My Top 3 Games of the Year - 2011
By Sooty 6 Comments
I'm still making my way through a few of this years games, I have been playing Skyrim on and off so I'm not going to include that, and as for Saints Row: The Third I had to wait for my friend to get back from his girlfriends house so we could play co-op, so progress there has only just picked up again as of earlier tonight, alas, I did play and complete a few other video games this year. These are the ones that really leapt out at me.
1. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
This game is as close to perfection as any video game has been in years. There's not one major complaint that can be lamented against it. The combat is engaging, challenging and rather importantly, fun. It has a likeable cast of characters each brought to life with fantastic voice acting, writing and models. As for the visual design, it scores a home run. The world of this game is jaw dropping, there's so much detail packed into every scene. Lighting is especially impressive and it manages to trump Battlefield 3 in several areas. You should play this game, I look forward to playing it again as it has true replay value; a lot of the game changes based on certain decisions you make. It's much more than a case of 'decision A = ending A'. The free 2.0 update is also now live changing a few gameplay elements for the better and adding new modes and items. If you do not have a PC to play it on then make sure you pick it up on 360, it will not disappoint you.
2. Catherine
Catherine was something different, and while the game did repeat the same formula of nightmare stage followed by social interaction over and over again it didn't feel repetitive; each stage was different and got progressively more punishing and difficult as the game went on. Vincent is a very likeable character and the experience is backed up by solid voice acting, a slick visual style, some funny dialogue and fantastic music. I really enjoyed my ~13 hours spent with the game and would buy a sequel. Bravo, Atlus.
Did I mention the game took the fighting game community by storm?
3. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
I was not a fan of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, I considered it a broken and very odd game. Despite that, I did get hit by the hype train for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and picked it up as soon as it came out, my friend and I played this solid on launch day until 5am in the morning, it was some serious fun. As my time with the game progressed I was taking it more and more seriously. I wasn't new to fighting games, I had been playing Street Fighter IV since launch and of course Super Street Fighter IV that came after, heading to a few tournaments and offline events in my area. So what really is it about this game I like so much? Well, it feels so responsive and fluid, it's also fun, a lot of fun. There's so many different set ups you can explore, finding out which assists allow you to extend your combos with a character, which assists allow you to set up unblockables or extremely hard to block mix-ups, all of this contributes to the game being very deep. I've enjoyed watching many tournaments featuring the game too, there's been some fantastic moments. I look forward to watching and playing more of this superb fighter. The still new Ultimate edition only makes the game crazier, and that is a very good thing.
Anyway that was my list, the other 2011 released games I finished (and liked) are Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dead Space 2, and while I enjoyed them they didn't make enough of an impact on me to make me want to write about them a little bit. Thanks for reading!
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