Mass Effect 2, Civ V, Red Dead Redemption and Starcraft 2 are the contenders for me. Personally, I prefer RDR, but it's not easy to pick a game out of those four. It probably wouldn't be ME2 though. That game has a couple of problems, one of the biggest of them, in my opinion, is the pacing - it's quite calm up to the ending sequence which blows everything up to 11 and gives some very simplistic choices. Civ V is an awesome game, but it has a few too many bugs at the moment, and still broken multiplayer. It's nothing that a couple of patches can't fix, but at the moment it suffers from those problems.
SC2 is superb. It managed to keep the feel of the original Starcraft, but also brought in new things and that is a very difficult balance to achieve. But RDR is just... mind blowing. It vastly improves on the GTA formula. It isn't the game that I'm still playing right now (that would be SC2), but to me it felt fresher, with higher production values and with a much better singleplayer experience.
Nothing can rival the multiplayer experience of SC2 this year though.
Even with all the huge games I've played this year like Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Other M, and Reach, the most fun I've had was with Darksiders. So I guess it's that.
I'm seeing a pattern regarding a certain Bioware title! It deserves it though. It'll be fun to count all the game of the year awards come christmastime.
I haven't played many 2010 games at all this year, play plenty of '09 games though. So far from I've played I'd say it's between, Darksiders, SSFIV and Mass Effect 2.
The only games I actually beat this year were Reach and Heart Gold. I would choose Pokemon before Halo so I guess it's that so far. Don't worry though! I just picked up copies of ME2 and Darksiders so I will play through them before I buy any new games. Also, MLB 10: The Show is pretty good too...
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Red Dead Redemption Blur Heavy Rain
The list feels weak, but I know that Fallout New Vegas and Rock Band 3 will end up on my list. Black Ops has a chance too. But getting a full top ten that I'm happy with might be tough.
So far this year I've played Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Dead Rising 2: Case Zero & Halo: Reach.
Out of those 4 I'd say Mass Effect 2 is the winner by a mile. I absolutely loved the first game too.
Pros: *Better Graphics *Frame Rate problems were pretty much non-existent *Superior cast of characters *Side missions were actually pretty exciting *Quick-Time Actions Cons: *Resource collecting, I preferred the Mako to Planet Scanning. *Too many ME1 reunions on Illium, I just felt they threw them all in there for the sake of it.
I haven't played ME2 (because I need a save from ME1 and that's on my PC so I'll need to play again on the 360 as the 5 year old machine I have will NOT cut it for ME2 {deep breath})
So my list is Red Dead Redemption followed pretty closely by Ensalved: Odyssey to the West. Both of these games did something that I don't see much at all in "interactive entertainment" - they made me really care about the characters.
Alan Wake, just barely beating out Mass Effect 2. Both are fantastic experiences. Having returned to both this week to play DLC, they are still head and shoulders above the rest of the games I played this year since they were released. Alan Wake wins out simply because of originality: I like new experiences better than returning to old ones.
Honorable mentions: Civ 5, Red Dead Redemption, Alpha Protocol.
It's sad to me that I've bought so few new games this year that I really can't say. I don't even know if I've PLAYED a game from this year... hm... I guess most of them just don't really speak to me.
Oh, wait, SoulSilver. So.... aside from the fact I fucking loved it, it also wins by default.
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