Guest Article : Steven Harbor. Steve now has a blog. Check it out here.

Near the end of 2010, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced to unfettered excitement at the Spike Video Game Awards. From the moment the title card showed up on that giant stage screen, Skyrim has had a red carpet rolled out for it in the gaming press every step of the way. It has always been a celebrity, a shining knight that has come to whisk us away on a journey to a far away land in the snowy peaks of northern Tamriel. Almost three months since the first sword was swung, Skyrim now sits high and mighty on its throne, having been adorned with many game of the year nods and near universal acclaim. Many who find themselves out of the loop probably scratch their heads trying to figure out why we spend hundreds of hours plugged in, worshipping at this game’s almighty altar. I have taken it upon myself to make sense of all of the fanfare, explaining in detail what this game does right, what it does wrong, and how it affects the video game industry.

As far as most people are concerned, there is an easy and obvious answer to the question of why the game is so widely cherished and loved. It’s not just a big playground, but a playground that tries to be everything to everyone. At no point in the game will you ever find yourself shoehorned into an archetype, or feel your own freedom of choice being taken away from you. It’s hard not to appreciate the fact that the creators of Skyrim not only made a huge world, but created it so that you will most likely never see more than a small portion of it. Only if you are a gamer that is truly dedicated to gaming as a hobby and spend more than 10 hours a week playing will you ever have a chance to see most of what Bethesda has to offer in this game.

For the past ten years I have watched as every game has been watered down, simplified, shortened, condensed, and packaged in a way that guarantees almost everyone who plays it sees everything the developer wants you to see, in the exact way that they want you to see it. It’s as if they are terrified of the idea of you making any attempt to go off the beaten path to explore, and never seeing the second half of the game. Take Call of Duty for instance. The average campaign of a Call of Duty game is around 5-7 hours long, contains checkpoints at almost every corner, minimal exploration, and achievements that pop up every hour or so to serve as a reminder that you only have so many chapters to complete before you complete the game. Gameplay is simple (point and shoot) and each section is expertly paced, always calculating the exact time your left thumb starts to get tired from making your character walk forward so that the game knows when to place you into a “turret in a helicopter” section. You do not play the campaign so much as you are shoved through it. This type of game development has become somewhat of an art form, with games like Uncharted serving as the front-runners of the pack.

In any other game, this might have been an inaccessible background object

Skyrim is the antithesis to this kind of game design. Bethesda never knew, as their creative teams meticulously placed every tree, rock, and dungeon in the game, when you were going to put the controller down. They never knew which weapons you would use or whether you would even read the game’s countless books. To a publisher like Activision which probably only cares about the bottom line, creating all of those trees, dungeons, and weapons would be seen as nothing more than a waste of development time. Why create something that the player will most likely never even see? The fact that there is so much there that few will see is the true beauty of Skyrim. Simply exploring the world feels like a reward.

There is a lot more still that goes into Skyrim’s success. One of the aspects of the game that I have observed while playing that is not very often described in reviews or the like is its sense of relaxation. Exploring Skyrim is a bit like exploring a vast vacation island where everything is catered to your needs. You feel no urgency to do anything. There are no business calls to answer, there’s no arrow pointing you to where you need to go, and ultimately there are no consequences for your actions. There is a main quest and it does have stakes, but those stakes can be placed on pause at any time so you can go become an arch-mage, or leader of the companions guild, or do nothing at all. That is the great thing about having no urgency. The game lets you do nothing, and more importantly, doing nothing is fun. Just imagine if, while playing a war game, you decided the narrow street you were walking down was boring, and the buildings off in the distance past the alleyway looked more interesting. What if those backgrounds, normally a facade meant to give the illusion of scale and chaos, were fully accessible and yet had nothing to do with the mission you were tasked with? This is the dream that Bethesda set out to accomplish, and despite rough spots here and there, they’ve managed to accomplish it.

Unfortunately for Bethesda, there are indeed rough spots. Skyrim is nothing if not incredibly ambitious, and more so than perhaps any other game, mistakes can fall through the cracks. Bethesda has a storied reputation of releasing games with very little polish. As far as glitches in general go, you can chalk them up to time constraints and not enough hours in the day. Bethesda is a big developer, but Skyrim is a bigger game. I imagine going through this gigantic game world they’ve created and trying to fix each and every bug, even with the help of many play-testers, would be like trying to scrape the gum off every surface in New York. Perhaps it is too much to ask that we receive a polished game, considering it is almost designed to be broken by the players. Even so, it is hard to escape the feeling that you are handling a fragile vase while playing. Any wrong move could cause the whole game to come crashing down like a house of cards, and you never know when the game might decide to collapse in on itself, especially if we are talking about the botched Playstation 3 version.

Some of the glitches are hilarious though

There are more problems than just glitches though. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released in early 2006. That was over five years ago, and with all of the time that has passed between titles, Skyrim’s combat system still manages to feel like it is from 2006. The chief issue with the gameplay is that it lacks structure. Skyrim feels like a numbers game. It’s always your numbers versus those of the opponent, and nothing more. The way you get these numbers is by repeating the same action as much as possible. Kill enough enemies with a one-handed sword and your one-handed numbers go up. Sneak around enough without getting caught and your sneaking numbers go up. The game has no way to predict how powerful you are or which abilities you end up favoring for your character, so you are never challenged to fight a certain way.

The decision of how to approach a quest rests on your shoulders, but because the game can never predict how you play the game, the visceral, strategic elements of the gameplay are stripped down to almost nothing. Enemies start to seem like nothing more than punching bags that hit back, each with their own health bar that gradually goes down as you bombard them with whichever tactic you prefer. The enemies will blindly attack you in the same way, hitting you with magic, swords, or arrows, and what results is similar to playing a game of rock-em sock-em robots. You just mindlessly hit the button until either of you falls and the other achieves victory. Stealth has a similar problem, as it is less about how well you maneuver through the shadows than it is about wearing the right boots, walking slowly, and leveling up until that magic number is reached and sneaking becomes a piece of cake. You will never truly feel like a ninja or a master assassin if the only tactic you have in your arsenal is to crouch and walk slowly behind enemies. The anything-goes approach ultimately robs the gameplay of finesse and polish, just like it does for many other aspects of the game.

Perhaps the biggest failure of Skyrim is its complete inability to react to the player’s actions. Todd Howard, the lead director of Skyrim, said in an interview for Game Informer that where he sees the most potential for growth in “the pure role playing game” is in character interaction. In his video interview Howard says, “I think the one thing that people are still pushing on, including us, is how the other characters act, how they respond to you doing something.” The reaction of NPC’s and the environment in general to your actions is an important part of making the game feel real, and it’s in this area that Skyrim falls short. While there are moments when characters will stop what they’re doing and stare at the dragon you just defeated, just as often if not more often you’ll find that characters pay almost no attention to anything you do, no matter how magnificent it should seem to them. Even after completing the companions guild and becoming the leader, I was still met with the same “you’re a newbie” comments from the other companions as I walked by them. This does a great deal of damage to the immersive feel of the game.

Skyrim exists to be the counter-argument to gaming’s current focus on cinematic flair. In the midst of all of the movie-like war shooters populating game shelves these days, Skyrim stands as an example of a game that strips all of that away in favor of absolute freedom. One of the biggest trade-offs in making an open-world RPG rather than a more linear affair is the pure spectacle of it all. Even Skyrim’s best attempts at providing epic moments, the dragon battles, cannot reach the visual heights of the train sequences and helicopter explosions of other modern blockbuster games. But what the dragon battles can do that those other games cannot is make you feel like it is really you that is fighting the dragons, and not a scripted event dictated by the developers. All of the choices you made in the game culminate into the ultimate standoff between you as a warrior, and the dragon. Skyrim gets that so right that it keeps you coming back for a hundred more hours.

Another year, another countdown. Click below to see the full list of our favourite games of 2011.

Released within one year of its announcement, Skyrim came along relatively quickly, but was met with huge amounts of praise, and sales figures to match. Gamers the world over have had any notion of free time sucked into oblivion by Bethesda’s sprawling epic fantasy world, and that includes us. It’s the game we played more than any other last year, and it was an easy decision to crown it as our number 1 game of 2011.

Matt:
Where do I begin? 87 hours into Skyrim, and I haven’t run out of things to amaze me. Skyrim is an unbelievable achievement in game design, one that is unrivalled in its scope and ambition. I have explored hundreds of dungeons and caves now and have yet to see a single one repeat itself. The entire world has been painstakingly hand crafted to give us the maximum amount of freedom, and its filled with seemingly endless amounts of interesting things to see and do. Watching a dragon way off in the distance never fails to send a chill down my spine, but hearing their ghostly voice echoing all around as it approaches is even more harrowing. I love the way mist rolls off the edge of a mountain overlook. I can be quite content to just sit and admire the view from atop a rolling hillside and take it all in, and since this is an Elder Scrolls game there’s absolutely nothing to stop me from doing that. Of course there is a main story to follow and big scale battles to fight, but the majority of my playtime so far has been spent engaging in the simple act of exploration and discovery. I’ve travelled the length and breadth of Skyrim, making a point to let myself be distracted with whatever catches my eye off the road, and no other game of 2011 was more rewarding.

As soon as the game allowed me to, I deviated from the main story and did my own thing. Saving the world from the dragon threat has become a mere side quest as far as my Nordic dual-sword wielding warrior is concerned. I’m the leader of the Companions, a master blacksmith clad in a full set of dragonplate armour, and the heroic commander of the Stormcloak army. I travel the world with my werewolf huntress by my side, and together we hunt out treasures, follow clues to ancient weapons told in story books that we find and help out those in need, especially if they’re willing to pay. My homes are filled with chests of loot that I have procured over what seems like a lifetime of exploring this magnificent wintry world, and whenever I visit cities, people know who I am and stop to comment on my achievements. It’s one of the most immersive game worlds ever created, and I am only too happy to lose myself in it for hours at a time because I know I’ll experience something new.

Skyrim is totally and utterly my favourite game of 2011.

Paul:
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far awa- oops, wrong franchise… sorry. Well, for what it’s worth, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is the newest child in a series that is certainly set in a very old medieval world; a world involving swords, shields, dragons and magic – and it pleases us to proclaim that Skyrim – a game that doesn’t even have any explosions, guns, or spaceships – is number one in our Top 10 Video Games of 2011. Why did we choose Skyrim? I’ll tell thee I will, sire.

