Some called 2011 a bad year for video games, what with all of the sequels, but I for one really enjoyed 2011. But enough about 2011 because 2012 is just about to begin, January really does not count because nothing has come out in 2012 up to this point aside from a few games. So here are the games that I am personally most looking forward to getting my hands on.

Please note these games are in no order.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

Although released last November in this US it was for some unknown reason delayed until Febuary the 3rd in Europe, being a huge MGS fanboy this was not the best of news. My first impulse was to import it from the US, but at the time there was so many games coming out (Skyrim, MW3, Uncharted 3, Saints Row the Third etc) and I did not want it to fly away into my backlog. So I waited, the wait is almost over, I have completed MGS2 over 100 times and I am not joking. When your little you just play the same game over and over again, every single weekend I literally rotated between playing MGS2 and MGS1 and every weekend I would beat it. I know that game in and out and it got to a point where I would mouth the words before the characters even said them. When MGS3 came out I was a tad older so did not play it as many times, but i still completed it probably 50 + times. Peace Walker remains the only MGS game I have not played, so I'm really excited for that. Ironically it comes out just as a whole mess of other games start to come out too, but hey whatever check out the European launch trailer which has to be one of the best trailers I have seen in a while.

Turns out that this trailer is even not official, wow..

Resident Evil 6

I did not get in to the franchise until Resident Evil 4, after playing that and enjoying it I went back and bought some past Resident Evil games, I really did not like any of them. So I was glad when Resident Evil 5 arrived and they decided to not go back to the horrible gameplay of the first games, yes I'm admitting I really enjoyed Res5, one of my favourite games of that year. Sure it's not scary, but I don't think that is what they are going for anymore, I'm totally ok with that being the case. All I'm looking for a decent action movie experience full of shooting and awesome set pieces. It is only a recent announcement but the game from the trailer does look pretty awesome, I really hope it comes out this year.

Mario Party 9

The Mario Party franchise gets a lot of hate from many people, I am not one of those people. I honestly enjoy the Mario Party franchise, it has a nice blend of luck and skill with the mesh of a board game with mini games. I have played pretty much all of the Mario Party games and I love how they continue to make original and awesome mini games. But the board game aspect is what really drives me to play these games, the mini games are good but there is something satisfying about planning out what route to take across the board. The boards have been really good so far and I hope to see them continue this trend with Mario Party 9. Mario Party 8 came out around the time the Wii came out, so they have had a while to gather ideas for this game, I couldn't be any more stoked for this game and I really hope you guys give it a chance.

Mass Effect 3

I don't think I need to justify having this on my list, its fucking Mass Effect 3. I really enjoyed Mass Effect 2 and I am interested to see what will happen in the game based on my actions of Mass Effect 2. I ended it with all characters alive aside from Miranda, fuck that bitch! The one thing I am hoping for is better shooting, it was good in ME2 but not great. In all honestly I'm not interested in the multiplayer at all, I don't see why the felt the need to include it to a story driven game, but hey video games am I right?

Paper Mario

I'm not a fan of the direction they took the Paper Mario franchise with Super Paper Mario. I didn't really like the art direction or the gameplay direction, I much more preferred the original Paper Mario. From the trailer and the little pieces of information we know I believe they are taking it back to its roots and I couldn't be more happy. This is one of the reasons that I am happy to have a 3DS and I can't wait to see what new features they add to this game.

So there we go, 5 of the games I am most looking forward to this year!

I had a whole list of things I wanted to do this weekend, I was going to do a top 100 video game list, beat Bioshock/Deus Ex, write a few reviews, go out shopping. But I'm afraid one thing got in the way of me achieving all of those things...

