In compiling this list, I've come to the realization that I don't play many games. What I tend to do is either obsess over a few or drop it after it fails to leave an impression on me. I think I've played a few more games than what's listed below, but I didn't care enough to make it part of the list. So there.
The game I played the least on this list, but the one that stands out the most. As far as I'm concerned this is what the future of video games should be. Instead of drowning the player in long mediocre cut-scenes, Limbo is able to say so much with so little. Effortlessly creates this world you inhabit and never takes you out. And then it ends, and does so right when it needed to; not a second later.
Yo, that new Pac-Man DX is straight up crack. Snorting down lines of ghosts feels so good.
It's the current go-to when I'm feeling shitty and need another hit of sounds and colors to feel good again. And in the end, that's what video games should do, right?
Last year's obsession was the vanilla version of this game, and Super does enough to warrant the forty bucks I forked over for it. The burning desire to fight random online opponents has died down some. However, there's still not much that's more fun than getting together with a few buddies and a few bottles of beer and putting some pride and spare change on the line. Street Fighter is the new poker night.
Man, they don't make many games like this anymore. Harkens back to the good ol' days of playing games distributed in grey plastic cartridges, and the only way to beat them was through playing it over and over. A messy mix of practice and memorization. Of course levels back then didn't take half a minute to beat, or have unlimited lives or many other comforts that living in the future affords us, but that's okay. While my six year old self enjoyed playing through three hours of game to just screw up that jump yet again, Super Meat Boy does a good enough job of invoking a tolerable level of nostalgia for the considerably older self.
Alright, so I didn't actually 'play' the game so much as absorbed it via the proxy that was the endurance run, but that's not so bad, is it? I don't think I would be able to slog through much of it on my own, but I enjoyed watching others do the hard work of pressing buttons and stuff. A fun ride.