We like swords, we like shields, we like dragons and we pretty much like magic too. As per my recent brief description of the contents of the game, you can see that what we like and what is in it match up fairly nicely. This makes for a winning combination, resulting in a well mixed and potent alchemical potion of pure awesomeness and thorough enjoyment. Skyrim is epic, and no, I don’t mean the trendy, overused version of the word (e.g. “Did you see the size of that dog shit? It was EPIC!”), but the actual definitive, dictionary-worthy version of the word: ep·ic [ep-ik] “heroic; majestic; impressively great”.

The world of Skyrim isn’t necessarily the largest ever, but the amount of content, story, and characters within it make it one of the densest and bloody time-consuming I’ve ever seen. I’m yet to finish the game, and I really doubt I’m even 1/4 through the main storyline yet, and I’ve already disregarded the possibility of 100% completing it. What’s so great about Skyrim, is how many things you come across completely by accident; one day my character was riding horseback from the far West of the map, all the way to the far East – my goal being to see what might occur on the way. On my journey I was attacked by wolves, saw an enormous dragon circling a mountain, watched some bandits be killed by guards, and, most memorably, watched in amazement as an apparition of a headless horseman rode past me in the opposite direction. Dumbfounded, my immediate reaction was not to chase it and see where it was going, but to jump off my horse, draw an arrow in my lightning bow, and take some pot-shots at the ghastly figure. As one might expect with a ghost, my arrows flew straight through him, and after a brief attempt to catch up on my horse, it randomly took off from the road and flew into the sky. I have never seen that ghost again.

Skyrim is a deep, glorious world of endless possibilities, and building your own character from the ground up, without the limitations of a level cap or the need for specific skills, your character and your story can truly be your own, and the epic tales of heroism and occasionally hilarious randomness are what make this latest installment in The Elder Scrolls saga fully deserving of its place as our favourite game of 2011.

There was never a doubt in our minds that Battlefield 3 would be the best example of a game about warfare in a modern setting in 2011, and the day it finally hit the shelves in November all that anticipation could finally be put to rest. Despite it’s somewhat patchy launch, the game itself was fantastic. Dice’s now famous Frostbite engine is looking better than ever, and we have been given the grandest of fields to battle in – one filled with all the tanks, jets, humvees and attack helicopters we could ever wish for.

Matt:
It’s all about the war stories. Remember the time we defended the hilltop in Caspian Border with a single infantry squad? Or how about the time we defeated that platoon of tanks using nothing but javelins and a small ammo crate? And remember the time we assaulted the mining base at Damavand Peak by flying a little bird through the tunnel? We do that a lot actually now I think about it. The thing about the Battlefield games is you can join literally any online game and something truly spectacular is almost always guaranteed to happen. It’s just the way it goes. Helicopters and jets are frequently blown out of the sky in a fireball that can be seen from the other side of the vast maps, and their burnt out husks like to rain down inches from your face. The most common thing you’ll hear over voicechat is some derivative of “HOLY CRAP DID YOU SEE THAT?!” We are lucky enough to have a small group of friends to play the game with and so there’s always a few witnesses to any of the heroics that occur, and talking about them after the game is over contributes greatly to the reasons we have enjoyed it so much since its release. When it comes to creating glorious war stories, Battlefield 3 has no competitor.

This social aspect of the game expands to the new Battlelog system, which is a fun way to compare kill counts and see what else you need to do to unlock that elusive new gun. Its not something I particularly cared about before, but can’t deny the sense of achievement it adds to the overall experience. For me, I can tolerate a few minor annoyances with the way a game is presented (Origin, I’m looking at you) so long as the game itself gives me the thing I want. And what I want from a game of Battlefield is squad-based teamwork and unscripted moments of pure chaos and destruction. And that’s exactly what Battlefield 3 gives me.

Paul:
Ever since the Battlefield series made its debut back in 2002, I’ve never enjoyed any other war game, or even multiplayer game, nearly as much. Being able to join your friends online isn’t exactly a premise unique to Battlefield 3, but what really does feel unique and absolutely done to perfection, as per its predecessors, is its ability to make you feel like a part of something more than just an arcade shootout with bunny hopping and dual-weilding sawn-off shotguns.

Whilst the single player being overshadowed in many reviews by that of ‘it-which-must-not-be-named’, we had fully accepted from the outset that Battlefield’s strength does not – and never has – reside in its single player. While the graphics and visuals are utterly spectacular across the board for Battlefield 3, with lighting, models, and textures being incredible down to the finest detail, it’s no secret that the various and highly competitive team-based multiplayer modes involving infantry, jeeps, tanks, boats, planes and helicopters are what make Battlefield stand out from the crowd. Who needs an automatic air-strike support package when you can scream down the microphone to your buddies for air support when that heavy machine gunner has you pinned down behind a rapidly crumbling wall. For me, nothing has ever come quite as close to the feeling of excitement in a video game than when a jet come screaming overhead, releasing its payload into the flank if enemy armour, sending it straight to hell in a ball of flames and flying metal, and all the while knowing that it wasn’t scripted, wasn’t automatic, and was actually piloted by another player in the world who has put time and effort into becoming a brilliant pilot for situations just like this one.

