequence for ever choice, whether it's from your actions or from what you say (or don't say). I played through this game twice in a row to get all of the achievements and was honestly ready for a third run just for fun - something else that I can only say Mass Effect has done for me in recent years. And at nearly 30 hours of gameplay (if you're thorough like me), this isn't exactly a quick play either. I am eagerly anticipating where Eidos Montreal and Square-Enix take this franchise next. Until then, I think I'll be perfectly content giving this one a few more goes to tide me over.
Like Deus Ex before it, Skyrim surprised me. Not because I wasn't expecting it be in this list, but because I wasn't expecting it to be number one. Oblivion was the reason I [re-]bought an Xbox 360 years ago; I watched a friend play it and was absolutely entranced by the freedom it offered both in choice and in exploration. I loved the feeling of sitting down in front of it for hours, not even touching the main story, but feeling every bit as accomplished. And, although I got burnt out on Oblivion somewhere around 60 hours in, 5 years later, I was ready for that old feeling all over again. What I got was a feeling almost entirely new. I was absolutely stoked for Skyrim before it was released, but had already resolved that DE:HR was my indisputable game of the year. No more than 5 hours into Skyrim and I knew I had possibly jumped the gun - 10 hours in and I was convinced there was no longer a competition - 20 hours in and I gave up all hope of playing anything else for a very long time. I am now sitting at nearly 100 hours played and have not once felt the pangs of repetition and boredom that I would have long ago started feeling from Oblivion. Skyrim has done something different. I can't quite put my finger on it, but they've changed something - some formula. It's like they've found an equation for never ending playability, and it works on everyone. I haven't heard or read from a single person - professional game reviewer or otherwise - an admittance of lost interest at any point in the game. It doesn't happen. Once you're in, you're in for good. No escape. Not that you would ever want to. I want to live in Skyrim. Not literally, of course, because I like my current, real life. But I feel like I could live in Skyrim. And I think that's what sets it apart - not just from its predecessors, but from all games entirely. It feels completely convincing. It's massive, taking roughly 30 minutes or longer to walk across the entire world map, and if you stretched every dungeon, town, castle, and dream-world-in-a-dead-dudes-head end-to-end, it would probably take you days. There's just no end to it, in terms of physical distance and things to do. There's new quests at nearly every turn, and although they're not all entirely unique, they somehow manage to never get repetitive, a problem that Oblivion suffered early on. On the one hand, I feel a little bad that I'm giving this game the number one spot without even finishing the main quest line, but that leads to exactly the reason why I am giving it the number one spot - it's not about the main quest. Skyrim is about doing whatever you want, whenever you want. The main quest will wait. Thanks, Skyrim; I would like to spend the next 3 hours of my life artfully decorating my humble abode with the corpses of the local townsfolk. How did you know?
Honorable Mention
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
I don't feel like remakes really deserve to be given awards alongside other, original games released in the same year, which is why Halo:CEA didn't make the cut above. However, the amount of effort that was put into the remaking of the original and still greatest Halo campaign is nearly palpable in this release. I knew all about the new graphical engine before playing it, but it took me getting it into my hands to really come to appreciate it. I can't really rate a remake of a game based too strongly on how much fun it was to play again after so long, but I can rate it based on how much fun it was to play again with a friend online (a new feature) and with new graphics and new easter eggs: Awesome. It feels just like the first time, including the awe of how breathtaking the vistas and general scenery are thanks to the new graphical overlay. It was unquestionably the most true-to-the-original experience I've every gotten from playing a remake of an old favorite. And for that I can't help but mention it. Halo:CE will always be one of my favorite games of all time, and I don't think I ever want to play the campaign any other way again.
Games that would have made this top 5 list much harder to make if I would have actually had time to play them:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
I'm a die-hard Zelda fan. With the exception of Zelda II, I've played every home-console Zelda game ever released, and all of the handheld counterparts that are worthy of the title. It's undoubtedly the greatest video game franchise of all time, and one of my favorites, delivering consistently great games all the way down the line (with exception, again, in the handheld realm). Which is why I'm so upset that I have yet to play Skyward Sword and probably won't for some time. A big part of this is due to the fact that I don't actually own a Wii anymore. So that's my excuse. But I will play it someday. And I have no doubt it will earn its keep in my collection.
Batman: Arkham City
Another game that made me sad to have to skip, Batman lost out to Skyrim due to their release dates being too close together and me knowing that Skyrim would usurp Arkham City in my disc tray as soon as it released. So really I was doing you a favor, Batman. Arkham Asylum was incredible; it made me feel every bit as awesome, smart, and badass as the Dark Knight himself, and had a really great story (by Paul Dini) and awesome dialogue (voices by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill) to boot. I know AC only improves on this formula, so I know it would give the games above some serious run for their money had I actually played it this year. Sorry, Baman.
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