Best Games of 2010

[Tuffty]

With the year coming to an end, and the game release calendar slowing down, it's an appropriate time to look back and reflect on what you think are the best games you've played this year? To help you out, here's a list of games to refresh your memory.

List of games in 2010

Probably a few rules about this:

- Make it games that you've played, not ones you've seen a few reviews for on metacritic and ride on someone else's opinion.
- Try to explain what made it so special to you. You could manage to persuade someone and make them into a fan!
- If you haven't played many games released this year then

Red Dead Redemption - It's hard to argue anything against it other than I thought the latter third slowed down a bit until it approached the end. An amazing game, full of moments in the narrative and in open world gameplay that will live long in the memory. Surely Rockstar's best so far, with no shortage of variety and a story that actually has meaning in the end.

Bayonetta - Well what is there left to say about Bayonetta? Absolutely batshit crazy, and I love it. Not only do you have the most inventive, fluid and dynamic combat system ever seen in a game of it's type, but it also has a very strong female lead in many ways.

Mass Effect 2 - Streamlined from it's predecessor in nearly every way, ME2 is just simply better than ME1. Better graphics, better to play, better engaged in the story and the multi faceted characters. I think it's Bioware's finest.

Final Fantasy XIII - This one I'm kind of cheating with cause I haven't actually finished it. It could end very poorly, but at the moment I'm enjoying my time with FFXIII. It's a different beast from FFXII and certainly there are aspects like exploring towns that I miss and would have loved to have in there. But where FFXII fails, FFXIII does right, so you do care more about the characters, the pacing is better, naturally the graphics are amazing and dare I say it, the battle system is better than in XII. Takes a while to get going but when it hit's it's stride, it's taken me in and will not let me go until I've cleared it all.

Super Street Fighter IV - It's been my first proper entry in the series, other times being a casual playthrough to pass time, and it's been a steep learning curve that still causes me heartache. But I'll be damned if it's not one of the best fighting games I've played. Jumping in with a HK into Fei Long's Ultra 1 is always satisfying, I'm always learning and it's very easy to lose track of time when playing it. HADOKEN!!

There are others games I've played this year that were released outside of 2010 which are incredibly impressive, but even at that, I still think I would have made the same choices regardless.

[Amplifier]

Looking at the release list, I realize I realy didn't play much at all this year, especially games from this year in specific

However:

The Good:

Dwarf Fortress - Had a major update earlier this year, which changed gameplay a fair bit, for the better. GOTY

Mass Effect 2 - At first the changes threw me off, but I quickly adjusted, and enjoyed the game very much. I really don't want to wait a year for the third game. Also: dat music on Omega, at the club

Victoria 2 - Grand Strategy done (almost) right. Needs a few more patches and content packs, in typical Paradox style, to be better still.

Alien Swarm - Was quite pleased with the tech demo Valve churned out. Expecting AS2 (or perhaps L4D in Space, soon).

Also enjoyable: Assassin's Creed II, Super Scribblenauts, Pokemon Black/White
Enjoyable non-2010: Mirror's Edge, Lord of the Rings Online

The DO WANT (2011):

Shogun 2: Total War, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Homefront, Brink, Portal 2, The Witcher 2, RAGE - Next year looks quite awesome for games, hoping they deliver

The DO NOT WANT
More DLC; more people jerking off to Civ 5, and the doubtlessly coming wave of expansions and DLC;

[winner]

Only played like around 3 games of 2010.
But my pick would be:

Mass Effect 2 - Improvements in all areas. Lovely graphics, fighting mechanics gave more of an adrenalin rush, tedious upgrades from 1 were scrapped, story was interesting, memorable companions, different outcomes, great ending.
Can't wait to link it up to Part 3 to see if the choices made would cause heavier consequences this time.

[MochaNutz]

hmmm. my 360 broke last year i think, so i only got to play ps3 games.

MAG - pleasantly surprised with this game. i got it when it hit the greatest hits right after the patch, so it was good playing it in a good form. i like team based games.

Heavy Rain - i loved farenheit, so i knew exactly what i was getting with this game. fortunately, it went beyond my expectations, besides a few plotholes.

Assassin's Creed II - really? 2010? it was what i thought AC1 was gonna be. i enjoyed it.

Red Dead Redemption - amazing game by rockstar. i think its the first sandbox game i actually finished.

