Favourite Games of 2010

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by TheGodBen, Dec 20, 2010.

  1. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The TV and Media forum already has a thread about favourite films of 2010 and, since games can be mathematically proven to be a superior art form to films, I reckon we should have a thread about our favourite games. They don't have to be in order, just list what games you enjoyed this year and maybe the games you didn't enjoy too. Sadly, my list is fairly predictable:


    1) Mass Effect 2: A fantastic universe, epic scale, engrossing characters, greatly improved combat and a final mission that will leave you on the edge of your seat right until the very end. The story was a bit clumsy and the planet scanning was boring (especially before the update), but the rest of it was so good that I can overlook those faults. Roll on 2011 and ME3!

    2) Red Dead Redemption: RDR is a superb sandbox game. The story is good, the level of detail is astounding, and sometimes you really feel like a gun-slinger in the Old West. I really loved the ending, I felt it was perfect. The game was so good that I, someone that has always hated westerns, am considering watching some. :eek:

    3) Just Cause 2: On completely the opposite end of the games-as-art scale, JC2 was insane fun. To say that it had the plot of a brainless action movie would be an insult to brainless action movies. It's silly, crazy, over-the-top, explosion-filled madness, which is fine by me. :techman:

    4) Civilization 5: Perhaps the game I was most excited for at the start of the year, it's a pity that Civ5 isn't on the top of the list, but the bugs present on release hold it back. Overall, I feel it's an improvement on the Civ formula and I really enjoy the hex-shaped tiles and city states. With an expansion or two, this game could be as deep as Civ4 and its expansions.

    5) Europa Universalis III Heir to the Throne: Okay, so technically this came out last year, but I didn't play it until this year. :p The most complicated game I've ever played got even more complicated, but for the first time ever in a game of EU3, I managed to survive until the end of the game as the most powerful nation. Good times.

    Honourable mention goes to Minecraft. The only reason that it's not at the number 1 spot is that it's technically not finished yet, and in the year that it is finally completed it will have the number 1 spot. Even if Jesus came back to Earth as a game programmer and created the most amazing game ever, it still wouldn't beat Minecraft. ;)

    My most disappointing game was Crackdown 2. It's not a bad game, I even enjoyed it to some extent, but it was little more than an expansion of the original Crackdown. Crackdown was a surprisingly fun game, but for some reason the sequel chose to go the zombie route and lost many of the things that made the original game fun. Luckily, I only paid €10 for it when buying a new Xbox because it wasn't worth much more than that.


    (I should note that I haven't played Assassin's Creed Brotherhood yet and if I did then it would probably be on my list. I loved AC2, and since ACB is supposed to be very similar I imagine I'll enjoy it just as much.)
     
  2. PsychoPere

    PsychoPere Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 25, 2002
    I haven't played many games so it's pretty easy to come up with a list.

    In rough order, because 1 and 2 could swap positions pretty easily depending on my mood of the day:


    1. Mass Effect 2
    2. Red Dead Redemption
    3. Alan Wake
    4. Halo: Reach
    5. Fable III
    6. Splinter Cell: Conviction
    I'm pretty sure that I'll be receiving Mafia II for Xmas, and I bought but have not yet started Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
     
  3. Sheep

    Sheep Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Jul 22, 2001
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    Chicago
    1. Red Dead Redemption
    2. Mass Effect 2
    3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
    4. Enslaved
    5. Bayonetta (a game I haven't had time to finish)

    Numbers 1 and 2 were really hard to pick. As much as I loved ME2, RDR simply redefined wild west games and is actually the first sandbox game I've ever finished, loving every moment of it.
     
  4. Jax

    Jax Admiral Admiral

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    The Universe.
    1. Mass Effect 2
    2. Heavy Rain
    3. Splinter Cell: Conviction

    Not played many new releases of 2010 and not impressed enhough with rest to give them a favourite listing.
     
  5. stalin2005

    stalin2005 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Dec 8, 2001
    Location:
    Amsterdam
    For now, as I've only got 3 games that were published this year:

    1. Mass Effect 2; currently on playthrough 4 and still enjoying it.
    2. Alpha Protocol; takes the conversation wheel from ME one step further.
    3. Alan Wake; good atmosphere and the flashlight mechanic was enjoyable.

    Still playing Limbo and planning to get Pacman Championship Edition DX, so the list can change before the end of the year.
     