Battlefield, like all the best games out there, has always been a franchise that gives us amazing memories to share and reminisce about with friends, but, unlike most other games, the maps of Battlefield are typically so huge and open that the amount of amazing stories we can end up with are nigh-on limitless. In one moment you could be shooting from the side of a helicopter, helping the guys on the ground to capture a control point, and in the next moment you’re free-falling away from a smoldering wreckage that used to be a chopper, pulling your parachute at the last moment, and then by absolute chance, you land on the very top of a radio antenna, yelp in utter glee “What are the chances of THAT?!” and attempt to get as many kills as possible before that sniper sees you precariously balanced on the edge of a radio mast. Granted, these events are the least realistic you can imagine from a first-person-shooter, but that freedom to accidentally pull off the most impossible Arnold Schwarzenegger action hero moments in the midst of a huge battle is what makes Battlefield one of the most memorable games I’ve ever played, and I’m pleased to say that even four months since release, I still play it almost as much now as I did at release.

At number 3 of the BcR Top Ten of 2011 is Valve’s latest endeavour to please its adoring fans, Portal 2. Bringing Chell, GLaDOS, and more fantastic characters back for a second and final brillant instalment in the franchise.

Paul:
Yes, the cake was a lie. But it was also a lie told 4 years ago, so get over it! It’s all about potatoes these days; potatoes and Stephen Merchant, that is.

April of last year saw an incredible build up of hype around what eventually came to be one of our favourite games of the year, Portal 2, not least because the multi-player co-op element of it was and is one of the most fun, engaging, and downright mind-boggling experiences we’ve ever taken part in. The story of the single player stands amazingly well on its own, with the expectedly hilarious but frighteningly sinister GLaDOS, and her incredible cast of supporting characters – including Wheatley the robot, and the infamous founder of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson – providing a brilliantly written narrative offering constant appeal and immersion in the story.

What really stood out for us though – as mentioned previously – was the co-op gameplay, and allowing two players to get lost in a world of multiple portals and deadly test chambers made us rack our brains harder than ever before for solutions to what sometimes ended up being even the simplest puzzles, is what made us fall in love with yet another fantastic and utterly genius Valve production. What’s more, a fittingly bizarre but well thought out conclusion to the Portal story was something that made us smile, and unless they’re shelling us with Headcrabs or brutalizing us with a Tank, making us grin like kids on Christmas day is what Valve do best.

Matt:
Its no secret that we have quite the fondness for Valve. Game after game, they inspire and amaze us with their creations, and Portal 2 instantly fits into a back catalog of immensely enjoyable experiences. Stephen Merchant’s performance as Wheatley turned him into an instant favourite character that proved to be just as funny and batshit insane as GLaDOS herself. There’s not a single flat joke in Portal 2 which helped make it my personal funniest game of the year thanks to the ever excellent writing team. The gameplay itself is an evolution of what Portal started back in 2007, and with numerous new puzzle solving methods at your fingertips, Portal 2 feels like the fleshed out sequel it was designed to be. Using portals to fling liquid gel all over the place was a particular highlight.

Then we come to the multiplayer. I’ll just come right out and say it – Portal 2 features the best designed co-op campaign I have ever played. No other game has truly understood what it means to share a co-op experience. Not only does the co-op campaign feature its own unique story, but the puzzles themselves are all painstakingly designed so that it is absolutely necessary to use both players to progress. And my god is it fun. Playing as Atlas and Peabody, 2 helpless little droids stuck at the mercy of the ever watchful GLaDOS as she toys with you with endless threats and accusations is constantly entertaining, and proves once again just why Valve are so good at what they do.

So, Valve, now that you’re done with all these games featuring a number ’2′…

Batman Arkham City is Rocksteady’s fantastic sequel to Arkham “best superhero game ever made” Asylum. Taking the framework that made that game so good and expanding it into an open-world playground filled with the most vile scumbags imaginable, not to mention the trademark villains and sidekicks that makes the Batman world so appealing, Arkham City is easily one of the best games of 2011.

Matt:
Its really hard to find fault with Arkham City. Almost everything it tries to do, it does perfectly. Everything is refined and polished, the combat feels smoother than before, and all of Batman’s new abilities and gadgets are practical and necessary in an environment that’s been specifically designed to be utilized by the ultimate detective. Its not so much an action adventure game as it is a Batman Simulator. Arkham City is chock full of recognisable faces and is a wet-dream for any fan of the comics, as there’s so much detail to sink your teeth into. The story moves along at the pace you want, and you are free to take on all the side quests as and whenever you choose, but they never felt like side quests to me, more like expansions to the overall plot. I was only too happy to detour away from the story and hunt down the mad killer Victor Zsasz, or search for some more Riddler puzzles so I could take on his next Saw-like hostage puzzle.

I can’t believe Rocksteady managed to make the sequel even better than Arkham Asylum, which was close to perfect in my eyes. The city is a brilliant playground which dynamically changes in subtle ways as you progress. Each of the game’s villains owns a section of the city and populates it with his or her own goons, and its little touches in the attention to detail – such as seeing the smug face of whichever villain was responsible for your death on the ‘retry’ screen – that make it stand out from its third-person action peers. On the surface, Arkham City is a great sequel that does everything its predecessor did, only better, and at its heart is a brilliantly paced, brilliantly written, brilliant action adventure. No other title in 2011 made me feel like more of a badass superhero than this game.

