YukoAsho's 2010 conquests.
2010 was a long, exciting year for me. I actually beat a bunch of games this year - 40, to be exact! Here's my list of completed games for the year! How about yours, guys?
List items
-
Completed all pinball tables in the challenge mode. Getting those scores was such a pain. (PS3 version)
-
I loved the game because of just how much it was classic Mario. It's weird how modern Nintendo seems to be at their best only when they're mining nostalgia.
-
I'm sad that the game's not as funny as the original (which was hilarious), but the characters still make me chuckle and the gameplay is vastly refined. (PS3 version)
-
Honestly, I fail to see the appeal. It's an arcade-style shooter that's of little worth if you don't have a bunch of great players around you in multi-player. (PC version)
-
They made a great game world, and then proceeded to do nothing with it. If you don't like MMOs, you won't like Borderlands. (Xbox 360 version)
-
First time I beat the game solo. It was such an expertly crafted game for most of it. Such a shame the boss was such a cheap bastard (Xbox 360 version)
-
As scary as it is frustratingly hard, FEAR is a thrill ride worth anyone's time. (PC version)
-
A bit sloppy in terms of story, and nowhere near as scary. More of its difficulty comes from cheap enemy placement this time around. Not up to the caliber of the original. (PC version)
-
See my notes on Extraction Point. (PC version)
-
A return to form, the game ups the tension greatly, while improving the balancing, making the game a solid challenge without ever feeling artificially difficult. (PC version)
-
Schlock horror that never really scared me, but grossed me the hell out. I don't know what made me sicker: the copious violence or the uninspired, generic gameplay. (PC version)
-
Not much to say about Portal that hasn't been said. Fantastic, expertly crafted game. (360 version via The Orange Box)
-
A great 3rd person shooter, even without the Transformers trappings, it also captures the charm of the characters, something even Michael Bay failed spectacularly to do. A game that deserved its near universal praise: you know it's good when Jeff Gerstmann's only real justification for his prejudicial dislike is "it's not Gears of War! Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" (PC version)
-
Fun game, plenty of the intense combat the series would come to be known for. There was a severe issue with health packs, though - the game either piled them on you or left you without access to one for long periods of time. It's easy to see why Infinity Ward cribbed regenerating health from Halo 2 for Call of Duty 2. (PC version)
-
A much better balance of health packs makes the barrage of enemies a lot more bearable, save for the second stage where you're going from foxhole to foxhole. The game also introduced vehicles to the series, one of the many things in this series Infinity Ward would get undue credit for. A much better game than the original. (PC version)
-
A game that was dismissed by Jeff & Co. SOLELY because it was developed in the Eastern Bloc, it was a methodical, hauntingly atmospheric title whose slowed-down health regeneration provided a novel bridge between regenerating health and medkits. Combined with its muted, somber tone and this was one of the most memorable games of the year. (PC version)
-
A cheap, hastily-developed PS2 spinoff by Rebellion, it shows none of the polish or care that Treyarch lavished upon the main game. Entirely forgettable.
-
A typical NES top-down shooter, its main draw was the insanity of the enemies. Not many games have you shooting down trophies and toilet paper, and that alone makes it memorable.
-
With elements from Grey Matter moved over to Treyarch,the former Spider-Man developer crafted a beautiful game with the sort of personal, story-driven experience that the company would offer to those of us who could look past the Infinity Ward fanboy goggles. Only superseded by World at War and Black Ops. (PS2 version)
-
Waste of time, really all you can say. I can't believe I paid 1200 MS points for this tripe.
-
Top-down horror games where you have multiple lives just don't work. They just don't. There's no way to build tension when you have ammo all over the place and you can see all around you.
-
Master Chief goes to World War 2, only without the story that was found in Halo 2, or for that matter, United Offensive and Big Red One. Great game for the time, but not the highlight of the series. (PC version)
-
SHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOT Nuke SHOOTSHOOTSHOOTSHOOT. If not for "All Ghillied Up," this game wouldn't be worth a tenth of the praise it gets. Would have been a better game were it not so damned apt to lock you in place for hours with poorly-thought spawning. The game is literally all about running under heavy fire and praying you don't die before the next checkpoint. (PC version)
-
Balance was improved greatly over the train wreck that was CoD4, and the stories are much easier to follow than the mess that IW crafted the year before. Only marred by the schizophrenic switching between two completely unrelated campaigns. The game would have been SO much better served by just focusing on a single location so that the various characters had a common thread. Equal parts improvement over 4 and step back from 3. Nazi Zombies stands as the only thing resembling multi-player that won't make me vomit. (PC version)
-
See my notes for Left 4 Dead 2. Not worth playing unless you can somehow find players who aren't complete asshats, something near impossible online. (PC version)
-
No skill involved, the game is based entirely on luck, just like most PopCap games.
