Amazing. 6 Months ago, I wrote a blog post predicting my personal game of the year 2011. What’s amazing about that? Well, only 4 posts followed, and now it’s December and the year is almost over. I’ve been busy, it’s strange how little time you have to do nothing when you work 5 days a week. Then I’ve actually also been doing stuff… The blog has got neglected. 2012 will see to that. Especially if the world ends, then it won’t matter. Yeah, let’s keep a light apocalyptic tone, shall we?
So. What did I say 6 months ago? Stop here, head off and read it. I know I shall, brb.
Crap. Covered it pretty well it seems… Well firstly. Minecraft was indeed officially released, but even if I had considered it eligible, I wouldn’t have included it in my top 5. I’m sure a lot of people are still really into it and Minecon sounded like a lot of fun, but for me and my friends who picked it up when it was on it’s amazing rise last year, it’s hit its peak. Now there are dragons and whatnot else in the game, I’m just not fussed at the moment about seeing that. It’s good, but it’s had it’s moment. At least from my point of view. Too many it’s in that paragraph…
5) LA Noire, 4) Portal 2
Admittedly, I’d forgotten the first 2 picks. In fact, I read it again just now and I’ve forgotten AGAIN what they were. Portal 2 and LA Noire. Wow, they were released this year? Time flies… I’d have to say that for me, Portal 2 actually edges out LA Noire but neither have made such an impact that I remember they were even released this year… That might say more about me than the games, but still, you’d want me to even remember their release… So the top 3…
3) Saints Row: The Third
This game makes me sad. It is, in many ways, the most fun game ever made. The problem is despite the vast selection of insanity it’s still as shallow as a paddling pool. Previous Saints Row games gave you missions, and activities where they genuinely tried to justify spraying excrement onto people and cop cars or jumping in front of moving traffic. Now, the missions have basically merged into the activities and they don’t even try and make the activities make sense. The fact that they played driving a quad-bike around on fire straight made it even funnier. Now we get to drive around in a car with a tiger… So? I didn’t even know what was going on. I did an activity, and there was a tiger… Then there’s the customisation which seems to have been altered in favour of a higher quality graphical style, which looks nice but is a shame to lose options. The co-op is also not as good as it could of been, problems using the garages etc. Like you really want details. Pfft.
Still, swinging a shotgun into a guys balls and ddt-ing random old ladies is still a gas. I just wish it was… better… In the long run, this too will probably slide below Portal 2, but then Cave Johnson is awesome. I want to play Portal 2 now…
2) Gears of War 3
Well. It’s been a tough decision. I say tough… Let’s ignore the Gears campaign, because I still haven’t bothered to play it. For me Gears is all about the multiplayer, and Gears 3 multiplayer is excellent save for two things. Firstly, and there is no nice way to put this; most of the people who play Gears multiplayer are dicks. If I get downed and thrusted at by another player I may have to find out where they live and punch them. With a shotgun, to the balls. The game literally invites people to be a total toolbag by giving them executions, so they invent their own by gang humping downed victims… Douches…
Then, there’s the lag. Which at some points is simply inexcusable. Granted, online gaming is a complicated mess, but Gears proves it more than any other game I’ve played. RDR could manage 16 players and it was only really the Americans that caused major problems. Gears finds 10 a problem. I’ve been shot through a team-mate, shot when standing behind my killer, shot through walls and exploded a good few meters from impact. When I say shot, I generally mean exploded into tiny pieces. And of course, generally when I shoot a boomshot at a cluster it can even transpire that nobody even noticed the shot…
I said 2 things didn’t I. I’ve thought of a third. Spawn protection. Spawn protection, in THEORY is a good idea. Nobody wants to spawn, only to get shot straight away, or as occasionally happens spawn next to a planted grenade. Except that Gears generally spawns people AWAY from enemies… Except, when you’ve spawned, moved 2 or 3 feet only to find an enemy has just spawned behind you (or on the broken spawns on Blood Drive where you spawn in an enemy, nice)…
Spawn protection should not apply to someone who has moved about 10m away from spawn. Spawn protection should not apply to someone who has started shooting you. If you happen to run randomly into someone who has just spawned, might as well just bend over. The best part of all this is, is that it never ever seems to benefit you. Just today I spawned, ran out and was with in seconds gunned down. Had it it been the other way around, he’d have deflected every bullet and fired back killing me. Dumb.