Super Street Fighter 4 - i played SF2 back in the 90s. this game was made for people like me =P

Scott Pilgrim vs the World - Again, i'm an old school gamer. this game was made for people like me =)

NBA 2K11 - i haven't bought a 2k Ball game since.. way back when. This is the version to get. Michael Jordan, thats all i have to say. this version will last me a while.

Call of Duty Black Ops - feels like a polished version of MW2. MW2 has more 'soul' if you know what i'm talking about, but BLOPS is still amazing.

[zoolander]

Looking back through that list I played a crap load this year , but there are still more I need to play eventually.

Mostly I liked just breezing through the main stuff and enjoyed the roller coaster ride (Bayonetta, God of War III, Alan Wake, Red Dead Redemption, Limbo, Lara Croft GOL, Mafia 2, Amnesia, Castlevania LOS, Force Unleashed II) Some I played for dozens of hours and did pretty much everything there was to do (Mass Effect 2, Fallout NV, Peace Walker, NCAA Football 11? Minecraft?) some I still haven't beaten (BioShock 2, Yakuza 3, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood) I would say I enjoyed just about all the games I played from this year too which is amazing.

My top 3 would probably be:

1. Minecraft would have to be my GOTY if it counts. Not really a finished game but still the most played most fun game of the year for me.
-Roller coasters and tram systems, giant towers in the sky, massive tree houses, underwater lairs, I (tried to) build all that shit and more.
-Hours long treks to the bowls of the earth through glorious natural caves that keep going, and going, and going all in the search of supplies.
-Battling the most frightening enemies ever witnessed since those black headcrabs in Half Life 2.
-Making my own cool personalized skins for my dude.
-Downloading other peoples same files seeing the insane games and cities and stuff people make.
-Watching Minecraft videos on Youtube to get ideas or just for entertainment which I did way too much of.
-Starting new worlds just to explore cool randomly generated terrain. Finding mountains floating in the sky, seeing vast deserts and snow biomes that take my breath away. Setting sail on the open ocean to find new continents and start over anew.
-Messing around online even though it was hard to do stuff because it is still buggy as heck.

Notch gets the SMP straitened out and we could be looking at the best game of all time imo. 

2. Super Mario Galaxy 2 Such a beautiful game. I never really liked 3D Nintendo games until SMG and this is even more of that with even more cleaver levels than the first. Nothing can beat mario Nuff said!

3. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker I was a little wary because I didn't like Portable Ops at all but they did a good job fixing the controls and streamlining the recruiting and resource management. Awesome main story campaign with cool interactive comic cut scenes along with hundreds of bite sized missions for pick up and play. Incredible amount of wacky uncrackables and collectibles not to mention co-op is surprisingly a blast if you can find someone with the game (it's only online through your PS3). I have no clue how they fit it all on the disk to be honest. The production values are through the roof!

Also unlike ME2 you can even get some bromance going (if you wanna do that kinda thing that is ; D)


Fallout NV and Mass Effect 2 juuuust barely miss my top 3 so honorable mention to them.

Best 2009 game I played in 2010: Batman: Arkham Asylum (haven't played much yet tbh but I can already tell it is amazing)

[Ayako-Luna]

Another year is going to end soon... Damn time flies by D:

Final Fantasy XIII: I had my worries about this game because it had so much neagtive points from the Fans.... But I bought it anyway and played it. I found the game very interesting and changed in the last time my mind about the game! The Battle System is very good and very easy to get used to it! Even if you hasn't played it for a few month's! Snoopy... aaahh... I mean Snow is a very good and interesting character... I don't know what some people has against him And I like Hope... How he changes A LOT during the game's plot.

SONIC COLOURS: This game is so much fun to play It gives you -as an old Sonic-Fan- the feeling only to speed around the road and destroy everything that comes on your way. And on 3D. Very well made, SEGA... AND... it has the MOST EPIC FINAL BATTLE ever! Must play it on my HD TVC, because my poor TV bleeds my eyes, when I see the blurred colors!

Pokémon HeartGold / SoulSilver: The most epic Remake Pokémon games ever! I like it a lot and can't stop playing it!

SONIC & SEGA All-Stars Racing: Wiiiihiiiii!!! Let's do some racing games with Sonic (again...) But I think, this is a good racing game! Since you can do Online Racing and this kind of stuff.... I love it and play it, then I'm bored.

[coachie]

Hmm, looks like I played four games from 2010, let's see...