  6. Spider

    Spider Dirty Old Man Premium Member

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    Lost in time
    The only new game I bought this year was Civ V, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. Lot's of folks say it's not a finished product, but it plays fine for me. I've lost a ton of my life to Civ V since it came out, and that pretty much says it all for me.
     
  7. Servo

    Servo Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Nov 13, 2003
    Location:
    Manchester, England
    Heavy Rain
    Aliens vs Predator
    Halo: Reach
    Fallout: New Vegas
    Call of Duty: Black Ops
    Medal of Honor
    Limbo
    Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

    I reckon Red Dead Redemption will end up on that list too, but I haven't got round to playing it yet. The DC Universe Online beta is swallowing all my time.
     
  8. Evil Twin

    Evil Twin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
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    PC only gamer here and didn't buy a whole lot this year but...

    Mass Effect 2
    Assassin's Creed 2 (didn't come out on PC til this year)
    Fallout: New Vegas (I FINALLY figured out how to play Caravan over the weekend :lol:)
     
  9. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    This is the first year I actually bought games new.

    1) Mass Effect 2: perfect sequel!
    2) Fable 3: not as good as 2 but still fun
    3) Crackdown 2: very disappointing but still fun to play
    4) Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: worthy sequel
    5) Bioshock 2: good to play but the story isn't as good
    6) Fallout New Vegas: didn't like it as much as FO3
    7) Star Wars Force Unleashed 2: started super fun, ending was so frustrating, super short
    8) Final Fantasy 13: EXTREMELY disappointing. really did not like the gameplay, did not care about the story.
     
  10. Jono

    Jono Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I didn't buy many new games, most of the games I bought this year were older titles such as, Uncharted 1&2, Force Unleashed, Bad Company, Modern Warfare 2. I can only see five games that can out this year that I've bought, this year.

    1. Mass Effect 2 - Fun and a great game, made me want the next in the series.
    2. Dragon Age Awakenings - Both both in the middle of the year and enjoyed playing them. Throw in the DLCs and I feel that my character has had a good conclusions.
    4. Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising - I enjoyed the main game and not much changed with the expansion. The chaos metre was a fun addition and the story was better as well.
    3. Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull - I've been a big fan of the MCF series since Huntsville and it is great to see it develop into a game that could carry a story over various games and keep improving. This game added interactive characters, which do more to bring the story to life.
    5. Command & Conquer 4 - This is not the worst game I've ever played but my disappointment in it made it feel like it was. It was an average RTS but a terrible C&C game. What made it a bad C&C Tiberium game were the following: Gameplay, story, visual style, lackluster cutscenes, DRM. It was a very sour note to end Kane's story on and it might have killed that franchise for me. So it is my worst game of 2010 pick.
     
  11. Canadave

    Canadave Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm a PC gamer with an old 'n busted computer, so I don't tend to play a lot of new stuff, so I guess Minecraft wins by default. :lol:

    TGB, glad to see another EU fan 'round here. What nation were you playing as, out of curiosity? If it was a big power, I'd recommend trying to turn a small country into a major empire for your next challenge. Milan is a good one to try, I find, especially around 1470 (or whenever it happens to start with Genora and Corsica as part of its territory). Just make sure you strike against France as early as possible, and you can go pretty far.
     
  12. clint g

    clint g Admiral Admiral

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    Mass Effect 2 is the definite winner for me. There are some other games that came out this year that I found to be decent but over all this was a down year for games as far as I am concerned.
     
  13. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The Big Blue Blob! ;) After all those defeats in my previous attempts, I decided to play as France as they're almost destined to become a major power. By the end of the game I dominated Europe with my vassals, the only power that could threaten me was Portugal, but I had forced them out of Europe and over to the Americas where they controlled central America and the southern US. About 20 years prior to the game ending they declared war on me, but I managed to destroy their army and liberate about half their empire. T'was a good game. :cool:

    I have tried playing as one of the Irish provinces in an attempt to unite the island and push the English out of Meath, but either the other provinces gang up on me or the English wipe me out in less than a century. In the last game when I was playing as France, England got into terrible trouble in America and lost focus on Ireland, so the Irish rose up and took control of the whole island without needing my interference. I was quite pleased by that... until I realised that they were Protestant and hated my Catholic guts. How horribly ironic. :(
     
  14. T.Geiger

    T.Geiger Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Location:
    Indianapolis, IN, USA
    If you want something as dystopic as RDR, you should probably check out Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

    Personally, my favorite has always been and always will be Tombstone (1993). Its fairly dark, but it is ultimately a mythic hero piece.

