2011: Best and worst games,

[hoofhearted4]

hmm its hard to say. i really didnt play a lot of new games this year. mostly games that had been out that i hadnt bought or played before.

 

the few games i did buy though:

Battlefield 3 - i was overall pleased with this game on Ps3. its not perfect, its not as good as BFBC2 imo, but its fun when with friends. i havent gotten the Karkland DLC but i hear its good and the patch (which came out since ive played it recently) fixed a lot of the crap that was in the game. like gun spread and stuff. balance issues

 

Dark Souls - meh. for me this was a disappointment. i LOVED Demons Souls. still playing it actually (a friend finally got it, so im playing with him) im honestly not sure what about it i dont like? i beat it once, and now have no desire to go back again. i have no desire to platinum it like i did Demons Souls. overall i thought it was easier then Demons Souls. the enemies were harder. with improved AI. the bosses were easier though imo. the worst thing is the COOP. no where near as efficient as Demons Souls. a friend told me yesterday (hes still playing it) that there is a trick now to get into coop thats basically a guarantee hes like within 10 minutes you can hook up with anyone. i was like 10 minutes! wtf! thats a joke. not even worth it imo. so while i enjoyed this game kinda and i have like 150 hours in it, it didnt live up to my expectations. play through one was enjoyable, but i cant see myself going back again without coop, at least not anytime soon.

 

SWTOR - while i was only in the Beta, i would get the game if i had the money. very much enjoyed it while i was in it.

 

Skrim - i am on the opposite end of the world. i didnt like this game at all. but not because the game sucks. its just not my style of game. i dont care for the lore of the game, which makes the largeness of the game a con to me. and i still cant stand the melee. a huge improvement over Oblivion (which i didnt play cause of the melee) but it still looks like your swinging through air. there is no weight to the weapon. and on top of that i find melee only combat boring in a game like that. so i ended up selling the game to a friend. who liked it, but i still dont think he has over 10 hours in the game. if there is a FO4, and it looks like this, i will fall in love.

 

Dragon Age 2 - also a huge disappointment. though im very biased as i havent even played the game yet. i played the demo. i even bought the game, but its been sitting on my shelf ever since. opened. ill admit. i played like 2 or 3 hours into it right after i got it. but idk, just wasnt feeling it. when i build my PC in the Spring, ill finally play it (that and FONV my other hated game, but from 2010)

 

Brink - it was a fun game. it was unique. it had a lot going for it. but (on Ps3 at least) the online wasnt there. it was horribly laggy making it near unplayable online. i platinumed the game. and i kinda want to get the DLC cause i do enjoy the game. but it needed work. if they ever come out with a Brink 2, ill prolly pre order it like i did with Brink, because if they fix the issues with Brink and make an improved game, they can easily have one of the most fun fps ive ever played and have an amazing online.

 

and i think thats it. that i can think of anyways. as i said, a lot of the games i played this year came out last year or earlier like Demons Souls, Mass Effect 2, FF13, StarCraft 2, Torchlight, and even Diablo 2 for awhile lol, and others.

[antonkr]

Problem is Anton, why oh why do I have to launch it via browser? and secondly, it only even runs games 20% of the time, the other 80% it just loads, forever. And the campaign is even worse, I reached a mission you can't even get past, because of a massive bug. I can't respect such a miserably unreliable scrapheap.

I agree with you

Campaign was meh at most. It wanted to be Modern Warfare 2, but it wasn't. I liked Bad Company 2 campaign over it much more. I mean at least Bad Company 2 had memorable characters with at least some funny dialog here and there. Battlefield 3 was press a button something awesome has to happen sort of deal, and the characters weren't as memorable, and I didn't quite care for when one of them died.

 

Battlelog at release like you said was garbage. Now with each patch it is becoming better and better. From about having 50 percent success rate on connecting to server it is around 95. I can see why they did it, but a lot of people don't like it as they are not used to it. One thing pissing me off however is that I cannot change settings while not ingame.

[ziitch]

For most disappointing game of the year I would like to vote. Well minecraft.

It took itself in too many directions without fulfilling any of them completely. NPCs are still useless at the release. And Notch is too stressed to work, so he is once again on vacation, and when he is not, he is working on his crappy card game that no one really cares about.

 

I'm with you there antonkr. Personally, 1.7 was the best version; when they went 1.8 and further on, most of the stuff they added felt either like a cheap alternative to an obvious solution, had no real purpose other than to be there, or caused micromanagement. The only way they can consider me enjoying the game again is if they brought back pre-1.8 gameplay where you can have a good focus on being creative while still having to occasionally watch your back, and perhaps have some post-1.8 features like stacking food come in.

 

Secondly, it didn't help that Notch stepped down from Minecraft and let Jeb take over. Even though Notch says Jeb has better ideas when it comes to implementing something, I've really yet to see anything from him that actually impressed me in the long run. You know, as in the absurdity of mines/strongholds and ravines often sharing the same location - It's crazy to see once but afterwards it's just an annoyance.

 

I'd probably go as far as saying that Minecraft went from being one of the best "games" of the year to one of the worst thanks to the later additions.

 

But Skyrim being the best game of the year is a yes. Despite how late the release is, it's honestly been a lackluster year.

 

...Welp, looking forward to the year that might be the sudden death of the industry - 2012!

Edited December 17, 2011 by ziitch

[dorkSIDES]

BEST

The Witcher 2 by a distance. Great story/characters. Plenty of choice and replay value. Excellent graphics and visuals. Good content and gameplay. 8/10 for me.

Shogun 2, Just a great tactical game with top AI, tons of content and amazing graphics. 8/10

 

WORST

MW3, just a big pile of bad game. Nothing new added to the ancient system. 4/10.

