Best of 2010
DarkbeatDK: Best of 2010
List items
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You'd really think there would be more wild west games out there and while there have been a few over the years, Rockstar again brings their hallmark stamp of quality to the genre via Red Dead Redemption. It was a hard fought battle with #2 on my GOTY list, but with the zombie expansion it managed to go beyond the gameplay elements of the core game and reinvent itself.
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The original Valkyria Chronicles is pretty much my all time favorite game. Valkyria Chronicles II actually expands on the formula of the first game, but manages to turn into open game that rewards you for grinding. It's a welcome change to add a deeper RPG mechanic into this strategy game, but it can end up feeling a bit repetitive when it lacks the pacing of the story of the first game. Still, it's an incredibly solid game that you can keep going back to.
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DJ Hero 2 is, in my opinion, the best Western Rhytm game. Using mash-ups in original compositions makes the soundtrack absolutely amazing. It's also the slight changes over the original game that makes the game even better here. The integrated samples to each song sound really good and the inclusion of a music store where you can actually hear what a track sounds like before buying it, is a key feature. There are only two major flaws with the game: 1) They tried too hard make it into a party game like Rock Band by including Microphone and song lyrics which just doesn't work 2) Activision needs to stop putting Lady GaGa into all their music games. If I have to hear "Bad Romance" or "Poker Face" one more time I'm gonna choke a bitch!
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Dead Rising 2 plays in many ways like an old game: Challenging and sometimes fully retarded, but damn if it isn't fun. To me, beating the game on Overtime for the first time, was the most rewarding game experience I've had in years. While other games hold your hand all the way through the story, this one have you work for your rewards. The feeling you get for beating a challenging game like this is something that is sorely missing from modern video games.
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Super Street Fighter IV does everything right when it comes to bringing fighting games back to the masses. It has the hidden depth that you found in Super Street II, while still being accessible and fun to play for beginners. I would even go as far as to call Capcom the King of Fighters.
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The running-around-and-stabbing-hundreds-of-dudes genre is pretty much only populated by Koei's Warriors games, but Capcom's Sengoku Basara 3 manages to spice up most of the formula. While I don't feel that it's as tactical as the Warriors games, this one does nearly everything else right.
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This action adventure game won't go down in the history books as having the greatest gameplay mechanics, but it certainly has an amazing story. While many other games rely on using the familiar when it comes to telling a story, the strange dream-like desolate loneliness that you get when playing this is truly unique, without coming across as some kind of artsy hipster bullshit.
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This amazing adventure game feels a lot like a budget title, but in its weird quirkiness it actually manages to be an incredibly entertaining and funny game. Like Dead Rising 2, it has a lot of that janky old Japanese way of handling pretty much everything, but remains to be a game that I believe that everyone should play.
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In a market that is flooded by third-person shooters, it's refreshing to see something as amazing as Vanquish that really manages to turn the formula upside down and all crazy-like. Not only is it a lot of fun but it looks incredibly cool too. When Epic said that they were delaying Gears of War 3 to 2011, I'm pretty sure that it was because of this game, because Gears 3 will need a serious kick in the ass to still be relevant as a third person shooter today.
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As a spiritual successor to the Shenmue series, Yakuza finally makes the leap off the PS2 to the PS3 in glorious HD. Being able to see real-world products and magazine covers in stores around the game, really makes the gameworld come alive. The only real problem of the game is the pacing and storytelling that can seem a bit overly drawn out from time to time. It's a game that requires that you really dedicate some time, but if you do, you'll find it really rewarding.
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