Paul:
Nananananananananananananananana- BAT-MAN!

Whilst Batman: Arkham City certainly doesn’t bring up any memories of the classic, ultra-camp TV series, it definitely brings up that little feeling inside when you play a game, the one that makes you think you’re totally and utterly badass. Sure, it’s all virtual and you probably couldn’t really go outside and kick the living shit out of hundreds of blokes in one night, all the while gliding around with a cape and a cowl, exacting sweet, sweet justice on those who prey on the innocent – but holy bat logic, batman! – it couldn’t possibly be more more fun than it is in Rocksteady’s latest creation, and at least this way you can cut down on the cuts, bruises, and lethal toxic poisons.

I completed Arkham City in one weekend, yes, the weekend that it came out, and yes, I did nothing else other than eat for the entire duration. Some might call it sad, but I call it being committed to saving Gotham City from the evil clutches of— that villain you’ll have to stop in some fashion toward the end of the game… as you might expect. But on the path to doing so, you’ll run, jump, climb, fly, punch, kick, throw, zip, swing, explode things, break legs, interrogate informants, defeat bosses, smash penguins and joker teeth, solve riddles, find trophies, do side quests, collect gadgets, upgrade gadgets, and bloody hell, so many things to do that you’ll probably spend weeks- nay, months trying to complete everything.

It’s a beautifully crafted game with such outstanding attention to detail, and with so much polish and care put into the work, its not hard to see why Batman made it into our top 10 of 2011.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when Deus Ex Human Revolution finally hit the market: it was actually as good as it looked. Since Invisible War struggled to improve upon its predecessors achievements and success, we found it hard to believe there could be a worthy successor to Deus Ex with a third installment, but with this intelligent and satisfying prequel, we were rendered immobile for days until completing it. The dystopian future Adam Jensen comes from is rich in detail, and the man himself was a hugely versatile protagonist, allowing us to make the ultimate choice: sneak past, or elbow sword to the neck?

Paul:
*tap tap* “Huh?” *SMASH*

That’s the sound of Adam Jensen sneaking up behind a guard, tapping him politely on the shoulder, and then smashing his face in with a robotic arm, using god knows how much force, but discernibly enough to knock a man out without necessarily killing him. Two things are absolutely certain… One, that was totally badass, and two, that would goddamn hurt!

Deus Ex is one of my all time favourite video game franchises, but Human Revolution is a far cry from the days of its elders; offering third person cover-to-cover movement and melee takedowns, and classic RPG leveling and experience points to unlock the new augmentations and upgrades, rather than the augmentation canisters of yore. The multiple ways to play are fantastic, and certainly give you a feeling of power of the [virtual] lives of the enemies and even innocents throughout the story, and whilst I took the pacifists path through the game and killed nobody but the bosses, it was nice to know if I really wanted to, I could have killed anyone I felt deserved it, rather than simply knock them out with a dart, a stun-gun, or a hangover-inducing punch to the chin. Admittedly, because I was gunning (metaphorically, of course) for the pacifist achievement, there were actually times when I would have quite liked to put somebody down for being pure evil, but remembered I was bound by the commitment to kill not a single damn person. Whilst it didn’t taint my experience of the game in the slightest, I can’t help but wonder if I would have actually made the same decisions had I not been after the glory of an achievement.

Human Revolution has a great story, a huge number of augmentations and upgrades to play with from start to finish, and whilst the combat and stealth is all fantastic fun, the game definitely gears you toward playing the smart guy, and not the gung-ho, all weapons blazing mad man, because by jove if you step out of cover at the wrong time in a firefight, you will be dead in seconds, no matter how big your guns. This, however, isn’t a bad thing; Deus Ex has never been about the all-out gunfights between one man and an army, and has always been about the sneaking, assassinating/incapacitating, hacking, negotiating, and exploring. At very few points in any of the series is the player encouraged to murder an entire mob of enemies, and with Human Revolution keeping the tradition of planning, stealthing, and uncovering secrets, they managed to keep a great deal of the game about the characters, the story, and most of all, the conspiracies. I couldn’t have been much happier with Human Revolution, and I will definitely be playing it again soon.

"They fitted me with Energizer instead of Duracell?! Why I oughta!"

Matt:
He never asked for this. He never asked for elbow swords. He didn’t want to be able to turn invisible. He didn’t want x-ray vision or the ability to punch through a concrete wall. He didn’t want to be capable of leaping off a 20-storey building and land perfectly safe. And if you think Adam Jensen asked to have a deadly typhoon of bullets capable of murdering an entire room full of people installed in his arms, you’d be dead wrong. But I’m rather glad he did. There’s so many cool abilities to unlock in Deus Ex 3, you really can play the game any way you want and it will adapt and allow you to. I didn’t want to restrict myself to being a pacifist, although I deeply admire the fact its possible to play the game entirely without killing anyone (save for those infamous bosses). I preferred to be a little more spontaneous: if I thought someone deserved to die, I would arrange that. I did try to not kill any faction until I had solid evidence of who the bad guys were, but that’s the thing about plans, they never seem to work out the way you hope.

