Man, I want to play Starcraft 2.

Someday...someday I will.

Some games I remember playing this year (probably none were made this year) and finished, or played long enough to consider finished (unranked):

1.  Demon's Souls (PS3)

2. Uncharted (PS3)

3. Uncharted 2 (PS3)

4. Assassin's Creed (PS3)

5. Assassin's Creed II (PS3)

6. No More Heroes (Wii)

7. No More Heroes 2 (Wii)

8. Red Steel 2 (Wii)

9. Forza Motorsport 3 (X360)

10. Alan Wake (X360)

11. God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP)

12. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

13. A Shadow's Tale (Wii)

14. Space Invaders Extreme (DS)

15. Contra 4 (DS)

16. Illust Logic (DS)

17. Tatsunoko vs Capcom (Wii)

Today I'm finishing Alan Wake and I hope to be playing Donkey Kong and Red Dead over the holidays

WTH is this about?

My GOTY is Goldeneye.

I don't think SMG2 will win. Being the sequel people are harsher on it, despite it's brilliance it's not a new game or re-imagining or anything.

To get stats of the games I played the most I would have to dig into the Nintendo channel stats.

robio said:

10. Angry Birds - Much more than just an overhyped media darling cell phone game. It took the classic Scorched Earth gameplay and added catch music, touch controls, and pigs with mustaches to it.  Works for me.

9.  Sonic Colors - Best Sonic game and years. Technically that's not saying much, but this was truly a great game. Great old school Sonic platforming and exploration FINALLY brought to 3-D (sorta but not really), and one of the best soundtracks for the year.  Best of all, no Big the Cat.

8.  Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley - Overlooking a few technical problems, this was the best Harvest Moon game to come out in years. It combined the core farming gameplay with an actual story and pulled it off pretty well.

7.  Rage of the Gladiator - Sadly this medieval Punch-Out knock-off got overlooked by most people.  But it took that formula and ran with it, added a skill tree, and threw in some monsters as bosses. Though not as polished as its inspiration, still a fantastic game.

6.  Monster Hunter Tri - Probably the most fun I've ever with a game I've totally and completely sucked at.  But the combat, forging, farming, etc. all made for a really fun game.  Great model for all MMO's going forward.

5.  Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth - Not quite up to Phoenix Wright standards but the game was still excellent.  Interesting new characters and a few good mysteries made it a worthy collection addition to the series.

4.  Epic Mickey - Even if it didn't live up to my expectations, the game was still excellent. It was a Disney fan's dream come true seeing so many classic characters and cartoons revisted with care and respect.  Plus at times the game was as good as anything that has come to the Wii.  Amazing boss fights and an always present morality system keep this game interesting even when the camera might be holding it back.

3.  Trauma Team - Best freaking weird ass Japanese game of the year!  A niche gamer's dream with an overdramatic soap opera storyline.  It fixed every complaint I'd ever had with the series and the end result was a classic for the ages.

2.  Super Mario Galaxy 2 - I don't like 3-D platformers, but this game won me over. Easily some of the most amazing level design I've ever seen.  Nuff said.

1.  Dragon Quest IX - At the end of the year, no other game got me to go through 2 play-throughs. I didn't spent 100+ hours with any other game. Nothing else was this much fun. It was Dragon Quest that finally took a few risks and innovations in the realm of online play and will be noted as such.  Love it. Maybe not the best DQ game, but still the best game of the year for me.

I don''t think Trauma Team even came out over here.

What bosses did you like in Epic Mickey aside from the TRON one?

gamingeek said:

I don''t think Trauma Team even came out over here.

What bosses did you like in Epic Mickey aside from the TRON one?

Trauma Team hasn't been released in Europe you are right.  I don't even know if they have a date for it

robio said:

I liked the Captain Hook battle and the first encounter with the Blot. And the Mad Doctor fight was just awesome.

So did you try the Captain Hook battle both ways? I did both, it was hard to figure out how to beat him at first but satisfying once it was done. Mad Doctor room was weird because they had all these plates for TVs and anvils and I wasn't sure what they did. I think it was because I paid the gremlin for help and he wrecked a few of the generators. There is also a Donald part in the rafters so I thought you had to use all the plates at once to open some path, when in fact there was just a place you could jump up. The camera made it hard to spot it. I liked TRON boss, it was a Mario Galaxy rip but still fun though.

How did you approach the final series of rooms in the game with the bloticles? I just ran on top of them, avoided all combat and thinned out the lumps.

Those were my favorite, but to the Trauma Team development team I have to give them a lot of credit. They came up with some new twists on the emergency room gaming that they developed that makes the game more enjoyable. In one instance you're an EMT/Paramedic and your job is to just quickly patch numerous people up at once. Speed is the trick in her segments. You have to go back and forth between several people just working fast and monitoring who needs immediate attention, and who can hold out for a few more minutes.

1.  (GOTY) Red Dead Redemption.   A Rockstar game that perfects the sandbox concept.   Great story, great visuals, great gameplay and characters that we come to care for and love.  I've probably spent over 70 hours in this game and I just downloaded the Undead Nightmare pack, so I'm sure there's another thirty to put into it.  You know one of the things I loved the most?  How near the end, the missions kinda slow down to a crawl.  They're almost like tutorial missions instead of the big explosive ones that we usually see near the end of the GTA games.  They give you time to apreciate the relationship between John and his son, making the ending so much richer.  And what an ending!  I certainly don't want to spoil it, but I never felt so satisfied when the credits rolled.  It's just a perfect game.

