Ico / Shadow of the Colossus Collection

This spring, Playstation is going to be re-releasing a high-definition version of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus as a packed-together collection. I’m not too interested in the fact that it’s going to be 3D-enabled, but I’ll buy it just to replay Shadow of the Colossus in HD, and to try out Ico, which I’ve never had the pleasure of playing.

Dead Space 2

January 25th is only about a month away, and knowing me I won’t buy Dead Space 2 on release day. But I’m definitely going to play. I loved the first game.

Batman: Arkham City

I was late to the party on Arkham Asylum, but I played the game in 2010 and loved it. Sequel? Yes, please. Maybe I’ll get a copy of Arkham City before it’s a year old.

Dragon Age 2

For me, 2009 and 2010 were largely about Dragon Age. I absolutely love the setting and the strategic combat, but I’ve been seriously overexposed. And while Dragon Age was fantastic, I did not love Awakening. As a result, I may not pick up Dragon Age 2 on March 8th with everyone else.

Beyond Good and Evil HD

The thought of playing my favorite game of all time in HD with remastered character models and getting trophies gives me great joy. I’m gonna photograph every animal, win every race, and collect every pearl. Again. It’s coming out sometime in 2011, although nobody seems to know when.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge

I’ve been looking for a good co-op RPG to play with my wife ever since we finished Trine and discovered that Sacred 2 is kind of lame. There is very little information out there about the game, and I may wait to see some reviews before dropping the money for two copies. What I do know is that you play as a male warrior who uses two-handed melee weapons and a female archer. Co-op is the main focus of the game, and the gameplay videos look very good. Time will tell. May 10th.

Portal 2

There’s been a lot of hype and a lot of excitement around the impending release of Portal 2. Now scheduled for April 20, 2011, this sequel sees the addition of elements from one of Lungfishopolis’s Free Game Friday titles: TAG: The Power of Paint. Turns out that Valve bought out the TAG crew in the same way that they bought the Narbacular Drop crew for the first Portal game. Portal 2 looks amazing, and I’ll likely download it from Steam on April 20th.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

I don’t yet have a motionPlus controller, and this game may force me to buy one. I missed the boat on A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Wind Waker. Twilight Princess was the first Zelda game I’d played since borrowing a friend’s NES back in the day. And I love Twilight Princess. I’ve got very high hopes for Skyward Sword, and I likely will be buying this one on release day. That’s supposed to be sometime in early 2011, but there’s been no announcement.

The Last Guardian

I’ve been looking forward to The Last Guardian for a long time. You play a defenseless boy, and must of the gameplay appears to be stealth-based. Your only means of attack is via your huge flying puppy dog companion Trico: the titular last guardian. Given team Ico’s track record, this one should be good.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Before Skyrim was announced recently, I would quickly have answered that The Last Guardian was my most-looked-forward-to game. I loved Oblivion. I really really loved Oblivion. A sequel? Yes, please. And I’ll just say goodbye to another 200 hours of my life.

I’ve wrapped my first playthrough of Batman: Arkham Asylum. I’d delayed playing it as long as I had because it’s a licensed game. In general, licensed games stink. I was pleased to find that Arkham Asylum does not, in fact, stink. Awesome game. The game has me listed as 91% complete, mostly because there are a number of challenges I haven’t hit yet. I won’t be going for 100% achievements on this one, mainly because I know I’ll never finish all the challenges perfectly, and a 40-hit combo feels a bit beyond my reach, but I might consider a second playthrough on Hard difficulty now that I’ve finished the first. I did manage to get all of The Riddler’s challenges.

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles is a fun little Wii game. I mainly bought it for the trip on memory lane through Resident Evil 2, which holds a very warm place in my heart. Paradoxically, it’s also a very scary place. The game’s fun, but I haven’t played it much recently.

Red Faction: Guerilla has been taking up a lot of my time. I bought it on Steam when it went on sale – I can’t remember whether I paid $5 or $10 for the game. I’m in Oasis, on casual difficulty, and the game’s already feeling a bit monotonous. I might just go back and play every once in a while. If only I didn’t have that damned completionist thing going, I could just put the game aside and be done with it.

Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes turned out to be a mistake. It cost $15, so it sounded like a good deal for a decent tactical fantasy combat game. But it’s seriously broken, and the dialog is hideous. I quit after 3 tries at the first battle. I’m actually unable to move where I want to. I click on a square and the character sprints in the other direction. Avoid this one. I should seek a refund.

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening is an expansion from my favorite game of last year. I really loved Dragon Age. But this expansion has some problems. Notably, the difficulty is erratic as all hell. After a far too easy first chapter, I set the difficulty to hard, and I’ve played that way through most of the game. But when I got to the dragon at the end, I got stomped. Flat. I set the difficulty to normal, then easy, and kept losing. After my 3rd attempt on easy, I managed to pull off a victory. Barely. Jesus, I just want the game to end now, but I’m having difficulty mustering the will to go back to it for the final two or three battles.

Once I wrap up Awakening and possibly Red Faction, I’ll install the copy of Mass Effect 2 I’ve had sitting here. It might be hard to go right from one Bioware game to another. I just ordered Enslaved, and I might try that one first. I’ve also been considering going back to oldies like Grim Fandango or Metal Gear Solid. I also never got far in Torchlight. I guess we’ll see what strikes my fancy. I’ve been putting a lot of time into Gem Miner: Dig Deeper recently.

Despite the fact that it was originally designed as a Gamecube game, I loved Twilight Princess. The beautifully-crafted themed dungeons, the frequent story moment cutscenes, the varied gameplay, the mini-games, the music, I loved it all. And yet I never played Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. Call me a late-to-the party Zelda fanboy.

I kept my copy of Twilight Princess. Maybe I’m hoping to get my wife to play it. Maybe I’d consider replaying it myself at some point if I ever got a huge amount of free time. It’s a long game.

4- Dragon Age: Origins (Bioware, PC, 2009)

Although I’ve never played the console version of this game, I heard that it was far inferior to the version I played on the PC. Maybe that’s why the game didn’t make a bigger splash: it was essentially a PC experience, and when ported to the console it lacked something. But there was so much that I loved about Dragon Age. First and foremost, it’s the closest thing to Baldur’s Gate that I’ve seen since… well, since 1998 when the last Baldur’s Gate game was released. Secondly, Bioware’s move away from a linear good/evil scale. Rather than your character’s alignment being affected by decisions that you make throughout the adventure, your companions’ opinions are affected. The same action can please two of your companions and piss off a third companion. I think it’s brilliant, as it steps away from the black-and-white systems of the past and simultaneously builds NPC character depth. Third, the game’s setting is the best fantasy world I’ve seen since Brittania, back in the days of Ultima V in the eighties. I love the fact that dwarves are unable to use magic and therefore are unable to dream. I love the Grey Wardens and the dark drama of The Joining. I love the story behind the creation of the darkspawn: The Fade and The Black City. And I love the background of the dragons, how archdemons come to be, and how they can be defeated. It’s a pity that I haven’t yet had time to finish DAO: Awakening.

3- Baldur’s Gate (Bioware, PC, 1998)

I’m grouping both games here. After all this time, Baldur’s Gate may still be my favorite computer role-playing game. There’s something about the old Infinity Engine and about the makeup of these old games that no other CRPG since has been able to capture. Baldur’s Gate had more character customization options, more spells and magic items, more obscure side-quests, and more areas to explore than any other game since. It’s amazing that twelve years later, Baldur’s Gate is still setting the bar for computer role playing games.

2- Half-Life 2 (Valve Software, PC, 2004)

Valve’s development of the Source engine was an amazing achievement. But aside from that, the story and gameplay in Half-Life 2 were breakthrough accomplishments on a number of levels. Innovative enemies, physics-based puzzles, and the best facial animation ever included in a video game. All of this, and a excellently-written science fiction story about an alien occupation of planet Earth and the unlikely underground rebellion led by a voiceless protagonist who may be backed by a mysterious otherworldly businessman. I’m currently replaying Half-life 2 for the fourth time.

