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Hardcore Gaming 101's Games of the Year

cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Brought to you in part by yours truly, and the rest of HG101 Staff.

Have an enjoy.

(Link temporarily under renovation, pardon the dust.)


We decided that each of our illustrious staff would each pick a handful of games they really loved, and we'd call them HG101s GOTY s. Contrary to what you may expect, the list will not be full of stuff you've probably never heard of. The mainstream is getting quite bit of love here, so we can kiss our indie street cred goodbye!

Each of us decided on three games(at most), and one 'pre 2011' game that we didn't play until now for whatever reason.

For you people skimming the images-

THESE ARE SORTED BY STAFF MEMBER PICKS, THIS IS NOT AN OVERALL LIST.

Without further ado:

Bobinator

Rayman Origins
rayman.jpg

If Donkey Kong Country Returns had come out this year, it would have been on here, but that's not to knock this game in the slighest. While at first I was a little skeptical at first, since I figured that a 4-platformer would be mostly easy and linear, I've been pleasantly surprised by this game. It's amazing to look at, the game is always throwing new challenges at you.
Click to expand...

Runners-Up
Mortal Kombat, Hyper Princess Pitch (PC, Indie - http://www.remar.se/daniel/pitch.php)
[MK]
While the franchise has had some... well, serious ups and downs, this has been pretty much my favorite fighting game this year, if not this entire generation. The story mode was fantastic, there's quite a bit of depth for how easy to learn it is, and compared to the bright art styles of games like BlazBlue or Street Fighter, the blood's a nice change of pace, as excessive as it is. Still can't understand how Freddy Krueger made it in, but oh well.


[HPP]
Sure, it's not a retail game, but I've had so much fun playing this game that I pretty much HAVE to include it on here. It's fast, fun to play, and gets straight ot the action without slowing down at all. The counter system is a tad finicky, but it's just a great game to pick up and play over and over and OVER again. Plus, Mecha Santa is quite possibly one of my favorite boss fights of this year.
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Honorable Mention: Sonic Generations



cj iwakura

Catherine (PS3)
Catherine_Cover_Art.png

Atlus artistry at its finest. Hashino and co better be making Persona 5 one hell of a game to top this.
Intense and fast-paced gameplay, intriguing story, wild cast, like nothing else I've ever played.
Great for competition, too.
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Runners-Up
Dark Souls(PS3), Hard Corps: Uprising (PS3)
From Software are my #2. I'm glad they do more than dark fantasy, but with games like this, I somehow don't want them to. When I tire of the single player, I just sit around and go to war with others in the Duke's Archives, or PRAISE THE SUN by helping bros out at Anor Londo. This is a purely timeless experience.

Hard Corps: Uprising gets better every time I play it. It's not just a badass Contra game, it's a badass game, period.
If you play it alone, if you play it with friends, if you do it with guns, or with a Strider-curved katana, this is pure old-school hardcore bliss. Bonus points for that Ishiwatari metal, and the best damn boss theme in years.
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Honorable Mentions:
Alice: Madness Returns(PS3), Yakuza 4(PS3), Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective(DS), Corpse Party(PSP)

Pre-2011 GOTY: Super Meat Boy (PC)
This game made me want to break something. Yet like any good game, when I accomplished, it felt great, and made me want more. SMB is a massive block of sadistic joy.
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Worst game of 2011: The Cursed Crusade (PS3)
Atlus, Atlus, Atlus. If you want the western cash, that's fine. Don't go after it by licensing utter shovelware crap.
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Derboo

Gray Matter (PC)
Gray_Matter_cover.jpg

Asking for a truly great game, maybe even the adventure of the decade, would not be too much, though. Although more driven through its fascinating plot and vivid writing than any genius puzzles, Gray Matter is nonetheless above par among its contemporaries in either discipline. At any rate, while there have been quite a few adventure games with decent puzzles over the last couple of years, what the genre was really starving for was a new excellently written game, and that's exactly what is delivered here. Everyone who's into adventure games for that is in for a real treat, finally.
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Runners-Up:
Shinobi 3D(3DS), Akane The Kunoichi (XBLA)

