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MuttersomeTaxicab

Toukiden is a helluva game.

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Games I've played in 2011

I'm always the worst at these end-of-the-year things. However, I really like the concept of taking stock of the past 365 days and making the time to consider the stupid shit I got up to. At least that way, if I ever wonder what in the fuck happened to 2011, I can at least say, "oh, right. Video games." and have a pretty reasonable list of which digital moloch ate how much of my time.

Currently, it's in no particular order. Eventually, I don't know. Maybe I'll sort it in terms of perceived hours spent.

Also, hopefully/probably getting a PS3 this Xmas. So expect Dark Souls and Uncharted 2/3 to be added to this list.

Die2Nite, Blight of the Immortals and Jupiter's Folly all get honourable mentions, as well. They're browser-based games, so don't appear in the Giant Bomb wiki, but they're all extremely interesting experiences that heavily rely on interaction between players. They're shining gems amidst a vast sea of offal and shovelware.

List items

  • After having my interest in Bethesda games slowly wilt thanks to Fallout 3 and New Vegas leaving me cold, I was so, SO happy to see that the Elder Scrolls series was still alive in my heart.

  • Short of the terribly ill-advised boss fights, this game was nearly perfect. Yeah, the conversation animations were CRAZY-lookin', but the devs clearly understood that what we most want to do in a Deus Ex game, deep down in our heart's implant, is to knock people out and drag them into air vents, then hack into their computer and read their email. I loved the cyber-renaissance aesthetic, I loved the upgrades, I loved the gritty urban environments. I just loved this fucking game.

  • I have been a PC nerd for my entire life. It's a topic I've rambled on about more times than I can count. It takes a specific sort of experience to get me interested in other platforms. For the DS, it was the clutch of weird-ass RPGs Atlus had been churning out. And for the PS3, if I were perfectly honest with myself, it was hearing about Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Sure, there were other console exclusives that snagged my attention: The Uncharted Series, 2011's Mortal Kombat game, Deadly Premonition even had me briefly considering an Xbox, too. In the end, From Software's batshit action-RPG/Masochism Machine was the clear motivation for wanting a PS3. I've pumped almost as much time into Dark Souls (in a fraction of the time) as I have Skyrim on the PC. For an Elder Scrolls fanboy like myself, that's saying volumes. I love the level design, with areas that curl in on themselves like a fist. I love the aesthetics, with inscrutible bosses and NPCs, a world that is cloaked in an effluvia of despair such that everything FEELS like it's taking place in a dungeon when in fact you can look up and see sky a solid 60% of the time, and a staunch lack of communication of quest goals that rewards risky moves and caution in equal measure. Plus, the constant-save system forces me ahead - there's no moment that I'm stuck compulsively reloading boss fights. Although, there is a fair bit of re-TRYING boss fights, but the game opens up in such a way that if I find myself absolutely stumped, there's always some other path, some other area, some new and demented locale or secret to seek out that I very rarely find myself hopelessly stymied for long. Even though I only had about six days to become acquainted with Dark Souls, it still ranks head-and-shoulders above most of my other gaming experiences in 2011.

  • Technically Origins should be included in this, but I went on a bender to finish every bit of Dragon Age content before DAII came out. Fat lot of good that did me, as after 3 hours of DAII I felt compelled to re-start Origins. Sigh.

  • Hands-down, my favourite RTS release in years. I love Starcraft II, I do. I totally look forward to the Heart of the Swarm, sure. There's something gloriously balletic about the brutality exhibited in the Dawn of War series that I still can't find in SCII. Plus, they updated Last Stand with Tau. I can only pray that Necrons might find their way in there.

  • I picked this up on December 30 on a whim. Friends were coming over to hang out for New Year's Eve. I was in the thick of listening to the Giant Bomb GOTY debate and this was on sale for Boxing Week. I picked it up figuring I'd get around to it in the new year. Instead, this was what we DID on New Year's Eve. Most of us are pushing 30, but it felt like my 12th birthday, with everyone making the slow progression from button mashing to specializing in a few characters. I don't think the PS3 turned off for two days as we all bonded over this graphic, insane video game that so perfectly captures the madness of the first three MK games. Ed Boon & co. should be so, SO proud of themselves.

