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CanuckEh

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Best of 2010

 So it's the end of the year and it's nigh about time for everyone to hang a billboard on the virtual forum world reading "see my top ten! I might read your top ten! Not likely but you never know!" Actually, this was a pretty crazy year for video games when you think about it. It was a great year to hand in homework assignments late and neglect your friends because Bill Williamson must pay. Honestly, if you got a Best of 2010 list and you want a random stranger to read it, let me know! I am legitimately curious, as I think everyone here will have a different list. 
 
My plan right now is to transform this Top 10 into an eventual list of EVERY 2010 release I've played. Perhaps it's a bit narcissistic to craft such a list, but fuck it. As of this writing, lack of free time and funds have kept me from playing:  Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, DJ Hero 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Goldeneye, Fallout New Vegas (that's gonna be a 2011 project), Darksiders (that's going to be a NEVER project), EA Sports MMA and anything based on a realistic sporting event, including Gran Turismo 5. I sure as hell won't get to all of those games, and I think it's insane that I actually DID play so many games anyways, but I could always modify this list in the new year, right? Anyways, enjoy!

List items

  • Fuck it! Super Meat Boy, best of 2010. Let's elect a Fetus into the White House. Actually, any of the top 5 games here could be my Game of the Year, based on my mood at any given time during the day. But right now, my heart yearns for the indie darling. Loving parodies, Super Happy Tree Friends humour, Team Meat's urge to put the game on sale at any given moment, free DLC, obscure references galore. But most of all, Super Meat Boy wins for learning the Anti-Life Equation of figuring out how to make the most death-inducing game possible without discouraging the player. My death toll is just under 10,000 as we speak.

  • Think about all of the video games you played. How many of them depict horrible events of war, chaos or armageddon. All of the gratuitous death and violent trauma that people who fought in Vietnam would love to erase from their memories, now made playable in the best-selling Black Ops release. I love Kirby's Epic Yarn because it stands against all of that; this is a game designed to make you happy. A mellow pace, positive situations, creative imagery, soothing music and a carefree, charming attitude. This game will soothe your stress levels and bring peace to your soul.

  • Just about the most conventional game in the top 5, Red Dead Redemption is a success for all of the reasons you already know about. It captures both the heart and heartlessness that comes with life in a filthy western movie. It fit into the Grand Theft Auto mold of pitting a sarcastic, likable hero against a series of scumbags and let him take things in stride. It had a ton of optional sidequests I couldn't be made to deal with. It had an achievement for tying up a woman and placing her on railroad tracks. It's probably on your Best of 2010 list too!

  • Dance Central is a game for people that like to move their body in ways that require some energy, reflexes and a lack of shame. The technology for reading your dance moves is accurate enough that you can't half-ass motions the way you did on Wii Sports, and the whole concept of dancing out in the open have made this a hit at every social gathering I've introduced it to. All you need to make motion-controlled gaming a good idea is the right context, and now I know the right context involves a lot of Soulja Boy.

  • So here's a game that shows a complete lack of restraint for consistency. After all, why can't the shopkeeper inquire as to what are ya buying? Why can't women be 9 feet tall with one firearm-per-appendage, and hair that can manifest into clothes or giant fists? Why can't you fight a giant monster with an upside-down head, while inside a church room attached to his giant head? And what excuse can we find to transform this game into Afterburner? For a game starring a woman with a perchant for getting naked, this game has a lot of balls.

  • Hell of a year for downloadable games. As the main eventer of the Summer of Arcade, Limbo gave a crass middle finger to the assorted million-dollar video games of the world by creating an incredibly haunting, believable atmosphere with a fraction of the budget. Limbo will also go down as having the greatest 10-second-ending in a long time; one who's significance would be easy to miss until you pay attention to the title screen. Clever.