1- Beyond Good and Evil (Ubisoft, PC, 2003)

You knew this was coming. Beyond Good and Evil remains my favorite game of all time. I’ve ranted about it so often and for so long that I won’t repeat myself here – you can go read any of a number of other rants I’ve written about how good the game is. I’ve replayed it five times now, from start to finish, and unlocked every hidden item in the game. I’m ready now for Beyond Good and Evil 2. Bring it on.

1998: Baldur’s Gate
The IP that put Bioware on the map is arguably still the best series they’ve ever produced. While in my opinion Dragon Age’s setting, storyline and characters surpassed those of Baldur’s Gate, there are still many things about Baldur’s Gate that remain superior: exploration, class and spell selection, and available PCs to name a few factors. There’s a reason that Baldur’s Gate remains a legendary name and a gold standard in RPGs.

2002: Neverwinter Nights
Without a doubt, the strongest feature of Neverwinter Nights was the Aurora engine’s make-your-own-adventure toolset. Many things about the Neverwinter Nights game engine bothered me, and despite completing the included single-player adventure, I never loved it.
I hated the fact that you couldn’t control an entire party of adventurers. Although I spent countless hours with the Aurora toolset, it never changed the fact that Neverwinter  couldn’t hold a candle to Candlekeep. I never played Neverwinter Nights 2.

2003: Knights of the Old Republic
Hailed by many as a better Star Wars story than George Lucas’s prequel trilogy, KotOR was met with much acclaim. But the lackluster combat was so very similar to the combat that had annoyed me so much in Neverwinter Nights. Although I appreciated the story, and very much enjoyed The Big Twist, the black and white good versus evil choices that determined your alignment on a very one-dimensional scale never struck much of a chord with me. I never played KotOR 2.

2005: Jade Empire
I enjoyed the gameplay of Jade Empire more than I had Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic. It had a single-companion mechanic very much similar to Neverwinter Nights’s and a good guy/bad guy gauge similar to that in KotOR, but the combat was twitch-based. Sure, there were RPG aspects, but I got to manually jump, punch, kick, and dodge. I’ll grant you that by this point, the conversation system in Bioware games was getting very much same-old-same-old, but with much of the remainder of the game working so well, it was easy to overlook the staleness of the conversation mechanics. And Jade Empire had a storyline better than any of the previous Bioware games. Jade Empire 2 would be very nice.

2007: Mass Effect
TO hear some speak of it, Mass Effect was the second coming. The premise of a race of super-machines threatening humanity sounded absolutely fantastic. What we got in reality was a shooter that didn’t feel much like a shooter. It had a somewhat innovative conversation system, but the same black and white good vs evil mechanic that had bored me in KotOR was replaced by a black and white paragon vs renegade system. And the closest to unstoppable robots we ever got was the geth, a robotic race of utterly unremarkable peons for the PC to shoot at. Oh, and for some reason they could put people on giant spikes in order to change them into zombies. For some reason. I’m not in a hurry to play Mass Effect 2.

2009: Dragon Age Origins
Where to begin? Bioware took the one game they’d made which had been absolutely fantastic (Baldur’s Gate) and they did what they could to make it even better. And I’m not just talking about better graphics.

Firstly, the system of game mechanics. In the past, they’d used Dungeons and Dragons rules. Baldur’s Gate used 2nd Edition rules. Neverwinter Nights used 3.0. The current D&D ruleset is 4th Edition, and it’s dog crap. Bioware made the decision to create their own rule system, and I couldn’t be happier with it. It’s very different, but it’s probably my favorite RPG rule system other than Fallout’s SPECIAL system.

Secondly, they took that tired old black vs white good vs evil character alignment system and trashed it. In its place, they set up a system whereby each of your NPCs will have a different opinion of you based on their own values and their opinions of the various decisions you make throughout the game. It may sound like a small change, but in practice, it’s hugely different, and aside from making the game deeper, it leads you to care about the characters with whom you travel.

2011: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Oh, good. Another MMO. Based on a game that everyone other than myself loved. I’m not particularly interested.

