Jens’ Top 10 Games of 2011
Choosing ten favorite games this year seemed as difficult as choosing a favorite child or a favorite Beatles album. There simply were far, far too many superb games released this year to comfortably limit oneself to a mere ten. After much deliberation and back and forth, this is what I came up with:
1.) Saints Row: The Third
Saints Row: The Third is as much a spoof of the open world crime genre as it is the logical culmination of what Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas started: a sprawling sandbox with little to no basis in reality, full of surreal scenarios and absurd activities. With this game, Volition and THQ celebrate ludicrous, over-the-top fun and variety in ways I have never before seen. Whether you’re engaged in a lengthy firefight while in free-fall or in a chase involving horse buggies pulled by gimps, there’s always something new and outrageous right around the corner. Humor is particularly difficult to pull off in a video game, but Saints Row: The Third frequently made me laugh out loud with its razor-sharp writing and the spot-on comic delivery of its cast. Also, as with Saints Row 2, you again have the option to share this crazy experience with a partner in co-op mode, and that is more fun than I can possibly describe in words.
2.) Portal 2
When Valve announced they were developing a sequel to the critically acclaimed Portal, I was skeptical. It is unarguably a difficult game to improve on: a concise, self-contained first-person puzzler with unique yet easily understood game mechanics, wrapped in a narrative so witty, it has spawned countless Internet memes and permanently lodged itself in the popular consciousness. Creating a “bigger and badder” sequel seemed a risky approach for Portal, yet it is precisely what Valve accomplished. Portal 2 features a lengthy story mode that is nonetheless perfectly paced, fleshes out its characters, backstory and world in fascinating ways, and manages to exponentially increase the complexity of its puzzles without causing frustration, introducing fun new tools such as portable light-bridges or gels that make you bounce around like a rubber ball. These tools truly shine in Portal 2’s challenging cooperative campaign, which requires tremendous teamwork, coordination, and lateral thinking. Solving puzzles with a friend, both of us simultaneously experiencing revelatory “Ah-ha!” moments and breaking out into hysterical laughter, is one of my favorite gaming memories of 2011.
3.) Star Wars: The Old Republic
Before Star Wars: The Old Republic came along, I’d never gotten hooked on an MMO. I didn’t use to understand MMO addiction, yet in the single week of early access I’ve had to the game, I’ve already put more time into it than any other this year. While it is mechanically similar to other best-of-breed MMOs, what sets The Old Republic apart is its storytelling. BioWare has done a terrific job integrating character development and moral decisions with a solid MMO framework. When you’re playing an instance with a group, everyone gets to participate in the cutscenes, and as a result it feels more like traditional pen-and-paper role-playing. Much of the story content can also be completed solo. Thus, when you don’t feel like being social, you can easily play it like a traditional single player game. So far I’ve completed the early game content for the Imperial Agent, the Bounty Hunter and the Smuggler, and each of them have engaging, well-written stories that effectively motivated me to care about the quests I was working on. There’s an impressive amount of highly polished content that I can’t wait to further sink my teeth into.
4.) Catherine
I love anime, dating sims, and puzzle games, but would have never thought to combine them in the unique way the Atlus Persona Team did with Catherine. It has thoughtful things to say about the give and take of relationships, fidelity, personal freedom, and responsibility. The protagonist, Vincent, who struggles with guilt over cheating on his long-time girlfriend Katherine with the younger, more frivolous Catherine, is extremely relatable to me. I was gripped by the grander story of a malevolent force making unfaithful men suffer through nightmares of pushing and climbing blocks to escape a terrible fate. Catherine’s cinematics are a joy to behold and a powerful motivator to keep playing, but I found the block puzzles during the nightmare sequences to be equally satisfying. They are challenging without being frustrating and allow for multiple paths and solutions, often dependent on which special blocks one collects or purchases along the way. A few of the later boss stages are so intense, they made me sweat profusely and sigh heavily with relief when I finally finished them. It’s refreshing to see a game that dares to be this original and that tackles an adult subject matter with such aplomb.
5.) Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The thing I adore most about Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the freedom it gives you to role-play your character exactly the way you want, not merely through a few key plot decisions, like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but almost purely through the gameplay itself. Every problem has a multitude of solutions. Let’s say, for instance, that you need to break into a secure facility. If you’ve upgraded your cybernetic arms, you can lift a vending machine and sneak in through the vent behind if. If you’ve upgraded your hacking skills, you can hack the security officer’s personal computer to retrieve an access code. Alternately, you may want to forego stealth entirely and bust through one of the facility’s walls like the Kool-Aid man. You can play as a heartless brute, or you can play it the way I did – as an empathetic, nonviolent transhumanitarian who also happens to be a super-efficient ninja. The game doesn’t judge you based on your actions, assigning good or bad karma points, but instead bluntly presents the consequences for you to live with. Oh, and I should also mention that the story is classic Cyberpunk, the art style stunning, and the action explosive.
