Simply put. Post your personal favorites in gaming this year here. There were a lot of great games out this year. Which ones were your favorites?

*(Note: I left out catagories that i did not play any games in this year)

Best XBox 360 Game: Mass Effect 2

I played this game thru in one sitting and enjoyed every last minute of it. This is an easy one.

Best PS3 Game: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

I was very surprised at how much they actually added to an indirect sequel. It may only take place in Rome, but I felt there was much more environmental diversity in this game than the last two. String kill together is awesome. The multiplayer has a lot of initial WOW factor but it quickly devolves when you start to realize how random it really is. Best AC yet? I certainly think so.

Best Wii Game: Super Mario Galaxy 2

I was skeptical when they announced a direct sequel. I really didn't know what they could do differently that SMG already did. Well, turns out they can do a lot. A whole hell of a lot. lol

Best PSP game: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

I have heard fantastic things about Peace Walker, but I've never been a MGS guy. Besides, Kingdom Hearts had a good story that tied up loose ends and opened up new ones for KH3 to answer, had great graphics, and best of all showed a true evolution of the KH battle system. It's easily the deepest, most challenging, and most addicting system in the series to date. It should've deserved more accolades, but Peace Walker took them all.

Best PC game: Civilization V

It may have been the only PC game I played this year, but it was definitely a good one. I really enjoyed the changes, both graphically and systematically.

Best First Person Shooter: Halo:Reach

I've never been a Halo guy, but I ended up playing more Reach in the month of September than any other FPS in the last few years.

Best Action Adventure Game: God of War III

The first level alone is enough to justify this one. If you have yet to play it, go and try the demo. That should be enough. This game is truly an epic end to the trilogy.

Best Sandbox Game: Just Cause 2

While Red Dead may have stolen the sandbox spotlight this year, there was another sandbox game that I was enjoying much more immensely. RDR pretty much has everything JC2 doesn't: A compelling story, great characters and good voice acting, and an authentic theme and environment, but after playing 10 to 20 hours into RDR, I'll take JC2 any day. JC2 drops you, literally, onto a huge island with every type of terrain you can think of and every resource available to blow it up (unlimited grappling hooks and parachutes included). When I play a sandbox game I don't want to be bogged down by herding cattle, long horse rides into the sunset, and carnivorous cougars. I want to jump out of an airplane, skydive down a waterfall, and hijack an enemy boat dammit! JC2 does that and so much more.

Best RPG: Fallout: New Vegas

Yes, Mass Effect 2 is an RPG. Supposedly. I personally enjoyed micromanaging in ME and, while it I enjoyed the sequel immensely; it got rid of a lot of the things that I look for when I want to play an RPG. That’s why New Vegas gets my vote. Aside from using the same graphics engine and having nasty game ending bugs, it really is an improvement over Fallout 3 in nearly every way. The characters are more memorable, it’s got some cool new weapons and environments, it’s got hardcore mode (which is a bitch fyi), a better party managing system, more balanced perks and skills, and what really impressed me: a deceptively deep conversation system. Bioware may have the conversation system down, but the way that New Vegas subtly blends your conversation choices with your gameplay actions and the factions you align yourself with to change the very course of the entire game is remarkable. It got to the point where I was completely focused on increasing my Speech, Barter, Medicine, and all other non combat related skills just to try and see what new conversation paths I could unlock.

Best Fighting Game: Blazblue Continuum Shift and Super Street Fighter IV?

These are really the only two fighting games released this year and they’re both pretty unimpressive. They’re both just directors cut editions of games that came out two years ago so it’s hard to justify either to be the best fighting game of the year even tho they were the only ones released. SSFIV definitely outshines BBCC in the new features and characters department but BB really progressed the storyline, which I enjoyed a lot. So…I say it’s a tie of mediocrity between the two. Now it’s just up to Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Mortal Kombat to duke it out next year.