Recently, I finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, which is easily the best game of 2009. And while I’m already well into my second playthrough, I’ve got a lot to say about the game. I’ll try to keep mention of any game-specific events very vague to avoid spoilers, but if you’re extremely sensitive to anything that might be vaguely construed as a spoiler, be forewarned.

I played on the PC, which from what I’ve heard is the best platform on which to experience Dragon Age. As the game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, I was almost surprised to see it appear on consoles, although I’m sure that the appearance of XBox 360 and PS3 versions boosted sales substantially.

More than anything else, what struck me about Dragon Age is the emotional impact the game’s story and characters had on me. From the moment my character’s family was slain in the origin story to the brutal reality of the Grey Warden joining ceremony to the tragedy at Ostagar, the game’s events struck a chord with me. When characters died, I felt empathy for the loss that the game characters were feeling. When Alistair and I triumphed, I felt a camaraderie with my brother-in-arms. And when I said the wrong thing and upset Leliana, I felt the feeling of foot-in-mouth that only males can feel when talking to a significant other. The game’s writing and characters are simply excellent.

In so many games, when something bad happens, I’ll reload from a save. But I was so engrossed in the story of Dragon Age that when my character was captured and his equipment taken, I continued playing and forced myself to accept the loss of my best weapons and armor. And I felt a real sense of loss, as if I’d lost some real physical property – those were some really nice weapons, and I lost the grand master runestones too.

My main character was a rogue, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Dragon Age gives you three character classes, and unlike in other RPGs, no class ever feels useless. Many times I’ve played RPGs and found that the bard class, the monk class, or even the thief class was severely underpowered and unbalanced. But with Dragon Age and its three classes, that never ends up being the case. The mage is exactly what you’d expect: weak in toe-to-toe combat unless given time to prepare defensive magic, but powerful in terms of ranged attack and control spells. The fighter and rogue classes are both huge damage-dealers in close melee, but the fighter is generally the armored tank, whereas the bulk of the rogue’s damage comes from skill use and backstabs, which makes tactical positioning very important.

For the majority of the game, I had Alistair and Wynne with my main character. Alistair is simply an amazingly powerful tank, and since I’d alienated Morrigan early on in the game, Wynne was the only mage available to me. For my final character slot, I rotated between Leliana, Shale, and my dog who I named “Burton”, after Jack Burton. In my second playthrough, I’m making heavy use of Sten, Morrigan, and Zevran, none of whom I really used in my first playthrough.

It’s hard not to compare Dragon Age to the old Infinity Engine games, i.e. Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale. But while they compare favorably on most counts, having better graphics, a better UI that shows you spell effect areas before casting, and very well-crafted custom game mechanics, the one thing I found lacking was exploration. One of the joys of Baldur’s Gate was tromping through areas of wilderness, caves and dungeons that weren’t related to the main plot, and dozens of other areas that were purely optional. Dragon Age has none of that. While there are many areas that are off the beaten path, they generally appear as a linear portion of one of the game’s main quests. Few are optional.

Not to knock Minsc and Boo, but the characters in Dragon Age are better than the characters in Baldur’s Gate in every respect. I remember Yoshimo’s betrayal, I remember Minsc losing Dynaheir, and I remember Imoen coming out as your character’s sister, but none of them stand out like the character moments that Alistair and Morrigan have in Dragon Age. And only Minsc’s dialogue could ever approach the hilarious writing Bioware put into characters like Alistair and Oghren. “Well, fart me a lullaby!”

My second character is a mage, and she’ll be a bit looser on the ethical points than my first character was, so as to see some different plot. I’ve already recruited werewolves and templars rather than elves and mages. The game told me that I’ve seen less than half of Dragon Age’s content, so I look forward to seeing what else is out there.

That’s okay. I can deal with that. But on Sunday when I went to start playing Trine, my Playstation threw a 8001050F error, and Trine wouldn’t start. Looking it up online, I found that the error code meant that I won’t be able to connect to PSN (which I couldn’t) and that I very likely would have to send in the console for repair. It wasn’t until today that I’m not the only one having this problem. Sony says that they’ll have a fix soon. Looks like I’m not playing Trine tonight. Hope I don’t lose the four trophies that I never synced.

