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What was your favorite game that year? 2011 edition. (56k)

Sorry, in a year that loaded I can't choose just one. In no particular order:

- Rayman Origins. GOAT 2D platformer, my absolute favorite even above all 2D Mario games. Absolutely charming. Amazing soundtrack, beautiful visuals, and the tightest 2D platforming you'll ever enjoy.

- Batman: Arkham City. Whether it's beat em up, stealth, or navigation, this game does everything well. Also became one of my favorite games of all time.

- Uncharted 3: at first the shooting feels a bit "off" from the second game, but once you're done with the adjustment period, this game is absolutely fantastic. Very fun gameplay and colorful and exotic locales ("Atlantis of the Sands" hell yea!).

- Resident Evil 4 HD. Come on man, it's RE4. Any year that game releases on any platform, it's going to go way up my preference list. It's only the greatest game ever made :)

- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Historical tourism at its best. Combines Renaissance attitudes with a lot of classical antiquity (Colosseum, yum). The smoothest, most streamlined and most pleasant gameplay of any Assassin's Creed game yet. Amazing story; it's hard to make a bad story when the Borgias are the antagonists. Jesper Kyd comes in slaying with the soundtrack yet again.

I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two.

These threads are fantastic. I hope they also serve to remind people that whined "oh this is the worst year in gaming!" that for the past several years, gaming has been only getting better :)
 
Dark Souls is a perfect video game and though I wouldn't be able to enjoy it until almost 5 years later, I'm glad I eventually overcame my stupid frustration the first time I touched it because man, that game is just great.

Catherine is probably my next pick, as a huge Persona and SMT fan, this game is a huge breath of fresh air while still keeping a lot of story telling elements I enjoy about both series.

Also 3rd Strike Online Edition would see a ton of play from me until I got Fightcade a few years after it dropped.
 

WITHE1982

Member
Would have probably gone with ME2 but given the original release was 2010 It'll have to be:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

The Witcher 2 in as a close second, but as I didn't actually play it until 2013 then DE:HR wins it for me.
 

keviny

Member
OMG, what a year!

1. Dark Souls
2. Xenoblade Chronicles
3. Skyward Sword
4. Rayman Origins
5. Radiant Historia
6. Super Mario 3D Land
7. Mariokart 7
 
I bought the following. The bolded are the notable ones.

Bastion (360, PC)
Battlefield 3 (PS3, 360, PC)
Bulletstorm (PS3, 360, PC)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3, 360, PC)
Catherine (PS3, 360)
Crysis (PS3, 360)
Crysis 2 (PS3, 360, PC)
Dark Souls (PS3, 360)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3, 360, PC)
DiRT 3 (PS3, 360, PC)
Dragon Age II (PS3, 360, PC)
FIFA Soccer 12 (PS3, 360)
Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Edition (PSP)
Forza Motorsport 4 (360)
Gears of War 3 (360)
God of War Origins Collection (PS3)
inFamous 2 (PS3)
Killzone 3 (PS3)
L.A. Noire (PS3, 360)
LIMBO (PS3, PC)
Madden NFL 12 (PS3, 360)
Mass Effect 2 (PS3)
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (PS3, 360)
Minecraft (PC)
NBA Jam: On Fire Edition (PS3, 360)
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD (PS3)
Outland (PS3, 360)
Pokemon Black/White Version (DS)
Portal 2 (PS3, 360, PC)
Prince of Persia Classic Trilogy HD (PS3)
Professor Layton and the Last Specter (DS)
Resident Evil 4 HD (PS3, 360)
Resistance 3 (PS3)
Saints Row: The Third (PS3, 360, PC)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked (3DS)
Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PS3)
Terraria (PC)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3, 360, PC)
The ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection (PS3)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC)
Total War: Shogun 2 (PC)
To the Moon (PC)
Trine 2 (PS3, 360, PC)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS3)
Where is My Heart? (PSP)
World of Tanks (PC)
Yakuza 4 (PS3)
 
Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection. I still go back and play it regularly. Peace Walker HD made the collection for me as it felt like a brand new experience despite my extensive time with its handheld counterpart the year prior. MGS2 is in a tie for my favorite game of all time so there's no need to go into how elated I was with its reemergence. MGS3 is probably my least favorite MGS but the improvements made to the game were noteworthy, leading to me spending more time with the new release than the original, excluding Metal Gear Online (1). Catherine came out of nowhere (no "Coming Winter 2014" nonsense, they pretty much released it right after they announced it) and took my heart. Its story and unique puzzle gameplay brings me back to this day. I'm still going for the last couple of endings. I played it through a few times when it came out, and go back to it once or twice a year for a playthrough. Dark Souls is something I was a bit more familiar with having played a bit of Demon's Souls and watching my friend play the predecessor to completion. It didn't click for me right away, but since its arrival on PC, Dark Souls has become a top-5 series ...despite my lack of enthusiasm for Dark Souls II. Mass Effect 2 was something I had played a bit of originally on Xbox 360. I didn't get into it at first, due to how much it differed from the original game. However, seeing the tweaks made to the sequel, including the addition of DLC, I went for the PS3 version (mostly because I was moving further and further away from the Xbox ecosystem at that point anyway) and it did not disappoint. The DLC provided some of the best moments in the series. The Asari Vangard fight was basically a Dragon Ball Z battle with a Mass Effect skin so that alone was worth it. Overall, a very memorable year for gaming and one that extended my years of gaming. Funny that 2011 did something similar for you as well OP.
 
Mass Effect 2 by a long shot, but thought it was a 2010 title.

Skyrim in 2011 I remember. Played it a bunch on release.

Didnt play Dark Souls til 2013. It's my favorite game of that year now.
 
My favourite game there was probably the PS3 port of Crysis. Even though I know it has nothing on the PC original, it was still a superb game and my second favourite FPS ever. What a year 2011 was though.

Resistance 3, and it's not even close. One of the greatest shooters of all time, and possibly the most underrated game ever as well.

Totally agree; Resistance 3 was excellent. Such a shame that when Insomniac really seemed to find their groove with the series it ended, and sold like absolute shit just to ensure there would never be a sequel.

Renegade Ops
Game was so much fun. But it also tells me that 2011 had little games of interest to me.

Renegade Ops was fantastic - a real shame there was no sequel. I loved the DLC too.
 
Mass Effect 2 by a long shot, but thought it was a 2010 title.

Skyrim in 2011 I remember. Played it a bunch on release.

Didnt play Dark Souls til 2013. It's my favorite game of that year now.

Came out in 2011 for the PS3. It was 2010 if you owned a PC or 360. Some games are going to be like that in the series.
 

Eblo

Member
Lot of good games that year, but I feel obligated to give the honor to its resident Zelda game, Skyward Sword.
 

noomi

Member
Oh man, too many good ones to pick.

For me though, the cream of the crop.

- Dead Space 2 (actually playing though it now on PC)
- Gears of War 3
- Battlefield 3
- Batman Arkham City
 

Mexen

Member
DE:HR

I love the game but hate how its shortened form always reminds me of the Human Resources department.

I would play a stealth based office metanarrative tale with choice and consequence.
 
2011? My #1 has to be LittleBigPlanet 2

littlebigplanet2_coverart.jpg
 

Arminsc

Member
Wow 3 of my favourite games of all time came out that year:
Dark Souls
Portal 2
and I'll count int RE4HD since I never played the original version.

Amazing year!
 

Freeman76

Member
Cant pick one, there were way too many great games that year, and im not just gonna list 5 or 10 that I liked as its fucking pointless lol
 

JBourne

maybe tomorrow it rains
Dead Space 2 by a huge margin. It was a great year for games, but Dead Space 2 was very close to perfect in my eyes.
 
