SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - Best Games of 2011

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

I posted this earlier on IRC:
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Bugs_%28Skyrim%29

That's a fucking long list of bugs. Why do they release games which clearly have so many faults. Like i'm sure many of them don't effect a single person but even still, it's fairly substantial. Like one or two is usually the norm.

Anyway i bought lots of games this year and i can't distinguish which year they came out in but one's that spring to mind:

American Mcgees Alice: Madness Returns,
Portal 2
Mario Kart 7
Binding of Isaac
Limbo
Greed Corp - i think came out this year
Dead Island!!
Serious Sam 3 - FPS of the year
Dark Souls

Posted: Dec 26 2011 10:46 pm

didnt they try to patch skyrim, but then it had backward flying dragons?

Posted: Dec 27 2011 12:36 am

Yes, yes they did and the same patch completely removed magic resistance from the game on accident as well. I'm just waiting until the CK is out so I can get the unofficial patches instead.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

username wrote:

didnt they try to patch skyrim, but then it had backward flying dragons?

AH HA. Yeah, that happened to me frequently. Really entertaining to watch it spit fire backwards.

Posted: Dec 27 2011 06:15 pm

Vert1 wrote:

This year sucks. The highly praised Batman game is fucking average. There is no difficulty in combat as it all devolves down to press Y. You won't ever be punished for improperly countering.

I literally had to post after reading this...No difficulty in combat? All you do is press Y? Did you play this game on Easy with some sort of cheat device? If you don't counter you get hurt. When you get hurt you lose health, when you lose enough health you die. Then add in the fact when enemies are carrying guns, and you can't just rush in and attack you have to disarm or stealth "kill" them. Try actually playing a game before you universally pan it for being easy.

It was ranked so high because it was a pretty kick ass game.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

I think 2011 is among the best years for gaming, because there's just so much of everything, especially if you include Arcade/PSN/indie games. It feels like gaming is getting more of a hold onto its storytelling, so that we can start to have great games that don't sacrifice gameplay for story or vice versa, or if you just want to blow/mine/slice shit up, then you can do that, too. It just makes me excited that we're starting to get a handle on where we want to take games, and that so many options are open to developers. 2012 is going to rule.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Greg the White wrote:

I think 2011 is among the best years for gaming

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

Yes, I am. I explained it in the following sentences.

Joined: Aug 28 2011 Posts: 537

Douche McCallister wrote:

Vert1 wrote:

This year sucks. The highly praised Batman game is fucking average. There is no difficulty in combat as it all devolves down to press Y. You won't ever be punished for improperly countering.

I literally had to post after reading this...No difficulty in combat? All you do is press Y? Did you play this game on Easy with some sort of cheat device? If you don't counter you get hurt. When you get hurt you lose health, when you lose enough health you die. Then add in the fact when enemies are carrying guns, and you can't just rush in and attack you have to disarm or stealth "kill" them. Try actually playing a game before you universally pan it for being easy.

It was ranked so high because it was a pretty kick ass game.

Umm I played this game on hard mode for a couple hours. The game's combat is fucking basic as hell. One button to tap repeatedly for attacking and huge input time to counter attacks = average action game. It's cool for a little while to see Batman tear it up, but becomes very stale after a couple fights.

Greg the White wrote:

I think 2011 is among the best years for gaming, because there's just so much of everything, especially if you include Arcade/PSN/indie games.

How many of these important videogame companies was 2011 one of the best years of gaming from them:
Nintendo
Sega
Sony
Microsoft
Namco
Capcom
Konami
SNK
Treasure
Tecmo
Electronic Arts
Cave
Atlus

????

Posted: Dec 28 2011 01:17 am

taterfyrings wrote:

The PS3-version is basicaly unplayable after a while, as the game crashes frequently and the frame rate drops toi single-digit levels. I think everybody expects a lot of bugs for games as ambitios as Skyrim, but the PS3-version is simply so bad after a while, that its just inexcusable imo. This is a game designed to play for hundreds of hours - but its more or less impossible to continue after a while on the PS3, which is a big enough bug to not consider them for goty in my opinion. For this reason I will probably wait untill I have a good enough PC to play it - which will probably be a few years from now.