-
See notes for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The only difference is that the story is even MORE of a disjointed mess, something I'd thought impossible prior to this game coming out. At least the spawning isn't quite AS horrible, but the pixel-thin lines where enemies spawn are quite obvious, and set up tons of cheap kills until you know exactly which direction to be looking at when you cross an exact point. Spec Ops is also a very, VERY poor substitute for Nazi Zombies. (360 version)
-
The penultimate Halo experience - expertly balanced, the right mix of new and old to make one of the best games to ever grace the 360 platform. This game is going to be one hell of a standard bearer. Anything 343 does will be judged against this game.
-
Stupid. Not in the pretentious, trying-to-be-awesome-but-only-looking-dumb sense of Modern Warfare. It's a low-rent comic book, with Dick Marcinco playing the foul-mouthed, nigh-invincible hero laying waste and throwing out absurdly macho quips while destroying North Korea and the Soviet Union all by himself. Pretty standard gameplay, but it's hard to be mad at a game that's just this silly. (PC version)
-
I waited in front of a Gamestop, alone, waiting for the midnight launch of a game that was billed as being a gritty, realistic and dramatic shooter, an antidote to the bullet circus that was Modern Warfare 2. Instead, what we got was a piss-easy shooter which has you swimming in ammo at all times (even discounting the infinite ammo pistol), cardboard cutout characters whose only contribution to the "story" is an absurdly thick layer of military jargon, and more technical issues than you can shake a goat at. Quite possibly the worst shooter I played all year. (PS3 version)
-
Creative puzzles mark this game, which is only marred by the apparent lack of diverse objects. Way too often, the same object would appear in the game when multiple different objects were requested. A shame too, because it's a well-crafted game otherwise.
-
1) Why does the guy who speaks in the English dialogue setting sound like he injected his tongue with Novocaine and filled his mouth with marbles before recording? 2) How the hell was I SUPPOSED to know that the best ending was achieved by not firing at the final boss in either form? Easy game, good enough, but some odd design choices. (PS3 via PSN)
-
A launch PS2 game, the world of Eternal Ring is a joy to explore. It's just sad that some horrible bugs (namely spells going through walls) were allowed to slip through, and the addition of those HORRIBLE voices for the US version will have you running for the mute button. This one should have been given more time to incubate, but a fun enough game otherwise.
-
A celebration of all things absurdly macho turns the 3rd-person-shooter on its head. A genre normally known for a slow, deliberate pace, Vanquish instead moves at about a billion miles a minute, with evil Russian robots coming out of practically everywhere. The guns bet bigger and the action gets crazier with every passing moment. The crown jewel of Japanese-developed shooters. (360 version)
-
At first glance, the game seems like it's going to go the way of Modern Warfare 2. Lord knows the game has enough explosions for it. However, keeping the perspective to one character for most of the game makes this the most cohesive story since Big Red One, with gameplay that is mostly tight and well-considered the whole way through. Zombies make a return, the highlight of a slew of other features including a re-release of Zork and an expert Smash TV clone that many would have paid for by itself. Amazing game. If only they told you what to do with the fucking barrels... (360 version)
-
I think everyone expected this one to suck horribly. I know I did. It just felt so much like cheap corporate pandering. Instead, EuroCom defied all expectations by delivering a game that stands solidly on its own, with a completely redone story and a new focus on great firefights. The Wii could do with more like this.
-
ROBOTS! The game is much more combat-focused than previous entries, with wide-open environments becoming the norm, the perfect spots for battles that have you literally quick boosting ALL THE TIME. It can be overwhelming at times, but the patient will be rewarded with a fantastic sense of achievement. (360 version)
-
See notes on Armored Core 4. (360 version).
-
A launch game for the PS2, this one was clearly given more time than Eternal Ring, suffering only from moments of slowdown despite the unoptimized engine. The lack of analog control makes mech-on-mech combat a pain.
-
See notes on Armored Core 2.
0 Comments