Great thread idea Med. I decided to write mine up this lazy Sunday, so beware it's a bit long.
Here we go:
5 - The Walking Dead ep. 1 and 2
I'm including both here. I've played both the Steam and the 360 version, and can definitively say that the Steam one is the superior. 360 has a ton of graphical hiccups (or at least both episodes did when I first played them). That aside, the setup is terrific, the dialogue is great, and the sense of impending dream is fantastically well done, particularly for what is basically an adventure game. Episode 2 in particular built the tension so well, to this calm-yet-stressed boiling point that finally popped with a great reveal. I do kind of wish that they hadn't pushed this "your choices matter" idea as much as they, because it does seem like that's kind of being pulled off with smoke and mirrors, but we shall see. Let's also hope that they can try to get SOMEWHAT close to actual monthly releases.
4 - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
This was something I totally bought on a whim, after playing the demo a few times and ranging from hating it to loving it. The game is very well done, with a pretty great overall story and some fantastic combat. The world is well realized, the art is great, and some of the concepts are very interesting and unique (if not a little game breaking). The way you can mash up your play styles really is a jump ahead of the humdrum combat that Skyrim features. Still, the pointless and abundant side quests though really hurt this games replayability for me, as it at times seemed like too much of an MMO for its own good (which is kind of funny considering what happened to the Amalur property).
3 - Spelunky
My absolute sleeper hit of the year most likely. I had never ever heard of this game prior to a brief article on Giant Bomb, and then I gave the XBLA version a shot and was hooked pretty much instantly. The combination of skill required, randomness, sense of discovery and exploration, and of course, the difficulty, all came together to really make something special (it has even inspired me to retroactively go back and play the PC version). It is INCREDIBLY hard and unforgiving, and some of the things it asks you to do will literally make you shake your head in frustration (like say, carrying a key which doesn't allow you to use your weapon, from level 1-2 to the completion of level 3-4), before you even try to do them. But then, the sense of accomplishment you get when you DO do it, is one of the better feelings you'll get out of gaming this year.
2 - Mass Effect 3
Not much can be said here that I haven't said. The combat has been perfected, the story has an amazing sense of place for your Shepard in terms of past descisions actually mattering, and the production value is through the roof. The ending is...not even worth talking about anymore. I personally didn't love it, didn't hate it, and did enjoy the ending expansion. That's all I really feel like going into. The game does seem to have its problems even with the sense of decisions mattering for some people (characters coming back to life was one thing I remember someone saying), but thankfully none of that worked out that way for me on my only playthrough (although hearing some of it is dissuading me a little from playing through again). Still, it lived up to the majority of my expectations and that is saying something considering how lofty they were after the gaming bliss of ME2.
1 - The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings
This might be in the running for my top 5 games of this entire generation. The story is fantastic, the setting is gritty fantasy that reminds me of Game of Thrones, the voice acting is great, the story decisions and consequences are all shades of gray, most of which you don't see said consequences until much later in the story, and the combat is both challenging and entertaining. There is the occasional glitch, but nothing really to complain about. It's hard for me to find anything about the game that I didn't love, and I recommend the game wholeheartedly to anyone that plays RPGs, but really everyone should play it. The learning curve at first is steep, but totally worth it.
uft:
