Gav47: Best of 2010
A brief recap of my gaming year. In January I invested in a gaming worth laptop which, along with some help for Steam, fueled a new passion which has lead me to build my first PC. In August I invested in a new slim 360 which opened up many new games for me, so without further adieu my Top 10 games of 2010.
Playing Alan Wake was by far the most enjoyable experience I've had all year. This game is beautifully cinematic and paced but above all else it is a truly tense experience. Few games have made me feel dread like Alan Wake has.
An enjoyable singlepalyer story, however all of the meat of this game is found online. Wide sprawling maps, well balanced vehicular combat and the sniping,oh lord the sniping, there is nothing quite as satisfying as lining up a shot, taking into account for bullet drop, and seeing a body drop while listening to the gentling tingling as the points rack up.
Explosions are cool too.
So good I bought it twice
Great story telling from the guys at Rockstar as per usual but the reason this game ranking so high in my list because of how well the world is realized. If you had told me this time last year I would give a shit about an open world game that didn't involve cars or some means of automotive transport I would have slapped you in the face, the face I tell you. I'd also like to give a special mention to the horse ride into Mexico and the ending, you probably know why.
This game is fucking hard but by some black magic its never frustrating, I can die on a level for the 200th time and still chuckle as Meatboy explodes into a shower of red mist. The music also deserves a mention, if you haven't already, you should download the soundtrack from dbSoundworks,
So good I bought it twice.
A ridiculously addictive puzzle game with a great integration of music. I wish they sold song packs.
This one snuck up on me, it wasn't until Giantbomb started to talk about it that I even found out what Starcraft was. Up until then I had always presumed that it was the same as WoW but "future". Spurred on by the launch night footage and Brad's overwhelming enthusism, I preodered the collectors edition at 5 am in the morning (which may be the craziest gaming purchase I've made all year). As for the game itself, the single player was exceedingly enjoyable with great mission variety and unit diversity, the multiplayer however was not for me, I just didn't have the time sink into learning builds or watching Pro replays.
I hope all trilogies that leaf out of Mass Effect 2's book and start to integrate the players previous progress into their games, I can't wait to see the effects my choices will have on the story and characters in Mass Effect 3. Also: <3 Miraanda
OK this is weird one for me as I don't actually own the game (yet), but I have sank 10s of hours into the demo of this game in the past weeks and because of this I feel it deserves a spot in my top ten.
Heavy Rain was quite a surprise for me, I was very skeptical about the controls and gameplay but after a few hours it really made sense. The controls are designed in such away so you never have to search the screen for the prompt, it always focuses on the action. The story is also pretty good, perhaps not the film standard that many expected, but effects you can have on the outcome are huge.
What I've played of Reach has been enjoyable gameplay wise but were this game really shines is in its story telling, I was literally standing on my feet when Jorge does that thing (I won't spoil it). What else can I say its Halo, shoot guy with assault rifle, melee, repeat.