  • Heavy Rain was so good that it made me hate the Wii a bit more. For all of the years of mindless waggling and Wiimote aiming that I had to endure (Twilight Princess, I'm looking at you), Heavy Rain figured out how to be immersive using simple button presses and remote swings. This was a game that always knew how to put the player in an awkward situation. The interesting, variable story helped too. Part of me wishes that Heavy Rain would launch its own sub-genre of games where guiding the actions of the character takes a precedence over murdering hundreds of Russians.

  • Maybe for some, number 8 is too low for Mass Effect 2. I say blame the drab DLC missions. But that aside, I have nary a bad thing to say about the game. I feel like most readers know what the big deal is about Mass Effect 2, so I'll just say the one thing I appreciate the most. Mass Effect 2 is the game that figures out how to deliver a satisfying ending while building intrigue towards sequels, something a certain assassin-oriented franchise can't quite comprehend...

  • But I'm getting ahead of myself. Mario Galaxy 2 begrudgingly makes my top ten. I'm upset because I know most people will pick this over Kirby's Epic Yarn for their best Wii game, and it's hard not to escape the idea that this is just more Super Mario Galaxy. But goddamn, I love me some Mario Galaxy and this game squeezes every last ounce of creativity from the brains of Nintendo's programmers.

  • I had a major internal debate between whether this or Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood should be in the top 10. Ultimately, the deciding factor was which game didn't have the shitty cliffhanger ending. Mega Man 10 has several other redeeming qualities; it's challenging, it has creative design, it's self-aware, (Mega Man is battling the fucking ROBOT FLU) and it's highly replayable.

  • Yes, I am the kind of person that will strongly resent an awful ending. But this is neither the time nor place to discuss the dumb turn of events in Desmond's saga. Brotherhood packs a lot of content in a small area, littering the map of Roma with sidequests, shops and murder victims galore. Also included is a surprisingly amusing multiplayer mode built around a very twisted game of tag. Tag involving people with questionable choices in clothes, attending a convention of people with questionable choices in clothes, tagging each other with questionably sharp objects.

  • Vanquish is a third-person, cover-based shooter about space marines fighting Russians on a ring-shaped space station. It's a concept popped out of an assembly line that manufactures generic American shooters, except for the part where they strapped fucking rockets on the main character's legs and let him jet around the warzone in slow motion. This is a much more amusing game to play than its' inspirations.

  • Not to make the most predictable line possible, but this game is like Street Fighter 4 but only more super. Hooray for proper grammar!

  • Fuck it, Comic Jumper above Starcraft! Sure, there are several aspects you can knock the game for; in particular every moment that requires you to play the game. But damn if it isn't the most hilarious game in ages. A game not afraid to make either the most offensive joke possible, let alone the most obvious. (Get it? He's in a manga so he walks from the right side of the screen to the left!) Better, playing the game gives you a delightfully ugly giant smiley face for your Avatar. It matches my avatar's Earthworm Jim suit.

  • I had a hard time deciding whether or not I liked Civ 5 over Starcraft 2. The determining factor was, you guessed it, which one didn't have the cheap cliffhanger ending. In Civ 5's case, the ending to the game usually comprised of me dropping some nukes on my adversaries. Dennis Leary would be proud.

  • I'll confess to lacking the kind of micromanagement skills to make any kind of positive contribution to Starcraft's online community. But truth be told, Starcraft 2 is my favorite game to NOT play. I get so much joy listening to the Giant Bombcast and hearing the tales of passion, professionalism and scandal that is the Korean Starcraft scene. I gleefully wait for the Fruit Dealer feature film.

  • Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this game. Sure, you can tell this game was only brought into existence as a co-promotional piece for the Sands of Time movie. Sure, it seems odd that the Price now has a brother that is never mentioned in any PoP fiction (call it the Sophia Lamb syndrome.) But the puzzle/platforming that this series is built on still works, and there is still a feeling that great amounts of care went into the production of this game.

  • Costume Quest reminds us that we were young once. And that different things mattered to us when we were young, like visiting the house with the white garage door because they were giving out chocolate bars by the handful. Or the evils of being given packs of raisins by an old lady. Or the value of getting the more expensive costume at the store.