FFXIII
What is there to say? Either you hate and bash it for not being like the "old" FF games or take it as what it is: a game with great likeable characters (and major kickass female leads!), superb graphics and a nice story. It had it's flaws and I have to admit I probably enjoyed the second half with the opened up world and missions a lot more than the first, but overall it was a hell of a ride and I don't regret a minute playing it.

I also immensly enjoyed BAyonetta, even if I'm not a good enough gamer to truly enjoy it's greatness.


But my personal winner this year is...
*drumroll*

NIER
What can I say? I simply love this game and played it for hours and hours. I have no words for the enjoyment I took in playing it. It may be weak on the technical and graphical side and the battling is simple and you can argue that they could have done so much more with it, but to hell with critic on this unpolished gem!!!
This game literally sang to my old school gamer heart like no other high polished triple A title this year. It has great characters, setting, story and a wonderful soundtrack. I simply love it!

[shirenuファクトリー]

Haahh unsurprisingly I haven't played any games that were released this year... (Except Alien Swarm??) My equipment ain't quite good enough for the latest games...

My #1 game this year is MASS EFFECT and I can't wait to play ME2.
#2 is still Sims 2 :3 Lame or not, I don't get tired of it, year after year.

[twissie]

1. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
- First Dragon Quest game I've ever played, and I'm loving every second of it @_@; It's your basic rpg, yet still feels fresh and though there are endless battles, they are fun, also not random, and it never feels like grinding. Ever. Pure love.

2. Scott Pilgrim vs the World
- Old school gamegasm

3. Bayonetta
- I had no expectations about this game as I bought it on release without knowing anything about it xD; It completely blew me away, and I didn't play anything else until I'd completed it 8D Dedication~!

.... aaah I'll most likely add stuff on here later I guess I could technically list Mass Effect as well... and I do want to have Fallout New Vegas on my list, though I haven't played it all that much yet ^^; . Bie wants me to mention Minecraft, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and vvvvvv.

[chaz9891]

My Top 10 in no particular order are:

1. Mass Effect 2
Improved in nearly everyway from Mass Effect which was already very good

2. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Feels like Assassin's Creed 2.5 with multiplayer added on rather than a sequel but it's still very enjoyable. I liked being able to recruit assassins and getting them to help you do stuff.

3. Final Fantasy XIII
Despite the linearity and the 1st part of the game before it got really got going (over ten hours), I still enjoyed the gameplay, graphics, CG cutscenes and the story.

4. Halo Reach
One of the most anticipated games for me this year and it did not disappoint. Finished the campaign in a day.

5. FIFA 11
There are only some improvements over FIFA 10 but imo it is still a lot better than PES atm.

6. Football Manager 2011
Lots of new features to the best football management sim.

7. Fallout New Vegas
I loved fallout 3 so new vegas was great as it improved on a few things gameplay wise. However I was slightly disappointed that they used the same graphics engine and the amounts of bugs in the game.

8. Infinity Blade
Best iPhone/iPod game ever?

9. Red Dead Redemption
The gameplay is great although sometimes a bit repetitive and i didn't really care about the characters very much

10. Splinter Cell
Great fun although it seems to be a lot easier than the previous installments and I'm disappointed that they didn't have spies vs mercs in multiplayer.

Other games I enjoyed: Bioshock 2, Bayonetta, Dead Rising 2, Mafia II, Fable 3, F1 2010, Alan Wake, Plants vs Zombies, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light.

[Isoyamaniac]

My 2010 selection (PSP games only)

Patchwork Heroes - A game developed by Acquire and Playstation CAMP. It's a qix revisited with great visuals, full of humor, great challenge and a great soundtrack scored by Hideki Sakamoto. It's a fresh and really innovative game.

Everybody's Tennis - Clap Hanz has create the best tennis game ever in my humble opinion. It's the spiritual sucessor of Final Match Tennis. The RPG side (like the Mario Golf and Mario Tennis from Gbc and Gba developed by Camelot) is acceptable.

No Heroes Allowed - Another game developed by Acquire and Playstation CAMP. It's a Dungeon Keeper revisited in 2D, full of humor, offers great challenge and a soundtrack scored by Hideki Sakamoto too. It's another fresh and really innovative game made by Sony.

Half-Minute Hero - The renewal of the japanese rpg. Great concept, we have 30 second to save the world. Of course, a goddess of time will help us manipulating time but it will cost a lot. The game offers a great challenge.