2.(Tie) Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns.  As easy as it was to figure what my number one is, it was equally as difficult to decide which games get the number 2 spot.  Both of these are platforming greatness, one in 2D, one in 3D.   I honestly cannot decide which I loved more.  I''ve spent twenty to thirty hours with both of these and know that I want to revisit both over and over again.  Two sequels that revitalize their series with a huge shot of adrenaline.

4.  Mass Effect 2.  I actually loved how this became more action oriented.  I love returning to this universe and seeing how much has changed, how some things will never change and how one little choice can change the course of things.  I'm eagerly awaiting the return of Commander Shepherd.

5.  Metroid: Other M.  Other M is truly a Metroid game through and through.  Congrats to Team Ninja.  I would probably rank it higher but sometimes the controls seemed a little clumsy, but otherwise, sheer perfection.

6.   Splinter Cell: Conviction.  I wished I still owned this game when Leo did because the multiplayer rocks.  I breezed through the single player in about eight hours, but the meat of this game is the multiplayer modes, the many, many multiplayer modes. I hate playing with strangers, but with SC, I didn't really mind.

7.  Bioshock 2.  I enjoyed it a lot, but it neither improved or degressed from the original.  It's just there, more as an expansion.

8. Alan Wake.  I love the Stephen King feeling that this game has.  I'm lukewarm on the gameplay though.  I'm not sure I would call this game a disappointment because I'm not sure what I was expecting from this game.  I still enjoyed the experience, it just didn't grab me and pull me in.

9.  Epic Kirby.   This game is fun, it's inventive, it has tons a secrets, and wonderful music.  The epitome of a Nintendo game.  So what's the problem?  There is no challenge. It was fun to play through, but I guess I need a challenge, som difficulty to fully enjoy this.

There are other games that I haven't completed like LIMBO and Goldeneye.  i'm sure Limbo would be on the list if I had completed it, maybe next year.   I also haven't played Halo: Reach nor Epic Mickey, so this list just feels incomplete.

Robio

travo said:

1.  (GOTY) Red Dead Redemption.   A Rockstar game that perfects the sandbox concept.   Great story, great visuals, great gameplay and characters that we come to care for and love.  I've probably spent over 70 hours in this game and I just downloaded the Undead Nightmare pack, so I'm sure there's another thirty to put into it.  You know one of the things I loved the most?  How near the end, the missions kinda slow down to a crawl.  They're almost like tutorial missions instead of the big explosive ones that we usually see near the end of the GTA games.  They give you time to apreciate the relationship between John and his son, making the ending so much richer.  And what an ending!  I certainly don't want to spoil it, but I never felt so satisfied when the credits rolled.  It's just a perfect game.

2.(Tie) Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns.  As easy as it was to figure what my number one is, it was equally as difficult to decide which games get the number 2 spot.  Both of these are platforming greatness, one in 2D, one in 3D.   I honestly cannot decide which I loved more.  I''ve spent twenty to thirty hours with both of these and know that I want to revisit both over and over again.  Two sequels that revitalize their series with a huge shot of adrenaline.

4.  Mass Effect 2.  I actually loved how this became more action oriented.  I love returning to this universe and seeing how much has changed, how some things will never change and how one little choice can change the course of things.  I'm eagerly awaiting the return of Commander Shepherd.

5.  Metroid: Other M.  Other M is truly a Metroid game through and through.  Congrats to Team Ninja.  I would probably rank it higher but sometimes the controls seemed a little clumsy, but otherwise, sheer perfection.

6.   Splinter Cell: Conviction.  I wished I still owned this game when Leo did because the multiplayer rocks.  I breezed through the single player in about eight hours, but the meat of this game is the multiplayer modes, the many, many multiplayer modes. I hate playing with strangers, but with SC, I didn't really mind.

7.  Bioshock 2.  I enjoyed it a lot, but it neither improved or degressed from the original.  It's just there, more as an expansion.

8. Alan Wake.  I love the Stephen King feeling that this game has.  I'm lukewarm on the gameplay though.  I'm not sure I would call this game a disappointment because I'm not sure what I was expecting from this game.  I still enjoyed the experience, it just didn't grab me and pull me in.

9.  Epic Kirby.   This game is fun, it's inventive, it has tons a secrets, and wonderful music.  The epitome of a Nintendo game.  So what's the problem?  There is no challenge. It was fun to play through, but I guess I need a challenge, som difficulty to fully enjoy this.

There are other games that I haven't completed like LIMBO and Goldeneye.  i'm sure Limbo would be on the list if I had completed it, maybe next year.   I also haven't played Halo: Reach nor Epic Mickey, so this list just feels incomplete.

Great post, I will buy RDR for sure.

I have Halo Reach and Splinter Cell Conviction and DKC returns waiting for me under the tree.

robio said:

Much easier than the Trauma Center games. There were only a small handful of segments that I had so much difficulty with that I was ever frustrated, and even those I beat after taking some time away from the game. There's also sort of a "wuss-out" level that you can drop to where it's very easy, and you play that mode to just go through the story. Though I though I think you'll miss out on unlocking some end game stuff if you use that.

Sounds good.