I’m currently writing a draft of the best/worst things about 2009, (I should probably try to publish it before 2010 ends) and one of the things I couldn’t decide for sure was which game. So instead of making that call, I asked some of my friends to do it.
Roberto’s game of the year goes to: Demon’s souls
What he said: “awesome multiplayer, even for a single player guy, awesome atmosphere, awesome combat, awesome opponents, awesome design, awesome difficulty”
At which point I asked: “can you try to say something other than ‘awesome’”, to which he replied: “I could, but then I wouldn’t do it justice”.
David’s game of the year goes to: Uncharted 2
What he said: “sceneries, graphics and the most cinematographic, maybe the most cinematographic game I’ve ever seen.”
Amilcar’s game of the year goes to: Ar Tonelico 2
What he said (after gobbling up his words many times about making a choice): good and refined old-style turn-based rpg, set in a very unique setting.
I pretty much agree with them on all choices, because I’ve played either a bit (in the case or Ar Tonelico 2) or through the whole game in the other cases.
If I had to pick the game that was most “defining” to me, that stands apart from other games by being something other than just great, but also different, I would have to go with Demon’s Souls. I’m all for games where your hero waves an too-big-to-be-realistic bad ass 2-handed sword and cuts everything in half, but this is the first game where yielding such weapon in a bad occasion can have dire repercussions on your gameplay. It’s the first medieval RPG I played that made me really go “maybe I don’t need to be such a bad ass against this enemy… maybe I’ll just go with this big tower shield and try to just survive”.
If I had to pick the game that I enjoyed playing the most, that was fun, thrilling, felt like a roller coaster ride, it would be Uncharted 2, like I said to most of the people I talk to about it and quote myself “It’s the best action movie I’ve seen in years”.
And then there’s the quirky nostalgia of Japanese RPGs. Although I played very few hours of Ar Tonelico 2, I was very impressed with the first game which is, in many ways, inferior to the later version. The game is set in an imaginative world, a cross between fantasy and sci-fi setting, with some dating simulator features baked in.
It’s weird and confusing as hell, but if you’re into Japanese humor, or Japanese RPGs in general, it’s certainly a game you should try out, though I recommend you start with the first one.
Honorable mention to Dragon Age (kudos to Tyme for her quest for Alistair’s flesh), and I’m sad that I probably won’t ever finish that game, but that’s Bioware’s own fault for releasing it so close to Mass Effect 2.