So. . . before a deluge of anticipated games arrives in the latter half of 2011, what do you guys think is the best game--not counting mobile or indie titles--released this year?
I'm going with Portal 2--while the single-player was undoubtedly half-assed, the main portion of the game (see: the co-op) was sublime, and rarely have I completed a game so assured in my conviction that it's one of the best ever. Gabe Newell, it seems, may not have been off the mark when he described it as Valve's "best game yet"--while the competition gets pretty stiff up around there, Valve's courtship of the casual-universal is arguably superior, in my opinion, to either Half-Life, indebted as both those games are to the linear conventions of the shooters that preceded them (which they expanded considerably upon, to their credit). This is Super Mario Bros. 3, SimCity, Sid Meier's Pirates!; people--an instant classic, and one that puts most of the counterfeited achievements of this generation thus far (the GTA IV's and Dragon Age's) to shame.
Also: Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a good game, but was more or less devoid of original ideas (it just offered some admirable refinements--the cover system, etc.), featured a storyline worse than Invisible War's, boss fights that sullied the experience, a considerably more watered-down pantheon of moral choices than in DX, augmentation that hardly compelled the player to make choices, etc. So. . . I have a hard time understanding why people are earmarking it as the best thus far this year.
I'm going with Portal 2--while the single-player was undoubtedly half-assed, the main portion of the game (see: the co-op) was sublime, and rarely have I completed a game so assured in my conviction that it's one of the best ever. Gabe Newell, it seems, may not have been off the mark when he described it as Valve's "best game yet"--while the competition gets pretty stiff up around there, Valve's courtship of the casual-universal is arguably superior, in my opinion, to either Half-Life, indebted as both those games are to the linear conventions of the shooters that preceded them (which they expanded considerably upon, to their credit). This is Super Mario Bros. 3, SimCity, Sid Meier's Pirates!; people--an instant classic, and one that puts most of the counterfeited achievements of this generation thus far (the GTA IV's and Dragon Age's) to shame.
Also: Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a good game, but was more or less devoid of original ideas (it just offered some admirable refinements--the cover system, etc.), featured a storyline worse than Invisible War's, boss fights that sullied the experience, a considerably more watered-down pantheon of moral choices than in DX, augmentation that hardly compelled the player to make choices, etc. So. . . I have a hard time understanding why people are earmarking it as the best thus far this year.