  • In the midst of the dozens of NES homages we see on video games and on the internet, VVVVVV goes even nastier with their throwbacks by imitating the Commodore 64. I await/dread the impending Intellivision homages. This game also captures the cheese and charm of the 80s with a Care Bears-like cast and a button that flips your shit...I mean gravity.

  • This game would have fared better if not for the repulsive, offensive, lengthy, deceptive, poorly-scripted, poorly-VOed, I-could-do-better-than-that storyline. But the twitch-reflex action elevates the game into something surprisingly replayable and unique. Even if gameplay ideas like "point the remote at the screen to switch to first person view" aren't the most intuitive ideas, there is something to be said for originality. I'll take Other M over another space marines FPS any day.

  • Monday Night Combat figures out how to take two different games I have little affection for (Team Fortress 2 and DoTA) and make them appealing to me. The secret? Create an annoying mascot with a giant smiley head and gyrating hips, and give me points for shooting him. Then reward me for shooting him with his smiley-head as an avatar reward.

  • I had successfully blocked out of my mind the existence of Picross 3D. And now I remember why; because I spent a downright embarrassing amount of time chipping away at one puzzle after another, ignoring phone calls and arriving late for work a couple times in the process. It's the only Nintendo DS game on the list, being that this was the year I moved on to smartphones and portable Sudoku. Will we see Picross 3D on the 3DS? Picross 3D 3D?

  • Def Jam Rapstar is great for two reasons. Intentionally, it has a strong soundtrack of current and classic tunes and is the about the one notable, effective rap karaoke experience available. Unintentionally, you can access their server and strike comedic gold as a predominantly white user community uploads 30 second clips of their rap attempts. I might be amongst their ranks.

  • The perfect way to kill about 5 minutes of free time.

  • Ranking high on the list of games that didn't suck half as badly as I thought they would is the latest Tomb Raider-but-not-really game. LCATGOT (what a terrible acronym) reduces platforming, gun combat and puzzle solving into digestible portions and makes them interesting with hundreds of micro-achievements. It's a game you can play for small segments of time, but many times over.

  • Bioshock 2 also clocks in high on the list of games that aren't so bad as you think they might be. No, the world didn't need another Bioshock set in Rapture. Yes, it's a bit weird to be hearing about a major political figure in Sophia Lamb. No, multiplayer in Bioshock isn't a terrible idea, in fact. Yes, it's fun to drill people to death after freezing them. No, you don't have to do all those pesky protect missions, provided you're willing to slaughter every Little Sister you run into. After one protection mission, you may be driven to do so.

  • While the game disappointed me in that it wasn't particularly terrifying or psychological, I was unexpectedly able to appreciate its merits as a trigger-happy shooter. Again emphasizing the power of minimalist design, the flare gun explosion in Alan Wake has a great deal more visible impact than the explosions in most major war games. Alan Wake also earns points for nailing the two Remedy trademarks; spoofs of old television shows and Norse mythology as a plot device.

  • A sequel that I never thought would ever exist. (And hey, if Sin and Punishment can get a sequel, why not Shenmue?) Sin and Punishment's greatest feat is that it is willing to assault the player with bosses. Many bosses. One after the other. Usually the size of a small apartment.

  • And like Sin and Punishment, God of War 3 is great at delivering one awesome boss fight after another. And I'll admit that Sin and Punishment is better at delivering a larger quantity of juggernaut boss fights. But God of War 3 is, ironically enough, better at letting Kratos punish the hell out of his enemies. Hey there Poisidon, those are some nice eyeballs you have in your head. Oops, thumbs slipped.

  • I know the developers of the game intended players to use the various content creators in ModNation Racers to inspire creative juices. But fuck creativity! I want to drive on Mario Circuit 3 while playing as Iron Man driving the A-Team van.

  • Looking at EA's attempts to "streamline" complex sports games like Madden to the casual sports folks like me have merely had me yearning for the more simpler, wackier games like NBA Jam. So good thing they went ahead and made it so! Even better, they littered the game with a bevy of one-note jokes, like a mini-game where players race to shatter the backboard. Or a boss fight with a teleporting Magic Johnson.