    Back on topic, while I like both games, Mass Effect 2 easily tops Red Dead Redemption because of RDR's incredibly weak story. But ME2 was not without its faults, and in a better year would be lucky to be within sight of the top. While the game is slickly presented, almost nothing else about it makes it feel like a GOTY.

    Red Dead Redemption continues the tradition of blandness that Rockstar seemed to stumble into sometime between San Andreas and GTA4. As a sandbox world, RDR is probably the best yet. Being an 'explorer' type, this kept me very interested throughout the course of the game. But the game falls so short in so many other areas, notably in story and mission types. Rockstar use to be an automatic buy, but they are quickly rocketing down the list.

    I liked Bioshock 2 a lot. There were more than a few things that suggested 'cheap cash in', but I felt the struggle between Lamb and Eleanor was significantly more compelling than the background of the first game. And it didn't have extra stages stacked inbetween the twist and the end that quickly wore out its welcome.

    And now the bad...

    Final Fantasy XIII was terrible. Japanese developers think westerners suddenly don't like their games anymore because they've developed a distaste for Japanese things. I've got news: "Its because, as of late, you guys are only producing shit." Give us something as wondrous, engrossing, and fun as Final Fantasy IV or Chrono Trigger and we'll still show up in droves. Or give us something with the sheer spectacle of Final Fantasy VII, and we'll pay hand over fist. Give us both at same time and we'll go back to importing anime at $40 a disc and eating Pocky. Anyway, I think I'm done with Square Enix.

    Castlevania: Lords of Shadow wasn't an awful game, but it made a lot of poor design choices and did not have a lot of fun. Dante's Inferno was significantly better, even if it had distractingly large flopping Satan privates.

    Dead Rising 2 was nothing but tedium. The only positive changes from the first game were hotfixes for the most significant complaints. It was otherwise almost exactly the same, with a lot of aggravation added. I played it a night and a half before I decided to trade it in. And I loved the first game.

    I think all the other games I spent considerable time on this year came out last year or earlier, so I'll skip them.

    Just got a PS3 (primarily for the BluRay), so I'm going back to buy the four exclusive games I'm interested in. Any new games in 2011 won't be getting my attention anytime soon.
     
  15. BigFoot

    BigFoot Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2001
    Location:
    Slovenia (EU)
    Mass Effect 2 (PC)
    Heavy Rain (PS3)
    Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
    Red Dead Redemption (PS3)
    Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (PS3)
    Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
    NHL 11 (PS3)
     
  16. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    While I loved Mass Effect 2, I thought the first game had a MUCH better story. ME2 basically didn't really have a story but a series of disconnected character vignettes. The shocking twist wasn't nearly as cool as the shocking twist in the first game. The villain wasn't as interested as the first one. The premise wasn't as good. I think the story is the one thing they did drop the ball on.

    I also missed unlimited ammo though :p
     
  17. Canadave

    Canadave Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Playing France can definitely be fun. I'm currently in the midst of an ACGEEP campaign as France in EU 2, and I must admit I get a little drunk with power when I realize that my sliders are set at max quality, and yet I can still maintain a bigger land force than anyone else in the world. Mwahahahaha!

    I do a similar thing with Scotland (my ancestory is Scottish). I'm always cheering them on and hoping they survive the English onslaught. I usually try to help them out, too, as a strong Scotland is one of the best ways to keep England from becoming a true superpower.

    ... man, do I ever get Machiavellian when playing EU! :lol:
     
  18. SG-17

    SG-17 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2008
    1. Red Dead Redemption
    2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
    3. Just Cause 2
    4. God of War III
    5. Civilization V
     
  19. Lookingglassman

    Lookingglassman Admiral Admiral

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    Location:
    America
    Apache Air Assault
     
  20. LightningStorm

    LightningStorm The Borg King Commodore

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    Location:
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    Halo: Reach and Fable III in that order.

    I also 100% agree with this:

    It was a huge disappointment, but fortunately it did maintain enough of the original that it was fun enough to make me not feel completely ripped off.