1. Ocarina of Time 3D
2. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition
3. Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Edition
4. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition
5. Super Street Fighter IV 3D

Except for the handheld titles OoT 3D and FF4 (incl. The After Years) I only played Street Fighter at that time.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
I didnt play Dark Souls until later on Pc so it has to be a toss up between Skyrim and Witcher 2
 

Memento

Member
Another amazing year.

My GOTY at the time was Portal 2. But I played Dark Souls 1 later, and that is one of my favorite games of all times, so...

Special mentions: Batman Arkham City, Zelda Skyward Sword, UC3
 

Mohasus

Member
Dirt 3.

But Catherine, Disgaea 4, LBP2, Saints Row 3 and Zelda OoT 3D were pretty good too.

These threads are fantastic. I hope they also serve to remind people that whined "oh this is the worst year in gaming!" that for the past several years, gaming has been only getting better :)

When you compare 2016 to 2011 there is no way you can say it is getting better.
 
Easily LittleBigPlanet 2, one of my favorite games of all time.
Amazing year, inFamous 2 and Uncharted 3 would probably come after LBP2.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Muchi muchi Pork & Pink Sweets
Dark Souls
Mario 3D Land
Catherine
Sonic Generations
Akai Katana
Limbo

For me!

Edit: if I had to choose one I'd go Dark Souls since it's my game of last gen with Galaxy and TLOU. Tho I really got into DS with the PTD Edition later on pc (based Durante!).
 

daveo42

Banned
Probably Portal 2. I realize there were only a handful of games I actually have played from 2011. Probably because SWTOR came and I poured a ton of time into the game around release.
 
Portal 2. An absolute masterpiece in both gameplay and writing.

Runners-up:
Dark Souls
Deux Ex: Human Revolution
Batman: Arkham City
Super Mario 3D Land
 
Pretty bad year for games, for me in retrospect. I wasn't into the Souls games or Batman games, so I'd say:

1. Skyrim
2. NCAA Football 12
3. Portal 2
4. Rayman Origins

I'd end up liking a lot of those games on the list later, like LIMBO, and liking Skyrim and Portal 2 less as time went on, though in the year of 2011, I would have put those two up near the top. I've always loved the NCAA Football series and always will. Portal 2 was a game that I realized while actively playing the game, "this is a step back from Portal 1..." but still thought it was very well polished. I thought that Skyrim was a transcendent masterpiece in the year 2011, it wouldn't come for several months later that I'd develop a more jaded opinion of the game. I think that most enthusiast's opinion of Skyrim follows this. In the first 30 or 40 hours of that game, it feels expansively excellent for many people, and then as time goes on, it feels unfulfilling. Mind you, at the time of Skyrim's release, Dark Souls had not become a phenomenon yet... It had a following from Demons Souls, but not the pop-culture following it would get in subsequent years. And Skyrim's gameplay (combat) wouldn't be thought of as being so bland, by the masses, until Dark Souls gameplay (combat) caught on as a phenomenon.

Biggest disappointment of 2011:

1. LA Noire

Rockstar open-world crime caper set in the golden age of Hollywood? I'm in, and I was hyped to the moon. Even though I knew it was from Team Bondi and Rockstar was more or less "Saving" it to get it out, I was still immensely hyped. It ended up as one of my biggest disappointments of that entire generation, and I think a legitimately bad game.

Assassins Creed Revelations was also a disappointment that year for me. I felt like it was the first step back for Assassins Creed series. The series had steadily improved with AC1 to 2, and Brotherhood (IMO) was the best overall, though I remember AC2 most fondly. Revelations was the first Assassins Creed I played where I thought "Yeah, this game is way too formulaic and it's just not that good..." And it spoiled the series for me. I haven't thoroughly played an Assassins Creed game since Revelations. I liked Black Flag enough but didn't really get into it, and the others have just been meh to me.
 
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