  • And ranking REALLY high on the list of games that turned out better than I thought it would is Risk Factions. Seriously, the board game of Risk, RISK, matters again. The secret to the game's success is the same secret of hundreds of games before it; copious amounts of violence and internet memes.

  • There were a handful of neat additions in Undisputed. Some of the grappling mechanics were improved, many fighters were added, and Classic Fights mode let players relive popular fights as narrated by the amicably uncharismatic UFC ring girls. Undisputed 2010 will go down as the only video game to date to feature your hero and mine, Kimbo Slice. At least until the Reality Kings video game debuts.

  • I really dug this game when it came out. It had a charming, Tick-ish sense of humour. And it minimized Diablo-like loot lust into something more palatable for my unmaterialistic tastes. But as said many times here, nothing sticks in my craw quite like a cliffhanger ending, and Deathspank had the worst of the bunch. Said ending was made more insulting when the sequel was announced and released in little over 2 months. No, I'm in no rush to divulge in the events of Thongs of Virtue.

  • If my biggest pet peeve in gaming today is the cliffhanger, a close number 2 would be "the giant head boss with two giant hands." Donkey Kong Country Returns employs such a beast for its final boss, much to my dismay. The rest of the game is pretty solid, combining tough platform jumping with catchy tracks and a lot of explosions in the background. Always a winning formula.

  • While I get the vibe that the technology behind Sports Champions is a great deal more accurate, Kinect Sports wins over on the sheer force of personality. In particular, it prominently uses every licensed song you'd imagine seeing out a live event, from "You Can't Touch This" to that particular piano slow-motion song thingy...you know what it's called!

  • I don't care much for mini-game compilations, and I've written poetry on my feelings about Wii Sports. But I don't hate Sports Champions quite as much for a few reasons. The tech works. It's the only known video game representation of Bocce. And the avatar characters are hilariously bad stereotypes of active, good looking teenagers from different ethnic backgrounds.

  • The sequel to a game I still think was the 2008 game of the year, Desperate Struggle is essentially more No More Heroes. Those two extra years haven't been kind to the gameplay, which has been reduced to archaic button mashing. But the game has some wild callbacks to No More Heroes 1. Want to know the fate of that Superhero you split in two? Are you really sure? Want to play a series of mini-game homages to bad NES-mini games? Sure!

  • For all I know, this game is a complete blast to play under the right circumstances. The problem is that those circumstances involve paying $80-200 for instruments that are currently sold out at stores across the Greater Toronto Area.

  • The Dragon Age Awakening expansion reminded me of just how awesome Dragon Age: Origins was. It did so by letting me revisit all of the great characters and gameplay systems, while providing a storyline scenario that is nowhere near as interesting or well-paced as the original game. I bought this out of fear that something important in this game will be relevant to Dragon Age 2, and right now I think I'm wrong.

  • By and large, a standard third person shooter that operates on pre-Gears rules. There is no cover, and your Roadie Run is replaced by transforming into a flying car. But my favorite part of the game is the focused one-dimensional characterization. Optimus Prime only knows how to be courageous. The Autobots only know how to be optimistic. Megatron only knows how to be a dick. Starscream only knows how to betray things.

  • Enslaved does a lot of things right, but I am the kind of person who will completely sour on a game based on a bad ending. And the ending in Enslaved is a real fruit bruiser of a bad ending.

  • I think this at least has to be a pretty solid football game. Millions of people keep buying them. I don't know. I'm not a sports guy. I used to think I couldn't get into football games because those X's and O's on those big playsheets were beyond my comprehension. But now that they simplified those things in 2011, I realize that I just find ordinary sports boring. After playing this, I wished upon a star for a new NFL Blitz and NBA Jam. We're halfway through this dream coming true, EA.

  • Lovingly referential to the original Legend of Zelda, Demon's Souls and probably a hundred other games I don't know about. There was a semblance of charm within the whole package, but I found myself wishing there was a bit more substance to this series of in-jokes.

