Fallout:New Vegas: My favorite of the bethsoft games running that engine, I hate The Elder Scrolls series leveling system, while it's logical and somewhat innovative, it's tedious as hell. Fallout 3 had had a better setting, it was also...green...New Vegas had better characters as well as an updated play system, but I still want to see the Lone Wanderer fight the Leigon.
The Secret of Monkey Island 2:LeChuck's Revenge, Special Edition While the first Monkey Island SE was a labor of love and started a trend for HD remakes of classic games, SMI2 fine tuned the dual-run engine and turned a labor of love into a work of art. SMI:SE was clunky, at least on consoles, and the voice acting could only be heard in HD mode.
Deus Ex:Human Revolution. This. Game. Is. Awesome. You can go in guns-blazing killing everyone, sneak around like a ghost, stalk and incapacitate your prey or any mix of the above. With hidden passages everywhere and multiple routes to take you have a fun framework for an amazing story. While the original Deus Ex took every kooky conspiracy theory keyword ever, threw it into a random mad lib generator and used that to spit out a script, Human Revolution's story is more focused and thought provoking. It's pretty interesting sci-fi as well.
The Walking Dead. Speaking of great stories, this is one of the best I've ever seen in a game. It is disappointing though, the game tells you that the decisions you make effect the characters around you, yet none of your choices matter in the end. And it's a shame, so many potential changes in plot direction are crushed by the game's almost painful linearity, but the story more than makes up for these shortcomings.
Halo:Reach. If I have to pick a FPS for this list, Reach would be it. While the COD Modern Warfare series has a good story and more memorable characters (than Reach anyway), the games are safe. There's no innovation between games. At least Reach tried to go in a different direction from the rest of the series, and for the most part it worked. The story is a change of pace from the previous 4 entries in the Halo series. While Halo 1-3 focused more a message of hope (and cyborg/AI love) and ODST tried to have more of an investigative and open tone, Reach was an unabashed, old school tragedy. The Spartan 3's are doomed from the beginning. The game adds some new gameplay elements such as armor abilities, vehicle and zero-g sections and a signifigant tweak to gameplay balance. What was new was fun.
