The Fifth Annual Coint and Plick Poll for Best Video Games of 2011 - Part Four: THE TOP TWENTY

should i get that game

There's an in-browser demo.

jamescobo’s Biggest Disappointment
Sword & Sorcery (iOS)
Looks cool as shit but I have yet to have two consecutive seconds of fun with it.

otm :(

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#7: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Wii – 90 pts – 6 votes - 1 top game votes
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Ian F: Coming out as it did in December, I haven't finished this yet, although I've already spent longer on it than almost anything else on this list (28.5 hours so far). So it could move a place either way. I can already say with some certainty that it's a fine reinvigoration after the epic but stale Twilight Princess, that it only takes a very short period of adjustment from HD graphics to realise that it is really, really gorgeous, and that it has the best alternate world mechanic of any Zelda yet. Piloting a ship across a desert ocean was such a massive WOW moment. Also, the directional sword fighting mechanic makes fighting so much more fun than it was in previous games, and if you tried to do it with buttons alone would be a fiddly pain in the arse, so yes, it does make a fine belated case for motion controls. Also, I love the game's commitment to having you do something fun at all possible times, cutting things up into tiny bite sized pieces without dumbing down excessively, and am happy to lose a few side quests and a joined-up map to get it.

Remy Bean: I’m not even done with this. I just love everything about it; the difficulty curve, the puzzles, the wiimote interactivity, the collecting, the fetch quests, the mini games, the art style, the absolutely amazing level design. Perhaps the Wii is on its way out, and this is the grand finale –– and I hope it shows up as a launch title for whatever comes next. I haven’t had this much fun with an adventure game in years. My Serious Gamer friends tease me – because I significantly prefer cartoony games over realistic ones, whimsy before intensity –– and this game was pitched perfectly to my tastes. This feels like a spiritual successor to Link To the Past; a game that is light-hearted and frustrating and weird in equal measure

Salsa Shark: This one's been a bit of a slow burner. I like the way it makes pretty good use of the Wii's limited graphics capabilities and I love the weirdness of the desert area with the robots, but so far the game has failed to really grab me in the way I expected it would after reading all its gushing reviews. Based on previous Zelda games I just have that much faith that it'll pull through and impress me in the end. Whether or not the way the game unfolds can make up for the terrible control system has yet to be determined. This game is proof that just because you can map controls to a Wiimote doesn't mean you should.

CraigG: It falls short of my expectations that this might finally be the 3D Zelda game to match Ocarina of Time, they finally brought the mechanics into this century. Being able to run and climb and actually make your way around the environment without inexplicably being unable to get up a waist-high wall, etc, was long-needed. I've not completed it, but put in a fair amount of time so far. I haven't hit any of the bugs or annoying return-to-an-old-temple bits that seem to have infuriated others yet either, but so far it's good. I hadn't expected another Zelda to come on the Wii, so for it to be of this high quality was a bonus. I got the sweet gold Wii Remote Plus too, as I'm a soft target!

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#6: Deus Ex: Human Revolution – 360 / PS3 / PC – 100 pts – 7 votes - 0.33 top game votes
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oppet: The sequel to my favourite game ever, so had a lot to live up to. Which it mainly did, although I wouldn't have minded if they'd improved on the terrible voice acting and dubious racial stereotypes.

Jordan: Its flaws are wide-open to criticism, but it was still one of my most memorable gaming experiences of the year. It may not be the ultimate in open-world decision-making, but I always had the sense that the game was letting me figure things out at my own pace (which seems all too rare these days).

Diamond Dave: who knew i'd enjoy hiding behind a box and waiting so much?

abanana’s Biggest Disappointment
Limbo (PS3)
The video game equivalent of a movie that uses noir lighting just because it's cheap, this used silhouettes because art is expensive. The physics-based (why?) block-pushing puzzles (again?) did not help.

that's it for today. Top 5 will be either tomorrow or tuesday. probably tomorrow.

shit, I didn't use the correct system on the gif for deus ex!

awwww fuck it.

huh. were there much fewer blurbs this year than usual?

oppet: The sequel to my favourite game ever, so had a lot to live up to.

