The Fourth Annual Coint and Plick Video Games Poll - Part Five: #1 - 20

#14: Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale – PC – 52 pts – 4 votes - 1 top game vote - top PC exclusive
Official Game Site

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/10/108167/1527409-recettear_01_super.jpg

Nhex: A complete surprise to me. Admittedly, I have a weakness for these little-indie-PC-games-that-
could, and graphically this game looks like it could've been done on the original Playstation, but this was a wonderful little game. Recettear has an interesting structure in that there's an extreme range of choice in how far the player wants to take it - one could play it as a casual shopkeeping sim, and "complete" the game at the end of the first month, or you (well, me) could spend endless hours going through the random dungeon generator, hunting ingredients to get 100% completion. It's suited for pick-up and play, long sessions, or grinding and farming. The story, characters and world are slight, goofy, and charming, which is completely appropriate and ingratiating. I actually feel guilty about getting this for effectively $1 in a Steam sale over Thanksgiving.

http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/R/Recettear%20-%20An%20Item%20Shops%20Tale/Bulk%20Viewers/PC/recettear%202010-09-12%2011-20-47-26--article_image.jpg

RPGamer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRN3AFRbZA

PC Gamer

abanana: a fairly generic japanese sim game, but without as much of their usual
sexism. short and sweet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJeQuWF9Nc4

http://www.thebigpixels.com/storage/screenshots/pc/2010-12-05%2022h27_34.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1291647657890

a passing spacecadet: I am slightly ashamed by how much I loved this given how awful I find the graphical style and how wildly inaccurate the tutorial's own instructions are. Can't stop to think about the game any more or I'll talk in nothing but high-pitched Japanese exclamations for the next day. Ganbatte kudasai!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7heBJ_PGQlc

Eurogamer

http://fnsna.net/side/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/a2c15247efca159c6e235a16af811afd.png

Full disclosure, I'd only played about 20% of bayonetta when I voted for it last year and I never finished it. It starts out great but runs out of inspiration pretty fast.

Recettear looks pretty awesome!

Yayifications!

really interested to see what beats out DKC for Wii game of the year

i blasted through bayonetta and sold it back right afterwards, but it was a pretty fun ride - def does get a little more of the samey as time goes on tho

#13: Dragon Quest IX – DS – 61 pts – 4 votes - 2 top game votes
Official Game Site

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/07/dragonquestixscanl.jpg

DRAGON QUEST XI: WEAPONS OF MAP DISSEMINATION

Salsa Shark: I really had to drag myself kicking and screaming into the final battle of this game?-not because the final boss was incredibly difficult and fear-inspiring (if anything, I over-levelled)--but because I really didn't want the game to end. And that was even after 80+ hours of gameplay, including various side quests, alchemy experiments, and re-classing just to postpone having to end my adventure.

One of the things I particularly liked about this game was the way some of the towns? stories were like scaled-down versions of Professor Layton plots (the story in Bloomingdale is a good example of this). And, like a Layton game, there aren't really any ?evil? characters, just sympathetic, misguided beings who become consumed by their desires.
Also, I should probably admit that at least 5 of the points I awarded for this game were for the fact you can alchemise a slime costume, and that this slime costume is necessary in order to complete one of the side quests. Amazing.

http://roboawesome.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/dq9.jpg

Telegraph UK review

Lamp: dragon quest ix is a well-made game. its the jrpg equivalent of a functional hollywood blockbuster & its not surprising that the game was immensely popular in japan or that nintendo was willing to take a gamble on its north american publication: it works. the story is bland but enjoyable, the world bright and soft, the game's mechanic rewarding w/o ever overwhelming or frustrating the player. it lacks the imagination or dark undercurrents of the shin megami games or the joyful challenge of etrian odyssey but dq9 was never a chore, the multiplayer was well-integrated (if mostly unused), its a good game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP7hcopq5VM

Fluffy Bunny Pwn review

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kysh5e0qWD1qzyou9o1_500.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m8fgk28PkU

abanana: the series needs some streamlining (this game literally put me to
sleep several times) but the basics are still great.

Furu Anime Panikku review

http://www.ripten.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Dragon-Quest-9-Giant-Slime.jpg

haha i was so sour when i wrote all my comments!

i dont think i ever finished the slime costume sidequest :////

really interested to see what beats out DKC for Wii game of the year

Galaxy 2. you were hating on it on the other thread but its the best 3D platformer ever made.