LotR: War in the North. Feels like you are the B squad for the whole game, your journey lacks any feel of epicness or significance throughout. Seen the gameplay in too many other titles to kep me entertained. 3/10

 

MOST IMPROVED

Age of Conan has came so far in the last two years that Funcom really need to be credited. 7/10

 

MOST DISAPPOINTING

BF3, Origin servers/matchmaking made the game a chore to play online. Origin cloud storage screwed me twice on my campaign data.6/10

Skyrim. No new tech taken advantage, full of bugs(which interfere with quests/story/guilds) Slow lazy patching from the dev's. Just another port.8/10(not a bad game, just buggy/unplayable at the moment)

 

They are my thoughts on the year in gaming. Though I have not played some games on console as I am getting a PS3 for xmas, so maybe U3/Res' 3 will be good-don't know yet. I might try the console version of Skyrim for better luck.

 

Forgot a game.

Edited December 18, 2011 by dorkSIDES

[Beriallord]

I'd have to agree with minecraft being made worse. Honestly I would have preferred they left most of the more dramatic changes completely out of the game, and let people mod those changes into the game if they wanted them instead of just being forced to deal with it. I don't see anything wrong with Mojang offering official mods for the game, and you can pick and choose what you want instead of it being thrown in your face. If they simply did that then I would have no complaints. The hunger bar was one of the worst possible things they could have included. Something like that would have been better as a mod, and people could get that if they wanted it. With a game as open ended as Minecraft, any time you make a dramatic change to the game, you are alienating someone's play style, which is why they are better off just making those options as mods, or able to turn them off in options. Like I don't mind playing survival, but I absolutely hate survival + having to worry about food and waste spaces in my inventory loading up on food, and have less spaces to carry stuff. Edited December 19, 2011 by Beriallord

[markoBG]

Hmm, i stick to very few game types, mostly RPG's and strategies..

 

So best this year for me are shogun total war 2, amazing strategy and the setting, very good main campaign and even better multiplayer, and the witcher 2 with its amazing story, characters and the ambient.

 

The biggest disappointment must be dragon age 2 as one of the most anticipated games this year for me, played it once, tried it again and just couldn't continue playing and never bothered with it again. Also skyrim came as a disappointment to me with its numerous bugs and unimaginative quest lines and characters, still, i liked the setting and the general feel to it, but ill wait for the proper patches etc.

[Gracinfields]

Great Games of the year

Star Wars Old Republic

Battlefield 3 (yes I am playing on the PC)

Deus Ex Human Revolution

 

Decent Games

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine

Dungeon Siege 3 (No it wasn't God of War it was more Diablo)

 

Bad Games

MW3 (Dedicated servers being unranked where as P2P which is easily hacked is ranked, bad map design, Just put a bullet in the head of this series and be done with this horrible milsim)

 

Games that are a huge Pile of steaming Dog Crap

Homefront (Back Story concept was good but execution was poor, dialog between characters felt phoned in, and there was so much that could have been done and was orginally promised but never fullied. MP sucked balls and hackers where quite abundent (who said VAC was better then PB and PB Bans?) highly imbalanced (lucky good players get just about unkillable and unlucky well get raped)

[antonkr]

Great Games of the year

Star Wars Old Republic

Battlefield 3 (yes I am playing on the PC)

Deus Ex Human Revolution

 

Decent Games

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine

Dungeon Siege 3 (No it wasn't God of War it was more Diablo)

 

Bad Games

MW3 (Dedicated servers being unranked where as P2P which is easily hacked is ranked, bad map design, Just put a bullet in the head of this series and be done with this horrible milsim)

 

Games that are a huge Pile of steaming Dog Crap

Homefront (Back Story concept was good but execution was poor, dialog between characters felt phoned in, and there was so much that could have been done and was orginally promised but never fullied. MP sucked balls and hackers where quite abundent (who said VAC was better then PB and PB Bans?) highly imbalanced (lucky good players get just about unkillable and unlucky well get raped)

I think calling this a milsim is rather silly at best.

ArmA 2 would be considered a milsim.

[Gracinfields]

Milarcade would that be better?

[jaffster]

Best game of 2011:

 

Skyrim - Without a doubt. Yes, it's buggy but this game will be so replayable once the development kit comes out. I'll probably put it down once I've finished my first play-through and come back to it in a few months with some player created mods and content added.

 

Decent games of 2011:

 

The Witcher 2 - Even though it did feel a little 'dumbed down', it was a decent game. CD Projekt did a good job. I don't think this compared to the original, it was not as immersive as the first. Even though the first was quite linear, it did not instil the feeling that you were stuck on a pre-defined route. The second was a little..... meh. I knew from the opening scene that the Witcher 2 was going to drag a bit. "Go to this lever, press this button, kill this person, run accross this bridge" etc.

 

Minecraft - Open ended. Do pretty much anything that you like. Playing on private servers with friends is fun. Some of the later additions are a little 'meh'. Creating a portal to the nether took a lot of work and was very dissapointing. Good game, well worth the low price.

 

Dissapointments of 2011:

 

Deus Ex 3 - What a horrible console port. Eidos did NOT capture the spirit of the original two (Deux ex was AWESOME, groundbreaking; Invisible war was OK). I felt like my intellegence was being insulted at each and every part of the game. Designed for your typical 14 year old console player that just wants to shoot things, ported to the PC to make some extra dosh.

 

Crysis 2 - As above. Complete rubbish. Too linear, too easy. It just felt like dumbed down crap.

 

This year I've been playing Starcraft 2 and since it's release; Skyrim.