Guy.com's Best of 2011 (so far)

Children of Eden, huh?  And a baseball game.  Well, I'll bet that's Nick's choice.

 

No Little Big Planet or Infamous or, more importantly, Witcher 2?  Personally, I'd knock Eden the eff off and stick Witcher there.

 

But I guess the list kinda highlights the less than stellar early year as we get ready for the assault of badassery starting in August.

 

 

Have you actually played that game yet?

Why not just go balls deep and do a top 10 list instead? The other thing is who is the author behind the list; for perspective's sake? Chud lists have this - you get a sense of each writers tastes and preferences. Giving identity to the crew behind them.

Baseball isn't my thing, but guy's like baseball so there's that. I'd keep Eden on the list and shove Kombat off in favor of Witcher 2.

No, and I'm not hating on it, but I have played REZ.  An enjoyable game, for sure, but FOR ME, not a best of anything, except best at being REZ and trippy as shit. 

 

Look, the Witcher is bad to the bone.  It has a good chance of being RPG of the year unless Skyrim brings it's absolute A+ game.  *I* think it's a more interesting and important and better and cooler game, and I reckon most people who played it would agree.  However, it isn't a console game, it isn't an underdog and it isn't made by the REZ dude.  Mostly, I just think it's place on the list highlights the lack of good releases so far.  Shit, where's Trenched?  That's great!  Outland?  Awesome!  But, again, I digress.  A 5 games so far list of the year for a site called guy.com is gonna be stacked with certain games and I understand this (not a slam against guy, either. Just a perception thing).  Eden is the wild card and that's cool.  Just stating my preference.

 

No Shadows of the Damned stands out too....my favorite surprise these past few months.

Jcassady, Well, I do...not agree with the list at all.  So far for me...

1) Marvel Vs Capcom 3

2) Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3

of course it is too early to rate these upcoming games...

Otomedius Excellent 8/1/11

King Of Fighters XIII 10/25/11

Marvel vs Capcom 3 actually would've made it if there was anywhere even close to the holy mountain of shit you can do and download in Mortal Kombat.

Gotta agree with everything in the list, except the exclusion of "Hardcorps: Uprising" in the honorable mentions; its not a franchise revival on the level of Mortal Kombat, but its easily the best Contra game since the DS one....and it certainly knows its audience (hell, it should get its control smashers article in the future....goddamn highway stage!)

 

 

Well, they have something to announce at Comic-con, but its too little to late I suppose...and it better not be a new enhanced edition, god dammit!

(Also, no Strider? The hell Capcom?)

I heard they were done with MVC3 DLC after Jill and Shuma Gorath.

Nothing - wha - what do you mean nothing good? We've seen everything good. We've seen the whole city! We went to a museum, we saw priceless works of art! We ate pancreas!

So Kombat is on the list because it arbitrarily fills some invisible checkmark on some invisible list out there? Kombat is okay, for the first 40 minutes. Once you've seen all the x-ray specials and fatalities and are no longer shocked by the violence you're left with a janky collection of cutscenes masquarading as a story and a bunch of unlockables for the sake of unlocking? This isn't a Best of 2011 list in any sense if your narrow criteria excludes one of the better written, characterized, and feature rich role playing games of the year for the sake of having a fighting game in it. If you were going to try represent each genre you could've gone that way instead - calling it best fighting game of the first 6 months of this year.

There have been some turds and duds this year: Brink, Red Faction Armaggedon, Homefront, and Duke Nukem Forever. But to say that of this whole half year of releases you can only muster up 5 (with Trenched/Outland sitting on the sidelines) kind of comes off as lazy.

So, here I go (and yeah there's no cheating by googling the metacritics or listing games I haven't played) my top 10+:

1) Witcher 2 - mediumdave is right, Skyrim will have to be fucking double rainbows to topple this beast off the list for best game/rpg of the year.
2) Portal 2 - Elegent puzzle solving gem returns in full force. Best writing and voice cast, that bring so much depth to the game world without even being on screen. Pile on co-op gameplay, holy shit.
3) Total War Shogun 2 - Civ-esque gameplay meets armies of ninja's fighting it out on an epic scale. Sunk so many nights into this bugger and I still can't get enough.
4) Dead Space 2 - Needs to be on the list, at number 4. A stellar follow up to a good game.
5) Trenched - Double Fine have crafted the best Tower Defense game so far. Co-op madness can't be ignored, or the upgrades you can buy to upgrade your mech.
6) Child of Eden - Amazing visuals and soundtrack melded with finally putting the Kinect to good use.
7) Ocarina of Time 3DS - This is cheating, no doubt. If you own a 3DS you already own this, or this is why you want a 3DS at all. Upgraded visuals mated with a refined user interface make this excellent game even more excellenter.
8) Beyond Good and Evil HD - More cheating, everyone's most precious cult favorite receives a shiny facelift and is brand new all over again.
9) Frozen Synapse - A visually captivating strategy shooter on the pc. Best played against friends or strangers online. You think you've crafted a good strategy at taking down your enemies, but get destroyed leaving you to want to do it all over again, and again. And againer.
10) Shadows of the Damned - A guys game, hands down. Crazy underworld shennanigans mixed with cool exploration and light puzzle solving. Add to that insane dialog and storybits. One of the funniest games released this year (2nd to Portal 2) that bitch slaps the embarrassing Duke/Bulletstorm games without breaking a sweat.

Wot, I'm not done yet?

11) Outland - A great platformer/action game that happens to borrow bullet hell mechanics of Icaruga?
12) Ghost Recon 3DS - There needs to be more of this on the handheld market. After last years Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the psp, it's great to see more strategic shooters get love.
13) Terraria - The open world freedom of a metroid game melded with the million dollar selling mechanics of minecraft.
14) Crysis 2 - Now even better looking after the hd patch; multiplay is engaging with built in cheats such as invisibility, speed, armor, and strength. Singeplayer campaign provides a sandbox approach to taking down your enemies - not deus ex levels open ended, but you have options for most battles.
15) LA Noire - Yeah, this one borders on the good side than best. But you can't discount the story being told or the voice acting talent committed to the lengthy romp in LA.
16) Tiny Wings - Not since doodlejump has a game sucked up my time on the ios.
17) Pulse Volume 1 - Rhythm games come and go on the ios; Rock Band being the biggest of the bunch and TapTap being most prolific. Pulse stands out due to its simplicity of pick up and play goodness. Soundtrack is subjective, but the gameplay will keep you hooked.

Then there's Infamous 2, which could probably sit near Dead Space 2. I'm still wrapping up the first but good people with great taste swear by this game on these boards...it's absence is also duly noted. Radiant Historia has been praised so much in my circle of friends I'll need to check that out too should I ever catch up with my backlog of games...Little Big Planet 2 isn't missed. You can only go so far with the cutsey sackboy and every other 'creator' sniffing the butt of Super Mario Bros World 1-1, only rarely does an Azure Castle pop up on the user content list.

Nope, I disagree that remakes should be discounted. A game is a game. It's value lies in how enjoyable it is and what it means to the end user. Those two are pretty hard to ignore releases of this year. And when Ico/Shadows of the Colussus hit they will be important releases as well.

Hopefully that longish wall of text post didn't come off as too trollish; just some friendly discussion. I don't want it to become some childish schoolyard argument of who'd win in a fight between he-man and conan. You guys took the time to ferret out your list, committed to writing a lengthy article for your readers...just noting a huge omission, that's all. I've been a fan of Alex, Trevor, and Justin's gaming opinions for chud - you've explained the process you guys used for that list. And you've finally nudged me out of my comfort zone to check out the rest of the guy.com site - which looks great btw.

If you're looking for more feedback or more importantly page views maybe submit your article to r/gaming at reddit.

 

Can we be fair and say that this game apparantly hits you where you live (see the CHUD thread), but was hardly universally adored (see the A.V. Club review)?

 

http://www.chud.com/community/forum/thread/127554/child-of-eden-a-k-a-rez-2 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.avclub.com/articles/child-of-eden,57717/

 

 

 

 

The negative reviews have been few, and the vast majority only did so based on the game's length. AV Club review was the only one I've seen nonplussed by the whole.

 

Also, I'll gladly cop to evangelizing the hell out of that game. It deserves it. Never minding the fact that Rez is one of my favorite games ever made, any one using their imagination to try and push this medium as far as it can go in every direction, and yet still turn out a thoroughly enjoyable gameplay experience should be given a goddamn medal in the current environment.