Do you guys want 11 & 12 today or tomorrow?

Today!

Okay, I was trying to spread it out this week but might as well finish up.

today

This next one is a shocker!!!

dead or alive: full body contact (wii)?

bring on the madness

NAUGHTY BEAR

#12: Bioshock 2 – PS3/360/PC – 65 pts – 7 votes - .33 top game votes
Official Game Site

http://uk.playstation.com/media/gnRcfCxo/Bioshock2Hero.jpg

Bioshock -- the "sequel in spirit" to System Shock 2

Captain Lorax: Pretty much on the same level as the first one. Maybe the combat is better with a few more options. The atmosphere is amazing. The story is interesting; well it's not extraordinary (the premise is) but I'm compelled to listen to the audio diaries. And you will finally learn a thing or two about the little sisters. One of my top 3 games of the year. I wanted it to last longer so that I could use my final plasmid upgrades more often (maybe if I had chosen to harvest the little girls). The worst problem with the Bioshock series is that chopping at a tough enemy and then regenerating over and over again just to finish them off feels like cheating.

http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/bioshock2.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8lngIFXRi4

Destructoid review

jjjusten: It really could have been so much better, and the O_O promo shit for bioshock sky city or whatever really didnt help the good will toward this game, but its better than people seem to think - i guarantee that if you go back to bioshock 1 (which is great, jesus christ calm down already) youll start to notice some of the work that went into the environment reboot. Multiplayer never really came together but the few times a lobby would get rocking it was actually a ton of fun, just dont expect this to uh ever happen again unless you set it up w/yer pals, sorry. Big Sister attack waves were fucking hard as nails and unnerving most of the time (although unfortunately if you figured out how to game the system a bit they werent, which is too bad). That being said, the game sorta just peters out in the middle and tbh i dont know many people who finished it so buy it cheap.

http://images.wikia.com/bioshock/images/8/84/Subject_Delta.jpg

Mitch Krpata: Before BioShock 2, I would have said that BioShock didn't need a sequel. After BioShock 2, I can't imagine a world without one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVTJVZNl82k

Giant Bomb review

bnw: hollow echo of a great game.

http://cdn2.mixrmedia.com/wp-uploads/wirebot/blog/2010/02/pax_cosplay.jpg

cozen: better than the original but w/slight performance issues & originality questions. still, a solid shooter front to back and a damn sight better than the other bioshock retread released this year ('singularity')

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwqMsxX9X0o

#11: 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011 – iPhone/Android – 75 pts – 5 votes - 2 top game votes
Official Game Site

http://f.cl.ly/items/2v3R3E1E353T1R3u0I3q/IMG_0041.PNG

Time for a frickin' 9 innings thread on ILG, folks... ― schwantz, Thursday, August 26, 2010 10:26 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Mordy: 50% baseball sim game and 50% card collecting extravaganza, 9 Innings 2011 hit the pleasure center of my brain that loves collecting better and better cards while combining that with the best sports mechanics I've yet seen on the iPhone. It was hopelessly addictive and even with season ending bugs (I had two, the second of which actually ended my interest in 9 Innings 2011) it was still great enough to be my 3rd favorite game of the year.

http://wp.appadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Untitled-21.jpg

App Advice

jamescobo: In sheer value terms (price : amount of enjoyment derived), 9 Innings 2011 may well be the biggest gaming bargain I've ever found; it's months and months and months later and I'm STILL ducking out to play this game compulsively even though it still won't let me check my swing. For a game which wiped out 100% of my progress during FirstUpdateGate, that's a pretty substantial accomplishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tlJgXBMhkg

Touch Arcade

Z S: Sure, after the first 20-year cycle, the replay value is pretty much destroyed, and once you've managed to release a single million-selling game, you can pretty much coast through the rest of the game without trouble. But the first 6-8 hours of gameplay are totally addicting, great for killing trainrides, very much worth 99 cents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CMeiTi05mM

Will M.: Thank god this game doesn't track how many hours I played it because enough games have made me feel embarrassed about that this year. And I probably played this more.

bnw: played the shit out of it

http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2006/players/08/15/first.person0821/t1_howie.jpg

That's it for me! FREEDOM

Z S: Sure, after the first 20-year cycle, the replay value is pretty much destroyed, and once you've managed to release a single million-selling game, you can pretty much coast through the rest of the game without trouble. But the first 6-8 hours of gameplay are totally addicting, great for killing trainrides, very much worth 99 cents.