So after that on Sunday, I decided to try a disc-based game and was pleased to find that Brutal Legend still worked. But I’ve decided that the only good part of the game is the part that appeared in the demo. After you meet up with Metalheade and start playing the RTS portion of the game, the gameplay is just crap. I’m really disappointed, because I love the game’s style and humor. If I could get past the poor gameplay, I’m sure I’d enjoy it. Too bad. I’ve listed my copy of Brutal Legend on EBay.

After the disappointments with the Playstation, I jumped on the PC to play Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. It’s a lot more polished than Butcher Bay, although I can’t yet speak for the story as I’m only about an hour into the game. But while transitioning between areas, the game froze and crashed. I didn’t try to start it back up after that, but I should’ve at least tried, because now I’m nervous that my cheap Direct2Drive copy of the game is a lemon.

I guess it’s back to Dragon Age for me. It’s my second playthrough and I’m seeing how badly I can screw up the world. I’ve already aided in destroying three of the game’s main areas, which I can only imagine will vastly change the game’s storyline. I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

Although I’m smack in the middle of a big ole writing drought on this site due to real life issues, I thought I’d share my Dragon Age online profile. EA does a lot of stuff that gets on my nerves, and the integration of Dragon Age’s DLC has rubbed me the wrong way a bit, but their online profile system is kind of cool. As you play, your character is continually updated on their site. My main character is a human rogue named Johann, after an old D&D character of the same name I played more than a decade ago. The site shows all your achievements, your main character’s stats and skills, and even what equipment he’s currently using.

You can check out the details on my character here.

So what about the game settings I do like?

Ultima
I first entered Sosaria when I got a copy of Ultima III for my tenth birthday. Sosaria was a crude world, like the worlds of Ultima I and Ultima II before it. Later, I played Ultima IV, which introduced the world of Brittania. Somewhere between ultima IV and Ultima V, I fell in love with Brittania. Between those two games, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I’d spent a thousand hours in Brittania. Don’t be shocked – I’ve heard of at least one person who took 15 years to finish the game. On summer vacations, I’d spend all day playing, and stay up until well after midnight.

The game’s crude graphics didn’t exactly lend a vivid sense of realism, but they forced me to use my imagination in the same way that reading a book does. As I travelled south down the coast from Britain to Paws, I imagined the seashore, and envisioned what that must look like. When I exited the eighth level of a dungeon into the Underworld, I thought of just how dark the sunless world must be, and imagined the dank smell of stagnant air. Travelling through the poisonous swamps near the village of Cove brought to mind visions of The Swamp of Sadness from the Neverending Story, except with more disease and rotted overgrowth. The game’s poor graphics forced me to use my imagination. To me, that was a vivid world, and I grew to know it well.

Starcraft
Starcraft doesn’t have much in the way of landscape – just different maps that you fight on. But somehow, the setting calls to me. It’s a space opera, and the races are far more interesting than Klingons, Wookiees and Sebacians. When Starcraft: Ghost was annnounced, I was very excited to enter that world and see Mutalisks and Ultralisks up close. Walking amongst Protoss pylons in top-down Starcraft is one thing, but to envision a Terran Command Center lifting off or a zergling ambush from first-person perspective is fairly exciting. I would absolutely love to see a game in the Starcraft setting that is not a RTS.

Beyond Good and Evil
It’s not the geography of Hillys that calls to me, but rather its inhabitants. In real life, we think of ethnic diversity in terms of Caucasians, Asians, Africans, and Hispanics. On planet Hillys, the inhabitants aren’t only the human descendants of Apes. They’ve also descended from pigs, rhinos, cats, sharks, and hippos. The notion seems so wildly creative.

Half-Life 2
The opening of Half-Life 2 expresses so effectively the oppressive atmosphere that exists in City 17. The people of planet Earth have been conquered by an alien invasion, and the cities are nothing more than internment camps – even the names of the cities have been taken away. This is an excellent example of the “showing rather than telling” technique of authorship. They show you the horribly oppressed people and then put a crowbar in your hands and let you fight for them.

