My Top Five Games of 2011
I don’t want to get too hyperbolic here, as I feel like this next statement could be seen as potentially “controversial”, but after a lot of internal debate and soul-searching I’ve realized that 2011 was the year that saved video games. For myself, at least. This may have just been the first tentative steps of adulthood breaking through this warm coat of arrested development I’ve knit for myself, but the last couple of years and especially 2010 started to sour me on the entire video gaming experience. I mean, last year could have been largely defined as “more of the same”; so much came out that was either a painfully derivative sequel (see Crackdown 2), buggy to the point of near-broken (sorry, Fallout New Vegas), or just chock-full of motion gaming garbage that looked and felt less like video gaming than it was an attempt by publishers to chase the Wii casual-market dragon. There were a couple of gems in 2010, to be sure (Mass Effect 2, Bayonetta, and Super Meat Boy quickly come to mind), but it felt like a year of high promises eventually being proven empty. So I walked into 2011 with less than stellar expectations.
I guess there was some magic still left in video gaming though, because I ended up having a blast this year. Though like most years 2011 was indeed the year of the sequel, it was a year with continuing series managing to get things done right. Batman Arkham City, Saints Row the Third, and the triumphant return of Mortal Kombat were all games that, though at their core had been seen before, were just done exceptionally well. This was the first year where I can honestly say all the games that I was excited about actually managed not to hit and even exceed my expectations. And though I’m still a complete cynical curmudgeon when it comes to motion gaming of any sort, the release of titles like Child of Eden and Gunstringer showed that the Kinect may actually kind of possibly have a slight potential chance of maybe one day sort of being acceptable in my mind. And lets not forget The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword came out and finally proved that the Wii Motion Plus may have actually been a good idea for Nintendo. I had a lot of fun gaming this year, more fun than most years prior, and it’s made me actually optimistic about the future of gaming.
And now, without further ado, here is a list of the five games, with of course my attached reasoning/argument/rambling as to why they’re my favourites of 2011. Please be advised this is by no means a conclusive, exhaustive list. I have a disgusting pile of games next to my television I’ve yet to play this year, including a couple (see Skyward Sword and Saints Row the Third) that I have a sneaking suspicion may have made a bid for this list. If your favourite title isn’t up here, and you feel like I have committed a cardinal sin, then I’m sorry? (Note: I’m not really sorry)
5. Dead Space 2 (Xbox 360)
I adore this entire series. With Resident Evil having gone away from horror to the more popcorn-action thriller genre I think that Dead Space 2 is the last one holding up the blockbuster horror style of gaming. I love the atmosphere of this game, the claustrophobic concept of “horror in space” that chills my spine in a way few horror tropes can. Walking through the decayed husk of the Ishimura, hearing soft foot-falls and ambient noises off in the distance, constantly looking behind me to make sure nothing unpleasant has followed me, these are all moments of pure horror gaming bliss.
Plus the gentlemen over at Visceral Studios have done a great job of crafting a world and a backstory that I find myself getting completely involved in. Case in point, this is one of the few times where I’ll actually admit on record I’ve seen the Dead Space animated films, and even read one of the damn Dead Space novelizations. It wasn’t great. Actually, scratch that; it was pretty fucking bad, but that didn’t matter to me, as I just wanted to know more about the world of Dead Space.
All of this wouldn’t mean a damn thing though if the combat couldn’t pass muster, however, which is something you need not worry about. This game has officially written and closed the book on how people for the next couple years need to do third-person shooters. The guns feel powerful and accurate, with even your starting weapons working so satisfyingly well that you’ll likely find yourself using them the entire way through. Plus shooting the limb of an alienified-monsterman stimulates the most intimate pleasure centre of my brain. So that’s also quite nice.
4. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
I thought it couldn’t be done. I had made my peace with the idea that there was never going to be another Deus Ex, or at least another Deus Ex that felt true to the series. The PC RPG style of having dozens of skills all controlled and manipulated by a myriad of numbers which affect your character’s abilities in profound ways seemed like a game system that had gone the way of the lens flare (I know Deus Ex 2 does exist, and I guess since it does have the name Deus Ex in the title I should consider it a part of the series, but I prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist so should you).
But then earlier this year Eidos Montreal dropped a damn bomb on it and showed the world that you can take the old-style mechanics of early 2000 computer games and infuse them with modern-day gameplay styles. The wondrous mechanical man that is Adam Jensen was in many ways fully customizable, and allowed you to go through the world and scenarios in numerous different ways, all of which could be tailored to your play-style. I know that last sentence can be boiled down to the “You don’t have to kill everyone ‘cause stealth” bullet point that every open-world video game has on the back of the damn box, but I felt like I truly had agency over how I wanted my game to go. It also wasn’t exactly a true open world, but if you took a couple steps back and squinted real hard it looked a lot like one, while still managing to retain the action and feel of a good first-person shooter, which is a feature few open games can actually put on the back of their box.