This comment was addressing GameDevStory. But I put 9 innings near the top of my ballot, if I remember, mainly for the reasons that jamescobo cites - the value is just crazy.

did they ever do roster updates for 9 innings?

xpost ha I thought you did 20 consecutive seasons or something

Thank you, polyphonic!

Thanks, polyphonic! Good work all round, psyched for top 10

This comment was addressing GameDevStory.

Oh, sorry!

xpost what's crazy is that I feel like I pumped at least a few dozen hours into this game, probably more, and I'm STILL only on game #120 or so in my first season! I don't have the inning skip cards to go straight to the playoffs, so I'll always wonder what happens if you win!

no prob, polyphonic! Who knows, I may have accidentally misplaced my comment in my original ballot. My comments for 9 innings and GameDevStory are pretty much identical - crazy, ridiculous value

Thanks polyphonic!

oh shit, there's gonna be some kind of iOS sweep ain't there

I eventually burned out hardcore on Recettear but man did I love it.

Saboteur is great...I'm in Paris again & riding the bus tonight I saw a couple of buildings that my animal mind thought "shit I bet I could climb that side & then there's probably a fuel truck inside next to a guard tower..." I guess if you live in NYC or maybe one of the San Andreas places this happens to you all the time? the disorientation is so new to me

I was grumbling to a friend a few months back about the old having to play male NPCs thing, and he suggested I pick up Bayonetta. Ngghghgh. Like recommending 'lesbian' porn because there are lots of strong roles for women in it.

per something that placed a while ago, picked up Nier today in the hopes that it will scratch some of that bizarro deadly premonition itch. if it doesnt, there will be HELL TO PAY ILG.

(ok it was $10 so not really)

The thing about it that reminded me of DP was how bizarre and counterintuitive the gameplay felt to me. No crazy sandwiches or Twin Peaks references that I can recall. Although it does have that Japanese in translation thing.

really interested to see what beats out DKC for Wii game of the year

Galaxy 2. you were hating on it on the other thread but its the best 3D platformer ever made.

the closest game I own to a 3D platformer is Infamous so w/e, the genre just doesn't work for me.

also in retrospect I wish I had voted for DQ9

also also who is the other correct individual who had 9 Innings at #1?

btw i finally played APB this week, a game i awarded 20 points, and boy... if anyone's confused about why it flopped, i can clear it up for you: it's amazingly bad

Poly, if you wanna do the disappointments, i'll aim to post the top 10 between friday and monday. Thanks again for driving this beast home.

Maybe after you're done. I need to get some work done today.

diggit

I really wonder if 9 innings cleared the right for the portraits they used. I have a feeling they just GIS'd players and stole the images. Which makes it even more awesome.

they might have a deal with the mlb players association but not mlb itself.. but yeah some of the images are wtf.

also also who is the other correct individual who had 9 Innings at #1?

just checked my ballot

*raises hand*

IIRC they had some weird arrangement with the MLBPA where they only got the rights to the 2009 season data. of course I ended up assembling a frankenteam in short order anyway so accuracy isn't too important. pretty sure the roster update went live a couple of weeks ago though.

xpost

http://media.kotaku.com.au/wp//2011/02/fistbump.png

http://www.ibreak4bacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/fist-bump.jpg

pretty sure the roster update went live a couple of weeks ago though.

this season's roster is up? maybe it's time to return to the game... how do I update it?