When things go wrong, they can do so spectacularly. What starts off as another routine stealthy break-in to the enemy hideout can turn into a bloodbath pretty damn fast. If a guard spots you, you usually have a few seconds to deal with him silently before he alerts the others. A stun dart to the back of the head works quite well. I lost track of the number of unconscious guards I dragged into vent-shafts and cleaning cupboards. But this approach didn’t always work for me, and if I did happen to be spotted sneaking around in a restricted area, I’d have no choice but to unleash some serious pain on anyone in my way. That aforementioned typhoon literally leaves no-one standing, and the brutal takedown finishing moves are satisfyingly violent in every way. Thanks to the skill of the developers, both styles of play are more than viable and its this balance of gameplay experiences that makes Deus Ex stand out as one of the top 5 games of 2011.

It’s a testament to just how good Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are when they can appear on a list of games many years after they were originally released. Sure, this HD collection for the PS3 is a remake of two beloved Playstation 2 games, but going back to them was one of the best gaming experiences we had all year.

Matt:
Ico is a wonderfully simple premise beautifully executed – you are Ico, trapped in a sprawling castle, and must find your way out alive. Despite your escape being accompanied by the mysterious girl Yorda, theres an overpowering feeling of isolation throughout the game. Every location is eerily quiet, and music is used very sparingly. Instead, the game features subtle ambient sounds which help to remind you that you are truly lost in this castle far away from civilisation, and you are alone. One of the things I love about this game is the environment’s visual design. The castle is made up of spacious rooms and vast concrete walkways, and you can nearly always see the path you’re about to take, or a previously visited area if you look around. Exploring it becomes a joy, and the deeper I went, the more desperate I was to escape. I won’t forget that experience in a hurry.

The other game in the collection is widely regarded as one of the greatest games ever made, and when I eventually played it many years after its original release, I finally understood why. Built around the simple idea of 16 huge boss fights, Shadow of the Colossus is breathtaking, and utterly unique. Each monster is a massive, hulking puzzle, requiring some lateral thinking and fast wits to take down. They are all exquisitely designed, inspired by real life animals with a hint of something very alien. The animation brings them to life so realistically, I can’t help feeling sorry for them when they shake and tremble trying to shrug you off as you climb up their backs, sword in hand ready to plunge into one of the weak spots. As each one falls to its knees, the sense of satisfaction is equalled only by the feeling of loss and sadness that I’ve murdered another giant innocent animal.

Paul:
I actually didn’t hear about ICO or Shadow of the Colossus until the HD remake was announced, but when Matt finally got his hands on the PS3 HD glory that is those two games, I had no excuses, I just had to play them both.

Starting with Colossus, I took up arms against the 16 enormous, gargantuan, and, well, colossal… colossi, and rode valiantly across deserts, fields, rocky mountains, and even into enormous lakes and ancient ruins, seeking out my enemy. While 16 doesn’t sound like an awful lot, it took me nigh on 5 hours to defeat them all with only a sword, a bow, and a horse, to take down the black hairy foes in whom’s shadows I stood. One thing this game gets absolutely right is the sense of scale, and with your character being nothing more than a young man against creatures that are just beyond epic in comparison, and move in ways that look and feel absolutely right. There’s something awe inspiring about fighting in enormous arenas of terrain and seeing the colossi marching, flying, or swimming toward you, and bringing them down is both an extremely rewarding, yet, oddly saddening experience.

After completing SotC, I moved swiftly onto ICO. The story, following a rather similar trend of making the player feel like a small person in a huge, overwhelming environment, places you in shoes of a small, horn-headed boy, thrown into a castle and left for dead. With the least amount of dialogue and/or plot I have ever seen in a game, the goal is obvious from the beginning; escape the castle alive with your mysterious new companion, having rescued her from a cage. Being, at its core, an adventure puzzle platformer game, ICO is one of the simplest yet beautifully complex games, involving what boils down to a story about friendship and trust, and without cluttering any of the screen with a single HUD element or indicator of any kind, it leaves the entire world and story to your imagination.

ICO and SotC were two of the most memorable and unique games I’ve ever played, and despite each of them being over 6 years old, they were still fantastic, and utterly deserving of their place in our top ten games of 2011.

Undoubtedly the most original shooter of 2011 that we played, Bulletstorm introduced us to the hilarious skillshot system. Its easy to shoot a guy in the face with a shotgun. But its harder to whip a guy towards you, boot him in the balls so his body flies towards a huge wall of spikes, and then shotgun him in the face seconds before he’s impaled. This is the only game I know of that rewards such imaginative thinking, and we had endless fun figuring out the hundreds of skillshots in the game. Bulletstorm deserves its place on this list.

Paul:
When I reviewed Bulletstorm earlier this year, I had a lot of praise for it, and by jove I meant it. In no other game have I seen such attention to detail with regards to flinging people into the air with laser whip, pummeling them with a machine gun, then kicking them in the face as they plummet back toward the earth, placing them nicely into a prickly embrace of a giant cactus. Instant satisfaction, and that was just one enemy! Humongous beasts, enormous machines, and all round glorious set-pieces made Bulletstorm truly spectacular, along with the almost comically unique take on typical FPS gameplay, making the priority less about killing men and more about doing it creatively.

