Unlike last year, which at it's start looked like a terrible year for gaming, 2010 kicks off with massive titles in the first weeks - and looks to be going strong atleast for the first 6 months - wonder if I'll beat last year's tally by the end, and what I'll end up playing! Stay tuned! :P
First game I finished in 2010. These kind of japenese-style brawler/action games usually aren't my cup of tea (don't think I've finished DMC1, DMC2 or Shinobi - all which I own) - but just the character Bayonetta really won me over the moment that TGS (I think it was?) trailer was released in 2008.
That said, I played the game on PS3 - which made the experience one of the love/hate kind - I loved the game, but [Update: I haven't tried the patched version] I hated most of the technical parts - get this, bringing up the pause menu takes TEN TO TWENTY SECONDS ON AVERAGE.
That said, I'll probably be back many times during the year to finish the campaign on hard and to try to get the Platinum trophy.
One playthrough, just under 60 hours (about 50 of those played during 2009), ~50% completion (according to ingame stats), over 75% of all quests completed, 93% explored. Unlikely to go back any time soon to finish off - while it was pretty good, it reminded me too much of the Baldur's Gate games - which I did not particularly enjoy, and I would've liked seeing more lessons learned from Mass Effect used.
After being somewhat disappointed by Dragon Age: Origins, my expectations for Mass Effect 2 weren't that high. There were a few things about ME2 that bothered me as well, but overall it was a MUCH better game. One thing they could've done to improve ME2 for PC owners was to use 1) Create some sort of ME1-savegame generator (for those of us who played through ME1 before ME2 was even a certainty, much less the savagame transfer). and 2) Put the ME2 Careers either on Bioware's social site (tangent: why isn't ME2 connected there at all?) or Steam Cloud... or some other cloud, so I don't have to remember to keep the ME2 savegame when I inevitably need to format this harddrive, or get a new one.
That said, in my opinion, ME2 is a much more enjoyable game than DA:O. Finished at ~32h, Level 24 Vanguard, "Veteran" difficulty (might replay at "Insane"!)
Much better game than I expected it to be. A few things were a bit disappointing, but I really enjoyed playing through it.
Not tried multiplayer yet, but might try it.
Wow! My (very high) expectations of Heavy Rain were definately met, though a few things still don't quite sit right with me, with the story. Will be trying to go back to see more endings and get the trophies I missed :)
~50 hours of gametime, 40% sidemissions completed, and ~40% trophies. I thoroughly enjoyed FFXIII, though I many times wished that they had chosen to decrease the number of encounters by 10-20%.
There was just too many fights in the story parts of the game. The game would really have benefitted from more optional fights and less required fights... though I suspect that is the reason they limited the player's ability to level up before finishing the game.
Good game, though... still not convinced it was a significant enough leap from L4D(1), but I did enjoy it quite a lot - and I would play it again, if asked to participate in a coop session.
I might even return on my own to get some of the achievements.
Had a lot of ups and downs while playing God of War 3, feels like I spent about half the game echoing Kratos' rage, howling "CAAAAAMEEERRRAAAA FAAAIIIILLLL!" at the TV.
Still, I think GoW3 has some of the most beautiful scenes and best character models (though often poorly animated) I've seen in games recently. Definately not my game of the year.
I took a significant break from this, about halfway through (got distracted by all the other great games being released), and it took me a very long time to get back into it.
When I did... I really regretted ever putting it down. While it was a bit rough in spots, I really enjoyed it, and after *that end* ("No, not alone..."), Darksiders 2 will be a day one purchase for me.
Anyway, War is a surprisingly good character - sure, he's pretty much a stereotyical space marine (in fantasy-world), with a gravely growl, etc. But... really, what did you expect from the personification of War? I think it's perfect.
Bought during the Steam summer-sale, as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibes has kind of kept me from picking it up - thankfully, Metro 2033 removes some of the worst elements of Stalker - it is not an open world game, instead it's extremely linear, with a strong story.
Another weak point of Metro 2033 is that many of the guns don't really seem to have the oomph that you'd expect - and a lot of the "post-apocalypse"-built weapons will leave you wondering what weapons they really are, as the feedback from using them is not great.
The Gasmask portions... I'm not sure how to comment on those. On the one hand, I feel that they are spot on in making you feel vulnerable, and I found myself almost short of breath in some sections where I had trouble finding enough filters for the gasmask to keep from suffocating - but on the other hand, near the end of the game, I found myself in a situation where I couldn't get through without getting my gasmask destroyed - and the only gasmasks around (which I found using a walkthrough that I looked up only for this purpose) were fairly well hidden (inside a closed box, that was not "obviously" openable).
