Top of the Scots 2011 | The Best Games

Video games, guys!


I know they aren't for everyone, and I can sympathise with why that's the case for so many folks - particularly having watched someone new to current-gen consoles try to navigate the first few levels of a certain game on my recommendation, I can sympathise - but you must all know where I stand by now: I... I like to play.

In point of fact, I play video games almost every day. And I don't restrict myself to RPGs, or first-person shooters, or racing games, or any such specific thing; in my book, pretty much every genre is fair game for gaming.

So what follows is as comprehensive a list as possible of some of the most memorable experiences I've had with this emerging medium I and others like me hold dear in the past year.

The Best of the Best

5. Dead Space 2
dev. Visceral Games

Who would have believed a game as truly, madly, deeply derivative as Dead Space - which was equal parts Alien and Event Horizon - could spawn a sequel quite so exhilarating as Dead Space 2?


I didn't dare to dream, so when I laid hands on this sequel - the first notable sequel of the year for me - I wasn't expecting much more than a bit of silly fun in space, with aliens. Perhaps better zero-g sequences than the initial game in this frantic new franchise featured.


Well I got that. I also got fun in space, with aliens, almost exactly as I'm imagined, but as it happened, Dead Space 2 wasn't so silly. It wasn't so silly at all. Narratively, I admit, it was still a little on the derivative side, but I had such an thrilling and indeed chilling time with the latest effort from EA's Visceral Games that it'd be criminal of me to overlook it just because it came out in January.


Now the wait begins for Dead Space 3...

4. L. A. Noire
dev. Team Bondi

Oh, L. A. Noire.

It was a long road, wasn't it? And a hard road, by all accounts. Was it nine years? Was it as long as that? In any event, eventually Team Bondi did let you loose into the big wide world... and what a game changer you would have been, if you'd only gotten out of the gate a bit quicker!


I declare L. A. Noire this year's Heavy Rain. Which is to say: too late, but not - as it transpired - too little. In fact if L. A. Noire had been a bit shorter - if those last desks had been DLC, or a sequel - I think it would have placed higher on this list.

But them's the breaks, eh?

3. Deus Ex: Human Revolusion
 dev. Eidos Montreal

Truth be told, I don't hold the original Deus Ex in particularly high regard. Make no mistake, it was a great game, but a couple of year behind the curve as ever, I came to it a little late, by which time several other games I'd played had co-opted Deus Ex's most meaningful innovations.

Does it follow, then, that I didn't hate Deus Ex: Invisible War the way pretty much everyone else who played it did? I don't know. It felt like a very different sort of game anyway, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution is in that sense much the same species of sequel.

But it's been in excess of ten years since the original Deus Ex. Gaming has changed, and I don't think many people would have welcomed the slavishly faithful successor to the first game that some folks had been hungering for very vocally.

What we got instead, in the form of a prequel rather than a straight-up sequel, was more than I for one could have hoped for: a fully formed RPG open to pretty much any sort of playstyle you please. I went for stealth. You could have gone guns blazing, or hack your way through the hardest scenarios. Would that there were more of these sorts of options in gaming today; above all else, that's what I had hoped for from this generation. But no. I got scripted sequences instead.

Long story shot, if you haven't played Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet, I really would urge you to. And if you have?

Well, you could always play it again, Sam! :)

For more on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, read the full review here.

2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
dev. Bethesda Softworks

What in the name of all that's good and true can I possibly say about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that hasn't already been said a hundred hundred times over before I even thought to think it?

Probably not a whole lot. So let's skip the bit where I tell you why Skyrim is one of my favourite games of the year; you must have known it was going to be, given how scarce I've been since the hallowed day of its release on 11/11/11.

As a matter of fact Skyrim isn't the sole reason I've found myself short on time to devote to TSS, but I'll be the first to admit I'm a bit addicted. This fifth game in The Elder Scrolls saga must be the finest of them all, and I'm only 20 hours in... that is to say, 20 hours or thereabouts.

I have so much to say about Skyrim that I can't even begin to express how utterly malevolent/magnificent it is in this small space. But there's going to come a time, and it's going to come sooner than you might think, when you'll all be sick and tired of me banging on about Mammoth Cheese, underwater foxes, and other such delights to be discovered across the length and breadth of the vast, snow-capped fantasy kingdom Bethesda has put together for our pleasure.

For the moment, you must just trust me: Skyrim is quite simply staggering.

