Best of 2010

Honourable Mention

Greed Corp:

Greed Corp is a game which I bought just on the strength of the way it looked.Its art style has a kind of 60s/70s European childrens cartoon look to it, with elements of steam punk.

Gameplay wise its a turn-based strategy game played on a 3d hex-map, but theres a twist. In the world of Greed Corp, big business is literally destroying the planet, the land is mined to the point where it eventually collapses and disappears. There are just a few chunks of land left over which four corporations fight.

The player must balance destroying territory to gain income, while also occupying enough tiles to produce units. If a player has no tiles or units, he/she loses.

To gain income the player builds Harvesters on their territory, these generate income every turn, however they also destroy one layer of their tile and the 8 surrounding tiles. Tiles eventually get to a critical state in which they will collapse on the next turn. When and where to build harvesters and managing their negative effect is crucial to success.

The player can also use their harvesters as a weapon: Place one next to an enemies critical tile and self destruct the Harvester the chain reaction will knock out all adjacent critical tiles.

Games eventually build to a point where each player is perched precariously on a small number of ever sinking tiles, victory comes down to who manged their economy well, invested in troops well and crucially if they have invested in a carrier which can transport troops over the chasms in the landscape caused by the Harvesters.

While it would be nice to have more than just two combat units(Walkers and Guns), the pace and tension of games as the Harvesters destroy the level is worth the lack of a longer tech tree.

So why does Greed Corp not get a place on the list? I bought it in the end of year steam sale and haven't completed due diligence.

List items

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  1. Mass Effect 2

  Mass Effect is one of the most celebrated titles this generation, its great writing,characters and universe combine to create a memorable experience.

  In this sequel, Bioware retain all of the things that made the original great, while ironing out all of the wrinkles which ruffled the player's enjoyment. in particular the quality of game's combat is unrecognizable from the first game.With its mix of drama,action and great characters, Mass Effect 2 is the outstanding game of this year.

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  2. Heavy Rain

  Mass Effect 2 is the game of the year because it is the most complete,and best executed package. However I believe that in time Heavy Rain will be seen as the most important game of this year, and perhaps the most important game of the decade. Yes you can pick it apart and concentrate on a few very unfortunate plot holes. But very much like Avatar, the critics are missing the point. Heavy Rain and Avatar show their mediums the way forward. Heavy Rain executes on the concept of an interactive movie brilliantly, with great pacing and tension throughout.

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  3. Super Meat Boy

  It may be a surprisingly high ranking for a downloadable title,but Super Meat Boy's tight controls,great level design, outstanding music and "so frustating I must have another go" gameplay give it what I consider the most important thing a game can have: charm...and Super Meat Boy has it in buckets.

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  4. Sid Meier's Civilization V

  Civilization games have always been beloved of a certain niche of the PC gaming market. However it's complexity and perceived lack of excitement prevented the series from ever truly becoming mainstream.All this began to change with the release of Civilization Revolution for XBLA in 2007.

  Lessons were clearly learned from this release. The impact of these is most clearly felt in the UI. Within minutes of booting up Civ V the player will make a startling discovery: anyone can play Civilization! The underlying systems while still complex, are well within even absolute Civ neophytes reach, due to the fantastic reworking of the UI and some game systems.It doesn't hurt at all that Civ 5 is also a great looking game. In it's rejuvenation of the series, its embrace of a kind of Civilization glasnost, while at the same time losing none of the series' legendary "one more turn" addictiveness, Civ V is a stunning achievement.

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  5. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

  In making a sequel to what many people hold as the finest RTS ever made after more than a decade Blizzard could not have set themselves a bigger challenge. The development cycle was often controversial with fans hugely disappointed with the removal of LAN play and the splitting of the sequel into three seperate parts of which this(Wings Of Liberty) is just the first.These and other concerns were washed away almost instantly with its eventual release.While in gameplay terms there are few sweeping changes, instead every aspect of the game and the interactions between them are polished to a level that is almost blinding.

  The campaign with its adventure-game like presentation is a new(unreachable?) benchmark for storytelling in the genre.

  Starcraft's enduring fame owed much to it's multiplayer which created and supported an astonishing pro gaming scene in South Korea especially and world wide. For the sequel Blizzard have really pushed the boat out, as Brad Shoemaker noted "Blizzard have built the equivalent of Xbox Live just for one game!" the new revamped Battle.net is a monument to data collection and presentation while easing through its primary duty as a matchmaking service.

  A testament to perfectionism and attention to detail,Starcraft 2 (especially when it is completed by the final two installments) has every chance of the same longevity as it's illustrious predecessor.

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  6. Alan Wake

  2010 has been a year of very protracted dev cycles finally completing(Alan Wake,Gran Turismo 5), or shown to be in the very last stages(Duke Nukem Forever).

  After 5 years and some significant design changes, Remedy's tale of a writer searching for his wife in the town of Bright Falls finally released. The titular Wake's wife, was taken by a supernatural force known only as the Dark Presence. Wake must battle the Taken(humans possessed by the Dark Presence) in order to find his wife. Combat with the Taken revolves around a great light/dark mechanic which gives the third person action an interesting twist.

  Alan Wake's main success however is in the atmosphere it creates as the player explores the foggy forests of Bright Falls. The player is kept on edge throughout.

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  7. Minecraft

  Yes it was available in 2009, and yes it's technically not out yet as it just entered alpha, it also may not even be a game. But in terms of attention this was the year that Minecraft truly took off.

  Minecraft's core concept is you hit things, other things fall out of the things you hit, and you use these to build other things. From such a simple concept emerges almost endless creativity and enjoyment. Minecraft taps into the simple childish wish to build a fort or a Lego house.It is an astonishing indictment of Lego that they didnt do it first. Joining both exploration and discovery to creativity, Minecraft can(will) become an obsession.

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  8. BioShock 2

  Bioshock 2 had perhaps the most difficult sales pitch of any mainstream game release this year. While it's predecessor had enjoyed great acclaim from critics and gamers alike. Irrational Games announced that they were not involved with the sequel. To add to the alarm it was also announced that the sequel would contain multiplayer.Many fans feared this would detract from the quality of the singleplayer experience and add little value of its own.

  In the end Bioshock 2 turned out to play better than its predecessor,while lacking its narrative punch. All in all Bioshock 2 is more(with improvements) of a very good thing.

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  9. Gran Turismo 5

  In the weeks leading up to GT5's release, I had the recurring thought "Regardless of what is eventually released, after 5 years of development this will be a candidate for biggest disappointment."

  Expectations are always very high for a new Gran Turismo game, and when a genuine release in the franchise had been absent for so many years, expectation management was always going to be difficult for many people.The tragedy for GT5 is that in the core thing that it does i.e simulating driving on a console it is completed unmatched, the feel of the cars is just terrific, however everything else is riddled with problems, the UI is put together with the same care and nous as a toddler's collage. The famously bad AI is still famously bad, the two tier car system(premium(pretty) and standard(ugly)) makes the player avoid interesting cars because they are not up to same graphical standard.Other players have raised gripes about the damage modelling, the grind heavy progresion and poor online. Theres a great, truly great game in here somewhere its just been clumsily pasted over.

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  10. Battlefield: Bad Company 2

  In all honesty I didn't touch the campaign for more than 10 minutes.My enjoyment of this game is entirely based on it's multiplayer...and what a multiplayer game it is.

  The guns feel great, the maps with very few exceptions are excellent. The weapons unlock carrot is still very powerful and compelling. Classes feel balanced and fun to play, the only real criticism, is the very limited number of maps and the high chance that you team will feature many lazy snipers.