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.

25- Braid (Jonathan Blow, PC, 2009)
Braid took the gaming world by storm primarily because of its creativity. The game originally showed up on XBox Live Arcade in 2008, but I didn’t play it until later, when it became available on Steam. Although it’s an excellent 2D sidescroller in its own right, Braid’s greatest achievement are its fiendishly complex puzzles. Although this kind of thing generally drives me insane with frustration, I actually had fun sitting there for 20-30 minutes staring at the same level, trying to figure out exactly what I was missing. If you’re interested, I’ve written up some hints for the Braid game which attempt to nudge you in the direction of the answer without outright giving it away.

24- Plants vs Zombies (Popcap Games, PC, 2009)
My first impression of Plants vs Zombies wasn’t a good one. Made by a company that got famous creating casual browser games, this tower defense title looked shallow and boring. But one day when I was bored, I downloaded the demo and gave it a shot. I was hooked. The lanes, which had originally looked horribly limiting, create their own type of strategy. Unlike many other tower defense games, the creeps can attack and destroy your towers. Certain towers can attack creeps in lanes other than their own. There are slowing attacks and area attacks. And the different environments such as pool and rooftop introduce entirely new gameplay every few levels. Fighting off bungee zombies and zombie bobsled teams has never been so much fun.

23- No More Heroes (Suda51, Wii, 2008)
No More Heroes was a flawed game in so many ways. The open world was a disaster, and the last few fights were far too difficult. But I loved it so much. It was so over-the-top ridiculous, and it took pride in it. How many games force you to save your progress by sitting on a toilet? How many let you kill enemies and have blood and coins fly out of their bodies? Or learn new professional wrestling moves from a drunk Russian guy in a bar who instructs you in “the technique of crazy awesomeness” by beating the living crap out of you? No More Heroes succeeded in being awesome not dispite its absurdity, but because of it. If you’re a fan of RealUltimatePower, you should have an appreciation for the style of humor that makes No More Heroes shine.

22- God of War (David Jaffe, PS2, 2005)
God of war took the 3D beat-em-up genre and brought it to new levels. The refinement that exists in the God of War games is hard to find elsewhere even today. Never have I seen a game with better camera angles, and rarely have I seen such epic scope in a game. God of War uses puzzles, platforming, and hordes of enemies to create wonderful gameplay. It also makes the best use of quicktime events that I’ve seen in a game. The environments where the battles take place are often as much a part of the challenge as the enemies – when you’re battling minotaurs on a conveyor belt, falling to your death is as much a danger as being gored.

21- Fallout (Black Isle Studios, PC, 1997/1999)
I’m including Fallout and Fallout 2 here, as they ran on the same engine and could have been two halves of the same game. Seldom has such a kickass combination of story, gameplay, and humor made an appearance in a game. Fallout was brilliant because it salvaged a good bit of the adult dark humor present in Wasteland and refined it into an isometric post-apocolyptic RPG which in its day was absolutely brilliant. It’s even possible to play through the entire game with a character whose intelligence is so low that he can only speak in grunts. Yeah – it closes off a lot of options, but it’s pretty damn funny.

Insanely ridiculous. That’s how I’d describe No More Heroes. And I love it.

I was a fan of the first game, but it had issues. In the sequel, many of those issues have been fixed. And as far as over-the-top goes, they’ve outdone themselves. It’s like the boss battle in the first game in which the boss kills himself before you have a chance to fight him. It’s like the shopping cart lady with the giant laser.

I’m not far into No More Heroes 2, but in one of the boss battles, I was surprised when my opponent suddenly flew away. To outer space. Then, he got into a mech. I was further surprised when my own character (in a cutscene) mounted his motorcycle, fired its rocket boosters to follow his opponent into outer space, and nonchalantly entered his own mech, commenting on how he’d been itching for a chance to use it. The boss battle became a mech vs mech battle. It’s insane out-of-the-box moments like this that make me love No More Heroes.

No More Heroes consistently goes where I’m not expecting it to go, and it makes me laugh my ass off.

There are also a number of games out there that I’m just dying to play. Chief amongst them is Heavy Rain, a game that I’ve been looking forward to from the day it was released. I loved Indigo Prophecy despite the plot derailment in the later portions of the game, and with all the thought I’ve put into the fact that Dragon Age was the first game in a long time to make me feel anything, I’m hopeful that Heavy Rain will achieve something similar.