If it's really as great a game as people say it is then it deserved to win. Bethesda winning studio of the year? No. If even one version of your game gets so buggy it's unplayable and you do nothing to fix it, your programmers don't deserve such accolades.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

This is a response meant for the curmudgeons in the topic. I'm guessing the reason that they're pissed is because of a lack of perspective. I think the average person can name about 10 games released this year off of the top of their head, so for the benefit of the conversation, I'm going to make a "quick" list of readily-available games on as many platforms as I can think of (That are not re-makes or HD Collections). I'm sorry for driving/RTS/sports/fighters omissions, but I don't follow the genres very well, and my brain just kind of instinctively glosses over the titles when I see them:

Multiplayer
Battlefield 3
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Rift

Action/Adventure
Skyward Sword
Bastion
El Shaddai
L.A Noire
Sword and Sworcery
Mass Effect 2
Dead Space 2
Infamous 2
Yakuza 4
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Outland
Alice
Dark Souls
Arkham City
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
The Binding of Isaac

Platformer
Limbo
Sonic: Generations
2 Kirby games
(I think I had a brain-fart, there are probably a lot more here)

RPG
Skyrim
Deus Ex
Radiant Historia
The Witcher 2
Dead Island
Uncharted 3
Modern Warfare 3

Shooter
Bulletstorm
Hard Reset
Serious Sam 3
Crysis 2
WH4K: Space Marine
Shadows of the Damned

Puzzle/other genre
Ghost Trick
Minecraft (official release)
Gray Matter
Catherine
Portal 2
Terraria
Child of Eden
Driver: San Francisco
Mortal Kombat

...and those are all just major/arcade releases, not counting independent stuff you can get from Steam/Humble Bundle/all over the net. About 70% of the list was off the top of my head, with wikipedia reminding me of a few others. I've played about half of them thanks to Gamefly, and went off of word of mouth for the rest. Go ahead and try to say the inclusion/omission of one or two items, but if you can't enjoy a good chunk of that list and others this year, then the problem might be with you and not the industry. Even if you can't/won't play them, it's hard to look at the list and not recognize that most, if not all of them are well-made, well-received or both.[/u]

Joined: Aug 28 2011 Posts: 537

Your list is rather bizarre. Why did you make a multiplayer genre and exclude MW3 , for example? Your RPG list is filled with Action or FPS games.

Anyhow, tackling each game would require a lot of effort on my part. I will speak of the games I have played through that aren't too hot.

LA Noire = if GTA was boring < Deadly Premonition
Arkham City = a glorified qte game. very average.
Shadows of the Damned = a shitty game. See my review

Games I haven't played but will badmouth:
Deus Ex = obligatory comment on how the original game was a way better game/rpg.
Limbo = shitty indie game. review
2 Kirby games = easy, boring, and forgettable. Call me when they botch the GC 4 player co-op one on Wii too.
Minecraft = shit. review
Catherine = people either hate the story or the puzzles in this game goes against your whole story-telling without sacrificing the "gameplay".
Sonic Generations = Sonic died a long time ago.

Looks like a lot of games to play. Certainly nowhere near the best line-up for games from the Japanese developers I listed like Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, Konami, Namco, Cave, Treasure, etc. Good year for incremental updates to FPS games and lame RE4 knockoffs.

How many games would you say represent the best of their genre on this list?

Posted: Dec 28 2011 06:42 am

Greg the White wrote:

RPG
Uncharted 3
Modern Warfare 3

...what?!

Vert1 wrote:

LA Noire = if GTA was boring < Deadly Premonition
Arkham City = a glorified qte game. very average.
Shadows of the Damned = a shitty game. See my review

Games I haven't played but will badmouth:
Deus Ex = obligatory comment on how the original game was a way better game/rpg.
Limbo = shitty indie game. review
2 Kirby games = easy, boring, and forgettable. Call me when they botch the GC 4 player co-op one on Wii too.
Minecraft = shit. review
Catherine = people either hate the story or the puzzles in this game goes against your whole story-telling without sacrificing the "gameplay".
Sonic Generations = Sonic died a long time ago.

Your reasoning for why these games aren't good can be described in almost every instance as "I expected something different and now I'm throwing a tantrum because my expectations weren't fulfilled". In particular, I don't understand how Shadows of the Damned is a bad game because it isn't exactly like Resident Evil 4, or how Sonic Generations is a bad game based on an assumption. And if you're going to use reviews to back up your reasoning as to why a game is "bad", I'd keep in mind the fact that the reviews you happen to use are in the vast minority, as the vast majority of all these games have gotten almost completely positive reception. It sounds to me like you're hating on them just to be an iconoclastic special snowflake. Or an elitist, whichever you prefer.

And P.S., what in the hell is going on in that Minecraft review? He hates it because it's a building-block simulation and not SimCity? And do you honestly consider a review that refers to someone as a "little squint-eyed yellow fag" a reliable source?

Posted: Dec 28 2011 07:27 am

This is one of the most retarded arguements I've ever seen.