I don't want to update the bizarro 2011 stats, where my Brian Roberts (platinum, albeit) is by far the best player on my team

It should update automatically, mine did anyway and a bunch of my players got less good sadly :( but I did pretty early on get me an Aroldis Chapman card!

one of the big things is that they really seemed to even out player speeds. i had like 5 dudes with A speed but they all dropped to B, C, and one of my Cs went to E.

btw I'm going to exercise my editorial discretion and make the blog entry for 9 Innings gigantic

and your #1 game of 2010 with a bullet is:

NAUGHTY BEAR

#1: Red Dead Redemption / RDR Undead Nightmare – PS3/360 – 292 pts – 18 votes - 4.5 top game votes - Top PS3 Game - Top 360 Game - Most Votes - Most Top Game Votes
Official Game Site

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/101/0/5/Red_Dead_Redemption_by_patrickbrown.jpg

Matt D: It's pretty much pitch-perfect Western from the voice work to the vistas. The world has a great amount of verisimilitude and immersion, and a sort of weird self-awareness. At one point while searching for buried treasure, I realized I was in a cactus-free zone and the very moment I said to myself, “Damn, what am I doing here?”, Marsten said, “What am I doing out here?” Creepy, Rockstar. Everything sort of reacts as you'd expect: bandits are bandits, varmints are varmints, coyotes are coyotes. The combat is a step up from GTA IV (which I found a bit anachronistic); there's endless freedom to explore and the storyline is surprisingly good. This competes for the top spot among Rockstar's many offerings for sure. Can we have Tokyo next?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2r8S4uke34

Mitch Krpata: This being a Rockstar game, the story of Marston's quest for revenge — and, yes, redemption — is adorned with endless side missions and mini-games. At their best, they flesh out the world. What would an Old West setting be without some back-room poker? Some of this is busy work, like the series of challenges that send Marston into the wilds to hunt game under increasingly stringent conditions. Yet it's all worth pursuing just to experience the harsh environs, and to marvel, evenings, at the red sky in the West. Rockstar builds incredible worlds. Red Dead still showcased some of their worse qualities, but it also gave us their most compelling hero and their most beautiful environment.

NY Times Review

n/a: Admittedly this is pretty much the only 2010 game I played in 2010, but it's also almost the perfect game for me. I feel justified in naming it the best game of the year.

http://www.techlivez.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/RedDeadRedemptionLegendsandkillers2.jpg

jjjusten: Loved it to death until it became terribly terribly samey and boring; find the herb/critter hunting quests for level ups are total bullshit. On the plus side, this is the first game where riding a horse didn't make me want to break shit in my house. It looks absolutely gorgeous.

Zero Punctuation Review

Lamp: There are so many aspects of Red Dead Redemption that I found deeply stupid ,but its one of the rare games i felt compelled to finish this year. Others will, I’m sure, write more fluently and more passionately about it but damn did I ever... uh... finish it.

http://www.gameplayreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PS3-Red-Dead-Redemption.wmv_000095217.jpg

ledge: Who knew a GTA clone set in a desert (wait a minute, that's literally a sandbox...) would be so fun. Less irritatingly repetitive gameplay than GTA IV, a more engaging story and and less ridiculous cutscenes; plus it was good fun just to chill out in the desert and spend some time shooting rabbits and coyotes and pumas and armadillos and bears and crows and wolves and boar and eagles and... I do agree that the missions end up being repetitive, but it's not as bad as GTA IV was for that, and also the various challenges do add a bit of spice. Okay, picking herbs gets a bit dull but i had fun trying to find all the different critters to kill, searching out the treasure, etc. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the depth in the gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYdCvN-ukRY

bnw: King Kong of 2010. Writing, atmosphere, and voice acting all on a different level then the rest of the field. Biggest complaint would be that it gets a little grindy with repetitive side quests.

Red Dead Wiki

Polyphonic: A few of my friends and I brought our 360s together to play this game as one big posse. It was probably the nerdiest thing I've ever done, and caused me to seriously question the life decisions that led me down that path. But fuck it, it was fun. There are few moments in my gaming life that I will ever treasure more than when I killed that bear in the snows of Tall Trees with only my knife, or when I drifted up on my RS to see a starry sky as I hunted for armadillo carapaces -- only to be mauled to death by a cougar.
The single player storyline was very good, probably the best Rockstar has done to date, and the closest they've come to gameplay that is actually fun in and of itself. But the star of this game is the atmosphere. Also, the zombie overrun multiplayer co-op is fucking great.

http://wallpaperswide.com/thumbs/red_dead_redemption_raccoon-t2.jpg

Jimmy Mod : I just met my first cougar. The meeting did not go well.