  • Minecraft comparisons were a dime a dozen when this dropped. The only index I have for the two was that people claimed some transcendent realization of fun had germinated uniquely within Minecraft. I, on the other hand, could not see that fun for the trees. I mean, I enjoyed myself, but I never found that urge to dig until my fingers were sore and my mouse was busted. Soon as I had a purpose, like crafting some molten armour so I could gut the Eater of Worlds with impunity, I was absolutely hooked. That they keep adding more and more crazy shit to this game makes it an absolute joy to pop back in and dig like a maniac for a weekend. In a year that was full of amazing surprises, Terraria was one of the finest.

  • When I first booted up Dead Island, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was the game that I wanted Dead Rising to be. After revisiting Dead Rising 2 shortly afterwards, though, I'm not convinced that's quite what I mean. Zombie games have routinely been construed as action games, enough that Left 4 Dead's formula was almost perfectly reskinned as a heist game for Payday. And as much as I've found myself with a strange affection for Dead Rising 2, those combo weapons are just for laughs and PP, since nearly everything else is mostly an instakill. The only way Dead Rising was able to ratchet up the tension was through time restrictions. Dead Island's multiplayer scaled enough that there was a very present and shambling danger in nearly every encounter. The addition of Borderlands-esque coloured loot for item crafting was the necessary carrot to keep me chasing my way through the game. Admittedly, it gets wonkier as the game goes on, which is truly a shame, but hopefully Techland takes those lessons to heart and fully deliver the experience I'm dying for with the inevitable Dead Island II.

  • I was actually in the beta for this game. Yeah, there were signs that the game was going to have a rather disastrous launch. I couldn't get a multiplayer game to run to save my life. This didn't stop me from sitting friends down in front of my computer in the twilight of 2010 to mash out spells and explode ourselves in spectacularly wacky ways. I'm very pleased to see that Magicka didn't suffer the same fate that Elemental did and seems to have gone on to be rather popular. With the addition of PvP over the summer, this quickly became one of my favourite experiences on the PC, especially with a server full of chuckling, yelling friends.

  • My first Pokeman game. I never cared about the series when I was younger and I doubly don't care about the series as a grown-ass adult. But I got a DSi XL for Xmas in 2010 and figured I needed to see what the hype was about. Sweet jesus. If I were an eleven year old, Pokemon would have ruined my life. As it was, it still swallowed me whole for a month, at least. Once I got Victini and a couple of the "musketeer" legendaries, the lustre kinda faded and the grinding got way too tiresome. Will eventually finish it, I'm sure.

  • Warband was one of the finest surprises of 2010 for me. I put a crazy amount of hours into its multiplayer. With Fire & Sword isn't nearly as polished as Warband, but hell if the addition of firearms didn't thoroughly change the way combat and tactics worked in the Mount and Blade world. For that, it will always have a place on my hard drive.

  • In my heart's dick, I just wanna play more Crusader Kings. While Shogun 2 had some glorious dynasty management, Sengoku just went THAT MUCH FARTHER to make me agonize over the fate of my children and who they marry just barely edges Shogun 2 a spot behind Sengoku.

  • It breaks my heart to see Shogun 2 this far down my list. For me, it was a Total War triumph in nearly every possible way. I just rarely found the time to play it. From the RPG mechanics for my generals to the simplified unit choices to the glorious multiplayer options, I had a smile on my face every time I booted this up. I'm still not a huge strategist, so the multiplayer eventually got to a point where I just couldn't truck with it, and other timesinks unfortunately trumped it. It's still a thing I go back to for a few hours every now and then and just fucking beam at my monitor, though.

  • Pumped a worrying amount of time into this earlier in the year. Really loving the cartography aspects and, hell, I dunno. I like weird-ass shit.

  • Picked this up during the Steam sale. Downloaded it on New Year's Eve. Booted it up on January 2 and had my jaw drop. Such a gorgeous, gorgeous game. So pleased I waited on this and missed the technical nightmare that it launched with.

