Best of 2011 – Games

I summed up video gaming in 2010 in one word, disappointment. For 2011 I’ll bump it up to two words, excellent and disappointing. There were a large number of releases I was looking forward to and thankfully the majority of them delivered, though not always as well as I was hoping. As always this list is a composite of things I’ve played in the year in question, not just what was released in the year, it probably doesn’t matter in the long run. As well as the Top 10 list itself I’ve also included an appendix of sorts where I give a line or two (and the first implementation of my new rating system, ooh the excitement) to all the game’s I’ve completed this year (and perhaps the ones I’ve played enough off to be comfortable making a judgement on). Also returning to education, in tandem with commuting, has eaten up a lot of prime game playing time, as such I’m a bit behind with the games I’ve played. I may get some of the backlog finished by the end of the month (currently December 6th). Continue reading…

Games of 2011 Or 50 (more) reasons to avoid your friends and family

I find it hard to get genuinely excited about things any more. I certainly feel anticipation, but excitement? Not so much. Which is a pity as I miss it. I’m not sure why I don’t get excited any more. Perhaps its because so many things turned out to be a let down, perhaps I’ve become overly cynical, perhaps the tragically comprehensive previews of the modern media machine rob everything of mystery, perhaps I’m not quite as chemically tweaked since they stopped making Stinger’s (fuck I’d like a Dan Bar). Even though I don’t get all big in the pants thinking about whats coming I do still generally enjoy weeding through information on whats coming out and deciding what I’m really looking forward to. At this point in the year its hard to say whats going to be coming out for the entirety of 2011. Each week see’s new games released or release dates change. We also wont see very many announcements for the Autumn and Winter releases until the summer. So while I’ve called this “Games of 2011” it would be more accurate to call it “Games of the first half of 2011”. Continue reading…