With 2010 drawing to a close and in the wake of Spike TV's own VGAs, I thought I'd add my 2 cents and compile a list of my own personal "best-of" for the year. Just a reminder to try and avoid any potential flaming, this is a list that I've made based on my own experience that I've had with various games; it may be true that there's a "better" game in a specific category, but if I didn't play it, I can't very well rate it, can I?
BEST ARCADE
Chime (XBLA)
Elegant in its simplicity and beautiful in its presentation, Chime is just a lot of fun to play. It follows the "easy to learn/hard to master" formula that when executed properly makes for a great game - while reading the instructions page may seem overwhelming, you can learn how to play in about 2 minutes by simply diving into a game. Great for both killing a few minutes or spending hours trying to beat your high score, Chime has that addictive old-school appeal of deriving satisfaction from outsmarting the game to get more points that you don't see very often anymore. The soundtrack is great - the dynamic way the music changes based on how you play makes for a different experience every time, and the choice of cool, relaxed themes (Moby, for God's sake) makes the game at once both mentally engaging and actually relaxing to play. Add to that the fact that it's only 400 points, AND the money you spend on the game goes to help charity, and all this game is really missing is a halo.
Runners Up:
NONE! I didn't really play that many arcade games this year, mainly because nothing really caught my fancy. That alone should tell you something. Scott Pilgrim was fun-ish, but I'm kind of sick of side-scrolling beat-'em-ups, and the lack of any online co-op really hurts a game that would otherwise be a fun game to play with frieds. But just to properly fill out this category I'm going to go ahead and list Marvel Vs Capcom 2 here. Because it still rocks.
BEST DLC/GAME ADD-ON
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
Ok, so this is a bit tricky because I'm talking about the Undead Nightmare disc that you can buy, which contains all of the RDR DLC and is technically different from just the Undead Nightmare expansion. But I figured I would make an allowance because it's such an awesome package. For $30 you get a new single player mode which, although quite short is still a lot of fun (props for giving access to the entire map!). AND you get the new "undead overrun" multiplayer mode, because if there's 3 things gamers have shown mad love for recently it's horde-esque modes, zombies, and co-op and this is ALL 3 of those things - addictive cooperative zombie killing where you and your friends test your skills against wave after wave of zombies to see how long you can last. AND you get access to the ENTIRETY of RDR's multiplayer playground, complete with all the previously released DLC packs. So basically the only thing that you don't get with this package is the RDR single player campaign, which is a shame, but for $30 it's hard to complain too much.
Runners Up:
Dragon Age: Awakening
An incredible expansion that introduces a new full-length story, new characters, new armor/weapons and new levels of existing gear, fun new game mechanics (rune crafting is pretty sweet), awesome new skills, talents, and specializations, and bet of all, the ability to remap your character from the ground up! (Phew that's a lot of stuff). There's totally enough content here to justify the $40 price tag, since if you're a fan of the game it gives you a brand new way to play. If you import your Origins character it's a bit easy, since you start at such a high level, but that's alright. It's just too bad that your Awakening character can't be re-imported to your Origins file.
Super Street Fighter IV Tournament Mode
It's basically just a bracketed tournament-style online mode where up to 8 players fight in single elimination battles to determine the ultimate victor. While it doesn't offer any new mechanics, it is a neat new way to pit yourself against other fighters. Oh yeah - and it's FREE.
BEST ONLINE
Halo: Reach (Xbox 360)
This game is Halo actualized. It not only represents updated game mechanics and balance tweaks to improve the Halo experience that we're already familiar with, but it offers vastly more robust versions of Forge and the save film/file sharing system introduced in Halo 3. Gaming today, especially online gaming, is less about what's enclosed on the disc and more about the social community of gaming, playing online with friends, and sharing cool experiences that revolve around the game. Halo: Reach was built with this philosophy in mind, with an already abundant field of machinima and animated cartoons using the Halo engine, and a vast array of community-made Forge maps. One thing is clear - this game exists to give gamers the tools they need to flex their creative muscles and create their own unique, individual Halo experience. That's why this game by far represents the best online experience - not just because it's a solid, well made game (which it totally is), but because Reach is the very embodiment of the online gaming community.
Runners Up:
Blur
This game offers some addictively fun multiplayer racing that is easy for anyone to dive into, regardless of whether or not they've ever played a racing game before. The controls are simple, the visuals are fun and exciting, and it offers you the chance to "level up" to unlock new cars. This game shines in really big races of 12-20 people where things can get really chaotic with powerups flying everywhere, and admittedly can be a little dull in some of the smaller contests, but all in all a surprisingly satisfying mutliplayer outing.
Red Dead Redemption
This game seems to adopt the "quantity over quality" approach to online multiplayer. While the modes on offer may not be the greatest, there sure are a lot of them. Players can choose from standard deathmatch-style games to free roam sessions where you and a party ("posse") of friends can explore the entire map, or even jump into a game of Texas Hold 'Em poker or Liar's Dice (try figuring out what that is). Whatever yoru poison, RDR offers it to you in multiplayer - as long as it's a fixture of the old west, that is.
*That wraps up this half of my Best-of 2010 post. In the interest of avoiding a wall of text (thus encouraging people to actually READ this) I'm going to divide this topic into 2 posts. The next half will follow shortly...
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