6.) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
With Skyrim, Bethesda have surpassed themselves. It is their most impressive effort since the massive Daggerfall: a rich, detailed world stuffed to the brim with exciting discoveries. A single quest line in Skyrim may take you longer to finish than most games, even if you don’t get distracted by the random side quests, encounters, and dungeons you’ll come across along the way. I have wiled away many hours merely exploring the stunningly beautiful world of Skyrim without making any manner of story progress, but what I’ve seen of the main story and guild quests so far has been universally excellent. Political intrigue and morally ambiguous player choices abound, and those choices have a direct and visible effect on the world. It would be a close-to- perfect roleplaying game (and near the top of this list) if it weren’t for the fact that it appears to actively resist my attempts to play it, with frequent scripting bugs and crashes. The PC version I’m playing is now relatively stable, but the PS3 version I initially tried is still completely unplayable due to memory issues and controller lag, with no fix in sight. Once Skyrim has been sufficiently patched, it may be counted among the giants of its genre. Until then, it remains a flawed masterpiece.
7.) Uncharted 3
With Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog managed to create a cinematic adventure game that is every bit the breathtaking roller-coaster ride its predecessor was. As is their custom, Nathan Drake and his companions globe trot from exotic location to exotic location in search of lost, potentially supernatural treasure. My favorites are a French chateau chock full of inventive head-scratchers, a sinking cruise liner turned pirate ship, and, of course, the fabled “Atlantis of the Sands,” quite possibly the most gorgeously detailed city I’ve ever seen in a video game. Unfortunately, Uncharted 3 still exhibits the same problems the series has always suffered from, namely fidgety controls, too much hand-holding and an over-reliance on shootouts. Though Drake claims to only take up arms reluctantly, he again murders an entire country’s worth of henchmen, which is not only patently absurd but feels as vastly out of character for him as it did in the last game. I personally would prefer a stronger focus on puzzle-solving and environmental traversal. Complaints aside, though, Uncharted 3 is still an absolute feast for the eyes and ears.
8.) Warhammer 40000: Space Marine
Here is a sadly overlooked gem. At first glance, Space Marine may look like just another generic third-person shooter, but that could not be further from the truth. If you have any nostalgia at all for the Warhammer universe, with its power-armored Space Romans and cockney Orks, this game’s fabulous production values and pitch-perfect recreation of the sets and figurines is sure to give you warm and fuzzy feelings, taking you back to many a night of painting and playing. Even if Warhammer means nothing to you at all, you still owe it to yourself to experience Space Marine’s superb, varied combat mechanics. Like the similarly underrated Vanquish last year, Space Marine’s combat is all about forward momentum. While it’s sometimes to your advantage to take cover, it is significantly more satisfying to barrel forward and replenish your health by wearing enemies down, stunning them, and brutally finishing them off, always alternating between ranged and close quarters combat. Also fantabulous: riding a jet pack high into the air, only to slam back down into a large group of Orks, briefly incapacitating the lot of them, and then triggering one finishing move after another. SHPAYCE MUHREEN.
9.) Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Ghost Trick is one of the most original and inventive adventure games I’ve played in a long time, with a unique puzzle mechanic that is perfectly contextualized in the plot. You are Sissel, a recent murder victim who realizes he can save others from suffering the same fate by traveling precisely four minutes into the past and possessing inanimate objects to foil assassins hired by an elusive criminal organization. Sissel’s spirit has a limited range, so the puzzles become as much about reaching the next object he must manipulate as they become about figuring out what the final outcome of the scenario needs to be. Thus, the scenarios soon turn into elaborate Rube Goldberg machines that are tremendously fun to figure out. The puzzles are only half of what makes this such a damn fine adventure game, however: as with Shu Takumi’s previous series Phoenix Wright, Ghost Trick tells a compelling mystery story, with a memorable cast of characters (most lovable of all: the Pomeranian “Missile”) and uproariously funny writing. This is also one of the prettiest DS games I’ve ever played, with strikingly designed characters, smooth, distinctive animation and lovingly detailed environments.
10.) Dead Space 2
The first Dead Space was a triumph both of encounter design and UI design, a title that felt so polished, balanced and comfortable to control, one would be hard be hard-pressed to improve on it. Nonetheless, Dead Space 2 manages to evolve the concepts introduced in its predecessor in interesting and gratifying ways. The controls are further streamlined and the tools and weapons feel punchier and give more visceral feedback. The Sprawl, the vast space station Dead Space 2 is set on, feels like a real place that was once vibrant and full of life. The game does a terrific job of showing you just what life on the Sprawl was like before it was overrun with Necromorphs, and thoroughly fleshes out the backstory of the Unitologist Church and their worship of the Marker. It also boasts memorable and challenging combat scenarios. An all-around first-rate game.
Honorable Mention: ICO/Shadow of the Colossus Collection
It doesn’t qualify to be on the 2011 list because it is technically an HD remake, but the ICO/Shadow of the Colossus Collection is such afantastic release that I simply had include it somehow, if only for finally making two of the greatest games of all time playable at a framerate that doesn’t make me want to violently strangle myself with piano wire. This is precisely how classic games need to be treated: up-resed to 1080p and running at a smooth 60 frames per second, but otherwise preserved precisely as they were. Both ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are rightfully beloved for communicating resonant stories with almost no dialogue whatsoever, evoking strange and wonderful emotions, making one weep over sins never committed, and mourning tragedies that are not one’s own. If you care at all about games as an art form, you owe it to yourself to play this collection.
Other games I desperately wanted to fit on this list, but couldn’t:
L.A. Noire, Batman: Arkham City, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Rayman: Origins, Sword and Sworcery, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, Bastion, You Don’t Know Jack.
