So of course I never posted my top games of 2011, that is just how I roll.
Here is the short version.
2011 GotY:
Dark Souls
Honorable mentions:
Rayman: Origins
Portal 2
Let me proactive and already name my GotY for 2012: Journey
Buy this game already.
If you have a PS3, you should also own Journey. Log on to PSN, buy it, put on some headphones and devote 1 ½ hours of your life to this game. Or I should say, to this experience, since to me, that is what Journey is.
Now, I don't want to hear anything about how $15 is too much to spend for a 1½ hour game. Remember, this is not a game. This is an experience. If you have ever spent $15 on a dvd, an IMAX movie, or a CD, or anything that ever left you feeling emotionally stimulated, then the $15 cost of Journey is money well spent.
Everyone's experience with Journey will be unique to them. A large portion of the experience is dependent on the extremely innovative multiplayer and the "travelers" you meet along the way. For my first playthrough, everything came together magically to create a gaming experience unlike any other I have had. I experienced a huge range of emotion in my 1½ hour session, from awe, to happiness and joy, to sadness and loneliness, to fear and companionship, all manifesting naturally through my interactions with a total stranger who you cannot communicate with outside a few "chirps" and audio calls. Even without being able to speak to them directly or knowing anything about them (name, gender, gametag) I found myself creating a real bond with them and caring for them far more than any other co-op experience I have had.
I'm going to keep this short, because I've started writing about Journey in my head many times and it always results in a 20 page post full of hyperbole and pretentiousness. I'll save you that ordeal.
Journey. 2012 Game of the Year. Go buy it.
Skyrim continues to be my go to game. 130 hours in. My stealthy archer character is now so powerful that I can take down most foes with one well placed arrow from my legendary Daedric bow armed with Ebony arrows and benefitting from the 3x damage of the sneak attack. It is extremely satisfying, but in the long haul may be what makes me finally stop playing. I am pretty unstoppable at the moment. I was obsessed with making my character the ultimate archer. Leveling up my skills, aiming to craft a daedric bow for the first time, finding or crafting enchanted armor to improve my bow damage. I am now where I want to be. As a result my character hasn't died is a really long time. I fear no creature in all of Skyrim. Even Elder Dragons go down easily. Now that any really threat is gone, I feel like the game may become dull. We'll see.
On the PS3 side of things my HDD has been filling up quickly with all these free games you get as a Playstation Plus subscriber. Sony's online service and functionality may still be far away from Microsoft's, but I do feel like I am getting my money's worth from my PS+ membership. So many free or discounted games. My library is full of these things and most of them I haven't even played once. I have the entire original Resident Evil trilogy, the new Back to the Future game (all episodes), countless classic games, and the list continues to grow. One of the recent titles offered is the classic Simpsons Arcade game. I had fond memories of sinking countless quarters into this thing. I was really excited at the thought of playing it again, now for free!
Man, funny how clouded your memory can be. Maybe it is just that my taste as a gamer has changed, but holy crap this game is terrible!!! I also never realized how absolutely ridiculous its premise was. It makes no sense. Smithers robs a jewelry store and then kidnaps Maggie? Are you kidding me? Did the creators of this game ever see a single Simpsons episode? The entire game doesn't make any sense in regards to its use of characters. And the game is unbelievable cheap and difficult, which is a staple of these old arcade games and how they were programmed to take your money. Anyway, word of warning, avoid this game. Don't let your childhood memories fool you into thinking it was ever any good. Because it's not!
The last bit of gaming news is that I picked up Saints Row the Third because of all the good word of mouth it received. I heard it was over-the-top crazy and in my limited time with it (played for about an hour last night), it is. Plenty of potential here for good, escapist fun.
I finished Uncharted 3. The game definitely had its ups and downs. I won't lie, the game had me on the edge of my seat at times. When it did, it was fantastic. But a lot of times it was also too formulaic, repetitive and not much fun. Too much of the "been there, done that" syndrome. I won't complain if Naughty Dog takes a break from this series and concentrates its resources in other franchises.
I haven't played Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath in a while. In fact, I completely forgot about the game until I started writing this post. Not sure if that says something about the game or my terrible gaming habits of leaving games unfinished and forgetting about them.
Speaking of which, I have completely stopped playing one of my favorite games from last year, Rayman: Origins. I love the game but I just stopped playing. Yeah, I have problems.
Which leads me to Skyrim. Stupid Skyrim.
I've had a rollercoaster ride with this game. I like it. I hate it. It is fun. It is boring. It is enormous, detailed and immersive. It is shallow, bland and repetitive. It is realistic. It is extremely gamey and dysfunctional.
I could go on.
Regardless of my problems with the game. Regardless of me actually trying my best to not like it so that I can stop playing the damn thing. And regardless of all the things I wish I could change, the bottom line is this: I have logged in 120 damn hours into it and I am more addicted to it now than I was 80 hours ago.
Like I said, Stupid Skyrim.