A World In Motion

http://resource.mmgn.com/Games/PS3/Red-Dead-Redemption-Undead-Nig-1.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI8lAbwUoEk

The Value of Rewards

Captain Lorax: Sort of on the short side but this game was real sweet. Especially the HD graphics. Perhaps the best part of the game is the first couple days of playing it.

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Red-Dead-Redemption-Lasso-3-e1282570567790.jpg

JimD: I didn't actually finish RDR, and I don't think it's that good as a game (it shares a lot of GTA's flaws while lacking a lot of its dumb fun) but as a world it's fucking amazing. It just feels like a totally believable immersible recreation of a certain time and place, which is kind of a new thing for games to do, and I hope lots more games do it in the future. Bonus points for multiplayer too, which was good for big stop-shooting-me-in-the-horse lulz.

Get Your Tropes On

ZS: The "shoot 5 flying birds from a moving train" challenge was like the chillest assignment I have ever received. If only real life challenges were so relaxing. YES, I want to name my horse, YES I would like to name it Michael Lindington, and NO I don't care who knows it. I've been getting up and down off the horse every time, listening to John Marston say "ooooh...this is DIRTY"

http://www.bild.de/BILD/digital/spiele/2010/actionspiele/03/19/red-dead-redemption/bilder/13-rdr-15487223-mbqf.jpg

Tracer Hand : i have logged approx 5,000,000,000,000 hours with this game. i was just about ready to launch my assault and unlock mexico but my horse died right before the big race - the one i'd spent hours getting to know! so fuck - i spent a good while looking for the kentucky saddler but never found him so finally i just went on an all-night hunting binge, leveling up enough to buy the kentucky saddler outright
something happened while out hunting that sums up this game, and all its nonsensical, fabulous breathlessness
1 - trying to kill a coyote i somehow ended up aiming straight down into my horse and pulled the trigger (!)
2 - my horse was still alive but my honor dropped and suddenly lawmen were on my tail
3 - trying to outrun them, i heard the sound of a train and realized one was headed past right in front of me
4 - i managed to race the train and dart just in front of it, cutting off the lawmen and saving my sorry ass!
total movie moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KixTRyxkyU

Things that get you an M these days: opium and sex on a table

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVVXyKP1FVk

http://i44.tinypic.com/24y20yt.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZUUVV2rjoc

Forks’ RDR Country Soundtrack mix:
Buck Owens - I Got A Tiger By the Tail(1965)
Cherryholmes - Black and White (2007)
Cherryholmes - Don't Believe (2008)
Anonymous Young Girls - Hopali (1930's?)
The Carter Family - See That My Grave Is Kept Green (1933)
Cinderella G Stump - Temptation (1947)
The Carter Family - Keep On the Firing Line (1941)
Chet Atkins - Tennessee Stud (?)
Bill Monroe and Doc Watson - Chicken Reel (1963)
Alex Hood's Railroad Boys - L and N Rag (?)
Alfred G Karnes - I Am Bound for the Promised Land (?)
Alfred G Karnes - We Shall All Be Reunited (?)
Basil May - The Lady of Carlisle (?)
The Carver Boys - Sisco Harmonica Blues (?)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford - Lulu Wall (1939)
Buell Kazee - A Short Life of Trouble (1939)
Charlie Bowman and His Brothers - Moonshiner and His Money (1929)
Blue Highway - Where Did the Morning Go? (2007)
Charlie Poole and The North Carolina Ramblers - If the River Was Whiskey (?)
Cal Stewart - Monkey on a String (?)
Ben Curry - I Heard the Voice of a Pork Chop (?)
Ben Curry - It's A Fight Like That (?)
Daddy Stovepipe and Mississippi Sarah - The Spasm (?)
Bill Carlisle - Feet Don't Fail Me (?)
Asher Sizemore and Little Jimmie - Little Jimmie's Goodbye to Jimmie Rodgers (?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Di2eOr-kqs

Mayor Jingleberries: played this drunk last night and my horse got killed by some rampaging animal. So I got upset and starting killing anyone I came across to get their horse. I guess your not allowed to murder fools for their horses when you think its convenient. I guess you’re supposed to find a riderless horse out there...?