In the end... I did feel that I will most likely pick up Metro 2034 at some point, but I will keep my expectations fairly grounded.
Finally got around to playing through Season 2 of Sam and Max - played all 5 Episodes more or less back-to-back, had some fun with them. Blast to the past, and all that. I'll get around to playing the Season 3 stuff soon, I hope!
I really liked Puzzle Agent. It's rather short, and the puzzles are a bit uneven in difficulty. The faux-illustrated-book art style is great, and works really well, except for the sections where characters use snow mobiles - that really looked horrible.
Overall, very fun game, another quality Telltale adventure game :)
I had a hard time really liking Alan Wake, I wasn't very fond of the character, nor did I find the story that engaging. It was a good game (and a pretty one!), but I find myself rather indifferent about it.
That said, putting de lime in de coconut, does make it feel better.
Bought as part of the Indie pack during the Steam summer sale. This was infinitely better than I expected it to be, had some fun with it - even if the super-hippieness of it was a bit weird :)
I'm pretty tired of Open world single-player games. Despite this, I had some fun with Just Cause 2 - it really is a crazy game... but in the end, like all other open world games, it's just a repetition of the same 2-3 elements repeated ad nauseum.
Didn't finish the story.
I'm pretty tired of Open world single-player games. I pretty much picked up The Saboteur because I loved the way they differentiated betwen German controlled and Resistance controlled zones.
Very different, very intuitive and very interesting.
At the end of the day, it's still an Open World game, though.
Didn't finish the story.
After playing City of Heroes and Champions Online, I don't know why I picked up Star Trek Online - maybe a hope that it would be better? I don't know.
I've come to a conclusion in regards to Cryptic though, they've found a niche of making the exactly the same game over and over with some minor variations. It will take me a lot to buy any more games developed by Cryptic.
Played through the new Campaign with a friend (coop), lots of fun. Hope there'll be more expansions!
Alpha Protocol was one of those games... amazing concept, but falls on it's technical issues. However, that said - after I finished playing through Alpha Protocol as a Rookie focusing on pistols and stealth (which made the Malaysian boss an absolute pain to defeat!), I was actually so inspired that I've done another half playthrough with a Veteran focusing on Stamina and Assault rifles - not many games that snare me into a second playthrough...
I really like Army of Two. From what I understand, I'm one of very few people who like how much Rios and Salem 'bro out', but then, I've exclusively played through Ao2 with split-screen coop with the same guy as my partner - probably has something to do with my enjoyment of the game.
Sure, it has it's spots, and it's buggy and counter-intuitive at times.
Also, the moral choices are almost satirical in absurdity. Save some random lady from being gunned down by your new-found friend (by shooting said new-found friend?) Turns out the lady is an assassin and goes to kill your formerly new-found friend's infant child. BUT WAIT! The former-new-found-friend, who you (and the assassin) shot,KILLS THE ASSASSIN JUST IN TIME. *phew* And then the infant grabs his father's thumb and it fades out. (wtf?)
Deathspank was fun - far from my game of the year (sofar), but it was fun for the hours of entertainment it provided. Unfortunately, I think that the end was really poor and brought down the overall quality of the experience, but I'd still rate it very highly.
One of the worst games I've played 2010, sofar. It feels like Crackdown (1) with updated graphics. The story is paper-thin, and you get the feeling that they kind of leave you to your own devices after about 2 hours in. Really the worst parts of open world games brought together.
I really loved River City Ransom, though I didn't remember *which* game it was. As such, SPvTW:TG is really awesome for me. That old-school co-opy fighter style with lots of fun references.
I'm tempted to S-rank it, but every time I try, the game's glaring flaw show's itself - UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES (and it's related cousin, the UNSKIPPABLE END CREDITS). It's still good, and the retro graphics and gameplay just makes it awesome - but Unskippable Cutscenes (atleast the second and third playthrough)... no excuse is valid!
Hello, Old friend. We met again! Lovely game, beautifully updated, and I love being able to swap back and forth between the graphics on the fly. I know Lucas Arts is going through some rough times now - but please, give us more like this! (Maybe even Tie Fighter...?)
As of this writing, I only have the 3 hour (finished in 3h 10min first sitting!) achievement to go before S-ranking, so I guess I'll be going back ;).
I'm glad someone made Kane and Lynch 2, it's graphical direction is something i hope others will be inspired by - using processing power to not only make games look good, but also to look them *brutal* (I originally wanted to write "bad", but that's a bit much).
That said, it's time for IO interactive to wake up. Campaigns with 4 hours of content is not aceptable, and will leave an extremely bad taste with gamers (in this case, me).