So I finished Saints Row The Third last year not long after it came out, I really enjoyed my time with the game and I placed it number 4 on my 2011 GOTY list. I assumed that was the last time I would see Saints Row the Third again, I assumed I would be too busy playing other games to jump back in for the DLC. But I booked this past Friday off work, not knowing that Thursday was the day that the DLC came out, good timing. So I got myself an energy drink ready, got myself the season pass and was ready to jump back in to the world of SteelPort and do some Genki Bowl VII. However after an hour and a bit I finished the DLC and got all of the trophys. Don't get me wrong I really did enjoy the DLC, but I was so amped up from the energy drink that I wanted more.

So I then decided to create a new character, and by new I went start off as a completely new dude, then felt weird not playing as the lady I played as before so went back to her. I barrelled through hella missions up until midnight. In my state of tiredness I went and bought every single thing in the store, the Shark gun the costumes, everything but the cheats. But I still wanted more, I haven't felt like this with a game for a long time, still hungering for more. So the next day I spent pretty much all day playing through the game, and ultimately on Saturday morning I had beaten the game again. So I was ready to throw in the towel and go and play something else?

Nope, you see I have never ever got a Platinum trophy before, and I own over 100 PS3 games with trophies in them. And I looked at the trophy list and they seemed quite easy. So I spent the whole of Saturday playing through the side activities and messing around with some people online. I also found out that the longer you play the game for (In one sitting) the worse everything gets, the frame rate, the lag, freezing and even not being able to sprint or get into cars. At one point I ended up loosing 2 hours of gameplay because of this.

I stayed up until 1AM this morning finishing off the last collectables and missions. Today my time has been spent doing all of the veichle thefts and assassination missions and the more annoying challenges. I spent like 3+ hours on the veichle theft stuff and I have to say that is the worst part of that game easily. I have also been buying everything, I now have no more upgrades to buy in any form, just clothes, which I now have a lot of. All thats left now is about 5 challenges, none of the hard ones really just like the streaking ones and mini game type ones. Oh and also about 10 more assassination missions and the survival missions, about 13 of those.

So I just now looked at my playtime and it sits at 45 hours, that is 45 hours I have spent playing that game since Thursday 5PM. That is a lot of fucking time playing Saints Row The Third, a whole mess of time listing to Kayne Wests Power on repeat, I think I never want to hear that song again. I even am starting to have that map memorised, some of the Assassination Missions are like go to Bridgeport and I'm like yeah so I go round here and make a left there and jump over the ramp past the zombies and hey there I am.

I'm pretty bummed I didn't get it finished this weekend, but I finish work at 1:30 tomorrow so I should get it done then. Oh and incase you don't know, Saints Row is FUCKING AWESOME!

Update - Platinumed!

2011 was a good year for video games, I know people have said that 2011 was a year of games that have gotten old and run out of ideas, but I could not disagree more. 2011 is the year of video games that have perfected the genre that they inhabit, I could not be more happy with the result. For those of you wondering this is not my Game of the Year awards, they are already up on the site and you can find them here. My 2011 Awards is not just limited to games released this year either, so older game have a chance. I would like to take this chance to wish you a Happy New Year, and I hope your still with me for he 2012 awards, enjoy!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Most anticipated game of 2011 - This award goes to the game that I was most looking forward to playing this year, whether the game turned out to be good or not does not matter.

The nominees are!

1. Pokemon Black/White.
2. Mortal Kombat.
3. Portal 2.
4. Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception.
5. The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.

And the winner is...The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim!

I loved Oblivion, Oblivion still remains to be the game I have sunk the most time into. I remember that it was the game that took over one of my summers when I was still at college. So as you can imagine I was super excited about Skyrim, I managed to avoid looking at all of the spoilery stuff that was coming out around the time the game came out, so went in on day one pretty much fresh. Happily Skyrim managed to live up to my expectations as I knew it would, and remains one of the best games of 2011.

Most played game of 2011 - This award goes to the game I spent the most time with this year.

The nominees are!

1. Burnout Paradise.
2. The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops.
4. Saints Row The Third.
5. Banjo-Kazooie.

And the winner is...The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim!

