Top 10 Games You Probably Didn’t Play in 2011…That you MUST play in 2012
Dicktits. I never want to hear that word again for as long as I play video games. That being said, I have enjoyed the hell out of this game more than I ever thought I would. For a game that started out as a joke for a lot of people who play games day in and day out, Bulletstorm is one of those games that really did have the last laugh with some awesome shooting mechanics, better writing than anyone expected, deadly environments designed for multi-kill mayhem, and a story arch that didn’t matter one damn bit. Bulletstorm is about being over the top in a not too dissimilar way to another game on this list, but where Shadow envelops itself in campy horror tropes, Bulletstorm is firmly entrenched in the Full Metal Jacket, R. Lee Ermey, Military Industrial Complex, toilet humor future where everyone yells and curses all time. It’s as unoriginal as apple pie, but it is ‘sure as shit’ funny for at least the first few hours. While you may be drained by the time it comes to a lassoing, slide kicking, explosive barrel throwing, bullet-tricking close, you can’t deny the fact that for a game that was fully designed around the gimmick of ‘kill one guy a thousand different ways’ (okay maybe 10 or 20 ways) Bulletstorm has wormed it’s way into our twitter-trending little hearts, even if it’s the worst part of that game. There, I said it… Dicktits!
Magicka is, for all intents and purposes, chaos personified. Sure there are goals to achieve throughout every chapter. But, essentially, you’re given a collection of spells with which to banish your enemies and are likely, in fact encouraged, to take out one, two, or all of your team mates in the process. Thankfully, the act of reviving, expunging, then reviving your frenemies over and over again is incredibly simple. However, there are enough spells and ways to combine light and dark elements and acquired spells that you’ll never be able to keep track of all of them at one time. So you’ll ask your friends “how do you cast lighting again?” and they’ll give you the key commands for Blue Screen of Death and laugh as someone randomly gets ejected or “glitched” out of existence. It’s maddening and hysterical at the same time. But like with Terraria, going alone is not nearly as satisfying as bringing along a merry band of gibberish-spewing, cloak donning, magic-wielding misfits ready to storm the castle no matter what the consequences. Remember, the safety word is always Banan..er.
‘Intimidating’ is the name of the game with this incredible Turn-Based/RTS hybrid from the Total War team. To be honest, it’s the first time I’ve ever played a Total War game, so I won’t be able to tell you how it compares to others in the series. But from what I’ve played it is an ultra-polished game that is a nice side step if all you’ve ever played is Civilization games. Which brings me to another point, you will not know how to play this game just from having played Civ. It is it’s own beast and you will have to learn how to deal with very different kinds of problems, the first being that in Total War the scale of your conflict has been reduced to one continent ruled by 30 different factions all with very different ideologies and ways of dealing with a particular array of problems. That would be most games end. What takes Shogun even a step further up the difficulty ladder is the Real Time Combat elements that come into play whenever diplomacy fails. Building your forces will take time, but whether emerge victorious will depend upon troop management, moral, and (because this is Japan) the ability to fight with honor. And if you shirk honor for momentary glory or power, prepare to have most of the other clans, including the Shogun, hate you with every fiber of their being. Yet another reason you need to become the Shogun first and put every other clan in its place. Will you unite the country? Or will you be its undoing? If you are prepared to sink many, many hours into a “one more turn game” that is as good (if not better) than Civ IV or V, you will be rewarded with an experience that is really one of the best to come to any system this year.
Rogue-likes are one of those genres that polarize more than any other. You can either deal with having one life and not knowing what to expect around each corner or you can’t. While I still consider myself to be a person who isn’t all that into Rogue-likes as a concept I have to accept the fact that the Binding of Isaac undoes most of the trepidation I used to have with the genre. No matter how many times I die or what awesome collectibles I lose in the process, I find myself licking my wounds after each death and diving back in for one more attempt to kick the stuffings out of Mom’s horrendously deformed cankle. And speaking of collectables, this game has a never-ending supply of power ups, tarot cards, status-altering pills, and companions that you pick up and/or buy along the way to increase your chances of success. But nothing is guaranteed, except the fact that you will most likely come across lots of very angry, very deadly creatures that want nothing more than to send you to your weepy, pathetic end in your mother’s basement. The Horsemen, the Seven Deadly Sins, even Satan himself make an appearance in a game that is so wrapped up in bible lore that it forgets, by choice, to really take any of it very seriously and ends up just reveling in the insanity of it all. A fact that is made abundantly clear by Danny Baranowsky’s overtly dramatic, frenetic, and completely enjoyable score. The Biding of Isaac is not for everyone. It will test your fortitude in ways very similar to those you needed to complete Edmund McMillen’s previous game, Super Meat Boy. But unlike SMB, Isaac isn’t necessarily about reaching ‘the end’ as much as it’s about the journey (and the ending) and all the crazy shit you’ll encounter along the way…until you die.
The life of a Witcher is far from a glorious one. Sure, you seem to have your pick of beautiful women. But you’re hated by almost everyone, you spend the majority of your life fighting butt-ugly monsters, you’re forced to drink potions that can potentially kill you just to get a leg up on your enemies, and just when you think you’ve succeeded at anything at all, BAM, you’re locked up for a crime you didn’t commit. And that’s all before the first chapter of the game even starts. As far as RPGs go, Witcher 2 could be the best of the bunch from 2011. It not only has some of the best political theater seen in a medieval fantasy game since Dragon Age: Origins, but its world is just so unclean, so baseless, and without redemption that at times you actually seem like the good guy, even if Geralt is about as close to a Paladin-type as I am to a Wall Street billionaire. Combine that with the fact that just about every part of this game has been refined and retooled from the previous game and you get a experience that, while more western than the original, is far more playable than the first Witcher. There are many more character models, far more voice actors, a much better script with improved dialogue options that don’t sound like they were filtered through a washer and dryer, and, most importantly, you start with every power you’re ever going to need right from the start. It also doesn’t hurt that this game is one of the most gorgeous-looking games to come out this year. While I understand no game will win the door prize on looks alone, I can’t tell you enough just what an upgrade this game is from the first. I would have to recommend that anyone who loves RPGs, but couldn’t get into the first Witcher, at least revisit this franchise simply to see the evolution “Witcher” has gone through. There are, however, some things about Witcher 2 that continue to confound my gaming sensibilities. For example, Witcher 2 still does a really lousy job of conveying less-than-obvious conceits and objectives to the player. The fact that the game assumes you know that a Silver sword is only good against monsters, while a Steel sword is only good against humans is just one of the many egregious errors it makes in its design logic. But, in all honesty, that should not stop you from playing a game that has really been reworked from the ground up to be far more playable in just about every way. Open world wonder it’s not. But as a finely tuned, linear, story driven experience, you can’t do much better in 2012 than Witcher 2. Oh, did I mention Geralt’s dating a smoking hot, red-headed, mage-lady?
So there you have it, people. These are the ten games I feel are must plays if you were unfortunate enough to miss them the first time around. While I’m sure there will be as many games released in 2012 as there were in 2011, I hope that we all have the opportunity to play some of the great games that might normally go overlooked if only because so many great games seem to come out one on top of the other. If I have one hope for 2012, it’s that the quality of games that come out continue to stay high so that I may continue to make more lists like this one at the end of each and every year. Because nothing is better than having too many awesome games to play. And with that, Happy New Year, happy video gaming, and let’s ring in the awesome games of 2012!
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