Tag Archives: GOTY

Best of 2012, Games, GOTY, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

Best of 2012 #8: Hitman: Absolution

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Hitman: AbsolutionFor its failures as a Hitman game, Absolution still tickled me as a stealth game. Splinter Cell – one of my favourite franchises of last generation – has made a habit of disappointing fans with ill-advised re-imaginings, Metal Gear hasn’t been about the stealth for a while now, and the late 90s fad for the genre had faded, leaving stealth fans as high and dry as hardcore Hitman fans must be now.

I wouldn’t class myself as one of them, having only played the superb Blood Money, so perhaps I was detached enough to enjoy Absolution for what it was rather than what I wanted it to be. It nailed the compulsive pursuit or perfection that I loved from classic Splinter Cell and threw in a handful – but only a handful – of the murder puzzles of previous Hitman games.

Credit is deserved as well for going against the disappointing trend of six-hour single-player campaigns with no replay value. Over 20 hours first time through is practically unheard of these days, and this genuinely does boast multiple solutions that are worth experiencing for the wealth of Easter eggs and humorous conversations to overhear. And you don’t even have to pay for DLC to get it all. Bravo, IO.

Even so, let’s have a proper Hitman game next time, though, eh?

Best of 2012, Games, GOTY, Nintendo, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

Best of 2012 #9: Darksiders II

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Darksiders III hold up the Darksiders series as an example of the kind of game we don’t get any more. Both the games are solid, fun, polished B-tier adventures loaded with content of the sort that was ten-a-penny a generation or two ago, but the way the middle ground of developers has fallen out with increasing budgets required for a project of this size means it doesn’t happen any more.

Sadly, Darksiders II may end up going down as an example of why this is a dying breed. Unrealistic sales required to turn a profit coupled with THQ’s precarious finances will likely put paid to future instalments. A shame. But at least we have an Assassin’s Creed game every year to scratch that adventuring itch, right? Hey, come back!

Putting aside my opinion that a healthy industry needs more games like this, Darksiders II was a great game. Derivative, yes – it’s Zelda with Prince of Persia’s platforming and a loot system, essentially – but polished. It’s not as good as the original, though. I went through them back to back, and in that circumstance it’s glaring how the tight, focused adventure of Darksiders gave way to a stretched, bloated quest; the first world of Darksiders II is packed with things to do, and subsequent ones become increasingly sparse as you get the impression that the realities of having to populate a world this big caught up with the realities of Vigil’s ambitions and budget.

And then you hit Earth: one of the most ill-advised changes of tack in gaming history that would have been annoying even if it had been competently designed.

But this feature is about games I liked, damn it, so I need to stop being so negative. I really did like Darksiders II, despite the impression that the last couple of paragraphs might have given you, and it will be tragic if this is another planned series that got me invested before leaving me high and dry after only two. God, I’m having flashbacks.

Best of 2012, Games, GOTY, PC games

Best of 2012 #10: FTL: Faster Than Light

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FTL: Faster Than LightWhatever you might think about it, Kickstarter was arguably the biggest thing to happen to gaming in 2012. The big guns are moving in and seemingly doing their best to ensure that it’s a short-lived revolution, but for a while there publishing seemed democratised as interesting concepts that wouldn’t have had a hope at finding a traditional publisher enjoyed millions in funding. Adventure capitalism, I’m going to call it.

Thanks to some laughably optimistic schedules, few of the promised Kickstarter-funded games are here yet, and I hope that my best of 2013 will be filled with the wealth of point-and-click adventures and old-school RPGs that coaxed money from my PayPal account. One made it, though, and it was good.

FTL has become my favourite skiving game. It’s frequently running in a window behind a few browsers and Word documents, the way it can be paused indefinitely and still allow you to dish out commands perfect for a few stolen moments here and there. I’ve had crews named after friends and family; coworkers; the crews of the Enterprise, Serenity, the Millennium Falcon, the Pillar of Autumn; sports teams. Swear words too. They’ve all died horrible deaths, at the hands of the enemy or a solar flare, and the most successful are remembered, but the grief passes and I come back for more as soon as I come up with another interesting naming system.

The ability to keep playing without any real time commitment has a way of keeping games in my rotation for months, and so it has proven here. While FTL will be ineligible for my Best of 2013 list, then, that’s not to say it won’t remain a regular on my computers until then. Fingers crossed that it won’t be the only appearance of a crowdfunded project in one of these lists either.

