There's no other way to put it: This was a great year for games. It kills me to leave off The Witcher 2 and Skyward Sword, but I haven't had a chance to play them yet so it feels unfair to include them. Subject to change as I do play Skyward Sword next week. As for The Witcher 2...I'm like Vinny in that I'm bound and determined to get through the first one before I start this.
I never played Morrowind. I enjoyed Oblivion, although I spent 95% of my time fucking around with side quests after abandoning the main story right after getting to Weynon Priory. Skyrim is easily my favorite game of this generation, and one I place in my all-time favorites with contemporaries like Borderlands and classics like Half-Life or Super Mario Brothers 3. It overwhelms you with options and possibilities, challenging you to define your own character and play style simultaneously. I'd write more, but I just want to get back to playing Skyrim.
LA Noire was a step forward for games. From the facial capture technology of Team Bondi to the actual implementation of said technology to craft a deliberately paced narrative in true noir style, this was the game this year that first made me say that a mature video game can mean more than an M rating for blood and nudity. There was plenty of both, but it never seemed gratuitous, since we were dealing with some truly disturbing criminals and the acts they'd committed. For all the traditional Rockstar open world "jank," it was a great, engrossing, and even sometimes frustrating experience that always left me wanting more - in a good way. This would be my game of the year in any other year.
Who doesn't want to be Batman? Apart from the thousands of psychopaths living in and around Gotham who have made killing Batman their life's goal? I've hear the complaint before that when it comes to video game sequels, "Bigger isn't always better," and there was some criticism of this for not having the same intimate feel of Arkham Asylum. Whatever, you find more nits to pick and I'm going to swoop all over Arkham because I'm the GODDAM BATMAN.
Portal 2 added the various gels for Chell and teamed her up with the world's greatest passve-aggressive frenemy. I never did understand why Chief Pope from The Closer was yelling at me about lemons. Unless it was Dr Skoda from Law and Order. They have very similar voices, and his insane rantings were probably just a test of my personality. And the co-op was great too. I literally dropped my fork in the middle of a nice steak dinner and said to my dinning partner / fellow test subject: "Wait. We have to launch ourselves AT EACH OTHER." I was right, too.
No one game should have all this power to be so ridiculous and fun. The fact that the highest I can put this is number 5 on a top ten list is a testament to how great this year was, because I fucking LOVE this game.
I had no expectations for this game and picked it up on a whim because Amazon was offering a $20 pre-order credit. I missed out on the original PC game, and went back to try to play it this year and just couldn't get it. It's no stretch to say this was my surprise favorite game of 2011. The freedom to approach missions from various paths and have each one be equally viable, plus the feeling you get from becoming a cybernetic badass as you earn Praxis points just hit the right pleasure centers in my brain the way few things do.
I wasn't a big fan of Modern Warfare because I tend to mostly play single player games and never got into that addictive multiplayer. I hated the story of MW2. After getting pulled into Call of Duty multiplayer via Black Ops (I know, I know, Treyarch, Infinity Ward/Respawn, the shell of IW, etc, etc...) I picked this up not knowing what to expect after Infinity Ward's...interesting year. Story wise, MW 3 seemed to hang together better than MW2, and they weren't killing m character after every mission - a storytelling device I thought they had gone overboard with in the franchise so far. Multtiplayer was just as tight and addictive as Black Ops, but Kill Confirmed is a blast to play and seems to be an attempt to discourage snipers/campers or encourage them to play more as a team. It's like a different game from Team Deathmatch based on one simple mechanical change.
I don't like fighting games and hadn't really played MK since the glory days of 2, minus a period of time where I experimented with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. I loved how this game felt like what I remembered MK2 feeling like. It's even got me considering branching out into Street Fighter to get a different taste of the genre.
The block puzzles were okay. What I loved about this game was how people reacted to it, positively and negatively. If a game with a gigantic ass monster can make people reevaluate their priorities in life and think about the themes of fidelity, maturity, and responsibility, it's done something right. Along with LA Noire, Catherine helped show that a "Mature" rating can mean more than blood and titties, but in how you approach your subject matter.
A late change, sneaking in at number 10 because I forgot this came out in 2011. Stacking feels like a cross between a puzzle and an adventure game, hunting for the right doll or combinations of dolls to solve one of the puzzles in front of you. The art style is perfect for the nesting doll world. It was hard to choose a favorite among Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight Three, but this ended up being my pick.
