Demiath's 2010 Gaming Year Retrospective
5As I did by the end of last year and the year before that, it's now time to briefly sum up what games I've finished for the last twelve months and which ones I liked the best. The games are listed chronologically in the order I finished them, and since I play a lot of somewhat older games this is not a "Game of The Year" list in the traditional sense. As of yet unfinished games don't count, so even though I spent a lot of time with King's Bounty (around 50 hours so far), Final Fantasy 12 (maybe 30-40 h) and The Witcher I can't include them in this year's Retrospective. Also, bear in mind that my score system (see scores for individual games below), don't have quite as much inflation built into it as those of some professional review sites. Thus, a game that scores between 6-7 is really a decent game, 7-8 means good, 8-9 is truly great and 9-10 is pretty amazing.
When it comes to the breakdown between consoles and genres overall there has definitely been a return to PC RPGs this year after a particularly console-heavy period during 2009. The first months of 2010 were likewise dominated by big console releases such as Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War 3, Red Dead Redemption and Alan Wake. However, I started playing Gothic 3 in April and then returned to it during late summer and early autumn...and then moved right on to Risen once I finished it. After that there was came Fallout: New Vegas; another PC-oriented time sink which, for all its Fallout 3-related flaws, was easily the best Bethesda-related game since Daggerfall (which, from my perspective, admittedly isn't saying much...).
As for my personal Game of the Year, however, that title can go to no other title than Mass Effect 2. Bioware's latest RPG is by no means perfect and the individual pieces have been seen before (sometimes better implemented) in other games, but the skillful way in which the developer has integrated gameplay mechanics and narrative techniques into such a unified, cohesive whole is a singular achievement which transcends genre boundaries and has the potential to have a profound effect, for better or worse, on both RPGs and action games going forward. Also, ME2 was simply a blast to play - especially on my second playthrough on Insanity difficulty, where the squad AI breaks down a bit but the tactical elements of the game really come into their own. Mass Effect 3 is easily my most anticipated game of 2011 (take that, Skyrim!), and before the third game in the series gets released I might even get around to that third and unabashedly epic playthrough of ME1+2 which I've been planning for a while now...
Games I finished during 2010:
Bayonetta (8.5)
Mass Effect 2 (9.3)
F.E.A.R. 2 (6.5)
Final Fantasy XIII (7.6)
God of War 3 (6.9)
Red Faction: Guerilla (6.7)
Red Dead Redemption (8.8)
Half-Life 2: Episode Two (6.5)
Wolfenstein (6.1)
Alan Wake (6.3)
Crackdown 1 (7.1)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat (9.1)
Alpha Protocol (6.6)
StarCraft II (8.3)
Gothic 3 (9.0)
Risen (8.4)
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (7.8)
Fallout: New Vegas (8.3)
BioShock 2 (6.4)
Just Cause 2 (6.9)
Game of the Year 2010: Mass Effect 2
My 2008 Retrospective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ommE9eOmEA
My 2009 Retrospective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXaCyOG24v8