Also. The DLC practises employed with this game have left a less than savoury taste in my mouth. They’ve charged us for Horde features that by all rights should have been in the original game, made all the more infuriating by the fact that a 1.4MB download means they were in fact already on the disk. Nice guys. The free maps were a nice effort to cover this shocking practice up, but it doesn’t really put them in a morally good stance yet… The story DLC i’ve yet to play yet, but I had to download it via the game, which means I couldn’t do anything else while it downloaded and at 2GB was a bit of a pain. Still at least it wasn’t on the disk… I’m curious what will be next, but if there isn’t a lambent addition to beast mode, I’ll be very surprised…
1) Skyrim
This is number 1, but it almost didn’t make it. My first experience of the game was very disappointing. Compared with Oblivion, the first few level ups in Skyrim make you feel like your playing “My first RPG” or an “RPG for dummies”. Gone is all the complexity and intricate stat moulding and replaced with a pick a random boost screen. At first It massively turned me off the game, but after a trying a few times I realised I was actually just having an adventure and not worrying about my stats. Oblivion made it almost obligatory to keep a diary of your progress if you wanted to get the best out of your character. Now you can relax and wander and not worry if you’ve jumped too many times this level…
Levelling is odd too. Apparently, one of the complains of Oblivion was that the enemies levelled with you. Skyrim’s alternate approach shows why this is both good and bad. One of the most annoying parts of Oblivion, was that as you levelled up bandits seemed to get richer and richer, starting off with leather and ending up by the end of the game being kitted out in full glass armour. Nice economy. The flip side is now in Skyrim you can’t possibly know what your getting yourself into. You can enter a bandit camp and slaughter them all without breaking a sweat, only to meet the gang leader who apes you in 2 hits. I’m expecting the leader to be tougher, but the distinction seems far too great on many occasions.
Then there is the dragons. The dragons are stupidly hard for my stealthy ninja character to deal with. I have to pound an epic amount of potions and pop it with arrows until I die of boredom or just die. I’m sure some people go hunting dragons, but not me. I run. I find someone else to take it’s focus, shoot it and then run off again. I had a dragon dispatch me easily, so on reload I ran into a giants camp, whereby the giants put him down with ease, and then I killed the giants, because let’s face it, giants may be tough, but they are DUMB. Yes that is a tree, yes you can go around it, no I’m not there anymore, yes that is an arrow in your face. I’ve even had a dragon eat me while I was in a hut. Not even walls can put them off ruining my day. I’m glad I take their souls and wear their bones as a hat. Silly buggers.
Still, the story is excellent and if it wasn’t for a few odd interface choices and just a little bit more RPG depth that I am clearly manly enough to deal with, it would have been a clear undisputed number 1. As it is, it has lag to thank for number 1. Gears would have won, if it didn’t make me want to throw the controller through the TV 20% of the time I play it. Still, a new TV would be nice… And who knows, 2012 might even be a new Xbox. Might have to do a console of the year 2012. Hint, it’ll be an Xbox…
Bonus Skyrim quandaries:
- Why does everyone in Skyrim instantly trust me to go get/deliver stuff for them?
- Except all “evil” characters, who instantly attack me without even so much as a how do you do. Morality is definitely a dirty word in Skyrim. You can be “evil” and murder people, but it’s all for the greater good. You are the hero, and you still fight bandits. Even if you murder, steal and lead dragons to villages and hide while it slaughters all the inhabitants.
- Why do most of the jewellery sellers have no money. How do you afford all that jewellery…
- Why don’t people clean up corpses lying around houses…
- Why does a beggar still live on the streets after I’ve paid her 4000 gold for pickpocket training. That’s certainly enough to rent a room in an in for a year… In fact the whole economy in Skyrim is somewhat baffling.
- Why does everyone keep going on about having an arrow in the knee when literally nobody in Skyrim has said this to me.
- But in opposition to this, why are an alarming number of city guards part of the dark brotherhood… “Hail Sithis…”
- Where the hell did Lydia go. More of a personal one since I’m fairly sure she died without me noticing. I’d still like to know where she is. Had some of my stuff…
- Why did I have an apple I stole confiscated, but the collection of actual stolen property I had left untouched (I know the actual answer is they can’t remove quest items from my inventory, but logically this is dumb…)
- Why do people yield when nearly dying and just get up and run straight for you again. I can get that *some* of them lie, but they all do it. If some got up and ran off, or even just cowered in a corner, i’d leave them. Possibly. As it is I end up wailing on everyone…
- How come when they were randomly flinging fireballs at Whiterun my house was the only one not to be set on fire…
- Why does leather weigh more than gold?
- Why don’t arrows weigh ANYTHING?
- Why can’t I run and jump. I mean, the point of games like this is to be more physically able than I currently I am. For instance, I cannot sword fight the undead, but as a relatively lazy man, even I can run and jump at the same time.
- Also, where the hell do I keep all this junk. It’s the good old Adventure game style of, I’ll just put this ladder in my pocket…
- Why when I accidentally pick up quest items can’t I put them down. I can see why it warns me, but when they clog up my inventory and I don’t want to deal with them why can’t I store them somewhere safe… Lazy.
- Why does the Terminator work for the Jarl of Whiterun?