Also Vert, you're kind of a douchebag.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 08:02 am

I wouldn't say it was the best year ever, but it was serviceable. Other stuff released that Greg missed:

Both MvC3 and UMvC3
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
KOF XIII
Pokemon Black/White
The PS360 version of Goldeneye
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario Kart 7
Dragon Quest VI
Duke Nukem Forever (just because it came out)

I still think 2010 was a better year though.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 01:38 pm

Vert1 wrote:

Umm I played this game on hard mode for a couple hours. The game's combat is fucking basic as hell. One button to tap repeatedly for attacking and huge input time to counter attacks = average action game. It's cool for a little while to see Batman tear it up, but becomes very stale after a couple fights.

Like I said you must not have played it very much. There is no indication of when an enemy will attack, that's in Easy and Normal Modes. There are numerous enemies that don't simply require to tap the "y" button as you proclaim. Knife wielding, heavily armored, gun wielding, Snipers, Shield wielding and "Giant" enemies ALL must be attacked in different ways then just pressing "y", include the fact that you are facing usually 10+ enemies and on hard about 4-5 regular hits will kill you, you're either a robot of the notsure calibur, or you are pissed off troll that is mad the game is too hard.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 02:16 pm

Greg the White wrote:

I think 2011 is among the best years for gaming, because there's just so much of everything, especially if you include Arcade/PSN/indie games. It feels like gaming is getting more of a hold onto its storytelling, so that we can start to have great games that don't sacrifice gameplay for story or vice versa, or if you just want to blow/mine/slice shit up, then you can do that, too. It just makes me excited that we're starting to get a handle on where we want to take games, and that so many options are open to developers. 2012 is going to rule.

I'm with you. I have really enjoyed the development of games into a serious art form.

That said, we're on a site that deals largely in nostalgia, so I think we're going to be a minority in saying that the best games are the ones coming out now.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

I'm not blinded by nostalgia and can totally see when a year has been good for original and new games. 15 or more games on Greg's list are sequels, with some being sequels to sequels. They are mostly good/great games, but I wouldn't consider them reasons why this has been a fantastic year for games. Calling us out for being curmudgeons or having a lack of perspective is just swell when I really hadn't even stated my opinion yet, other than an image response to a statement I considered odd.

This year has been GREAT for indie games, but for major releases? This was the year of the sequel.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 02:36 pm

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

That said, we're on a site that deals largely in nostalgia, so I think we're going to be a minority in saying that the best games are the ones coming out now.

Indeed. Nostalgia can be bittersweet in this regard.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 03:15 pm

I feel like a lot of GOOD games came out this year, but not a lot of MEMORABLE games.

Games that came out this year that I see myself still caring about 10 years from now:

Skyward Sword
Catherine
Ghost Trick
Super Mario 3D Land
Arkham City

Joined: Aug 28 2011 Posts: 537

Cameron wrote:

Greg the White wrote:

RPG
Uncharted 3
Modern Warfare 3

...what?!

Vert1 wrote:

LA Noire = if GTA was boring < Deadly Premonition
Arkham City = a glorified qte game. very average.
Shadows of the Damned = a shitty game. See my review

Games I haven't played but will badmouth:
Deus Ex = obligatory comment on how the original game was a way better game/rpg.
Limbo = shitty indie game. review
2 Kirby games = easy, boring, and forgettable. Call me when they botch the GC 4 player co-op one on Wii too.
Minecraft = shit. review
Catherine = people either hate the story or the puzzles in this game goes against your whole story-telling without sacrificing the "gameplay".
Sonic Generations = Sonic died a long time ago.

I don't understand how Shadows of the Damned is a bad game because it isn't exactly like Resident Evil 4,

No one said it had to be exactly like RE4; it just had to be good game. Read my review. There are lots of things that make the game bad:

Quote:

The dodging mechanic goes beyond making you invulnerable for a short time to invincible. You’re not going to get punished for dodging and no enemy will be able to hit you if you repeatedly dodge because the recovery time is practically non-existent. You will never be threatened or cornered when you can roll away from any situation. A big enemy’s size no longer has any meaning as it no longer has any menacing effect on you. And you will pity these large beasts as they swing around hitting only the air looking foolish. This one mechanic completely alters the “RE4 formula” and makes the combat incredibly shallow.

Quote:

The enemies in the game have the problem of not being able to kill you. Whereas in any other respectable game in history the later enemies become more fearsome and cunning, each new enemy introduced in SOTD becomes more laughable. The four legged creatures scuttle up to your character, stop, and wait patiently to be shot; the armored enemies walk too slowly to ever pose a threat and the developer didn’t have the smarts to make the stage small to compensate for that weakness; the rolling spiky enemies seemingly go out of their way to damage themselves. It is really embarrassing.

