More often than not, I tend to play games a year or more after their initial release dates, so it can be really hard for me to provide a really good “best of” list. I just started playing Mass Effect 2, and I have yet to play Metro 2033, Starcraft 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Fallout: New Vegas, God of War 3, Bioshock 2, and every Assassin’s Creed game beyond the original. I’m sure that I’ll play all of these eventually, and it’s very possible that more than one would be on my best of 2010 list had I played them.

Likewise, I played Batman: Arkham Asylum this year, and I finished both Dragon Age: Origins and Trine this year. Each of those would be on my best of 2010 list had they actually been released in 2010.

On the other hand, I played Uncharted 2 this year and absolutely hated it.

So let me think. What games that were released this year did I play this year and love?

First, Heavy Rain. Of course Heavy Rain is first. It was an amazingly tense and well-told story, but my favorite thing about it was the way consequences were handled and the fact that you never had to go back and replay a scene at which you’d failed. I know that this type of design has to present some substantial challenges, but I really hope that more games are able to take this approach in the future – especially survival horror games.

Secondly, Enslaved. It’s difficult for me to lump Enslaved in alongside Heavy Rain since I just finished playing Enslaved last week, but it was a far better game than I’d been expecting.

Lastly, Hoard. I don’t often play games without stories or games without endings. But Hoard is a great little bite-sized game, and it’s a lot of fun to kidnap princesses, roast knights, and burninate the countryside.

As an honorable mention, I’d also like to include No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle. Hard to put it on a best of 2010 list, and it wasn’t as good as the original, but I really do enjoy the ridiculous humor of the No More Heroes games, and Desperate Struggle gave me some laughs.