My Favorite Games of 2011
2011 was a pretty great year for games, despite being the year of third sequels. Despite a couple of disappointments like Dragon Age 2 and Red Faction: Armageddon, things were pretty great across the board.
List items
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Dark Souls scratches every itch for me as a gamer. They give you a world, a dangerous, messed up world and say "Go, Explore." A game that is not scared to just drop you out there to explore and figure things out on your own, which basically never happens in games anymore.
In a world of 4 hour games where you basically play follow the leader to some bot and click on the flashing icon between shooting galleries, Dark Souls stands alone.
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Can you imagine trying to make a sequel to Portal? I can't... The pressure must have been almost unbearable. The result was nothing short of spectacular. All the charm and wit of the original with enough systems layered on to feel like a fresh new experience. Amazing characters, amazing atmosphere, and the best ending of any game ever.
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There's just so much to do! It amazes me that these games work at all, so I'll put up with some jank in return for the ability to craft the most epic or epicly ridiculous story I feel like at the moment. I've sunk a total of 110 or so hours across three different characters so far and I still want to play, and I'm still finding new stuff.
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The best puzzle game I have played in a very long time. It's like playing science! It's a hard game to explain without playing, but, for me at least, it's immensely gratifying to create an efficient solution and watch it go. Both versions (PC and Ipad) are excellent and should be played by everyone.
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I like Diablo style games a whole bunch, and Dungeon Siege 3 scratched that itch for me this year. I played through the whole thing twice back to back, and loved it both times.
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This game is non-stop craziness, it's like Gears turned up to 11. Explosions, crazy robots, awesome transforming guns, and rocket knee slides! It's seriously fun.
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I think I had the opposite reaction to Catherine as most... I really liked the puzzle game, but was kind of let down by the story / sim side. Still, I give them props for trying something new.
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We all know these games are great, not much more to say. The story felt kind of abrupt to me, but who cares when you can glide around the city being The Batman.
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Great platform mechanics and a great idea make for a great game. A great action platformer / "metroidvania", with the addition of a Ikaruga style color switching mechanic, I really dug it.
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I mentioned before about the Diablo thing... great music, great weapons, a great style, and a unique way of telling the story add up to one of my favorite games this year.
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Honorable Mention 1:
If there were categories, BF3 would win for multiplayer, but the story mode. although fun, felt too much like they were aping CoD for me.
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Honorable Mention 2:
I played the crap out of Runner, easily my favorite of the Bit.Trip games
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Honorable Mention 3:
The first act was fantastic, but it kind of broke down for me after that. If I could judge it on just that first part, it would be in the top 5 for sure.
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