I have to say that 2010 was definitely my favorite year for gaming so far. The games have been steadily been coming out throughout the months and I never got bored out of my mind. There were a real handful of games that I really loved playing this year and a few surprises like Deadly Premonition. 2011 is starting to look pretty good as well with a ton of games that looks really cool that I really want to get my hands on. Out of all the plethora of games that are being announced in most of the major events, there were five that really stuck out to me the most.
1. Dead Space 2 - I've played my share of survival horror games and for the first time in a long time I was actually pretty
Umm...where's the run button?? scared to walk around the Ishimura because of fantastic lighting and very dark and dingy sounds of ship. Also the way they handled the zero gravity sections were my favorite parts of the game. You could only hear the breathing of Issac and grunts of when he is trying to escape the grips of the necromorphs make it feel very convincing. Dead Space is still one of my favorite games to take place in space. Dead Space 2 looks just as good if not more intense which I think is really a good move. Based on the E3 footage it seems that the pacing of the game is about the same, but when it comes to the more intense segments it felt more frantic. What makes a good frantic moment in a game is when you forget how to do some basic controls because of panic and such. At least thats what I hope it will do for me. Also the Collector's Edition looks really awesome, I mean who wouldn't want to own their own plasma cutter?
2. Bulletstorm - I know many of you were really turned off by the new developer video that was put out for the game. I can totally understand the hate of the excess cursing, the stereotype characters, and the stupid feeling that you get from a game like this. I get why that would turn many of you off, but that is why I'm still excited about it. Bulletstorm reminds me of those R-rated action movies that I used to watch when I was little. Sure they were dumb, had excess swearing, and a not so deep plot, but its all I want from it. Sometimes I don't want a deeply-textured, anti-hero characters in a overly complex plot with some kind of social/political commentary thrown in there about today's standards. I just want to go in shoot dudes with creativity and style with absurd insults that when they say it, it makes you scratch your head but still pretty funny. Its just looks like a stupid fun game to play.
My childhood consisted of dismemberment and collecting rings. 3. Mortal Kombat - There were two games on the Sega Genesis that were my very first two games that I ever played. One of them was Sonic the Hedgehog and the other was Mortal Kombat. Playing Mortal Kombat with my older brother was one of my fondest moments of gaming and my childhood. We would play for who knows how long against each other and we would take turns trying to beat the arcade mode. I used to have the fatalities of most of the characters down in my head and unleashing them was absolutely a blast. So when they finally announced the new game, I was unabashedly excited. The other games were all fine but during the PS2 era, I stopped playing them because I had to memorize these juggle combos and the whole 8-step movement was too much to keep track of for me. Thankfully its going back to the 2D plane so I don't have to worry about sidestepping and such. My hopes for this game is not capturing the nostalgia, but I hope that there is incentive to play alone and taking it online. Also the fatalities must me as violent as possible, but I have no doubt that my wish will be fulfilled easily.
4. L.A. Noire - I don't really know much about this game, but I do remember it being talked about in a magazine and that was it. Sure enough one day I was thinking to myself "Hmm, I wonder what happened to that Noire game that had Rockstar's involvement?", then a few minutes later I go to Giant Bomb and there was a trailer. I really do wonder what its going to become. I have a feeling it will be Heavy Rain-esque, but not as complex as that game. Personally I wouldn't mind if it was just simply a mystery game by finding clues, interrogating people, finding evidence and other detective stuff. I hope that mystery(s) won't be easy to cater to the "casual audience" and be a real true challenge to solve because it would be nice to use my noggin for once. I just hope the story is compelling enough. My standard of a good mystery story is if I'm thinking about it really hard during the day and haven't even played the game that same day. I really have big hopes for this one.
5. Brink - This is the game that I am the most excited about. I really liked the idea of a movement system that flows seamlessly when controlling it and games like Mirror's I'm jumping off this ledge! Wheeeeeeeee! Edge while was imperfect in many aspects, at least established some type of foundation for this type of movement. Splash Damage seems to get the idea with the S.M.A.R.T. system in place, and the idea of it sounds really cool. If what they say about the system is spot on, it would result in no longer having to wait or position yourself for a context command in order to perform a tedious task such as jumping over a ledge. Just holding down the S.M.A.R.T. button is all you need. Whether the animations hold up is definitely the big question for me. As for the rest of game I totally dig the setting of an apocalyptic event and the creation of possible "hope" for humanity thus causing tension to the point of a civil war. Gameplay isn't something that I'm too worried about since it is being handled by Splash Damage. Having played team-focused games such as Enemy Territory: Wolfenstein and Quake Wars on the PC, they really know their bread and butter when it comes to objective-focused teamplay.
And those are my five games I cannot wait for; what are your thoughts on my list? What other games that are not on my list you looking forward to?
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