Best XBLA game: Pacman Championship Edition DX

This game rocks, simple as that. I never played the original PCE when it came out a couple years ago so I can’t attest to any changes made, but this game on its own is just fantastic. It really gives off a Geometry Wars vibe when you first play it. Not just because of the neon asthetic or bumpin trance trax, but because its main mode plays out just like GWRE2’s main mode. Rack up as many points as you can in 5 minutes, just pacman style. The big twists are that the game, like GEW, speeds up the more points you rack up and that the screen can literally fill with ghosts chasing you; not just the five or so that were in the original. And I must say, nabbing a power pellet, turning around, and chowing down on a chain of ghosts that stretches the width of the level is easily one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in gaming this year.

Best Adapted Game: Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

Easily the best Anime game I’ve ever played. It’s gorgeous, has some great battle system changes, and a surprisingly well abridged story. The combat is simple making online an unbalanced hell and the online itself is extremely bare bones, but it’s obvious the developers really put their all into making this a really great game. There’s more fan service here than in most anime games combined. As a fan do I have my complaints? Sure. I wish the Sasuke vs Deidara fight was an actual boss fight and I wished they actually had a Tenchi Bridge stage, but these are minor in comparison to everything they did do. As far as licensed games go, this is the best one I’ve seen in a while.

Best Multiplayer: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

While you’re long term enjoyment of this game’s multiplayer may vary, the initial uniqueness and “wow this actually works as a multiplayer game” are enough to warrant this pick.

Best New Character: Bayonetta

Love her or hate her, this character is packed with personality, has a suit made of hair, and shoots guns with her feet. So, what’s not to like?

Best Story: Mass Effect

I love me a classic, and ME2’s story is classic space science fiction at its best. The hook? You know the final mission. Everything you do leading up to that mission will ultimately decide who lives, who dies, and if you actually survive what happens beyond the omega 4 relay. Classic.

Best Graphics: Red Dead Redemption

The character models may leave something to be desired in my opinion, but the art direction is consistent, the characters animate very well, and the landscape is fantastically rendered. Crossing the border is a thing of beauty.

Best Soundtrack: Super Mario Galaxy 2

When I heard the main theme for the first time, I felt like I was walking into the Magic Kingdom at Disneyland and after I had listened to all the tracks in the game I realized that this game has it all musically: sweeping tracks, catchy new tunes, and nostalgia filled remixes.

Best New IP: Platinum Games

Instead of picking a single new series to be released (because there really weren’t many this year), I’m putting out a developer. Platinum Games delivered two games this year that were both original and exhilarating. Bayonetta was a trippy, chaotic romp through the world of witches, angels, and demons and Vanquish was both fast paced and challenging. Both of these games take steps in the right direction: Originality. These games are instantly accessible to anyone who has played games like Devil May Cry or Gears of War but soon show that they are much more than a re-skinning, featuring gameplay hooks that keep the player engaged all the way through. Sure they need to work on their story telling and character development, but that really didn't hinder my enjoyment of these games whatsoever. Cooky, creative, often over-looked games like these are what I look for and I’m excited to see what the next strange concoction Platinum Games brings to the table. I just hope they don’t end up going the way of Clover. Clover, you are sorely missed.

Game of the Year: Mass Effect 2

This is an easy one for me. Put simply, I got more enjoyment out of this game than any other game I played this year. And I really got a ton of bang for my buck. I bought it used this summer, sat down and played it through in one sitting. How? I’m not sure. Why? Because the story and environments of this game drew me in completely. Plus it’s had my favorite DLC content this year to keep me occupied afterward.