The story of Human Revolution as well was something that truly spoke to me; placing the world in a William Gibson-esque Neuromancer cyberverse, and giving this incredibly difficult moral issue (the use or potential abuse of cybernetic implants changing the evolution of humanity, and their socio-economic consequences) some real weight was something you never see in video games these days. This game precipitated a number of hour long shouting matches between my friends and I discussing the pros and cons of cybernetic enhancement and it’s role in society, which I don’t think is something that can be said about Call of Duty.
3. Shadows of the Damned
If you’ve never heard of this game, then as much as I no longer like you I do understand. Released in the summer to an almost aggressive level of indifference, this EA Partners release with two of the biggest contemporary names in Japanese game development (Shinji Mikami of Resident Evil fame, and Suda51 of every fever-dreamed video game made in the last five years) spearheading the development was criminally ignored. When this game had originally been revealed there was some decent hype behind it, as the idea of “Resident Evil but (more) insane” seemed like one a lot of people could get behind, especially for those hungering for some Japanese-styled crazy. Then the months crawled along, the game got delayed and reportedly scrapped to be re-made from the ground-up, EA went dark on the title, and it was finally released without even a modicum of marketing behind it earlier this summer. I think the last NPD sale count was something in the low thousands.
Which is a damn shame, because this game was my most pleasant surprise of 2011. I bought it at a reduced price (which I’m guessing is probably the case for Shadows worldwide at this point), and didn’t expect more than something to play while I waited for Deus Ex to be released. But the pitch-perfect combat, the dark and beautiful environments, and the out-of-its-fucking-mind writing and dialogue won me over in minutes. You play Garcia “Fucking” Hotspur, a demon hunter who alongside his poshly-British-accented flying skull compatriot (who naturally can turn into a number of guns as well as a damn motorcycle) have to go and save your girlfriend from the forces of Hell, mostly by shooting over the shoulder a variety of gross zombies and demons. Though considering the developers heading Shadows I suppose this was to be expected (Suda51, though my favourite Japanese developer working today, may actually be crazy), but it really did feel like someone had put Resident Evil 4 in one hand, No More Heroes in the other, and then just smashed them together as hard as they possibly could. As a concept it really worked. It isn’t without some problems, a couple scenarios are more frustrating than fun, and if dirty, borderline-eye-rolling humour isn’t your thing than Shadows of the Damned may not be for you. But, damn, it certainly was for me.
2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
This game. This goddamn game, people. This game.
I remember there was a point where I was having a discussion with someone about Skyrim, and I’d told him at the time I’d dropped roughly 40 hours into it (that number has now nearly doubled, by the way), and he in shock asked me what exactly I’d done in all that time.
My answer? Nothing, really. I hadn’t started the main quest, and had barely done any faction quests. I’d just traveled the world, helped out with people’s random problems, raided some tombs, and apparently had forty hours go by in the process.
Skyrim isn’t even really a game in my mind anymore. It’s a world, that I don’t so much manipulate and control as I do just inhabit. My Breton spellsword is just another member of this nation. I feel like this is what I dreamed video games would maybe one day be when I was a starry-eyed kid imagining where the future of my addiction hobby would go, until I became too cynical to think it would ever come to fruition. And in a world where games these days are five hour interactive movies, where the term “roller coaster ride” is a printed blurb on the back of a box, it is nice to know that the core concepts of games of old, like exploration, adventure, and whimsy, can still lead to a game that sets the industry on fire.
I’m aware that I’m talking in overly grandiose terms, but this has been the only game I’ve played since it went into my 360. I likely need to stop soon, because I’ve only got about a month before new games start coming out again and I never find the time to ever play Zelda or Assassin’s Creed, but I don’t care at this point. I am the Dragonborn, and I’m not gonna quit until everyone else in Skyrim damn-well knows it.
1. Portal 2
It likely seems weird that I’m not putting Skyrim in first after the amount of adoration I just gave it, but I can’t not give my favourite game of 2011 to Portal 2. It’s just the best game I’ve played in recent memory. There isn’t a single thing wrong with it. It’s perfect. Everyone else can go home because Steam won video games with this one.
Where do I even begin with Portal 2…how about the fact that it is easily the funniest video game I’ve ever played? Or that the puzzles are so well-designed that you will always, always manage to find the solution to the problems, yet still feel like a mixture of Einstein and Jesus every time you solve one? Or that the story manages to take the tight and restrained ideas of the original and expand them in an organic and completely understandable way, yet successfully “raise the stakes” of the world, and further illuminate the universe that Aperture Science inhabits.
Also Cave Johnson. My goddamn Man of the Year.
From the music to the atmosphere to the characters to the puzzle to the story to the co-op to anything else you could possibly want from a game, Portal 2 does it perfectly. It’s my 2011 Game of the Year. Hands down.