Moving on - the characters Kane and Lynch are awful. Sure, they are more human than the characters we are used to play (Army of Two, Gears of War), which is interesting... but do they really have to be such horrible people?
Animations in the game are bad, if you ever rotate the camera to look at your own character during one of their many rage-spells, you'll realize that there's no facial animatin at all. Not even attempts at lip-syncing.
Overall, Kane and Lynch 2 is the most disappointing game of 2010 for me, sofar (though Crackdown 2 is the worse game :P)
I expected Mafia 2 to live up to most of my expecations (from Mafia (1)) - it didn't quite go all the way, but what Mafia 2 offers is open worlds done right (the open world is a setting, the open world is not THE GAME), a beautifully rendered city, and a coherent story.
Also, I think that Vito is one of the more beautifully rendered characters ever. At times, I felt like I was watching a real actor, not a 3D model. Bravo 2k!
On the other hand, there are a lot of problems with the game as well, pedestrian/cop AI is terribly poor (I've had cops T-bone me in intersections, and then try to arrest me), the fact that the AI can pull off headshots on you (yep, 1-shot kills out of nowhere) gets frustrating and old very quick. Also, atleast on PC, the melee combat system was not very good - leading to frustrations... but in the end, again, I loved Mafia 2, and I can see myself coming back to play some more.
While I think that SC2 is a great game - I'm somewhat disappointed, the story really feels like a part of a larger arc - and while it really goes out with a bang, it doesn't really give closure on any level. It's a cheap triology :(
That said, the story is the most varied Strategy game experience I've had, and it's very well made, looks great, etc.
Multiplayer... well, I was a big SC1 player (didn't do ladder, but played the best players I could find), and I ... think I burned myself out on competative Starcraft play back then - I just don't have the motivation to even finish my 5 placement matches (currently 3 matches played, 2 won, third lost to a "turret rush" (O_o))
Zombie Driver is my favorite Indie game of the year. No other indie game has made me spend as many hours playing it - and I'm pretty close to S-ranking it... but the "destroy 5000 world objects" achievement has kind of broken my back. Might come back, or not!
Anyway - game reminds me of Death Rally, and that's a very, very good thing! Hope they do more like this.
Truly the best Halo game I've ever played. But it's still a Halo game, and FPSes are still wonky at best on consoles.
Tried Legendary, wound up getting frustrated at the controls - or lack thereof, kept wishing I had a mouse and keyboard so I could keep up with targeting some of the faster moving targets, that I could keep an eye on what was going on behind me.
Also, the level of cheap shots the story pulls on you, is just epic. Plot armor and enemies "appear from off-camera!" both occur.
One of the greatest Disappointments of the year for me. No, not APB - the disappointment is that APB failed. Unlike so many others, I saw the potential the game had, and I enjoyed the game, mostly (there were some SMG related imbalances that were...frustrating)).
Still, I really hope that someone picks up the lessons from the customization system. It was truly ahead of it's time.
On the one hand, I really like Telltale. On the other hand, I feel like I'm starting to get Telltale fatigue. Could, of course, be related to the amount of Telltale's games I've been playing this year... but whatever!
Monkey Island is still fun, and the improvements to the Telltale tool is pretty great. Looking forward to Sam and Max "Season 3", but I think I might wait a while before I hit that up...
One of the big surprises of the year for me. I did not expect there to be a Lara Croft game I enjoyed... but this was really something! Played it through with a friend on local coop, and we had a lot of laughs - one of the best gaming experiences of the year for me :)
Wow. So bad! There are plenty of bugs that cause the game to crash, the textures are low resolution and... ugh, It feels like an "ok" PS2 game at best! Surprising that they actually put it out like this...
But there are also some fun things, things that kind of remind me of old games like the Mech Warriors and Heavy Gear.
Oh well...
Vanquish is very interesting when you realize that you are looking at a Japanese game portraying Americans. It gets almost as crazy as the Metal Gear games at points - but not quite.
Gameplay wise, it's solid, it pretty fast, but not blistering in the way that I was expecting - bit diasppointed.
My impression of the game is positive, but... it feels like it's lacking passion and "whoa moments", but that might be because I came into Vanquish expecting a bit more Bayonetta than I found.
Basically a DotA-style game, I find it interesting that they have actually done something semi-new with it (making it a 3PS rather than isometric-style view).
However, ultimately, the Monday Night Combat experience fails for me, as I am not an Xbox Live Gold member.
Still, even as a Silver member, I enjoyed the singleplayer parts, even though I didn't put a whole lot of hours into it.