The story is as epic as the Star Wars trilogy and the setting as rich as any I’ve seen. This page does a fantastic job of laying out the timeline, filling in the backstory, and putting forth theories as to the motives of the mysterious G-Man. I’m eagerly waiting for Half-Life 2 episode 3, mainly to see where the story goes.

Oblivion
I never played Morrowind or any of the other Elder Scrolls games before Oblivion. But when I heard all the buzz about Oblivion on a discussion board I frequent, I had to try it. Oblivion is one of the most atmospheric games I’ve ever played – from the sunny mountain peaks to the swampy villages to the eerie Ayleid ruins.

Tamriel is one of those game worlds where I can easily envision the routes from place to place. The game locations seemed like real places to me. The game’s landmarks and road signs are distinct, and the terrain is varied such that I can find the way from Bruma to Chorrol without even having to consult the map.

Dragon Age
Perhaps more than any of the other game worlds listed above, the world of Dragon Age has been fleshed out wonderfully. The circle of mages that are watched over by templars to ensure that their magic doesn’t enable them to be posessed by demonic forces. The dwarven caste system, so rigid, so unfair. The seven old gods being gradually corrupted by the darkspawn, leading to blights. The enslavement of elvenkind by humanity, which has been abolished, and which has lead to the current split in the elven race. It’s all so intriguing – I’m totally absorbed in this world and its story.

I’d be interested to hear comments from other readers – what is your favorite video game setting?

It’s a tough call, but I’d probably have to say that my favorite game of 2009 is Dragon Age: Origins. The game’s difficulty has certainly been a struggle at times, but the setting, the story, and the characters are amazingly well done. More so than any other game I’ve played before, it’s easy to feel like the characters in Dragon Age are real people. I feel that my character has such a strong brotherlike kinship with Alistair. And when I see a conversation option to tell Leliana that she should leave the party, I shudder at the thought of how badly it would hurt her feelings.

I spent a lot of time playing Street Fighter 4 earlier in the year. According to Raptr, I only played for 34 hours, but it felt like a lot more. Based on my prowess in the arcades playing Street Fighter 2, I expected to play online and kick everyone’s ass. Sadly for me, that isn’t how it turned out. The level of online play is way higher than I’d have guessed. And while I was able to generally hold my own with Guile and Dhalsim, there were plenty of players online that stomped me into the ground. Mostly Ryu and Akuma players. Of course, the fights that were the most fun were the ones that were very close.

Another game that I’m absolutely loving is Trine. The Playstation 3 release was delayed to the point of absurdity, but it was worth it to get a 3-player game that I can play with my wife on our big TV. It’s fun single-player, but it’s much better multiplayer.

The game is a beautiful 2D sidescroller with a lot of depth. Your characters gain abilities as they go up levels, and the loot you can pick up along the way is really useful. I’m slowly getting more and more trophies. I’m going to try to get them all. I’m having a lot of trouble with the “Master Ninja” trophy, and I’m dreading the “Better Than Developers!” trophy, but I’m going to give it the old college try.

Plants vs Zombies is a game that I had not expected to love. I downloaded the demo, and ended up liking it so much that I purchased the game. The tower defense in Plants vs Zombies is done in lanes, like in a bowling alley. This is one of the things that had initially turned me off about the game, but in practice it ends up being far more fun than I’d expected. The game has three different screens, and each has a daytime and nighttime cycle. Each introduces a new gameplay element that complicates things: tombstones, the pool, the angled roof. To this day, Plants vs Zombies is the only game in which I’ve gotten 100% completion on achievements.

There are a number of games that I played this year that I’d like to add to this list but just can’t. Ghostbusters was good, but I don’t think it’s game of the year material. Ditto for Prototype. And I’d like to include Dead Space and Okami, which I finished playing this year, but I’m not because they weren’t 2009 games.

Make sure to come back later this week for Brandon and Frank’s take on the games of 2009.

As a side note, he reiterates a point I made recently about Tolkien.