But if I'm not going to tip the top hat in Skyrim's general direction - and considering that I still haven't sat down with the games discussed in the Glaring Oversights section - there can be only one other contender for my game of the year.

1. Portal 2
dev. Valve

Portal 2 is not massive, like Skyrim.

Portal 2 is enough of a throwback that it has levels. Quite a few of them, but my point still stands: where Skyrim is staggering in its immensity, first and foremost amongst all its many, many features, Portal 2 will wow you in a whole other way.


Sure, size matters. But it's not all that matters. And Portal 2 doesn't need to pose just so in a shaft of particularly flattering light to look impressive next to my number two.


Truth be told I thought Portal 2 was going to be a huge disappointment. It wasn't, obviously, but initially I'd have rather had Half-Life 2: Episode 3 at long goddamn last than this platformer come physics-sim sequel. For all that Portal the first was wonderful, I struggled to imagine how Valve could expand on such a brief experience without sacrificing some of what had made it so memorable.


I was wrong to be so cynical. After all, when have Valve ever disappointed me?


Portal 2 certainly didn't disappoint. I doubt it'll have the crossover appeal that the first game in the series did, simply because of its substantially increased length, but the mind-bending puzzles are back, and better than ever; GladOS and her passive aggressive comments are always an acerbic pleasure; and Wheatley should go down in history as the best video game villain in years. Sharp writing, mind-melting puzzles, smart character development, and the perfect balance of old and new secured Portal 2 a place in my heart from almost the moment I sat down with it in March.


And then I played the co-op.

If there had been any doubt in my mind that this would be a serious contender for my game of the year, it was gone as of that moment. Portal 2 takes the cake for all the evenings my significant other and I spent together on the sofa, puzzling our way through one impossible challenge after another and playing rock paper scissors with our co-op robots. They were the best of times, replete with memories to treasure.

The many hours I gave over to Portal 2 are among the finest I've ever devoted to any video game. So: it's my Game of the Year.

Runners-Up

Dead Island is fundamentally pretty dull, not a little bit broken, and comes complete with a storyline so dreadful that I had to purposefully distract myself from it to keep playing. 

But you know what? I am a master of distraction, and I managed to have a hell of a time with Dead Island anyway. It's Oblivion by way of the zombie apocalypse on a tropical resort, and maybe now that Skyrim's come along and embarrassed the pants off my expectations of open-world RPGs I'd be less forgiving of its many and various faults... but back then?

Back then I couldn't have hoped for more.

For more on Dead Island, read the full review here.

Biggest Disappointment

Let me be quite clear here. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is a very good game.

So why's it my biggest disappointment of the year in video games?

Because Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was a truly great game, and moreover it demonstrated such a drastic improvement over the first Uncharted that I had hoped - more fool me - this second sequel would come on in similar leaps and bounds. It didn't. Instead, to my surprise, those few new features it had - or had more of than either of the games which came before it - were features I'd really have gone without: the interminable chase sequences, the new and supposedly improved shooting systems, and so on.

Saying that, you should still totally play it.

For more on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, read the full review here.

Glaring Oversights

What can I say?

I blame Skyrim entirely.

Just as soon as I can find the time, I'll be on both of these games like a rash. I've played a very little of Batman: Arkham City already, and been a very little disappointed... but I know not to speak too soon. Meanwhile I'm incredibly excited to give myself over to the charms of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the Wii's swan-song as I see it. Too little, too late? Well we'll see.


But in the interim, Skyrim.

Final Thoughts

Though the influx of triple-A games in October and November shows no sign of slowing down, I am at least pleased to see a few heavy hitters appearing through the rest of year, beginning with Dead Space 2 in January, taking in my Game of the Year in March, and culminating in the dead zone that the summer months still are, sadly.

In an ideal world I'd be drip-fed quality video games all year round, but to be honest there wasn't exactly a shortage of incredible experiences to be had - some of the highlights of which I've still to have - with a mouse or controller in hand in 2011. I truly do believe that video games are improving year on year, and I hope that their potential reach hasn't been completely co-opted by the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield 3. Fine games in their own right, but the medium has so much more to offer than shooting dudes in the face exponentially less credible locations and situations, as discussed above.

Don't you think?

Anyway, I'm quite convinced I'm missing something in this list, particularly given that I'm a console gamer rather than a PC player, so please, ladies and gentlemen: do chime in in the comments with a few of your favourite games from this fine year.