Skyrim picks up another award it seems, yes it is the game I have spent the most time with in 2011, no surprise there! 2011 has been a big year for me about completing games, in past years I have stuck to a few games such as Oblivion and Black Ops and just played those all year. But this year my time was more spread out, making my 50+ hours spent in Skyrim the most played game of 2011.

Biggest Surprise of 2011 - This award goes to the game that I either thought I wouldn't enjoy or game I wasn't expecting much from.

The nominees are!

1. Peggle.
2. Burnout Paradise.
3. Wii Play Motion.
4. Saints Row The Third.
5. Portal 2.

And the winner is...Burnout Paradise!

Burnout was the game I got with my PS2, it came bundled in with it and for a week or so it was all I had, I did not enjoy Burnout. I found it really hard and I was not a fan of racing games back then, it really put me off the PS2. I did not touch a Burnout game ever since, until this summer. Playstation + had Burnout Paradise free for a month, I wasn't going to get it, but with the lack of games at that time I was like fuck it. I went in expecting me to turn it off after 5 minutes, it stayed on and played it for the rest of the summer. That game, man that game is something isn't it? I think it is one of the best racing games I have ever played, its so fast and crazy yet you do have a good amount of control. The crazy part was that I never really did advance to much progressively, I spent most of my time just driving around really fast. It was so good in fact I went out and picked up a boxed copy that came with all of the DLC, it is that good!

Best OH MY GOD DID THAT JUST HAPPEN! moment of 2011 - This award goes to a part of a game/console that had a moment that left me speechless/had me on the edge of my seat.

The nominees are...

1. Dead Space 2 - Eye Operation.
2. The Nintendo 3DS - The 3D.
3. Professor Layton and the Lost Future - Layton cries.
4. Call of Duty MW3 - Soaps Death.
5. Saints Row The Third - Plane Jump with Kayne West's Power.

And the winner is...The Nintendo 3DS's 3D!

The 3DS may not be a lot of things, sure there was no games until November despite it launching in April(?), sure its battery life sucks and the eShop is not really anything. But the first time I had it in my hands and experienced the 3D, I was LITERALLY speechless. I remember creating my Mii, and looking around the space that my Mii stood in, and laughing to myself. I was blown away by it being able to do this much without glasses, to bad that was the best thing about it at launch.

Biggest Bummer of 2011 - This goes to the game/console/news story that just bummed me out.

And the nominees are...

1. MGS HD Collection Delay.
2. Rage texture issues on PS3.
3. Skyrim on PS3.
4. Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One.
5. The 3DS's Price Cut.

And the loser is...MGS HD Collection Delay!

The Metal Gear Solid franchise was at one point my favourite video game franchise of all time. I loved all of the MGS games to bits, MGS1, MGS2, MGS3, MGS4, MGSPO and even MGS Ac!d, so I was mega excited when they announced a HD Collection. I was thrilled when there was MGS Peace Walker on the list to because its the only MGS game I have never played, so I really was looking forward to playing that. But then for apparently no reason they delayed the European version until 2012 February, when the game came out everywhere else in November. Now I may not be a games person, but I really see no reason why this happend. I know I could import it but still that really bummed me out!

Shout Outs!

• Batman Arkham Asylum - I completed that game this year, enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.
• MineCraft - Got addicted to this for a while, but then my house burnt down after 10 hours of building...
• Rayman Origins - God that game is great!
• Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts - Beat that this year too, it is the best Xbox 360 exclusive game, period!
• Shadows of the Damned - Man that ending is the best isn't it?
• Bulletstorm - The game that Duke Nukem should have been.
• Plants VS Zombies - Played a bunch of that this year and beat it, that game is amazing.
• Giant Bomb - Kept on being awesome!

Well I hope you enjoyed my awards, see you next year!

It's been a while since my last video, all explained in this video update. I'm also thinking of putting together a game of the year episode with footage from the respective game, so stay tuned!.

