Just Cause 2 is essentially an international super-spy-sim. Just think about all the amazingly stupendous and wacky scenes of coolness from any of your favourite spy movies, and then imagine being able to play tons of them out at your leisure. This is the ultimate secret-agent-super-hero game of 2010, and possibly ever.
Paul:
I loved the first Just Cause, and must have wasted dozens of hours simply messing about in the enormous sandbox world, flying planes and helicopters to the top of the highest mountain, racing around in speedboats, bombing around in all manner of car or tank, and most importantly, skydiving off of absolutely anything!
Add to that a vast improvement to graphics, scale, combat, and vehicles – and not to mention the ability to hook any two things in the world together for infinite comedy value – and you have yourself a brilliant sequel that builds on an already outstanding concept. Just Cause 2 is a superb game that, despite having a severely ridiculous story with no really significant plot, manages to pull off everything it intends to with near perfection. There was no end to the fun I could have had playing as an international super ridicu-spy, so much so that the only reason I stopped playing it was because there was so bloody much to do, that I don’t think I would have had a hope in hell of completing it all even by now!
One of my personal favourite games of the year and well worthy of it’s place in the BcR top ten games of 2010.
Soaring high above the earth while throwing a pilot out of his aircraft is a real joy to behold
Matt:
I had more raw fun playing Just Cause 2 than any other game of 2010, and its not hard to see why. Take a look at any screenshot or video and you’ll see Rico Rodriguez performing all manner of ridiculous stunts from leaping off a bridge into a mile-high canyon, to grapple hooking his way up the side of a skyscraper, to hijacking helicopters in mid-air. You can even stand on a jumbo jet while it takes off.
The story of overthrowing the evil dictator (bearing no small resemblance to Kim Jong Il, naturally) was as ludicrous as you’d expect from a game as openly nuts as this. The fact its also one of the most beautiful game worlds in existence is a great bonus.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
The successor to Goldeneye, Perfect Dark improved every possible aspect of the classic shooter and created an original masterpiece. 4-player multiplayer game modes, with the option of adding 8 extra bots made matches frantic chaos and endless fun. The singleplayer was fantastic at the time, featuring such state-of-the-art features as realtime lighting, blood spatter effects, and fully voice acted cinematic cutscenes. It even let you play the story in local co-op with a mate – player 2 got to be Joanna Dark’s weird-looking blonde sister – the first game I ever encountered with a co-op singleplayer mode.
The following took place in 2012, in the beta version of the DayZ mod for ARMA 2. It recounts the story of how I survived the zombie apocalypse by eating 87 cans of baked beans.
Chernarus is not a welcoming place any more. The lush green fields are now infested with hordes of shambling undead. And if the zombies don’t kill you, other wanderers surely will. Being alone is risky, but trusting the wrong person could cost you your life. In this harsh new world, you won’t get far without friends.
Portal is one of those games that sprang out of nowhere, taking everyone by surprise and causing a storm all across the internet. With almost no hype, and zero expectations, it came bundled as a throwaway extra in The Orange Box, arguably the best game bundle ever made.
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