The Civilization series have always been games that I come back to, but rarely play more than one game during any period of time - I will say though, that compared to Civ 4, Civ 5 still has some problems - that I'm sure will be ironed out over time - such as suffering from random crashing when you enter the late-late game (1900s on the slowest gameplay setting, large world, maximum number of AI opponents), and the Regent screens being extremely frustratingly slow. Also, was unable to start a multiplayer game.
Still, good game, and I will be back to play more of this down the line.
Super Meat Boy is both beautiful and hideous in all aspects. It both requires patience, but also impatience... I was sure it wasn't a game for me, but I ended up picking it up anyway - because... It's such a horribly beautifully crafted game that it must be supported!
As for my gameplay experience, I hit a bit of a brick wall on the boss in Hell, and don't feel particularly interested in grinding my way through that guy...
To me, SMB is a game of momentum, if you lose it, you will have to get it back before continuing. We'll see if I can build up that momentum to continue :)
The Fable series have always been a bit special to me. They are their own thing, and they get undeservedly bashed by people for not living up to what they feel are Peter Molyneux's promises - something I've never had a problem with. I love listening to Mr. Molyneux speak of his vision of his games, I love hearing the passion he has for the industry. And I hate how ridiculed he gets for it... and how hesitant and apologetic he has become as a result of it. It's a shame.
Anyway - Fable 3, unlike Brad, I did not find the UI that distracting, though I do agree that the lack of an inventory was a very strange experience... one that I don't think I quite liked. Especially health potions was a problem - I think I only ever used one stop time and one summon creatures potion... and never ate any food.
But the game is fun, even if it does have it's share of problems.
My biggest complaint is probably that it requires you to get a Xbox Live Gold membership to get all achievements. That annoys me.
Also, they should totally have pulled a Mass Effect on Fable 3 and imported the save from 2 (not necessarily the gold amounts, but things like alignment, how rich you were, gender and skills would have been awesome. Missed opportunity.
I loved The Force Unleashed (1). I was really hoping that it was Lucasarts' return to delivering games that aren't bad. Clearly, looking at how they are still mainly exploiting the Star Wars franchise - and putting out qualitatively inferior sequels... ngh. TFU2 enrages me. It's short, it left me with no emotional attachment - other than the fact that he's (probably? definately?9 a clone (and thus confused) and that he's angry, he isn't a vessel for much other things. Also, some sort of reaction to "Oh shit, I've just been murdering myself a thousand times", might be an idea...
And the way Juno reacts to Clonekiller just cements that even the people writing the story have no clue what's going on.
As an aside, the way they've put "Threepkiller" into the game is not something I appreciate either. I expected it to be something that was hard to find - an easter egg... but atleast the way I played, I received the costume through the normal story progression.
But, anyway - what's the main reason to come to this series? The Force Powers. In the first game, the powers were great at making you feel like a badass. You could pluck almsot anyone from the ground and fling them across the landscape. It might not have been extremely challenging, but atleast it was *fun*. In TFU2, the powers feel like they have been toned down, and the majority of the enemies you face have counters to your abilities anyway.
And speaking of the enemies... while many have complained about the width of enemies, that's not my problem - there are about ~10 types of enmies in the game, including bosses. That's about similar to other games. The problem is the VARIETY. The majority of encounters consist of 4-6 storm troopers and 1-2 Sword-Sith. Then you are faced with a Robot with a shield. The robot either Freezes (start of the game) or puts you on fire. Both robots are dispatched the same way, with a slightly different kill animation - in my mind, these robots should have been mini-bosses, and should not appear more than once or twice per level, but in one of the later levels, I must've fought atleast a dozen of these! It's not fun, it's just annoying.
Also, the game is disturbingly formulaic in the first 2 "levels", to the point where it feels like they've copy/pasted the script. There's a chase sequence (if you are too slow, you die), there's a falling sequence, and there's a "normal gameplay sequence"...
As such, I can't recommend this to anyone, not even those who (like myself) loved the first game.
What happened Lucasarts? Why did you do this to us? :/
Wow, here's a game to cause bleeding eye-syndrome. Really cool, very psychadelic. Fluffy Sheepies are definately awesome too.
So, I waited a bit to get started playing BLOPS - I've had a lot of other games to play, and... well, BLOPS didn't seem that important. But... having ended up with a weekend away from home, without access to the consoles, I found myself getting, playing and finishing BLOPS on Veteran.
Some rather rough areas where the enemy AI's aiming is just too damn good (to the point where it feels like it's cheating), and your own companions are utterly useless, often letting enemies run past them to get behind you. But definately playable.
I was pretty close to passing on AC:B because of how little focus they put on marketing the single player part of the game - 20 hours of gameplay later, I'm very glad I did not. Unlike other cash out games, AC:B is actually entertaining. I really, really liked it.
