Michael “Red Pen of Doom” Futter
My list is going to seem like a straight echo of my comrades.
inFAMOUS 2 – I’ve now completed inFAMOUS 2 twice (making it my second platinum ever). That game is emotionally powerful regardless of how you choose to play it. More importantly, it’s fun. Sucker Punch took everything we loved about inFAMOUS, improved it, and tossed out the stuff that held the game back. The game checkpoints like a champ and, even on Hard (which is truly difficult), the game is rarely punishing or unfair.
Mortal Kombat – I expected to like this game. I never, ever anticipated that I would keep coming back to it, even just to play some more of the challenge tower. NetherRealm’s reboot has accomplished everything it set out to do. However, the most impressive thing that Ed Boon and company has done was to take on a Capcom fighter and come out the victor. The story mode, challenge tower, Krypt and online experience best anything we’ve seen out of the house that Street Fighter built.
LA Noire – Admittedly, I’m not terribly far into this game, but it’s hard to ignore the success of the facial capture techniques pioneered by Team Bondi. The game is genuinely fun and one of those rare titles that non-gamer significant others enjoy participating in.
Portal 2 – Last, but certainly not least, is Valve’s uniquely humorous and mindbending first-person puzzle game. Between the compelling single player story and the devilishly difficult cooperative mode, Portal 2 provides an experience that only the original Portal comes close to rivaling.
Ken “ZeroTolerance” McKown
Are we already six months in? Man, time flies when you are up to your elbows in good games. Last year we did a similar feature and the list was incredible. Each year gaming seems to get better and better and anyone complaining they have nothing to play simply needs to find a new hobby. As for 2011, I already have two Game of the Year contenders with plenty of honorable mentions and more than enough to fill a top ten list. Let’s start with the obvious.
Mortal Kombat
It is no secret that I have been waiting several long years for the franchise to return in top form. When it went 3D back in the early 2000s it lost a lot of its appeal. This reboot is everything I have ever loved from the series and so much more. MK2 has always been in my top three games of all time, and NetherRealm’s latest completely obliterates it from that list. I have strong doubts that any game can top this for my pick of the year, and I can see myself playing this for years to come.
Alice: Madness Returns
I know the reviews are mediocre and no one is really talking about it, but this game has truly engaged me like no other platformer in recent memory. I love the art direction, the creative level design and most of all just the sheer immersion the game has produced. Every time I play it I enjoy it a little bit more. There is just so much content to have fun with and this will easily be in my top games of the year when it comes down to the wire.
Those are the two I will go into detail but that doesn’t downplay the rest of the year. So far I have thoroughly enjoyed Killzone 3, inFamous 2, Shadows of the Damned, L.A. Noire, Portal 2, Duke Nukem Forever (yeah I know, it isn’t GotY but I liked it), Crysis 2, Dead Space 2, Dead or Alive Dimensions and Zelda OoT 3D just to name a few. Then we look at the rest of the year with titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 3, El Shaddai, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Dead Island, Twisted Metal, Rage and so many others- I am definitely forgetting something. Needless to say, my fingers will be busy this year trying to keep up with all of the awesome releases and I will have no problem compiling ten games for my list at the end of the year. The problem might be limiting it to just ten.
That’s all for this edition of the ZTGD Reviewer Rodeo. Join us next week as we grab onto another bucking bronco of controversy and beat it into submission.
Got questions or comments? Drop ’em in the comment section below or hit us up via email. Suggestions for Reviewer Rodeo topics that you want our opinions on? Hit Mike up at michaelfutter@ztgamedomain.com.
MK24ever
Helo?…
“Helooooo?”
Is anyone here?
“isss anyooone heeere………..?”
Well, I guess not from the echo, ZTGD,you must inject people on this website man! Even haters would be welcome!… hehe
Well, despite I use to be the “you’re all wrong” guy, I’ll have to agree with everyone’s choices, or I would if I had already played all the games you mentioned, but since all are games I’m very interested in, and after reading the reviews I’d say they would end up on the top of my list, well… maybe I’d skip LA Noire, I fucking hated GTAIV, and Rockstar left me with a really bad taste in the mouth with that game!
From what I actually played I’d go for MORTAL KOMBAT, it’s like my nickname made sense once again! The story mode alone was game enough to make me a proud MK fan once again, despite I almost cried with rage when fighting Shao Kahn at the end of story mode… that cheating bastard!!!!!!!
And my other pick for game of half year (Who comes with these titles anyway??!) goes for Stacking, I already planned to buy it but Sony decided to give it for free to PSN+ subscribers, so it was a win win situation! It’s a very, very original game, puzzle oriented with an absolutely GORGEOUS art-direction, it went almost to “Flower” level of awesomeness and uniqueness! I recommend it to anyone who sometimes just loves to play “something else”.
I have Killzone 3 in the box for one month now, still have to put that disc on my PS3… but the laziness is strong with me, and I still shiver every time I remember the awful SP campaign of KZ2!
ZTGD
Dude, comments are something on my agenda, I want to be able to make it easier to post here using your Facebook login so you don’t have to sign in here. It has been a crazy Summer, hoping to get some downtime from writing to do more coding. It can be hard to stretch between the two. :)