Text — Top ten games of 2010
2010 has been a bumper year for videogames, which is just as well because it’s been rubbish for music. More than that, though, it may well have been the best gaming year of my entire life. I’ll need a few years’ perspective to see if that’s actually true or not. In the meantime, here’s my top ten games of 2010, in reverse order.
Desite being released back in 2008, I only got around to playing King’s Bounty: The Legend this year. I spent a good chunk of the early part of the year leading a rag-tag band of orcs, spiders, skeletons, knights and a zombie pirate mistress around the countryside of a delightful world named Endoria. In the process, I settled disputes between frog regents, destroyed enormous turtles and married the aforementioned zombie pirate mistress. She buffed my pirates *and* my zombies, you see. King’s Bountry: The Legend is insane, and brilliant.
9) Mafia II
I never played the original Mafia. I know, I know, it was a classic. I still never played it. But I did play Mafia II, and you know what? I loved it. I loved its atmosphere. I loved its combat. I loved (most of) its story. Sure, the main character has less personality than a goldfish, and the ending is a little disappointing, but that’s more than made up for by the sheer sense of place that developer 2K Czech bestowed on the in-game New York. At one point, I voluntarily walked back from a mission, because a pretty crappy thing had just happened to my character and it was raining. I could almost feel the water pitter-pattering off my trenchcoat. Better still is the early part of the game — post-war New York in the snow. I can think of few gameworlds that I’ve loved being in quite as much as that one.
8) Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator
I like Star Trek. I’m no mega-trekkie — I couldn’t tell you the registration number of the USS Enterprise without consulting Wikipedia, but I spent far too much of my childhood watching The Next Generation repeats. Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator is a multiplayer, networked game that lets you be Worf, or Data, or Geordie, or even Jean-Luc. Get together 3-6 likeminded friends, with laptops, and you’ll have an incredible time, and come away with plenty of stories. (My write-up for Wired)
It’s been a fantastic year for indie games in particular, but nothing’s come close in innovation to Jason Rohrer’s Sleep is Death. It’s a two-player adventure game, where one player creates the game as they go along. You can prepare a few things in advance — some settings, some characters, a vague plot — but once you get started, you have to frantically try and keep pace with the other player’s actions, which will constantly surprise you. Best of all, it records every game as an HTML storybook, which you can flick through later on. Sleep is Death is the perfect tool to get a creative, story-loving relative into games.
6) Alien Swarm
It’s not every developer that can just issue a press release saying “Oh, by the way, we’re releasing a game tomorrow, and it’s going to be free.” Back in July, Valve did exactly that, releasing a remake of an Unreal Tournament game called Alien Swarm, adapted for the Source engine. It’s a class-based co-operative top-down shooter, it’s bloody difficult, and it’s a whole heap of fun with friends.
5) StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Starcraft 2 is another sequel to a game that I’ve never played. Although I’m well aware of the original Starcraft’s reputation and contribution to South Korean culture, it was never a part of my life. That changed with the release of Starcraft 2. Although I haven’t found the balls to play more than a handful of competitive multiplayer games, I’ve had oodles of fun playing co-op against the computer. My race of choice? Protoss. I wanted to get on with the Zerg, but I just can’t win with them consistently.
4) Limbo
No game impressed me more with its graphics this year than Limbo. It tells the tale of a young boy searching for his sister in a hellish greyscale world, and in doing so, creates some truly memorable gaming moments. I’ll resist spoilers, because it’s not very long and it’s not very expensive, but wow — that spider. Wow. (My coverage of Limbo for Wired)
3) Just Cause 2
If you’ve got half an hour, and you want to get maximum fun out of that time, then you’re going to want to boot up Just Cause 2. Forget the inane story, get out your grappling hook and infinite parachute, and indulge in some of the most ridiculously explosive sandbox glee you’re going to find in a videogame. I played about thirty hours of it, and didn’t get bored once.
2) World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Reinventing a game originally released in 2004 so that more people are playing it than ever is no easy task, but it’s one that Blizzard took on and conquered with the release of the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. In it, an enormous dragon deity named Deathwing erupts from beneath the earth, changing the face of Azeroth forever. The best bit of that change? A significant reduction in the need to collect 20 buzzard gizzards every ten minutes. If you’ve played WoW before and stopped, then you’d be coming back to a completely new game. If you’ve never played the world’s best MMO, then there’s never been a better time to start. (Coverage in Wired)
1) Minecraft
It’s difficult to defend my choice of Minecraft as game of the year. It has no story. Every other title in this list is graphically superior. It doesn’t even have a save function that doesn’t involve mucking about in obscure folders. But none of the other games I’ve played in 2010 have caused me such a wide range of emotions as Minecraft has. The fear of stalking through natural caverns and hearing the clatter of a skeleton. The satisfaction of completing a lava-fuelled lighthouse on the coast by your house. The gut-wrenching horror at watching an entire forest catch fire around you because you forgot one glass block in that lighthouse and didn’t notice until it was too late. Most of all, however, Minecraft is defined for me by the excitement of being dropped into a landscape that no-one has ever seen before, full of wonder and danger in equal quantities, and then exploring that landscape and making it your own. It’s an experience that could never be replicated by a movie or book, because it’s YOUR game — not one that’s been put together by someone else. It’s perfect, and it belongs to gamers, and gamers alone. (Coverage in Wired)