Uncharted 2 is coming down in price – I can get a used copy for around $35 now, and it’s at the top of my EBay shopping list. Also high on that list is Retro Game Challenge, a DS game that I’ve heard a lot of good things about. It contains a number of different games made in a retro style. Old skool racers, RPGs, shooters and platformers which ostensibly maintain the old style of gameplay while removing the most annoying things about those games. All this is wrapped with the storyline of a 12-year-old sitting in front of a TV with his friend in the NES era, entering cheat codes and achieving high scores.

Another game I can’t wait to get my hands on is No More Heroes 2. I may wait for the price to come down a bit before I get a copy, but I was a big fan of the first one, and I’ve heard that the sequel removes all the flaws of the original and makes the gameplay a bit easier. Maybe I’ll be able to finish this one.

I’ve decided that the PC is the platform on which I want to play Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s a GFW Live game, and while that interface annoys the crap out of me, its one benefit is that I can get XBox achievements. And since GFW/360 achievements, PSN Trophies, and Steam achievements are the only achievements that mean much of anything to me, I’ll be happy to add to my collection.

From early on, I’d decided that I did not want to play Demon’s Souls. A game that everyone lauds as the most difficult and frustrating game they’ve played since Ninja Gaiden doesn’t sound appealing to me. But when I heard the Brainy Gamer gamers’ confab folks discussing the game on Michael Abbott’s four part best of 2009 podcast series, I grew intrigued. Many of them cited Demon’s Souls as their favorite game of 2009, despite the game’s oppressive difficulty. I pondered this as I played through Trine’s Tower of Sarek level twenty or thirty times, trying to pass the level without dying once. Maybe I am up for it after all. In the end, I determined that if I do try the game, I’d be best off renting it rather than buying. Less commitment that way.

But I don’t generally rent games. Gamefly’s monthly plan runs $16 or $23 depending on whether you want one or two games. That’s a bit more than I’m willing to pay given that I don’t always want to have a game rented at any given time. I may be better off trying to get a copy from a Blockbuster for a weekend. I haven’t rented anything from Blockbuster in over fifteen years, so that should be interesting.

Other games I might consider renting include the new Wii Punch-Out!, which seems like a quick playthrough, the newest Prince of Persia, which I’m very hesitant to play given how much I hated Sands of Time and The Two Thrones, House of the Dead: Overkill, Dead Space: Extraction, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles. I’m excited to play Darkside Chronicles, but I’m not convinced that it’s going to be a keeper.

So far, this is a long list. But while I’ve listed all the games about which I’m most excited to play, there are plenty more on my radar.

A Boy and his Blob is a game that looks like a lot of fun. And while it’s not top on my list, I’d really like to try it for some point, and it’s likely more than a rental. Maybe I’ll get to it before next Christmas. Ditto InFamous. Looks good, but not high priority.

Cold Fear is a game I’ll likely download from a service like Direct2Drive or Steam, depending on where I can get it cheapest. It’s not a triple-A title, but it looks interesting, and I don’t expect it to cost much. In the end, if it disappoints, I can stop playing and I won’t feel as though I’ve lost much.

I’ll probably end up getting Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box and Henry Hatsworth in another year or so once they’re bargain basement titles on EBay. I expect to enjoy them, but I’ve got DS games coming out my ears right now, so I’m in no rush.

There are also a metric butt-ton of sequels about which I’m less than excited. Bioshock 2? Meh. Mass Effect 2? Sure, I’ll try it eventually. Assassins Creed 2? Yeah – I’ll get to it. My feelings about Killzone 2 and Wolfenstein are similar. All games I’d like to try at some point. We’ll see if I ever get around to them.

Lastly, there are a few games I expect to be released later this year. I’ll definitely be picking up Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening when it’s out. Ditto Super Mario Galaxy 2. I loved the first one. Starcraft 2 is a game I’ll try to buy on day one if I can. If The Last Guardian comes out this year, I’ll be as excited about it as I am about Heavy Rain, and I’ll get that one ASAP. God of War 3 and Final Fantasy 13 look potentially good, but I’ll likely wait until 2011 to pick them up.