So just checking, is this some "Star Trek V never happened" happening here?

I don't know why HR wasn't working with me. I've played Deus Ex 2x and consider it to be a fucking triumph for the medium. HR I went into with an immediate distaste for the overindulgent color-pallete as well as absolutely hating the fact that conversations always played out in some sort of separate game engine. And then the actual gameplay: Am I alone in thinking it was uncommonly hard? Seems like all the NPC's are unbelievably hyper-aware of whether I'm peaking out of the corners of things, and the fact that you were some superengineered megacyborg and yet required a candy bar each and every time you knocked someone out a bizarre game facet.

NPC's kill you seconds on sight and the hacking minigame assumed too much that the player was a william gibson fan and found natural joy making icons light up. it was just as bad as that tiring pipe-hacking minigame from bioshock. (funny enough, the only hacking minigame I've continually enjoyed is ME2's generic match-up: mostly b/c I feel like I've *earned* the right to hack into this and wasn't left to the devices of some randomized bs)

I'm a huge Splinter Cell/MGS fan and find both games far easier in terms of stealth... i eventually returned HR w/out having finished it b/c i was so frustrated with the idea that a bunch of generic 80s-mohawk streetpunks of the future were actively keeping their eyes centered on the corners of boxes so they could shoot whatever it is without first processing whether it was a threat or not. could've been mom, ffs, here to bring you your lunch.

best hacking game is still the droid takeover thing in Paradroid.

Based on previous Zelda games I just have that much faith that it'll pull through and impress me in the end. Whether or not the way the game unfolds can make up for the terrible control system has yet to be determined. This game is proof that just because you can map controls to a Wiimote doesn't mean you should.

Also, having to battle 'the Imprisoned' not once not twice but THRICE!! was DUMB. Battles 2 and 3 are WAY too close together and it's a pretty ridiculous and unbelievable boss to begin with >:(

BUT I've really liked the designs and gameplay of the various desert/mountain/forest areas, the dungeons (esp the desert ship) and the dungeon bosses (esp the sword robot). I also like the silly side quests <3 <3 side quests

Stoked.

Battles 2 and 3 are WAY too close together

otm. this pissed me off enough that i haven't really played the game since /:

i stalled during the tadtones bit, but i loved everything until that part. is it worth it to power through to the next part?

The last dungeon was easily my favourite in the game. Don't remember anything particularly annoying between tadtones and there.

later zeldas seem v keen on the repetition; i've seen at least one review arguing that the dungeon-repetition in the first ds title was A Good Thing, which strikes me as awfully strange

remy if you loved it all up until the tadtones then yeah, do it. the other song gathering bits are good.

this pissed me off enough that i haven't really played the game since /:

― diamonddave85, Monday, April 16, 2012 8:17 PM (2 hours ago)

later zeldas seem v keen on the repetition; i've seen at least one review arguing that the dungeon-repetition in the first ds title was A Good Thing, which strikes me as awfully strange

― thomp, Monday, 16 April 2012 19:38 (2 hours ago) Permalink

I never finished Phantom Hourglass for that reason. The Ocean King levels were fucking infuriating, and that you were being timed in the midst of all of them unbelievable. Plus, there came a point where it offers you a save-point/teleportation-device - but considering you gained that during your first haphahazard run-through of the temple's levels, you only have about a minute left on the clock. As such, it necessitates that you do the entire stage over again to gain a couple extra minutes - long story short, miyamoto had no qualms with fucking with you.

otherwise, i loved that game and the ship sailing bits were almost heavenly

There's always been a (welcome?) element of repetition in the Zeldas though - one of their defining characteristics for me was the notes I was taking re "must remember to come back to this spot when I have arrow / bombs / hookshot"

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#5: Glitch – in browser – 104 pts – 7 votes - 2.25 top game votes- top in browser exclusive game
play it here
glitch: a wacky new mmorpg played in browser
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tomofthenest: totally addictive land of doing nothing at all except holding left or right. I'm not sure how it even functions at entertainment but yeah I'll give it some points anyway..

DJP: This game was super fun until it went live, at which point all of the whimsy and goofiness just seemed... pointless.