Pre-2011 GOTY:
Portal: Still Alive
I've dodged this for a long time, not despite the endless praise of its story and design, but because of it. I've become rather jaded towards presumably minimalistic and clever stories, cause in video games they more often than not turn out simply pretentious. But wow, this one for once is really, really clever and excellently told, not through exhibition but the uneasy design of the environment and "dialogue" that doesn't have any right to feel as convincing and sympathetic as it does, given the context. The puzzle design is just perfect, for as long as it is mostly about concepts rather than exact physical parameters (some of the seperate challenge rooms in the Still Alive edition really get annoying in that regard) and puts any Zelda dungeon to the deepest shame.
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Discoalucard

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus_Ex_Human_Revolution_cover.jpg

Parts of it feel stripped down, and I found it curious that it exhibits stuff that people criticized Invisible War for lacking but gave this one a pass, but it's one of the rare games that I can play for like five hours straight without having felt that I've wasted my time.
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Runner-Up:
Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)



Onyx

In No Particular Order
Dragon Age II, Radiant Historia, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Saints Row the Third, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Mortal Kombat 9


Snarboo

The Binding of Isaac (PC)
220px-The_Binding_of_Isaac_screenshot.png

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Isaac is what I imagine the roguelike might have been like had it started in the arcades. Isaac can best be described as a mash up of Zelda's dungeon crawling and Smash TV's twin stick controls, with the randomized dungeons and permadeath of a roguelike. It's also a game about child abuse that manages to be fun, which is no small feat. As such, it's not a game for everyone, especially if you despise Newgrounds' style humor. I wasn't sure I could put up with the game's frankly depressing aesthetic for very long, either, but I stuck with it long enough to put 68 hours into it. As such, it's grown to be my favorite indie game of the year, which is a testament to its compelling gameplay.
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Runners-Up:
E.V.E. - Divine Cybermancy, Jamestown
[E.V.E.]
Based on a homegrown table top RPG that the creators played together, E.Y.E is that very special kind of weird that only the French or Japanese could produce. Expect references and mechanics liberally lifted from games and media such as Doom, Warhammer 40K, Deus Ex, Shadowrun, Blade Runner, X-Com and Ghost in the Shell. One minute, you might be brain jacking enemies to turn them against their allies, the next you might be fighting a 30 foot tall cyborg demon. As such, it's a bit of a mess. The mechanics are obtuse and unforgiving, the level design massive and labyrinthine, and the story convoluted and poorly translated. Despite these major shortcomings, I still had a lot of fun trolling its dank, cyberpunk locales. It's not often you see a game this insane in this day and age.


[Jamestown]
Jamestown is a loving homage to the danmaku genre and a return to form. After writing the genre off entirely, I was happy to see a no nonsense bullet hell game without the moe baggage. That said, outside of the theme - a Jules Verne esque take on the early colonization of the new world, with Mars replacing the Americas - it's not particularly innovative. What it does offer are solid shooting mechanics, interesting enemy design, and lots of bullets to weave through as you try and stop the machinations of an evil conquistador with delusions of grandeur. If you're looking for something that recalls the heyday of early Cave shmups, then this is the game for you.
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Pre-2011 GOTY:
Killing Floor
While I am completely and utterly sick of zombie shooters by now, especially after the disappointment that was L4D, there is still one game in the genre I keep returning to: Killing Floor. Maybe it's the huge arsenal of interesting weapons, the large number of well designed maps to play on, or because there is enough variety to the "specimens" to keep things interesting, but whatever the case, Killing Floor is good old fashioned fun no matter how you slice it. What started off as a mod gone pro has slowly grown into a fully featured game that puts many AAA retail titles to shame. Three years after launch, the creators are still adding content to the game, as well as hosting seasonal events to spice things up. Best of all, each new content update is completely free! The only DLC you have to pay for is purely cosmetic, a model I wish more developers would follow.
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Sketcz

Stacking
Stacking-logo.jpg

Wonderful game from Double Fine which restored my faith in the industry. Featuring the excellent premise of men and woman sliding in and out of each other to take control of their bodies and their own unique powers, you need to make small boys vomit cookies, elderly gentlemen break wind and salacious harlots entice away guards in a whimsical faux-Victorian setting. If you aren't charmed by both the gameplay and style, this you have no soul.
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Runners-Up:
Ys I & II Chronicles, From Dust
[YS]Very traditional and very good. Ahh hell, I'm just a sucker for anything Ys.

[FD]Eric Chahi returns from exile to create a wonderous sandbox game involving... literally a giant sandbox, filled with lava, jellied water, trees and little people in loincloths. A mish-mash of various other God-sims, this has both a decent main campaign mode, plus a series of puzzle-like challenges to complete post game. Plus there's a free-form mode where you have literally limitless power.