Most Anticipated Game of 2011: Marvel vs Capcom 3. Honorable Mention: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

When I saw the initial trailer last April, I’m pretty sure I wet myself. It’s been ten years since MvC 2 and that’s ten years too long. I grew up playing all of the vs. series in the arcades and while MvC 2 finally brought them all together in a 3 on 3 orgy, it’s actually the game I’ve played the least. I wasn’t privilledged enough to frequent the arcades a lot and didn’t own it when it came out for DC, PS2, Xbox, and even though I bought the XBLA version last summer, it was filled with people who were privilledged enough to have played it for the last ten years. It’s safe to say I’ve won less than ten matches online. So I’m excited to have a game that’s not just a conglomeration, but an actual built from scratch MvC with tons of new content. Not only am I excited for the roster, but I’m excited for the fact that I won’t just be playing with people who know the game backwards, forwards, and inside out on day one.
Truth be told there are tons of new games coming out this year: Uncharted 3, Arkham City, Gears 3, Portal 2, Skyrim, Mortal Kombat 9, etc. But, for anyone who’s ever seen any of my posts on any forum, they’ll know what I’ve been waiting for the longest. And it’s almost here. A very honorable runner up is Skyrim. I’ve been playing and modding Oblivion for way too long. And, while the VGA announcement made my jaw drop, It’s really only been two weeks. Ask me in April what I’m excited for, and it’ll no doubt be Skyrim.

Best XBOX 360 Game: Nothing interesting on the console this year

Best PS3 Game: I can't think of anything great that came out on the PS3 this year either. I'll just use Gran Turismo 5 as a placeholder, I guess (I haven't played it yet)

Best Wii Game: Monster Hunter Tri

Best DS Game: 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Best PSP Game: Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (Peace Walker is a close second). I think any attention BBS has received (like winning the Best PSP Game at the Spike VGAs) is unwarranted. The gameplay I felt was pretty marred by the constant dodging and the story was the usual poop we've been getting since KH2.

Best PC Game: Bad Company 2 (not exclusive, but it's all I could think of!)

Red Dead Redemption has my vote to be the Game of the Year. Hopefully in the future, this game gets a PC version released as well. ;_;

The best suprise game of the year award goes to: Darksiders.

Seriously, best game I have played in a LONG while. Fun and challenging puzzles, partially open exploration. Amazing graphics (from an artistic point of view) and brilliant voice acting. Vigil has done a pretty awesome job with their debut game.

Fighting game fan here.

Although I know it won't win, Blazblue CS is far superior to Super Street Fighter IV, yes, they're improvements over their previous titles but isn't that what EVERY fighting game sequel does, add new characters, modes and a few mechanics about the fighting system? Atleast ones that don't completely change the fighting game system.

What matters is if they're good improvements, now I can't speak much for SSFIV because I never owned the original SFIV but CS is a massive improvement over CT which was already a great game.

I prefer Blazblue over street fighter because I feel street fighter is too slow paced and it just isn't as fun, just seems that in order to win you need to have a good projectile and a good anti air and there you go. I gave online an honest go and all I saw was a bunch of terrible Ryus and Kens, not fun to fight at all.


CS deserves to win but Street Fighter will because it's been around longer and has more fanboys.

Best PC Game: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Best PSP Game: Persona 3 Portable

Best Wii Game: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Best PS3 Game: There weren't any games that blew me away this year, but I'll give it to Heavy Rain, because it was definitely interesting. Honorable mention goes to Bayonetta, which you should definitely try if you have any interest whatsoever in the genre.

Best RPG: This was a pathetic year for RPG's. Two major pretenders to the name and two others that are barely functional. I haven't played Fable 3 nor do I intend to do so, so I don't know about that. Pass on this category. I'd give it to Persona 3 Portable, but it wasn't exactly a 2010 game.

Best PS3 Game: Atelier Rorona

Best PSP Game: Valkyria Chronicles II

Best DS Game: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Honorable mention for Etrian Odyssey III, which is loads of fun.

Best Xbox360 Game: Deadly Premonition.

Sneaking in the last few months of the year, this is a cheaply made game, which looks pretty awful and has some fairly woeful controls. And Yet, its easily the most engrossing and enjoyable game I've played all year. And that's because it has real heart, characters you care about, great humour, terrible sadness, fantastic story, the game has all the boxes that matter well and truly ticked.