A funny thing happened recently. I stopped playing Skyrim in a "realistic" way. I stopped trying to role play. I stopped playing my character with the imaginary morale code I instilled in him. I stopped trying to immerse myself fully in this world. And as a result, I began enjoying the game much more. Its silly, game-like, unrealistic parts stopped bothering me. In fact, I started exploiting them. I stopped caring about any of the characters and story and I began concentrating on using the game world as my own personal "funbox", its sole purpose to be a playground to level up my character and become as powerful as I could. All was fair game. If a saw something I liked, I would steal it. Even if I liked the owner. Morality be damned. If someone mouths off to my character, or shows a hint of attitude, I take them out. I joined the Dark Brotherhood (something I was against previously since I was a "good" character) and I am more than happy to kill anybody any of the many Daedric gods want me to kill. They are all just obstacles in my new goal of leveling up my skills to the point of eventually taking out Dragons in one hit, or walking into a town and wrecking havoc.
I didn't want to have to enjoy the game this way. I wanted to enjoy it by being fully engulfed in the story and game and playing it straight. But that just resulted in frustration. Too often the veil of immersion is broken by the game. So I just gave up. As compensation I kinda gave a story-related reason for this recent change to my play style. I finished the main quest (a first for me in Elder Scrolls games! Yay for me!). And when I did, not much happened. I just saved all of Skyrim from annihilation, single handedly too, and I wasn't honored for it. I'd still be put in jail for stealing an apple from a merchant's cart (hey, a Dragonborn has to eat too!). Here I am, the savior of all of Tamriel, and I am treated as any regular commoner! Blasphemy! After all the dragons I had slain, all the sacrifices and dangers I faced, I was rewarded with nothing. So my character snapped. All the power he acquired went to his head. He felt entitled to praise, gold, women, a lavish castle, and instead the world shunned him. As a result, he is now in a quest to get all by force. He is not dumb though. He plays by the rules when watched, lies and acts accordingly to get his way, but when the time comes he will show Skyrim the true power of Dovahkiig!
Hey, I do what I can to enjoy the damn game. Stupid Skyrim.
I really dislike the new Xbox Dashboard. Instead of streamlining things it seems to have made everything more difficult to find. Looks like it was designed with Kinect in mind and is not very intuitive in my opinion.
For example, after the update I downloaded a few game videos from the Game Marketplace (after I managed to find them in the new interface). So I try to watch these new videos and when I head over to my "Zune Video" section nothing happens. It tries to launch the video player for a split second and it just stops. I never get any kind of error message. No prompts. It just refuses to let me access any game videos I may have saved. I check under my memory settings to make sure I have videos and sure enough I have about 5 saved which I seem to be unable to access. Frustrating. I give up, thinking it may be a bug and will be patched and feeling too lazy to look for a fix online.
About a week later I try again (I want to see those damn videos) but the same thing keeps happening. The Zune video player refuses to launch. I am locked out of being able to watch the videos that are saved on my HDD! After much trial and error I end up clicking on the "Zune Marketplace", a place I never go to. I am immediately told that I need to download the Zune Video App. Umm, ok? I download the player and voila, I can now launch my Video player.
Now, why in the world do you not get this message when you try to launch the player in the first place? Why do I have to go to the stupid Zune Market place to trigger this? That is just ridiculously stupid!
Bring back the original Dashboard with Blades!
I played a match of the Starhawk Beta the other night. I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea what the controls were. I had no idea what the objectives were. And I was not having much fun as a result.
Prior to launching the match I did try to prepare myself. I looked in the options menu for a controller configuration screen. Didn't find one.
I looked for a section describing the play mechanics or goal of a match. Didn't find one.
C'mon folks! I don't find it much fun to play a game blind, learning the controls by trial and error, and figuring out what I should be doing by dying over and over and eventually figuring it out. Why can't you include a very simple "How to play" and "controls" screen? That would make the experience so much more enjoyable.
Ok, rant over.
Note, if the game does have this buried in the menu system, then I retract all my comments. But I really didn't find anything.
I've been all over the place the last week or so with my gaming habits.
I haven't gone back to Uncharted 3. After the exhilarating plane sequence I have kinda lost interest again. Some of the battle sequences in that game are extremely frustrating. A combination of a sudden difficulty spike combined with the iffy controls resulting in many deaths and replays. I think I am towards the end so I hope to finish it this weekend. And when I start wishing to just be done with a game so that I can move on to something else, I know it is ultimately a disappointment. Shame. Still looking forward to The Last of Us though.
I've starting playing Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. It was released on PSN a few weeks back, all HD-afied, and I never played the original even though I've heard great things. So far the game is enjoyable and runs at a smooth 60fps. Gameplay is fun and different, but definitely showing its age. I am only about 2 hours in though.
I have also somehow started playing Black-ops again. It had been a while. I still got it though, as I have been playing great without missing a beat. I am surprised by how many people are still playing this.
Still also dabbling in Skyrim every now and then. I'll play in one or two hour chunks periodically. Entertaining, but it leaves me wanting more.
I haven't played Rayman: Origins in over a month. Not sure why, I love that game and want to finish it.
I haven't started Bastion yet because I really want to give that game a fair shot (really enjoyed the demo) but I have been in such a weird, jaded mood with games lately I get the feeling I won't enjoy it if I start now.