I also liked LA Noire, a lot, but I reckon others will vote for it so I'll stick to the above. I don't think I even played any free to download indie games this year... Very surprising. Also, others have got Dark Souls and Yakuza 4 listed, so good on you.
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Pre-2011 GOTY:
Pathologic
Discovered February 2011, and despite numerous subsequent games played over the year, this East European survival game from around 2005 proved the most compelling. It's not about having fun, or enjoying tactile play, it's about facing difficult odds and surviving a plague. If you save some others along the way great, but mostly you'll be hiding in rain lashed alleys treating gunshot wounds with bandages and choking down antibiotics to stave off fever, wondering which dustbin you can raid for garbage to sell so you don't die of starvation. Grim, relentless and brutal. it's not about fun, it's about not dying.
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Worst GOTY:
Solatorobo: Red The Hunter
SPOILERS
Great for the first half, after which it loses its mind, does a 180 and turns into Pure Bullshit 101, where the exquisitely crafted aeriel world turns out just to be Earth filled with mutant humans. Oh, and NANOMACHINES. Imagine reading the Lord of the Rings books and about halfway it turns out that Middle Earth is actually scorched earth, magic is reclaimed future technology, and Frodo is short because he's descended from Danny Devito. That's the level of retarded Solatorobo works on.




sotenga

Batman: Arkham City
ArkhamCity.jpg

I've only just recently acquired this, but it's everything I wanted to be and more. I loved Arkham Asylum enough to get every single trophy ever in it, and that's not something I normally do in most modern games. AC's certainly going to take longer to acquire everything, but... hey, it just might be worth it. This game is the most Batman-ish Batman media I've ever beheld, and I'd go so far as to say it's even better than AA, if not just because the bosses are ACTUAL BOSS FIGHTS. Nothing like the dreaded Killer Croc stealth maze from the last game, at least I don't think so. I'm too sidetracked by Riddler sidequests to progress the main story, but I hope to beat it soon!

I also must give honorable mention to Ghost Trick, which I'm increasingly convinced is going to be the last truly original title Capcom will have ever made. Its mechanics are fun and interesting, but as with Shu Takumi's Ace Attorney series, the main draw here are the characters and plot. I regret leaving it off my top three, but only due to its relative lack of content and replay value do I do so. Didn't stop me from replaying it the instant I beat it to catch up on the myriad of foreshadowed plot details that made GT all the more clever.
Click to expand...

Runners-Up:
Mortal Kombat, Yakuza 4

[MK]I was more than surprised to see that the MK revival actually turned out to be an excellent fighter. I had always been an MK fan but often willing to admit that it was never really good in gameplay terms. That's changed with the most surprising comeback I've ever seen in fighter history, and MK is now my current favorite fighter of choice. Bonus points for not only completely re-doing the character of Smoke to make him not just another Scorpion clone, but actually making him my favorite character in the game!

[Y4]This got a LOT of play out of me around the beginning of the year. Adding three new characters to the mix was just the sort of innovation Yakuza needed to stay fresh, and expanding Kamurocho was a keen move as well. I'd declare it the best game in the series over Yakuza 2 if it had better villains and the plot didn't totally fall off the rails, but it's at least the meatiest and most easily accessible game in the series thus far.
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Weasel

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus_Ex_Human_Revolution_cover.jpg


Runners-Up:
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, L.A. Noire

Pre-2011 GOTY
Wolfenstein (2009)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - While yes, there were some rather harebrained decisions on part of the design staff (the outsourced boss fights, the Typhoon becoming an "I Win" button), Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of those games that, while not groundbreaking on its own, represents one of those rare instances in which a team of developers has quite obviously been examining other games and genuinely learned and applied their knowledge of what works and what doesn't. The story and characters are generally well done, with very few of the cast members being 100% "good" or "evil." The entire game centers around conflicts of interest, in a way that is far better realized than any game that dares include a sliding karma scale. Even combat with guns shows more mechanical prowess than other cover-based games. At the risk of sounding too pretentious, I would say that Deus Ex: Human Revolution is not just a great game in its own right, I'd dare add that it is an important game.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - When Shu Takumi announced he was no longer working on Ace Attorney games, fans were understandably worried. But when the first trailer for Ghost Trick hit the Internet from Tokyo Game Show, all doubts were cast aside. Although the interface and presentation are unique, the puzzles you must solve in order to solve your own mystery all follow intuitive rules. Despite the obvious supernatural element, the game never once strays from its rather strict limitations on your ghostly abilities, not even for some last-minute deus ex machina. And then there's those character animations. Despite their relative lack of detail, each individual character sprite sports more personality than the entire cast of Call of Duty: Black Ops. I cannot help but recommend this game to anybody that owns a DS - perhaps I'd even recommend purchasing a DS for this game (and others, naturally).