goole: i think i'm around the 40% mark, in the game's second act in Mexico, and i haven't interacted with one indian yet. i don't think there are any in the game at all. i think this is significant, somehow. i like that the game is in 1911, a "late western" about the closing of the frontier rather than an early one about opening it. maybe this is just to allow them to put more interesting guns in the game, or riff off the meta-westerns like the wild bunch or there will be blood (a town called plainview? really?). plus it doesn't shy away from politics at all; every other dude wants to talk to you about federal power. anyway, the setting's early-20th-century-ness is really present and apparent to me and i'm really liking it. speaking of politics, there's the politics of Rockstar's media reputation, and i'm getting ongoing chuckles from the (what i take to be) anti "hot coffee" vibe of the whole thing. no matter which path you take, the John Marston character is (so far) faithful to his wife as a given. the prostitutes say stuff like ""I hate to see a man with such a dry pecker... can I help?"and our killer just says "my wife wouldn't like that" or something. the writing and v/o is head and shoulders above even IV. the mission design is finally good. the secondary challenges are interesting well-thought out, hit that grinding w/o grinding sweet spot. the body physics and gun combat are excellent (the gta games are kind of bad as shooters, really!) I'm not totally without complaints but most of the things that bugged me about the GTAs have been mostly fixed. and the things it does well it does really really well. you can't underestimate how important it is to have a game be pretty. funny i think it's closest to bully in terms of uh vibe, maybe cos of the atmosphere and hazy old-timeyness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD2ywdtvK-8

Cozen: jesus, the sky in this game

Get Your Tropes On

Jim D: Huge lolz last night - I wandered up to that little cave where West Dickens lives, and found him stood there rambling away to himself while pissing onto his own bed. Went a bit closer to try and get a better look (yes, I was looking for his winkie), but accidentally bumped into him, which caused him to fall face first into his own pissy matress and lie there shouting about what a bastard I was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8IonrlZp74

Forksclovetofu: On a river bed, I found an old man doubled over holding his head. A woman was laid out in front of him, bloody and dead. When I stopped and walked up to him, he stood up and shakily held a gun to his own head. I ran up and pushed him. He dropped the gun and began weeping and then finally glaring at me angrily until I rode away. That’s not a video game, that’s a Cormac McCarthy short story.
My main issue with this game is: riding along minding my own business, "help save my baby" from the side of the road, I pull off my horse and before I know what's up someone is shooting at me, I return fire, kill some old lady and now the game is shaking its head at me with a “what were you thinking” attitude. Then, cougar attack.
I just went south of the border and the amazing and very clearly directorially planned moment with the Jose Gonzalez music was awesome; as deeply affecting as anything I’ve ever seen in a game. Then I got eaten by wolves. This is a lot less like GTA and a lot more like Fallout 3
There’'s a lot less relatably icky gang bullshit and putting caps in people's asses than GTA but the game is about two steps away from blatant racism; the first guy I met in Mexico might as well have been Al Pacino playing Tony Montana which didn't even make sense. There is a definite parochial "save us old white guy we cannot survive without you" vibe. Also there's a real disregard for life that even GTA never fostered; the game invites you to kill kill kill every animal you encounter... weirdly, that puts you somewhat of the game’s time though?
All the above aside, I recommend this wholeheartedly and would definitely say it's the best thing Rock Star has ever done.
BRB LEVELLIN' MY DONKEY

Machinima Directors Are Suddenly Taken Seriously

MPx4A: I lassoed a guy off a hooker to try and go the taking him alive route, but it just made him fall headfirst into a wall and he died anyway. The drunk guy that sometimes falls out of the bar seems to be immune to punches. I tried to lasso his body to drag him to the cells for the night and he disappeared, leaving only his hat. I kind of hope they don't patch any of that shit. It's happened to me twice that I've seen a guy standing on his own in the middle of the wilderness, waving his hands and looking scared, and then I've got off my horse to talk to him, he's immediately tried to ride off on it, and I've shot him and then lost 50 honor as a result. I too have accidentally shot my horse in the neck, minutes after maxing out its loyalty. I did not skin it. Do you know why? It was out of respect.

forks shot me in the head. never forget.

lol, u were asking for it.
anyways, sorry this took six months to finish. Hopefully it stands up for the future and for the rest of your 2011 gaming as these are all now heavily discounted or cheap games to get and they're all at least worth a look.
Anybody wanna do a final list round up for me maybe?

ooh good job forks (+ poly). guess i should switch on my xbox & buy limbo then huh.

highly recommended.

in retrospect i have one huge regret that i forgot to vote for and really loved, and that is mafia II. hands down the best soundtrack for a game ever, esp if you are into some fairly obscure shit from the era

ledge: Very reminiscent of Another World (aka Out of This World).