Quote:

Bosses kill the pace of the game. Everything about fighting them is shallow and boring. Adorned with tacky red gem weak spots, these bosses end up boring the player by having easily seen telegraphed attacks. And the routine trips to replenish ammo on the unnecessarily large plain stages only aggravate this into further making the battles feel like a chore. Take the first boss fight which I could only describe as tepid: the boss walks slowly towards you repeatedly walking past numerous explosive barrels -- and you will shoot these barrels till you experience a new low in gaming where shooting explosive barrels gives no pleasure. Every boss has some disillusioning problem like one that doesn’t react to you standing inches away from it as it is locked into repeating some canned attack pattern. When you finally get to fight the king of the underworld the action becomes slowed down into playing out like a puzzle which felt very anti-climactic.

In that thread I also linked to my youtube videos of the poor AI, broken dodge mechanic, and boss glitch.

Quote:

And if you're going to use reviews to back up your reasoning as to why a game is "bad", I'd keep in mind the fact that the reviews you happen to use are in the vast minority, as the vast majority of all these games have gotten almost completely positive reception. It sounds to me like you're hating on them just to be an iconoclastic special snowflake. Or an elitist, whichever you prefer.

I'm not going to get into the whole minority vs majority. (Doesn't really matter). I'm glad you called us elitists though. That's a good thing.

Quote:

And P.S., what in the hell is going on in that Minecraft review? He hates it because it's a building-block simulation and not SimCity? And do you honestly consider a review that refers to someone as a "little squint-eyed yellow fag" a reliable source?

He hates it because the game sucks ass and he listed his many reasons. (Just like the reasons you chose to ignore in my Shadows of the Damned review). That is a very reliable source. Crass language does not eliminate thoughtful critique.

Douche McCallister wrote:

Vert1 wrote:

Umm I played this game on hard mode for a couple hours. The game's combat is fucking basic as hell. One button to tap repeatedly for attacking and huge input time to counter attacks = average action game. It's cool for a little while to see Batman tear it up, but becomes very stale after a couple fights.

Like I said you must not have played it very much. There is no indication of when an enemy will attack, that's in Easy and Normal Modes. There are numerous enemies that don't simply require to tap the "y" button as you proclaim. Knife wielding, heavily armored, gun wielding, Snipers, Shield wielding and "Giant" enemies ALL must be attacked in different ways then just pressing "y", include the fact that you are facing usually 10+ enemies and on hard about 4-5 regular hits will kill you, you're either a robot of the notsure calibur, or you are pissed off troll that is mad the game is too hard.

So now you are saying I am not playing the game on hard mode? This is getting very tiresome. The indication is displayed way ahead of time by visuals that appear on the enemy. Not all enemies require you to dispatch them with boring combat as "it's suicide to attack thugs with guns head-on". So you go into detective mode, and that doesn't exactly make a game super challenging. I'm certainly not the only person to talk about lack of difficulty in this game. Maybe I should record a video to have "documented proof" or I could just stick to the great actions games with difficulty (Itagaki and Mikami games).

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:33 pm

Vert1 wrote:

Quote:

And P.S., what in the hell is going on in that Minecraft review? He hates it because it's a building-block simulation and not SimCity? And do you honestly consider a review that refers to someone as a "little squint-eyed yellow fag" a reliable source?

He hates it because the game sucks ass and he listed his many reasons. (Just like the reasons you chose to ignore in my Shadows of the Damned review). That is a very reliable source. Crass language does not eliminate thoughtful critique.

You're missing the point. Sure, "crass language" doesn't necessarily negate the status of critique as insightful, but outright and outlandish racism and bigotry does, in spades. When you use a source that contains racist and bigoted remarks, I can only assume that you share the same viewpoint.

Quote:

I'm not going to get into the whole minority vs majority. (Doesn't really matter). I'm glad you called us elitists though. That's a good thing.

I really regret using the word "elitist", as I had a feeling you'd focus on that rather than anything else I was saying. And I generally don't consider being an elitist to be a good thing; elitists tend to take a minor fault of something and blow it completely out of proportion as an excuse not to like it. And how does a majority not matter? Isn't that kind of the point? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with disagreeing with the majority or disliking something that's well-liked; the problem here is the fact that you act as though your opinion is objective rather than subjective, and ignore any kind of opinion that isn't your own.

Joined: Aug 28 2011 Posts: 537

I only care about the game critique. Don't try and distract to something else.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:46 pm

Vert1 wrote:

I only care about the game critique.

Which, in this case, is somewhat worthless.

Joined: Aug 28 2011 Posts: 537

What part of the game critique is "somewhat worthless"? What does "somewhat worthless" even mean?