What’s that you say? A monstrous concept? Well, yes I suppose to some it might be, but all the horrific and mutilating skill shots you can make are positively hilariously named, things like ‘Sausage Fest’ for killing someone with a hot-dog cart, ‘Fire in the Hole’ for shooting someone in the rear end, and how about the utterly charming ‘Nut Cracker’ which involves flying a guided sniper bullet into the privates of an unsuspecting enemy in the distance. Yes, I’ve never seen a game do such a thing, and it damn well did it good. Not to mention the storyline wasn’t bad at all, and with all the epic explosions, monsters, and fun characters to be seen throughout the duration of the game, there was plenty to keep me entertained.

Matt:
I had great fun playing Bulletstorm. The Unreal engine is used by so many studios, but its only when Epic themselves are involved that they really know how to push it to its limits. The most memorable moments for me are when you’re fighting enormous towering monsters, or being chased by a gigantic runaway rolling ball of steel across a desert. The environments ranged from huge sprawling outdoor fields to run-down derelict and overgrown cities, and everything in between. Half the game was even set in a post-apocalyptic holiday resort – something we saw a couple of times in 2011, but Bulletstorm did it first, and arguably best.

Its hard not to love those skillshots, too. For years, shooters have allowed us to take out bad guys in sadistically entertaining ways, but never before has there been a system in place that actively recognises and rewards clever acts of violence such as this. To unlock new weapons and upgrades, you simply have to play Bulletstorm creatively, otherwise you’ll be stuck with the regular gear. Amusingly, this system is integrated into the story itself, which has its tongue so firmly in its cheek for the duration of the campaign that only the biggest prude would be offended by its gloriously juvenile humour.

Crytek are notorious for creating some of the best-looking games out there, and Crysis (released in 2007) is still used as a benchmark for PCs today. It’s always assumed you needed a behemoth of a machine just to get their games to run, but that all changed with the release of Crysis 2. It was their first game to be fully optimised to run on this generation of consoles, and the result was one of the most beautiful console games ever made.

Matt:
I played Crysis 2 on the PC, and was expecting to find a dumbed-down consolified shooter, but was pleasantly surprised at how good it really looked. I couldn’t believe how Crytek had managed to get this game to run on the aging 360 and PS3 hardware. Soft dazzling lighting effects shimmer outwards from spotlights and detailed particles drifting from the rubble of burning buildings look stunning. I’d seen apocalyptic cities many times before, but this eerie vision of New York under an alien attack felt very real as it was full to the brim with details. I often found myself wanting to stop and take it all in, but this being a Crytek game meant the action very rarely let up, and you are ushered from one glorious set piece to the next. Featuring an all-new nanosuit which essentially turns you into a superhero with strength and stealthy powers, the game throws smart enemies both human and alien at you and they are hugely entertaining to fight as you improvise your way out of one hairy situation after another. 2011 saw a number of good shooters, but for me Crysis 2 is hands-down the best-looking one.

Paul:
One thing is for sure… Crytek know how to make an ordinary person feel like a badass. Crysis 2 and it’s ability to allow you to play the ultimate super soldier, and not in an ‘I’m-good-at-guns-and-hiding-behind-cover’ sort of way, but in a super-suit-full-of-awesome-abilities kind of ultra-cool way. Following on fairly loosely from its predecessor, this game’s story picks up some time after the invasion of the fictional Lingshan Islands by mysterious, previously dormant aliens, and now has them in your face every 5 minutes, killing people, smashing buildings down, and blowing the crap out of vehicles. Not only are the aliens being very anti-social, but there’s once again a faction of human opponents to deal with, too, and while I personally preferred taking on the humans to the aliens, I had a great time sneaking up on them and stealth killing all of them without a hitch.

What makes Crysis so great, however, is not just that you can genuinely go in all guns blazing or be silent and deadly without setting off any alarms, but the fact that when it occasionally does go wrong, you are forced to improvise and resolve the situation in its new chaotic form. Do you escape the frantic chaos that erupts when the enemy knows you are there and wait for it all to blow over before picking off the more alert enemies who are waiting for you? Or do you switch off the stealth systems and activate your strength and armour instead, ripping a heavy machine gun from atop a tank and pulverizing your enemies in plain sight? I can tell you that half way through the game, I found myself wanting to experiment with the different possibilities, and found that full-scale combat became my favourite means of dispatching the enemies. All of the combat was fun, but what struck me most were the environments; we’ve all seen aliens and men with guns before, but what we rarely see is New York City utterly devastated and crawling with plant-life, pounded into rubble, and Times Square being flooded by a tidal wave.

Yes, Crysis 2 was very fun, and definitely a great change from the typical first person shooters that have dominated the market for the last few years.

EA’s mega-sequel Dead Space 2 arrived early in 2011 to scare the crap out of everyone in January. It was bigger, louder and more violent than its predecessor, which is saying something. With a new focus on Isaac’s mind, the game tapped into some psychological issues aimed directly at the player this time, and the result was one terrifying experience. We were worried about the possibility of Isaac having an actual voice this time ruining some of the atmosphere, but those fears were unnecessary as Dead Space 2 turned out to be one of the best games of the year.