Also for the past week I've been thinking about jumping back on to Runescape, good or bad idea?

Here is Part 2 of my N64 Collection,

BRACE YOURSELF FOR DIDDY KONG RACING HATE!!

I hope you have enjoyed these two videos, I would like to hear back from you guys about what I did wrong and what I could do to improve them. Also what collection would you like to see next?

I promise not to spam my videos for too long, eventually I'll stop posting them on here all toegther. I'll do a few more so people know that I'm doing them, any who N64 collection bitches!

Please be kind, new to this, I even tried to do some editing this time around. There was this bit where I ranted about Banjo-Kazooie for like 20 minutes, so that got edited out!

Part 2 will be up in a few days, if you have a You-Tube account I would love it if you would subscribe for future videos and hey why not post a comment over there too? I have yet to get any You-Tube comments and am awaiting my 1st commenter.

Hereis a link to my YouTube channel.

So I have wanted to do some sort of videos on You-Tube for a while, I used to do old video game montages but they got took down due to copyright. Then There was the Let's Plays which in all honesty looks like a whole mess of work, so I decided to just do a simple vlog. I decided to start a fresh You-Tube account as well, my old account although had 77 followers, had a bunch of strikes against it due to my old videos. Plus for some reason it listed my age as 31, which bugged me. My new account name is "Hizangable" and my new profile can be found here. I will try and post a few videos this weekend to get the thing rolling, possibly me ranting about Mario Kart 7 or Skryim (Yes they will be game oriented vlogs"

Please be kind and if your on You-Tube feel free to leave a comment on the video and if you like what you see stay tuned for the futurenessnessness of Hizangable. (That is such an awesome name!)

There I was at Tesco, checking out the new Blu Rays out, and was soon disappointed with Transformers being at the top of the charts. I picked up a sandwich, some fruit and some orange juice. Feeling in a healthy mood since I pigged out on lunch, that was mostly chocolate. So I was on my way out, walked down a bit until I reached a small Zebra crossing. I would like to point out that although it was really dark, I was wearing my work clothes. A light Blue Cardigan, a yellow polo shirt and I had my bag that has a yellow strap. Also the Zebra crossing itself is white, but today was not the best day for me.

There was a car coming, it was a while away so I made the decision to walk across. (Now to point out the following all happened in like 2 seconds) I got about halfway across when I noticed the car was approaching still, I thought it was odd she hadn't stopped yet, but I kept going, the next thing I saw was her approaching even more. At that point I stupidly froze in the middle of the road, and thats when I got hit. I didn't get knocked down to the floor, but my hands connected with front of her car. Either I pushed away or the car pushed me away but somehow I was forced back onto the side of the road, I stumbled and hit a tree that was on the side, in the process cutting my hand.

I didn't know what to do, whether to walk away or go and see the person in the car, so I just stood there. She got out the car and seemed angry at me, she shouted at me saying "I couldn't see you, you shouldn't have crossed!" When in reality it was a zebra crossing and cars are supposed to stop once your foot is on it, and I was halfway across! I have no idea how she didn't see me, I suspect she wasn't really paying attention because otherwise she could have seen me, I mean hey bright yellow sash on my bag!

I'm a bit shook up still, once I got home and sat down for a few minutes pain started to hit my hand and I noticed a large piece of skin missing from my knuckle. I also started to feel some pain in my right leg, but in all honestly I'm just happy to be here to write this too you. If I was a second behind I would have been in the dead centre of the car and things could have gone a lot worse.

One thing that bugged me was that there are no lights, just the car headlamps, do you think I could go and complain to the shop about this?

