Seriously nothing touched me in the ways that Binding of Isaac did this year on a personal level. The story of a crazy religious mother whose god tells her to murder their kid? It was something I feel I could relate to given how my own childhood was effected by southern baptist going parents, lots of it was rough and there are just countless parts of my childhood ruined because of it. All of that aside the game part of it was just fantastic, enough so that I've beaten the final boss 11 times as of this typing. I love getting a new character layout every time and trying to work with how overpowered or terrible it is in an attempt to clear the whole game.

I love how Pokemon has grown up with me. I was one of those kids that fell in love with the series in elementary school, was too cool for it in middle school but then realized how it's one of the most deep and complex RPGs out there back in high school and have been with it ever since. The changes they made under the hood for the competitive scene were excellent and it was nice to see them taking the story further than any of the past handheld games have. Hands down the most time I spent with a game in 2011 and just writing this makes me want to go back and attempt to conquer the final difficulty of the Battle Subway once again.

What truly sets Orcs Must Die! apart from any other Tower Defense game around is that I never once found myself going to youtube to find "the perfect" strategy for any given level. The pure brilliance of the game is just how many tools you're given to defend your base and how many different possibilities there are to complete 1 level. I have not played another Tower Defense game I could really say this, the different play styles you can have in OMD is astounding. It's also the most endearing Cartoon Fantasy game this side of the Warcraft universe.

I never bothered with Minecraft up until a few weeks before it's "official" release. Like many others I simply thought the game was about building pretty pixel art and doing nothing else. Once again like others, though, I was surprised to see what the game is really about. Surviving in a big world and carving out a home of my own. Nothing this year felt as rewarding as going out and finding the hundreds of sheep I needed to kill to make my collection of Binding of Isaac characters who later became the top layer of my friend's underground secret base and slime farm... My only wish is that there was more "game" to it. What is there is for sure a start but there is so much more that can be done.

I only recently got into this (like weeks recently to be entirely upfront about it) but I have not had this much fun in a coop game since borderlands. Because similar to Borderlands they take what is good about MMORPGs and apply it to simple multiplayer games. Having my friends and I all take on different but equally important roles to come together and defeat wave after wave of foes and challenges is something that will never grow old to me, and for my money Dungeon Defenders did it best this year.

Kairosoft released a stupid amount of these games this year and while I liked all of them I played Grand Prix Story was something special. Let me get something out of the way though: I loathe cars, racing bores me and I hate driving and yet with that said I somehow became addicted to this game. It felt very much like an RPG, constantly trying to increase my stats in between the "battles" (races) and getting myself and my team ready for the bosses (the grand prix). The amount of depth to this game compared to their other stuff is rather astounding, and it's something I hope holds true in their future games.

I wasn't really in the boat thinking they couldn't top the original Portal, I just had a good vibe about this from the start and I wasn't let down, mostly. I feel like the story was not paced particular well but every moment of it was a great ride with some of the best writing in any media today.

Sucker Punch still has a lot of work to do in making compelling characters, stories, and art but they sure know how to make a game fun. My brain exploded at the end of the game when you essentially become spider man. I spent like half an hour just swinging around the city trying to see how long I could sling myself without hitting the ground. I really just wish all the talent was in a better package. Nothing about the InFamous universe is appealing to me and I find it cringe worthy when they do things like try to make generic female NPC model #32 a key plot point... It just doesn't work guys.

It's Zelda, it's still cool. I can't really say much about it other than they did a great job at updating the game in just the right ways without making it a full blown remake.

Skyrim took the one thing I really love about WRPGs and just knocked it out of the park: exploring. I love just wandering around and finding a place I've never been and seeing all the crazy stuff in it. Seriously that vampire den with the piles of dead bodies they had been munching on still creeps me out just thinking about it. It's that kind of thing we rarely see in games anymore and Bethesda is so good at crafting. Unfortunately I wish they would put it in a more fun game as I still find the combat downright boring, the world ugly to look at, and in general generic fantasy stuff I've been experiencing my entire life... but that doesn't stop it from being a fun game still.