  • I don't think I hated Dante's Inferno as much as the rest of the world did. That might be because I played it before getting into Bayonetta or God of War 3. Or because I lack the poetic literacy skills needed to examine The Divine Comedy. Or maybe I just kind of like the box art. Still, the endgame is garbage.

  • Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

    The movie was a whole lot of fun. And I've got mad love for any video game portrayal of my native Toronto (which I think this is the only one.) But this game made me realize that it takes a certain amount of timing and bravado to pull off a nostalgic throwback. You can't just produce blinking MIDI sounds and yell "hey! A coin block!" and except a warm reception. Besides, River City Ransom is too ridiculous to need a remake. It's like trying to remake Commando.

  • In my Black Ops review, I had written about how co-workers were pressuring me to discover the blissful experience that is the latest and most explosive CoD ever made by Infinity Ward. As of this writing, the realization that Infinity Ward did NOT make Black Ops has started to set in, and those same people are bickering about all kinds of imperfections in the multiplayer. Me, I would probably dig the Zombies mode if I hadn't been suffering chronic zombie fatigue for the last decade.

  • The nicest thing I can say about Black Ops is that it can provide more than 30 minutes of entertainment. Kinect Adventures on the other hand...

  • I think enough time has passed that I can spoil the hell out of Fable 3. I came into this game with the idea that the morality system let players be either cheeky and righteous or cheeky and mean. When you overthrow your brother and become king (and I feel the whole king-aspect has been the focal point of the game's marketing), a generic dark force threatens your new kingdom. The player is left with three choices; be righteous and ruin your kingdom, be mean to be the savior, or save up enough rent by leaving your console on for several hours. All three options deprive the player of their needed cheekiness.

  • The idea of a film-noir version of Spider-Man that lurks in the shadows and webs up unsuspecting morons is a lot more amusing than one would suspect. It's too bad that his alternate-dimension brothers include generic beat-em-up Spider-Man, generic future beat-em-up Spider-Man, and generic beat-em-up Spider-Man with a symbiote suit.

  • Final Fantasy 13 is weird in that it seems to be striving to exasperate JRPG stereotypes as if they were goals. Incredibly lengthy cutscenes with dense, incomprehensible language. Melodramatic characters. No attempt to hide the single, linear path. Combat sequences that fight themselves for you. A needlessly complex leveling system. What once felt like the great white hope for the Japanese RPG now feels like the casket.

  • Like Scott Pilgrim but with an official license, Sonic 4 suffers because it tries way too hard to be nostalgic. Ripping levels, enemies and bosses right out of Sonic 1 and 2 without nary an original idea, or a wink and nudge to remind you that a degree of love and care went into the production. You may as well just buy Sonic 1 or 2 on XBLA, the Virtual Console or any number of Sega compilation discs.

  • This is the wrong Harmony. Go look up Harmony of Dissonance on the Game Boy Advance if you want something resembling the Castlevania experience you crave. On the other hand, this game is some kind of weird attempt to mix platform action with Diablo-esque loot lust. But it's hard to be consumed with lust by such items as "Hobo Clothes".

  • I'm trying to reflect on my Iron Man 2 experience and remember if there were any redeeming qualities, and I'm drawing a blank here. I guess there's brevity; the game is short enough that you can quickly get it done and over with. It's a shame, because a game based on a dude with flying laser armour should be a lot more spiffy than this. Oh well, back to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance I go.

  • I feel bad for ripping on this game on account of how it was a Christmas present from a loved one. Sorry dude, I know you were thinking of me and my newfound intrigue of the Kinect, but this is something of a Kinect low point. Inaccurate motion controls that can't tell the difference between a jumping kick and a crouch. The game demands very precise motions out of hardware that's a tad laggy to begin with, and software that can't discern the position of your abdomen. Imagine playing Punch-out while submerged in jello. And the jello is puke flavoured. That is Fighters Uncaged.
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