Silliest name since DmC: Devil May Cry, mind.

Best of 2012, Games, iOS, Nintendo, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

Best of 2012

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This really hasn’t been a good year for gaming. Not completely without merit, as I’ve discussed, but to call it barren would be an understatement, and what we got was often the safe, boring blockbusters that herald the closing months of a console generation. An artificially extended generation spreads them that much more thin, like butter spread over too much bread. Sorry, I’ve got Tolkien on the brain.

As always, to be included the games must have been played by me for the first time and released somewhere in calendar 2012. A few regrettable omissions that I’m yet to play, including Journey, Borderlands 2, Dishonored and Max Payne 3, but such gaps can be filled by some fantastic indie games that might not otherwise get a look in. Those games aren’t going to be lacking for GOTY awards.

Check out my lists from previous years while you’re here. I stand by them.

Best of 2011, Games, GOTY, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

Best of 2011 #1: Battlefield 3

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Battlefield 3Yes, really.

A good multiplayer game has the ability to hook me like nothing else, and Battlefield 3 really, really is. In terms of days it’s already my most-played 360 game in terms of days, and even though I’m not nearly done with it, I’ve still clocked more than 86 hours at the time of writing. That’s almost unheard of for me, and the only thing I can think of that come close is the 120 hours spent one wonderful summer on Return to Castle Wolfenstein’s multiplayer. Another class-based multiplayer FPS? Funny, that.

Fair enough if you think the campaign is mediocre at best, because it is. A couple of highlights aside, it’s not even as good as Bad Company 2’s offering; the most uninteresting kind of generic hoo-ah Black Hawk Down nonsense. But I still don’t care; it’s a Battlefield game, and as such it’s kind of a new thing to even have a single-player campaign. Don’t bother if that’s what you want most in a game because you will be disappointed, and you’ll be going into this game for the wrong reasons.

I’m now conscious that I’ve put more criticism into the game at the top of the list than any other here, so allow me to gush a bit.

There are more polished multiplayer games, there are more popular ones, but none is better at the epic feeling of taking part in a real battle than this. Playing the attacking team on Tehran Highway, cresting that first hill in a convoy of tanks, APCs, jeeps and infantry as the defenders try to repel you, missiles launching in the background. Fighting your way up the hill in Seine Crossing towards the M-COM stations, taking it in turns to draw defending fire as your team pushes forward before putting a rocket into the building where the enemy snipers are holed up. Sneaking up behind the tank that’s giving your team some grief to stick some C4 to it. Perfectly judging the drop of a bullet through your ballistic scope to put a bullet into someone’s head from half a kilometre away. The fact that this kind of thing happens on a nightly basis keeps me coming back and will likely continue to.

The beauty of these kinds of lists is that they’re personal, and the position of Battlefield 3 reflects how, no matter how much I value great writing, classic characters and innovative game design, the fundamental reason to play games is to have fun. Plenty of other games did that this year, but none did it better than this.

Best of 2011, Games, GOTY, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

Best of 2011 #2: Batman: Arkham City

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Batman: Arkham CityRocksteady threatened to do it with Arkham Asylum, and now it’s done it. Not top my list, sadly, but show everyone that it was a real developer to watch. The first game was brilliant in how completely it shattered the notion that you can’t make a good Batman game, which makes how utterly Arkham City tops it all the more impressive, proving that Rocksteady is a real talent and not a one-hit wonder.

All the usual cliches about letting you ‘be’ Batman hold true, this time with everything that makes open-world games so appealing to me. As well as piles of things to do and find, the clear love for the subject matter is brilliantly evident. What also struck me is the bravery with such popular material, Rocksteady not at all seeming intimidated when the times comes to kill off characters – yeah, comic book death and all that – and putting what is clearly a lot of effort into villains who casual fans might not even know of. It even managed to reference just about every Batman incarnation, from the 1960s series to The Animated Series and more modern cinematic adaptations, all the while creating its own distinct version of the mythos.

Pulling off the next in the series will be the real test, though. Batman: Gotham City? Whatever it ends up being runs the risk of diluting what Arkham City did so well by the possible inclusion of things like the Batmobile in its attempts to one-up this masterpiece. But if nothing else, Rocksteady has earned a bit of faith in its abilities. I can’t wait.