L.A. Noire - On the other side of the detective genre, we have L.A. Noire, a game with a development process almost more storied than the plot of any Final Fantasy title. It took almost six years for us to get this game, and it really shows. I could rave on about the MotionScan-powered facial animations, the acting, and the storyline, but I'm honestly far more impressed with how convincing Team Bondi's Los Angeles is. Being something of a film noir nut, L.A. Noire's presentation would make or break this game for me, and thankfully, it's spot-on. The game gives me every feeling of putting me in a classic crime drama like Murder, My Sweet or Out of the Past (it even includes a black-and-white filter option), with almost everything authentic to the time period, from the real 1940's car models, to the dark, jazzy music, and every individual person's manner of speech and choice of clothing. Team Bondi obviously did their research and poured over five years of blood, sweat, and tears into sealing what really makes this game stand out.

Slightly Oldie: Wolfenstein (2009) - It might be two years old by now, but Raven Software's 2009 Wolfenstein sequel really deserves gamers' attention. Though some may feel that the use of regenerating health and aiming down ironsights is an obvious attempt to pander to the Call of Duty crowd, I personally feel that the game just came out at the wrong time and got forgotten amid 2009's fall blockbusters like Modern Warfare 2. Wolfenstein really touches on what more realistic World War 2 titles tend to avoid, with the sci-fi-ish new weapons and occult artifacts serving as the game's primary gimmick. While online multiplayer is pretty much a complete bust (since Activision fired the online portion's development team), the singleplayer campaign is every bit worth tracking down a copy, especially with how sharply the game's price has dropped since its release.
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With such an eclectic list, we don't really have an overall GOTY, but the game that got the most love was Deus Ex, so... go Human Revolution, go!

We admittedly did not play a lot of new games this year. It goes with the territory.
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Someone had the balls to pick DA2. I feel like I'm being Sanduskied

not like that, Empire gaf will know what I mean
 
H

harriet the spy

Member
Yakuza 4 being there twice (not at the top, but still) makes me happy!
also, i hate to be that guy.... 'without further ado' not 'adieu' :)
(Adieu means farewell..). damn, you fixed it! :)
you have good taste, OP.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
ctrl f - Portal 2. Error not found. Ejecting topic.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
tim.mbp said:
It would be nice to get a sense of why these games were chosen other than I liked it.
Click to expand...

I can only speak for myself. Some people did leave their thoughts, but others didn't, so I opted to leave them blank.

But since you asked, I'll edit the OP with the thoughts that people left in a few.
 
S

Stackboy

Member
Am I missing something? You just picked games and provided one screen shot for them, no text or anything saying why you picked these games.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
some interesting picks there, honestly. reminds me - gray matter ever going to steam?

and yeah, i too was expecting Dark Souls to rank higher, i saw a runner-up at least.
 
M

Man God

Non-Canon Member
Decent list of dissapointing games overall though I question some of those indie game choices. People really seem to like them so putting them on any sort of worst of list is going to be a bit controversial.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
cartman414 said:
Who is Onyx? A little curious about what he has written for the site.
Click to expand...

I'm honestly not too sure, but I want to say these were his:

90s Sylvester Stallone Special
Battle Clash
Breath of Fire
Drakengard
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Gundam 2D Fighters
Gungrave
ICO / Shadow of the Colossus
Kaleidoscope
Konami Beat-em-ups
The Last Blade
Lucidity
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Michael Jordan in: Chaos in the Windy City
Quintet 'Heaven and Earth Trilogy'
Rogue Galaxy
Schbibinman / Shockman
Sengoku
Sengoku Ace
Willow
Click to expand...

He's been with the site a while.
 
D

Dog Problems

Banned
Interesting to see Gray Matter on there since a lot of sites, including GAF it seemed, put it on their lists for 2010 since it was released (in English) overseas. I put it as my "favorite game from 2010" in the current GAF game of the year thread but I think I'm going to go put it on my top ten list.
 
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