  • Yeah. The Wii version. What's crazy was that a week after MW3 came out, I popped online with this. Still a reasonable amount of unreasonable people playing this. Then again, you got a Wii and only a Wii, what other game you gonna shoot people in?

  • This is more of a provisional nod. I didn't actually own-and-download Saints Row: The Third until January 1, 2012. However, I happily threw several hours into its gaping maw and I'm dying to go back for more.

  • It's heartening to see stuff like this still being made towards the end of the DS' life cycle. Admittedly, I played most of this on my 3DS, but in terms of gritted-teeth atmosphere on a handhold, this does that in spades. What's more, it has more tension than any first-person Aliens game I've played.

  • The year of roguelikes, far as I'm concerned. While Dredmor didn't entirely lead the charge, this charming take on the formula added a stupendous amount of personality and stripped out at least 85% of the UI wonk that plagues most roguelikes. Lost SO many hours to this wonderful game. One of the best values on Steam.

  • I think I'm about 80-90% through this game. Like most, I blew through it very, very quickly. I just wanted more, more, more. Once I reined in my madness, other shit got in the way and I unfortunately let this slide by the wayside. I'll be back very soon, though.

  • My fiance got hooked on Civ V this year. In many ways, she rekindled my flagging love for this game, although I was admittedly more interested in exploiting the AI into doing stupid shit for pittances of gold.

  • So I finally rolled back around to this game. I somehow completed most of the main questline. I feel like there's still a bit more I want to see, since I've only passed about twenty hours in it, but I'm in no rush. Not with Skyrim sitting around.

  • Not unlike Civ V, my fiance got hooked on MNC. We'd just play one-on-one games until we were screaming expletives at each other. Then go online and realize we maybe didn't like the intended experience of MNC as much as our own interpretations of the game.

  • I killed a weekend with this game. I love how obtuse and bizarre the game world is. Yeah, there's some serious rough edges, but I really hope the guys behind E.Y.E. keep it going. Such a fascinating game.

  • Man. MAN. I don't even know where to begin with this game. Super Meat Boy hit me like a fever dream till my fingers were calloused and expletives had lost all meaning and ceased to fall from my chewed, broken lips. The Binding of Isaac maybe didn't hit that point, but it's still a thing I played a great deal of, and I look forward to playing so, SO much more.

  • So Left 4 Dead 2 was a terrific addition to the L4D series. It really took home what L4D 1 was trying to do. But there was something missing. Well, there's something to be said for the first contact with any kind of concept. L4D1 had its wonky bits, but there was such a perfectly crystallized atmosphere and mood to it, and the four survivors had such perfectly archetypical personas that it was so, so easy to cotton to them. To pick your favourite. I missed them in the second game. That is, until L4D2 basically absorbed L4D1. Adding too-necessary stuff like the military sniper, magnum and melee weapons. Plus, by making the crescendo events into gauntlet events, they added so-needed improvements to the original campaigns. Plus, it was an absolute joy to get re-acquainted with the original four. So, yeah, game's not a 2011 release, but really, it had a lot of content added.

  • My biggest regret of 2011 was that I didn't really give this game its due diligence. I really look forward to playing a whole lot more of it in 2012.

  • My iPod touch is getting maybe a little long in the tooth these days, so Infinity Blade II did have a little bit of stuttering. That still didn't stop me from playing the everloving crap out of it. A must-have if you have any kind of idevice that will run it.

  • The team behind this little gem really can't catch a break. From piracy to out-and-out burglary to paypal flexing their totalitarian muscles, these guys got it from all sides in 2011. They continue to roll on with it, and that makes me so, so happy. Easily one of the shining stars of potentiality in 2011. If this doesn't see the light of day, the world is an awful, cruel shithole.

  • I have specific, fervent memories of playing Star Control II at a friend's house. SPAZ VERY nearly captures them. I'm not quite sure about TotalBiscuit's value as a voice-actor, and the quests do tend to get a little repetitive/samey, but I still managed to drop a crazy amount of hours into this game over 2011.

  • Okay, technically came out in September 2010, but I spent a solid month wrestling with it. Possibly one of the most fascinating 4X space games on the market. YOU CAN BUILD SHIPS THAT ARE BIGGER THAN GALAXIES. Deal with THAT, son.