Sold! Or, uh, would be, if I had a 360

http://mafiagame.wikia.com/wiki/Mafia_II_Soundtrack

i actually used to pop the game in and just park the car and wander around listening to the ingame radio play - its that awesome. gameplay is pretty great too - shortish, but tells a good story.

good job forks and poly. have been told how great new vegas supposedly is more than once now, will stop having a life and get on it.

regarding #3, be sure to check out "indie mode" in Upgrade Complete 2

thanks forks
now I'm the one with some catching up to do

dam man

thanks forks/polyphonic!

(lol)

http://chiakiproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/psp-kon.jpg

should've used this pic for ME2:

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/40299_488645109198_602254198_6935537_3221638_n.jpg

i was banking on fonv making the top 3 with an outside shot at #1 - i gave it the highest number of points i could - i havent even heard of many of the games on the list since i dont have a smart phone and im not a console gamer (what in the hell is Limbo)

great job dudes!

definitely convinced me to pick up a lot of stuff here, esp. Limbo and Pac Man DX

JimD: I can't explain why I haven't got bored of this, because in a sense I was bored as soon as I started playing. It really doesn't feel very different to any number of flash games that have gone before, but perhaps it's one of those situations where the game is just a perfect fit for the format. Angry Birds is exactly the kind of non-game you want for a 15 minute train journey and that's where most of my gaming happens these days. The constant drip feed of new levels is a plus too.

otm on Angry Birds

Arrgh not to be mr contrary corner but I just played limbo for an hour and while I like the atmosphere the jump button recognition is fucking terrible

Ok never mind, switched controllers and I guess I have a sorta worn a button in that one, carry on

I guess I have a sorta worn a button

It's-a me, jjjusteno!

Limbo would've got points from me too, if I'd played it in time. Probably not enough to put it ahead of FONV though.

Oops, when I posted last night I hadn't noticed we'd reached #1! Many thanks, forks and poly.

hahaha nice jimD

still on the fence on limbo, it teeters right on the hairline between fun and frustration - i dig the puzzles that take clever thinking (and actually this seems to have more of these than most platformers i play these days) but i hate when they sink into the lazy end of precise timing and placement of jumps and repetition - basically once I figure out the trick to what you want me to do, I don't feel any further reward by replaying the sequence until i get it just right.

atmosphere is great tho, and some of the tweaks (brainworms and ambiently lit rotating worlds) are really great ideas.

ending is great
the less backstory they try to provide for the game, the better it is imo
really impressed that they managed to avoid being overly twee or goth all the way through

About halfway through Limbo now. Great stuff. These guys clearly loved Out of this World and Prince of Persia. Good job, ILG.

hmmm.... I also love out of this world and prince of persia. guess I should play this one.

thanks forks and poly, as ever this was a blast to read. feel bummed that i didn't get it together to vote in time, though i don't think i played many 2010 games in 2010: spent most of the year playing Fallout3, which was a revelation tbh. Have to say I've played so much Worms2 on the iphone that I would've voted for that, but I am a Worms addict so ymmv.

Is New Vegas still too broken to play? Have been waiting for it to get real cheap.



http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=128148751

I have no idea where that link came from, but I suspect trypo thread, probably best not clicking.

ending is great

I do not concur. Not as bad as LeChuck's Revenge, but it's up there. TBF I can see how for other people they'd be down with that style of conclusion (but that moment when you beat the final puzzle was like whoaaah~~).

Still, great game! Agree w/jjjusten about the puzzles that required death after death until you got the split-second timing down being a bit of a letdown, especially compared to Portal 2's approach. But the majority of the puzzles were clever and satisfying (there was only one puzzle where I cheated to look for a FAQ towards the end - the first time where you have to hit a switch in mid-air, because I had no idea that even was a switch), and the art and sound design tops. I really love a game with such effective emotional direction.

See i LIKED the lechuck's revenge ending so we're just on different pages

sometimes it's like, i don't even know you dawg

I'm forks.