Remy Bean: I wanted to love Glitch. I was an alpha tester. A beta tester. I participated on the forums, offered a number of suggestions to the game, a half-dozen of which were actually, deeply, incorporated. I played and played. Different play styles. Filled out dutiful bug reports. But I was chastised by a reactive staff-member for interacting in the global chat, trying to deflect the damage done by a racist troll. The damned thing is, I really made a difference, defused a potentially injurious situation, and then got slapped for it, because they didn’t want to go after the actual troll. Then, I got in trouble for making fun of the Amish. No joke; I got called out for suggesting farcical gameplay adaptions for the Amish. Some dude (boyfriend of a dev, IIRC), called it ‘religious intolerance’ and all of a sudden the game, and community, turned on a dime. It became cuddly-mountain, San-Fran based moral one-upmanship, inclusivity-as-a-competitive-sport. Apart from a shift in the general feeling of the tester’ community, I felt like the gameplay direction itself changed. What had once been a fairly open discussion with regard to the goal and purpose of the game (and a lot of its draw) suddenly became about a discussion imposing limitations and proper play pragmatics, limiting the game to a number of Actual Functions. I have no idea whether the game is closer to what Tiny Speck wants/wanted it to be, but it is a lot farther from what I enjoyed. It was fun having an influence, an impact, a clue about the direction of the game – to feel like the meta-gaming aspects were encouraged and acknowledged, that I didn’t have to play “right” or “wrong” but rather that the world was a sandbox (unconstrained) –– and not a “sandbox” (with hard limits and proper, highly codified and politicized ethical/moral dimensions). Based on the early beta work, this would have been my game of the year. Based on its current incarnation, it’ll sulk at the bottom of the list. And I won’t be going back to playing it in any meaningful way, unless something big changes in the overall design.

Nhex: I didn't predict that the first MMO I would really play in near ten years would be some kind of cutesy casual collection junk done in Flash featuring giant headed unisex monster children, but there you have it. Like others here I funded the game during beta because of the promise it showed. Though it was one of the best games I played this year (in a great year) and I still love the writing and humor, after a long enough time, it falls prey to the same problems all over MMOs have - basically, what to do when you've exhausted the game's activity list, or when what's left devolves to endless chores. Still, before the reaching that point, it's a joy to see what the developers have cooked up. And as a living game, they still have time to add new stuff all the time, and I've got a year left on this sub anyway...

planning on finishing out tonight, so hope that's cool!

In retrospect it's hard to believe I spent so much time mining rocks in caves.

Luckily Skyrim came along and offered a more graphically impressive mining experience.

xp yes so cool

so many MMOs, and other kinds of games, have somehow stumbled onto this truth: human being subconsciously crave mining rocks in caves

but only if you can do it at a rate of about 1 cubic meter per second.

agent hibachi’s Biggest Disappointment
Battlefield 3
hey, the holidays are over, time to finally boot this up, i have a couple of hours to kill. (installing) one hours later: please insert disc 2 for hd content. sure, the graphics looked great in the promo stuff. (installing) two hours later: yes! title screen. no! title update. (installing) one hour later: yes! title..jesus fuck. 1.5 gig "multiplayer" update that it says i should install anyway because of single-player bugs. (three weeks later) finally! a few hours to try this. it's fully patched. it's gonna be awesome. (zips through first few levels) oops, that rooftop sniper just got me three times in a row. i dislike this loading screen already, it's costing me at least thirty seconds of my actual life every time i die in the game. oops, got me a fourth time. oops, HARD CRASH, xbox completely locked up. fuck this. modern warfare, you win.

You have to patch shit on your Xbox?? what's the point of an xbox then

if you're going to install shit for hours on a frickin game console you could be downloading shareware from AOL in 1998 and probably have more fun.

i've got a sweet shareware Doom floppy if anyone wants it

You have to patch shit on your Xbox?? what's the point of an xbox then

what? i think maybe u don't have a clear grasp of what an xbox is?

like, i've never heard someone tout the virtues of an xbox by saying that you never have to patch a game

remember when the xbox 360 cost $5000?