  • I love Spiderweb games. Graphics are usually kinda ugly. Mechanics maybe questionable, but the worlds are so kooky and oddly fleshed-out that for an old RPG nut, it's hard to really find significant fault. Avadon is arguably the prettiest game Spiderweb's ever put out, and the story hooked me way more than any of the other games. Vogel displays incremental craftsmanship with every succeeding game he puts out. That this was the title that finally broke through the misgivings he had toward Steam and lower-priced indie games makes this all the more important, in my mind.

  • My fiance and I played through a crazy amount of this game. I have always had a soft spot for Kirby, and the sheer personality and imaginativeness on display here is a wonder to behold. As much as the Wii has fallen by the wayside over the past few years, it's games like this that always make me happy that I have one.

  • Heartbreaking. Not because it was abjectly bad. But because whatever spark, whatever joy I extracted from Origins in the order of metric buttloads, was mostly absent from this. There were things I liked about it. Characters I loved. Ideas and concepts that were done well - and better - in DAII that maybe still needed a lot of work in Origins. Regardless, my interest waned pretty quickly. Every time I boot it up now, it's with a resigned sense of defeat.

  • Returned to Dead Rising 2 for a week or so this year. Call it morbid curiosity, but I wanted to see how it stacked up to Dead Island. Pleasantly surprised to find that the morbid affection I'd afforded it before was not misplaced. Even had me considering that Off the Record version.

  • I love Ace Team. They had my heart with Zeno Clash. They had my heart with an achievement that required you play through an online adventure game that really had little to do with Zeno Clash. I love how fucking bizarre this game is. I probably won't ever beat it, because let's face it, the AI is a little messed up and the tower defence parts are crazy. But still, for its price, it offers one hell of a mindbending experience that, for a time, is unmatched.

  • Still hands-down one of the best DS games on the market. Exactly what made me love my DS.

  • What a gorgeous, quirky little game.

  • A little off-kilter in some ways, but a refreshing dash of cyberpunk in the form of a highly atmospheric adventure game. Not sure how the payoff is, but I enjoyed my time with it.

  • For my money, the reason why you want a 3DS. Also, an imperfect solution to that whole FPS XCOM game. No aliens (so far) and there's no way to "kill off" a character and replace them between missions. That small aspect with a more robust stat-handling system would have made this phenomenal.

  • Kind of a standard, for me. I'm no TF2 zealot. I'm relatively pretty bad at it, but I love the fact that the Quake rocket launcher is in there. I also love the Halloween updates.

  • Didn't come out in 2011, but in a year spent worshipping at the bloody altar of roguelikes, I binged on anything that would have me.

  • I've been following the beta of this for a while. Arcen has long been my favourite underdog studio, so I keep hoping they nail this. I think they've still got a ways to go, but it's impossible to find any other experience that's even remotely like this. Yeah, Terraria included.

  • I got this for my iPod Touch. Super in-depth kinda strategizing mixed with a choose-your-own-adventure setting. It's also sorta inscrutible.

  • I played through this while writing a final paper in April. I was actually on vacation with my folks in Florida, and the first three days were spent holed up in the kitchen writing and Alt+Tabbing over to this. I'm no friend to anime, but I was able to get past the aesthetic to the meaty storybits I so craved. As an overall argument, I'm probably not sold on it, but as an intriguing piece of storytelling, Don't Take It Personally, Babe is a helluva success.

  • I swallowed this morsel of digital storytelling in the early hours of 2011. The story was remarkably well-crafted, even if some of its elements seemed a little overplayed. Were it not for this, I wouldn't have given Christine Love's 2011 offering the time of day, and that would've been a serious shame.

  • If I had to talk about a dyed-in-the-wool roguelike that captured my soul and heart that WASN'T named Dungeons of Dredmor, I'd probably say "Brogue." But that game's not in the wiki, and a close second was this one, followed even more closely by TOME to round out a triad of old-school-ass free-as-all-heck roguelike goodness.

  • I'm excited about where the Tomb Raider series might be going next, sure. But please, more of this too. I really should spend more time with this game.

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