Best PS3 Game: Heavy Rain or Alpha Protocol.
Both are more 'Least Worst Games' to be honest. The PS3 (like everything else really) has had a really bad year. I liked them just enough to be content with putting them here, but they certainly weren't anywhere near as good as I was hoping.



And that's really all I can say, other than that I felt this year has been tremendously disappointing. Pretty much all the big guns have failed to impress, and there's nothing I'm that psyched up for in the coming year either. Dragon Age 2, perhaps?

Companies just seem to have forgotten how to make interesting games.

Vrykolas: I have high hopes for Deus Ex: Human Revolution to be honest, even though I'm well aware it's probably going to be hideous. I don't know why you're the least bit excited about DA2, though. To me, it looks like it's going to be to Origins what Mass Effect 2 was to Mass Effect 1, that is to say a big step in the totally wrong direction. Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong in March.

Look, I know that you're probably right with your comments about Dragon Age 2, Smarty.

But give me a break here! It's literally the only thing that I'm even sort of looking forward to, so if I allow myself to accept even the possibility that DA2 will be as miserably poor (not to mention chronically overrated) a sequel as Mass Effect 2 was to the superb Mass Effect 1...

It just doesn't bear thinking about.

To that end, I am studiously avoiding any and all material about DA2, humming very loudly whenever anyone talks about it, and just generally praying it's a good game.

There's lots of things to be excited about in 2011:
Batman: Arkham City
Battlefield 3
Catherine
Crysis 2
Diablo 3
Elder Scrolls V
L.A. Noire
Mass Effect 3 (hopefully the game has more of a main story than ME2)
Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Portal 2
The Last Guardian (and Ico & Shadow of the Colossus: The Collection, since I've never played either game)
Uncharted 3
Zelda: Skyward Sword
The 3DS

I'm interested in most of these games and a fair few are going to be must-plays for me. I'm probably going to skip Diablo 3 and MvC3 since... I don't like Diablo or fighting games at all. I didn't mention any of the MMOs coming out next year either, which some people may be interested in.

There's probably a lot of Japanese and handheld games I haven't mentioned either (like Dissidia Duodecim, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, The Third Birthday...).

Discounting the fact that I'm not looking forward to any of those games (aside from Catherine - I'd forgotten about that), the vast majority of the games you just mentioned are sequels, and that is a large part of the problem, IMO.

No matter how amazing a sequel is, it's still just something we've seen before, but done a bit better. It doesn't however have that same freshness, that same thrill as something genuinely new. And many times, a sequel will either simply be more of the same, pointlessly cashing in on its original's success (Gears of War 2, Bioshock 2 anyone?) or will actually be worse.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was really, really great, but does it really need a sequel? 10-1 it will be basically the same game, with a few new game mechanics that don't really add all that much.

If its even half as exciting as Arkham Asylum, I'll eat my cape.

I like games that have fun gameplay. The wow factor of being 100% new and fresh isn't all that important to me.

Just as an example, I've put over 150 hours into Monster Hunter Portable 3rd despite having invested about as much into MH Tri and maybe 20 hours into MH Freedom Unite. It's pretty much just MH Tri with lots of extra content and refinements made to the gameplay. It's probably the most fun I've had with a game since... MH Tri (which was the most fun I'd had with a game in a long time).

I definitely liked BBCF more than SSFIV as well

I really, really liked Fallout: New Vegas. It was the first RPG in years that actually felt like a role playing game, as opposed to just a strategy/shooter/adventure/whatever game with role playing elements. I was also surprised at how good Mass Effect 2 was considering the first one was kind of terrible. Minecraft consumed my life for about 2 months until I made my giant tower of doom and didn't really know where to go from there. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Sam & Max Season 3 also made for some "good not great" entertainment.

Overall though, most of the high profile games this year didn't really interest me. I was interested in Red Dead Redemption but so far there has been no word on a PC port, and the console version hasn't significantly dropped in price. Next year looks like it's going to be a lot better though, and probably the best year for WRPGs in a long, long time.

