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Namevah

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Best of 2010

It's a strange list, I think. Not the selections, but their positioning. Sometime after 2010, when I took a seat and figured out my favorite 25 games ever, four of the games listed below were included. Not the top four choices, however; Mass Effect 2, Rock Band 3, Picross 3D, and Halo: Reach. The games between those -- Dragon Age: Awakening and Valkyria Chronicles II -- were not included. But those two are above Halo: Reach, but I list Reach as one of my favorite games ever?

Furthermore, on that Top 25 list, Rock Band 3 tops Mass Effect 2, but not on this list. Tastes and judgement change, and I suppose that's what happened here.

List items

  • I have played through Mass Effect 2 at least four times through the course of the year. Three other characters await their chance before Mass Effect 3 hits. Each major downloadable content throws me back on the interstellar bandwagon as I return to growing my squad and preparing the Normandy for the "final encounter" with the Collectors, allowing me to enjoy the characters and voice acting and the numerous wonderful stories contained in each character's loyalty quest. My 2010 Game Of The Year.

  • When a genre in this industry dies, it stays dead. When instrument-based music games died, Harmonix created a game with 80+ new songs, keyboard peripheral, and a new mode that provides a greater degree of realism. That’s in addition to hundreds of downloadable songs, including support for most songs from previous Rock Band games. The entire project was meant to revive the ailing instrument-based music genre.

    It failed.

    Even so, Rock Band 3 is spectacular, and if quality automatically meant sales, it would’ve done significantly better than it did. It’s a real pity that it didn't.

    Progress: All songs played, most modes completed. Countless hours spent playing.

  • I rented Dragon Age: Origins and, immediately after returning it, I traveled to the store and bought a copy. Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening gave me plenty of the same. I do not have a single problem with that.

    Progress: Complete.

  • Try explaining what makes Tetris fun. No, don’t explain that it’s a game about removing blocks. Explain the fun of removing blocks in a way that would make somebody else want to play it. I don’t think you can. I can’t explain why Picross 3D (or any picross game, for that matter) is fun, either. Not because it’s not fun or because I’m an idiot, but simply because the mechanics don’t lend themselves to sounding like a fun game.

    “Use numbers to chisel an object from a block.”

    Who wants to play that? Nobody. It mentions numbers and chiseling, neither of which are concepts that fire people up. But the game is wonderful and addicting. Go figure.

    Progress: Completed all puzzles.

  • Sometimes it feels like I’m apologizing for the second Valkyria Chronicles. No, it should have never made the jump to PSP. Yes, the main trio is generic anime archetypes. No, the story about civil war is largely forgettable. Yes, the original and the third game are far superior. And despite these complaints, Valkyria Chronicles II is still plenty of fun, assuming that you’re okay with the jump from a single, large environment to multiple, smaller battlefields. I know that not everyone is.

    Progress: Complete.

  • Notice the contrast between the Covenant of Halo 3 – bright, colorful, and speaking English – with the Covenant of Halo: Reach – more muted colors, barking orders in an alien language. After the increasingly cartoonish story Bungie weaved with the original Halo trilogy, Reach did a hell of a job of pulling the series back and making everything feel more grounded. Previously allies, the Elites returned to being something to be feared. The Covenant once again felt overwhelming as every move you and the rest of Noble team did to stop the attack, the invaders counterattacked effortlessly.

    It is the best piece of storytelling of all the Halo games, both with or without Bungie. It’s a blast to play and a wonderful way for Bungie to say goodbye to their series.

    Progress: Completed the campaign. Played a decent, if unspectacular, amount of multiplayer.

  • Of all the games on this list, Alan Wake has the unfortunate distinction of being unfinished. The tale of Alan Wake isn't done, forcing us to live with a cliffhanger. And that sucks because the one thing that this game does great (excluding the weirdly robotic mouth animations) is stylishly telling a fun, atmospheric story. Yeah, the flashlight-and-gun combat is entertaining enough, but...

    (I ended this on a cliffhanger. Get it?)

    Progress: Complete.

  • Speaking strictly about game mechanics, BioShock 2 is better than the original simply for the ability to use weapons and plasmids at the same time. Everything else, though, is a toss-up. BioShock 2 has the misfortune of being a direct sequel to one of the most acclaimed and influential games of a console generation, and for 3/4th of the time, it stands firmly within the shadow of its predecessor, crafting a story that doesn't feel exceptionally exciting. It’s fun, sure, but it’s treading familiar ground.

    But then you reach the object you've been searching for the entire game and then you’re pushed into a situation unlike anything BioShock has done before. (Those who played this surely know what I’m referring to.) The rest of the game is exciting and a better conclusion than BioShock’s slow, Big Daddy-like lumbering down to a disappointing boss fight.

    So kudos to BioShock 2 for that last quarter. Shame the rest of the game wasn't as confident and entertaining.

    Progress: Complete.

  • If nothing else, Alpha Protocol wins the award for best mute teenage assassin with Sis. Being mute, she obviously says nothing, but a memento and a short conversation with someone she knows suggests way more about Sis than this game is willing to reveal.

    That’s assuming you didn't simply execute her.

    Alpha Protocol takes plenty of cues from the original Mass Effect, including the desire to alter the game in small ways depending on choices the player makes, including whether to kill a mute female assassin. And as with Mass Effect, the repercussions aren't huge; additional support for this mission here, altered dialogue there. They’re, well, there and cool when someone you saved earlier in the game shows to lend support, however inconsequential his support actually means in the next mission.

    Sadly, Alpha Protocol also takes Mass Effect’s stat-driven combat, which is still not very good. Regardless, it’s a fun, but heavily flawed, adventure.

    Progress: Complete.

  • I can’t fault anyone for not enjoying Final Fantasy XIII. It’s linear for too long and holds your hand for longer than necessary, and I can’t even begin with the story. Even so, I enjoyed this game simply for the battle system. Had everything around the combat been more classic Final Fantasy, maybe XIII would be more fondly remembered, but I suppose that‘s obvious.

    Progress: Reached the point where things open up, so halfway?
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