Best of 2010
DantronLesotho: Best of 2010
Not listed: The Last Guardian, Duke Nukem Forever, and Half-life 2: Episode 3. GET WITH IT, DEVS.
List items
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What can I say about Minecraft that hasn't already been said? I'll say this!
Minecraft to me represents a future in gaming, where processing power is so well scoped and vision so well expanded, that I cannot wait to see what happens to this game in the future, and what its successors will be. I realized the other day that this game is the first one that truly lets you remake the entire world in your vision for every little component available.
I have been telling people that it's Lego Castaway, and about imposing mankind's supreme iron will upon nature. I haven't even played the multiplayer but I definitely enjoy griefing videos and definitely appreciate people's hard work (i.e. building Rapture) and imagination (i.e. topographical representation of earth). I think this may be game of the year for 2010, because it's just so damn sublime to play.
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Super Meat Boy to me represents another wad of potential in gaming's future. I love how it was made with mainly two people, how well polished the physics are, and the communal effort from other indie developers was shown by the inclusion of the custom extra stages and characters.
I love how there are a shit-ton of stages to go through, and that it really shows how much enjoyment can come from a simple idea. I played a lot of N plus, and realized that I hated it. I never thought I would play super meat boy because I hated N plus so much. Not that they did a bad job with the game, but that there was no real unifying vision for it and no fun element to it. Super Meat Boy won me back to extreme platformers, and I thank them for it.
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Bioshock 2 was really damn good, but not as good as the first one IMO in anything other than the gameplay. I'm sure it's mostly my fault though, since I expected the Delta Big Daddy to be Andrew Ryan for some reason (the vita-chambers are tuned to his DNA if I remember correctly, so if you can come back, he should be able to) but it was excellently made, extremely well directed, and was a wonderful compliment to Bioshock 1.
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Mass Effect 2 I thought was quite wonderful in its character development, overall story, and simplified weapon and ship upgrades. The downside? I didn't like the quest-like method for stages (understandable since it made DLC a lot easier, but I thought it could have been a little more cleverly done and I don't like not being able to go back to previous stages. Now that I think about it, Bioshock 2 did the same thing, dammit.), I didn't like the planet scanning (I liked the planet exploration from the first one a lot more; I wish that concept would have been better fleshed out), and I didn't like the whole reapers make themselves in their conquered's image idea. That makes no sense whatsoever. But regardless, this was an excellent continuation in a wonderful series which really does take cinematic storytelling to an epic and intimate level.
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Limbo was another indie hit of the year coming out of almost complete obscurity that took the world by storm and showed that powerful emotions and complex feelings can come from extremely simple concepts. When Limbo starts up, you get a King Kong-esque feel about the intro, and are reminded of noir movies of black and white times past.
Limbo walks through historical stages of humanity, going from low-tech forestry to high-tech machinery and does so without a hitch. I thoroughly enjoyed playing this gem and although I have only played it once, it has stayed with me.
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Bayonetta is a game that has few in comparison to its pulpiness and fantastic consistent over-the-top aesthetic and rock-solid action. I really wish that more gaming companies would stop taking themselves so seriously (I'm looking at you, Prototype/Infamous/God of War) and remember that one of the heaviest components of gaming success is fun.
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Fallout: New Vegas was an excellent compendium for Fallout 3, and it was really nice to see an improvement over the already exemplary storytelling of Fallout 3. I am highly anticipating the next entry in the series, which will likely take another 50-60 hours of my time OCD'ing all over it.
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Civ 5 with a hex map, and as Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis said, should be considered a controlled substance regulated by the FDA. Yup.
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Picross 3D was a fantastic puzzle game which was challenging-yet-doable and explored quite refreshingly an intriguing concept. It never seemed to get old and every puzzle had one of those "I know I can beat this in a short time" feeling which kept me hooked. Definitely one of my fav's.
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PB Winterbottom explored the time concept even further than Braid did and had a wonderfully polished world to explore. Another fine example of indie development supremacy on the arcade, and goes to show that a lot can be accomplished by a few. I just wish that Microsoft would kick more money to the indie devs to put official games on XBLA, then yet ANOTHER poker or bowling game.
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