@Vrykolas: Sequelitis is a big problem with the industry right now, I agree, but in my personal opinion as long as it's still fun to play and makes steps forward in game design and mechanics then I'm perfectly fine with sequels. I mean (aside from this year) look at Final Fantasy. I don't think there's anything wrong with having more of a good thing as long as it keeps getting better.

Mass Effect 2 didn't just try to woo it's established fans, it took big steps forward (or backwards depending). At least towards trying something different from it's predecessor. I didn't like a lot of the changes, but it really refined everything I loved about the first game to the point where I just accepted the changes and ended up loving it.

As for DA2, I didn't get around to playing DA this year, but as far as I'm concerned, I've never played a bad Bioware game. So we'll have to see how it does.

There's lots of things to be excited about in 2011:
Batman: Arkham City
Battlefield 3
Catherine
Crysis 2
Diablo 3
Elder Scrolls V
L.A. Noire
Mass Effect 3 (hopefully the game has more of a main story than ME2)
Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Portal 2
The Last Guardian (and Ico & Shadow of the Colossus: The Collection, since I've never played either game)
Uncharted 3
Zelda: Skyward Sword
The 3DS
Zelda: Ocarina of Time port to 3DS
Dissidia Duodecim

I'm interested in most of these games and a fair few are going to be must-plays for me. I'm probably going to skip Diablo 3 and MvC3 since... I don't like Diablo or fighting games at all. I didn't mention any of the MMOs coming out next year either, which some people may be interested in.

There's probably a lot of Japanese and handheld games I haven't mentioned either (like Dissidia Duodecim, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, The Third Birthday...).

Of those you listed, I highlighted the ones I'm personally excited for. Those not highlighted, I probably know nothing about. Plus I added a couple ;)

Of those you listed, I highlighted the ones I'm personally excited for. Those not highlighted, I probably know nothing about. Plus I added a couple ;)

How can you not know about Diablo 3...

Anyway, Catherine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Fuf4RCRmQ). Enjoy.

Diablo 3 apparently fixes some things about the Classes & the Skills, that were my main complains towards D2.
But Diablo 3 has an Horrible Engine :S. Plus Matt Uelmen is not composing the music & the Original Design Team went towards Torchlight.
I'm telling you this is going to be a completely different experience, I wonder if Blizzard will still keep the Diablo air or is it just going to be another Warcraft-oriented game.
Those are my main fears towards Diablo 3.

EDIT: The 3rd Birthday looks like RE4, but more quick & fun gameplay, with the oportunity to play with Aya again, fans of the butchered franchise on this aspect will be pleased.
But as a P.E game, looks horrendous...

I agree that sequels can have a place if they have some reason to exist other than the developer has thought 'Great, we've got a hit - guess we know what we'll be doing for the next 10 years...' Plus games like Final Fantasy are a special case really, seeing as how they never play the same, and don't use the same characters or worlds.

But high profile examples like the Metroid Prime series or the Halo series show how depressing sequels can be. Classic original game, generally inferior sequels. Games that added new gameplay quirks here and there, but were never anywhere near as great as the original experience.

And this is how Mass Effect is going. This isn't the place to discuss ME 2's many failings again. So the long story short is that the game failed me on a story level (the main plot doesn't advance at all, and is like a lengthly slice of episodic content), and a gameplay level (no customisation, just 'buy the better upgrade and its always in effect' and seen it all before Gears gunplay).

Anyone who has hope for the final installment must be using blind faith rather than sound judgement (much as I am with DA2), because final installments of games, final installments of movies, final seasons of pretty much any sci-fi TV show etc are always, always the worst!

But hey, if people are looking forward to these games, then good luck to them. This is something where I'll be more than happy to be proved wrong.

EDIT: The 3rd Birthday looks like RE4, but more quick & fun gameplay, with the oportunity to play with Aya again, fans of the butchered franchise on this aspect will be pleased.
But as a P.E game, looks horrendous...
It apparently is a pretty awful PE game.