Paul:
I really enjoyed Dead Space, and I loved Dead Space 2 as well, so much so that I made my girlfriend play both of them as well (I’m ashamed to say she coped with most of the scarier moments better than I did) and watching her play it through from start to finish, I was just as enthralled by the events taking place as I was when I played it myself. Dead Space is one of my favourite video game franchises because, lets face it, it’s space, aliens, gore, guns, horror, and is about as close to a good Aliens style game I’ve been able to get since the original Aliens vs. Predator terrified the 12 year old me oh so long ago.

There’s something about being alone in space with nothing but the cold steel of a weapon to keep you company, and knowing that around every corner and beside every vent there’s a chance you’re going to get your head torn off by a disgusting, horrifying monster with spikes for arms that really just sends shivers through my entire body but also makes me unable to put down the controller. Dead Space 2 played amazingly well, and I had absolutely no issues with the controls or the events that took place in the story, and the fact that they improved upon its predecessor so well, without compromising anything that made Dead Space what it was, meant I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel and can only hope they do so well in any potential sequels. Some might argue, of course, that giving Isaac Clarke a voice – where he had none in the first game – was a stupid or even risky move, taking away the sense of isolation and loneliness, but I beg to differ, and felt that by giving him an actual personality made his trauma and harrowing desperation to stay alive that much more important, and only made me want to get him out of that mess even more.

Matt:
So, I must admit that I have yet to finish Dead Space 2. I’m a notorious wimp when it comes to horror games, and this proved to be too much for me. I must have gotten about halfway through it before some horrendous alien land-mine things started blowing me to pieces in a particularly nasty corridor, and I just stopped and haven’t been back. I will return and get Isaac Clarke through the rest of his horrible tale, eventually… Few games do visceral violence as satisfying as this, and I do want to know what happens to the poor bloke by the end of all this. It’s been a year since Dead Space 2 came out, perhaps now is the time to get back into it…

Magicka was one of the first games of the year, and is first on our list. Released in January by small indie team Paradox Interactive, the game was originally broken as hell. Anyone who bought it in its first few weeks of life would have played a bug-filled mess of a game. Luckily for us, we didn’t buy it until a few months later when everything had been ironed out. Featuring 4-player co-op, its an isometric action game, injected with humour and the best spell-casting system we’ve ever seen in a game.

Matt:
I was instantly captivated by Magicka. Its simple tale of saving a magical kingdom from some evil or other is full of pop-culture gags and cheesy puns, I couldn’t help feeling charmed by its silly world. Paradox are only a small team and I was really impressed with the combat system they had come up with. You are a wizard, and aside from some various swords (and yes, sometimes guns…) you pick up as side arms, the main weapon at your disposal are your spells. They come in 8 elemental flavours – fire, water, ice, ground, electric, healing, arcane and a shield – and you can combine any one with any other and the game will figure out the rest. Want a fireball? Simply merge fire with ground and hurl it at your enemies. How about a beam of arcane lightning? A circle of protective healing bombs? A harmless cloud of steam? All of these and virtually anything else you can think to combine is possible in this game, and you can even apply them to your weapons to enchant them. Its no wonder the game was so horribly broken when it came out, because this is one of those deceivingly complicated games that wasn’t afraid to be a bit ambitious. After a shaky start, Magicka showed how good it can be, and then they made a hilarious Vietnam expansion. Please Paradox, make a new game. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

Paul:

Paradox Interactive are a Swedish based games studio who have poured their heart and soul into some incredibly complex, medieval, political, economic, territorial, and most importantly, grown-up and serious strategy games, such as Europa Universalis. The intense level of maturity, complexity and patience needed in such a game, however, is what makes Magicka that much more amazing to behold. A game that basically throws all of modern expectations of a 3D RPG style game out the window, and says ‘We want spells! Massive spells! Nothing more, nothing less!’ and successfully delivers on it’s own demands. It couldn’t be farther or more opposite to the standards of their grown-up strategy games that involve doing a thousand things at once, and gives you just two things to do at once, hundreds of spells to destroy your enemies, and hundreds of spells to destroy your friends – because frankly, thats what it all boils down to when you’re in the middle of a chaotic battle with dozens of orcs, mages, walking trees, trolls, werewolves and more; complete and utter death.

Not only are there 8 separate core spells you can combine with each other to make your favourite moves, there are also spell tomes, which contain huge, ultra destructive spells that can require a huge combination of your core spells at once. The results are absolutely devastating, and usually hilarious, too. More often than not, your mega lightning strike spell will accidentally explode your friend instead of that giant ogre you were actually trying to aim for, because really, why allow the players to kill the enemy when you can make them kill each other by mistake, over and over and over again! Along with the endless homages to all the best things ever made that are littered around the entire game, this is where Magicka’s chuckle-worthy humor resides for me, and hearing my friends screaming ‘FOR F***S SAKE, PAUL!’ when I accidentally flatten them with a meteorite instead of the mob of enemies chasing him will be amongst the funniest multiplayer experiences in my memory.

We really enjoyed this game, and whilst we haven’t finished it yet, we’re by no means bored of it and will definitely come back for more time and again.