It's a game console! Games come on discs or carts and you play them! I knew you could "install" Xbox games but I assumed it was mostly pretend or optional. Sounds like it's violating the game console social contract to me.

i think you can opt out of any patch, but in most cases (ie when the patch doesn't break the game) I don't know why you would want to. patches squash bugs!

oppet: The sequel to my favourite game ever, so had a lot to live up to.

So just checking, is this some "Star Trek V never happened" happening here?

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 16 April 2012 05:14 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, I had genuinely forgotten about the actual sequel. In my defence, my ballot blurbs were done in a total rush.

Glitch really had me sucked in for about a fortnight but then I forgot about it. Seemed like it was getting too fiddly and less fun, I think.

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#4: Tiny Wings – iOS – 105 pts – 6 votes - 1 top game vote - top iOS exclusive game
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Jeff: A perfect little game. I perfectly maddening little game. I think I spent the most consecutive hours playing this, at least 6 or 7 hours straight one day.

Sondrangerbot: more frustrating than fun, more evil than entertaining but still addictive.

silby: TINY WINGS, Andreas Illiger, iOS, totally my GOTY
Tiny Wings is yet another iOS game where your one interaction is
touching the screen. You touch the screen to "make yourself heavy" as
the instructions say; your bird stops its feeble flapping and gliding
and drops to the ground. The physics simulations required to do this
chewed battery like crazy on my 1G iPod touch. A couple of the
objectives aren't fun to get.

But everything else about this game, the art, the sounds, the music, the
physics, the way it makes my brain feel every time I hit a perfect
slide, or miss one, or anticipate nightfall with mounting dread, is so
fucking on point it's crazy. Doing well makes you feel unstoppable,
doing poorly makes you feel like you are dragging your belly down the
hill just like that miserably cheerful bird. Tiny Wings is intense and
engrossing. It plays on the "die and retry" shtick employed by Canabalt,
Super Meat Boy, vvvvv etc. by not even bothering to let you die...at
least not officially. But when you're chasing that 175,000 point
objective, you can know halfway through the first island that you are
doomed. You can see yourself two minutes later, flopping down on the
upward slope of some shitty hill on island 6, tucking your wings in to
sleep, and you wonder why you didn't restart right away when you lost
your fever five islands ago. And then you retry anyway.

Tiny Wings is a one-button game but a full-body experience. You feel gravity
weighing on your tiny bird body, you feel the timing of your descent and
the exhilaration of your cloud touches in your very gonads. Tiny Wings
is like playing on a swing, pumping your arms back and forth, shifting
your weight around at the right moments to try to make the swing finally
flip over the top of the swingset, twirling you around like a roller
coaster.

There may be better games than Tiny Wings that came out in 2011, but I
didn't play them. No seriously I didn't, I did not play many new video
games at all this year. Maybe it was only Tiny Wings. But Tiny Wings was
all I needed.

tiny wings is that good??

maybe i should try it, but if it's anything like angry birds you can forget it

i played so much tiny wings im getting a lil sick just thinking abt it

a v beautiful and frustrating game

Definitely understanding what silby is feeling as regards the console social contract, but the sad truth is that this is how it's been since the first Xbox allowed installation and patching - consoles dropped the previously stringent quality standards in favour of PC's "ship it now, patch it later".

i also played way too much tiny wings. *barf&&&--__..

It's a game console! Games come on discs or carts and you play them! I knew you could "install" Xbox games but I assumed it was mostly pretend or optional. Sounds like it's violating the game console social contract to me.

― raw feel vegan (silby)

you don't have to install the game to apply a patch to it. patches are generally welcome fixes to glitches and don't take long to download. you don't have to check for them either, it automatically does that and tells you when you boot up the game that there's a patch available and asks you if you'd like to install it. seems beyond obtuse to have a problem with this. i suppose this is ilx tho.

tiny wings is nothing like angry birds. very beautiful and tranquilizing

i should definitely buy this "guide for tiny wings - tips and tricks" app i see in the itunes store for the same price as the game, right?

Tiny Wings is on my top 5 list of "games I won't play because I will get sucked in and I actually enjoy the sun on my face and the sound of children's laughter".