Nintendo

Nintendo had a really good year last year with a lot of there holiday releases being really good ones such as Donkey Kong Country Returns and Sonic Colours, for us UK people it started off strong with the release of Kirby's Epic Yarn. This year was all about the Nintendo 3DS for them so all of there attention was on the 3DS, however the 3DS didn't launch to great. The console itself was really good, it was a fantastic step up from the DS with the one friend code, street pass, graphical improvement, analog nub and the 3D was acutely pretty cool. Nintendo faced two problems with there launch, the first being people don't really want game exclusive handhelds anymore. When the original DS launched the smart phones that we know today did not exist, there was a few but nowhere near as popular as they are today. So if you wanted to play games on the go, you needed a DS, and sales show people were happy to do so with the DS becoming a huge success and it brought a whole new market of people in to video gaming.

All is not the same in 2011, with the rising popularity of iPhones and iPods and iPads, people are not as willing to pay $250 for a handheld device that just plays games. Because they can buy an iPod that plays games, is a music device, a wide variety of apps, is more trendy and is cheaper. Nintendo would charge $40-$50 for a 3DS game when they could buy a decent game from the App store for $3. The hardcore Nintendo fans seemed to be the only people who bought a 3DS as sales show, but even they were not happy. The games at launch were not all that interesting, sure they were good games, but that is all they really were, good. There was no Mario or Zelda or even a Wii Sports equivalent, the game that I picked up (As did most others) was Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. Though it was a good game that showed off the graphical power and 3D power of the 3DS, it was a port of a game that played and looked better on a console.

Nintendo also delayed there online store which was highly anticipated by 3DS consumers, months passed with hardly any games coming out, people were really excited in June when the eShop opened its doors. But then what did we get, a Excitebike 3D version and a Pokemon Pokedex, not exactly console sellers. Even up until this day there are no great original games no the eShop, there are some good virtual console games, but yet again these are not the things that make people get 3DS's, and this is not the worse thing they did.

Nintendo made a difficult decision, just after 4 months of the 3DS being out they cut the price from $250 to $170, a huge price drop that we do not usually see for years. This of course improved 3DS sales, but the people who bought the 3DS before this were quite simply, pissed off. They had paid a large amount of money only to be then slapped in the face by Nintendo for being the people that gave them there money first. Nintendo had a plan though, they announced the Ambassador project. Simply put, if you bought a 3DS before the price cut, you would be entitled to 10 free NES games and 10 free GBA games that would not be available to anybody else who got it after the price cut (Or so they say.). The list of games was pretty decent, they were mostly solid games, although the GBA games have yet to come out.

In the early summer The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D arrived on store shelfs, at last 3DS owners had something to play until the rest came out. I'm personally not a huge Ocarina of Time fan, but even I snatched up a copy instantly and convinced myself that I made a good decision to buy the 3DS. Towards the end of the summer a few more games came out, Star Fox 64 3D arrived with Resident Evil Mercenaries which were both good games. And just last week Super Mario 3D Land came out, which is the 3DS game we have all been waiting for, but should it have taken this long for a game like this to come out?

You would have noticed I have not even talked about the Wii this year yet, if you own a Wii you will know why. That is because the only proper Wii game worth talking about came out last week, I am not joking there. If you live in the UK you got Kirbys Epic Yarn and Xenoblade, but if you don't you pretty much got nothing. It's like Nintendo put all there effort in to the 3DS and around October sombody said.

• "Hey Bob how is the Wii doing?"
• "I was told you were doing it Fred"
• Oh but I was told you were doing it Bob!"
• Shit..

Nintendo are of course hard at work with there next console too, but I still find it sad that Nintendo really do not care about the Wii anymore. They know that they have made as much money as they are going to make with the Wii because everybody already owns a Wii. The people that they are targeting already have enough games so they say fuck you to the rest of us, until last week where they give us Zelda. I have not mentioned the DS at all here either, which in retrospect was a decent effort, what with Pokemon and Professor Layton.

2011 has been an interesting time with Nintendo, last year was an incredible year for them, so it was hard to compete with that. Sadly it seems they didn't really try this year and all they have really done this year is pissing people off.

Grade D