VGOTY 2011 #1 - Dark Souls

There is a very vocal minority out there on the inter-webs who consider Dark Souls to be the undisputed game of the year; some even go so far as to say it is the game of the generation. The only reason I would question that judgment is because Demon's Souls still holds a special place in my heart - otherwise, yeah they're spot on! Dark Souls is a "spiritual successor" to the previous game from From Software, which ranks among my most cherished of all time: alongside giants such as Final Fantasy VII and Shadow of the Colossus. This year was all about this game for me, nothing else (except maybe The Last Guardian until it got delayed to next year) even came close; and at one point I began to worry that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, that I may be disappointed, that the teaser trailers and snippets of game I'd seen may have been wrong... they weren't. Dark Souls is one of the best games ever made. Seriously.

The game begins by filling in, rather cryptically, the mythology of the world it's set in and then explaining that you're dead. Yup, DEAD. In fact everyone is dead, or "undead" rather, and that the world is essentially on it's last legs. You escape your cell in an Asylum for undead that are slowly going insane and find a dying knight who tasks you with carrying on his mission, to ring the "Bell of Awakening". Noone knows what will happen if you do this and there's no immediate pay-off: you're not saving the world because it's already beyond saving, you're not rescuing a princess or becoming the hero... this is as bleak a game as you will ever possibly play. With sword in hand you venture forth and what slowly unfurls is one of the darkest and most immersive tales in any fantasy RPG you will ever play. The true genius of Dark Souls is that its story is told through it's world, not in cutscenes or plot.

Then there is the gameplay itself. While other games, like Skyrim, are content to have you flailing at things and casting magic while healing, Dark Souls presents one of the tightest, most difficult and most rewarding combat systems ever in a video game. All your attacks have timing and weight, and the enemy are not stupid, they will block, parry, heal and kill your ass if you do not approach every fight, no matter how rudimentary with respect and concentration. Anything can, and will, kill you in this game but if you die ITS YOUR FAULT. The game is extremely difficult, as you have to navigate some amazing level design involving dark corridors, traps and a large intertwining open world that will kill you in a split second if you don't pay attention to what you're doing; you also can't pause the game so can't leave your character standing somewhere dangerous while you pop to the loo.

Then there is the innovative online functionality. This is a single player game - full stop! However, it is always online and your game will pull information from others playing at the same time as you; presenting bloodstains that you can touch to see how others have died before you. Sometimes you see ghosts of other players as they navigate their world. You can summon other players to fight alongside you if you are stuck on a particularly difficult boss fight or you can invade other people in an attempt to kill them and steal the game's most precious resource: humanity. I really could go on and on and on about all the amazing things that this game does well, and does differently from anything else that's out there. But really it's the survival-horror-action-RPG atmosphere that keeps me coming back to this game.

I really strongly suggest that you read some reviews and if you have a PS3 or Xbox 360 give this game a go. It may not be for everyone (some people - game journalists included - simply can not get through it and become overwhelmed by the high difficulty it presents) but it is indisputably one of the greatest video games ever made.

VGOTY 2011 #2 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Believe it or not, at the start of 2011, I wasn't massively excited for Skyrim. There were simply too many awesome games coming out, and it seemed like an age ago that I played through Oblivion (I remember at the time I would've given my right testicle for an Elder Scrolls five). Still, that game was one of my favourite games of all time and so as 11/11/11 approached this year... I got Skyrim fever.

For me the main thing that makes Elder Scrolls games so magical is the living world they create. Skyrim pulled me once again deep into the world of Tamriel, and all the time I'd spent with Oblivion came flooding back; only this time with many, many, improvements! The land of Skyrim looks gorgeous, from the snowy mountain peaks down to the frosty tundra and bubbling, steaming swamps, this is a land that you want to explore every inch of. Every inch is also meticulously hand-crafted and filled with secrets and side-quests, so much so that the game is overwhelming in the best possible way. In my (at the time of this post) 90-ish hours playing the game, a vast bulk of that has been spent doing everything except the main story lines. It is insanely difficult to walk from one place to another without something distracting you and about two or three hours later (after an epic adventure up a mountain or delving deep underground) you think to yourself "what the hell was I actually meant to be doing!? Oh yeah..." and off you go back on track.

It doesn't help matters that leveling your character and unlocking the associated 'perks' is insanely addictive and you feel like an absolute bad-ass when throwing fireballs from your hands at a Dragon as the epic main theme song blares out of your speakers!! The music in general is superb as Jeremy Soule has outdone himself once again, this time with a full orchestra backing him up. I've currently stopped playing, because I'm trying to get through a massive backlog of games, but soon I will be revisiting the land of Skyrim, as there is still a lot of stuff to see and do: quests to complete, secrets to find, trophies to earn. The Elder Scrolls games occupy their own lofty pedestal towering above most other video games, and most gaming websites are deservedly awarding this their GOTY.

VGOTY 2011 #3 - Portal 2

A guilty confession of mine is that I never really played through the first Portal game. I saw other people complete various test chambers and watched the story through on YouTube. I know I know... I'm a retard. However, this year I had the opportunity to play through Portal 2 and I was literally blown away by this game; for a while it was my definitive choice for number one VGOTY and I still think it is a worthy candidate for that spot. In short, this game is absolutely flawless, easily a 10/10 game and one of the best games of 2011.

One of the most striking things for me regarding Portal 2 is it's story. Told entirely through the first-person perspective and without anything in the way of cutscenes or on-rails segments, this game tells a brilliant and complicated story. The characters also are some of the most memorable... and they're robots!! That Valve pulled this off so well really shows you how skilled they are as a developer when they sit down and make a game. As for the actual gameplay, Portal 2 layers on mechanic after mechanic in such a natural and immersive fashion that the slogan "thinking with portals" becomes an absolute reality. Aside from maybe the odd five minute head-scratcher, most of the puzzles in this game are a joy to play through and the game keeps you constantly entertained and using your noggin' without frustrating you or slowing the momentum of the story.

If there was ever an example of master craftsmanship in game design, here it is! The graphics work perfectly, the music is fantastic and the voice-acting impeccable, but not only that... not only do we have here one of the best single-player experiences of the year... there's also a WHOLE OTHER GAME designed for Co-operative play and it is amazing!! One of my favourite weekends this year was getting together with one of my best friends and blasting through this game in one sitting, as we worked together with four portals to solve some of the best puzzles I've ever seen. As I said earlier, Portal 2 really is flawless in every single way, an absolute classic, and I don't use that word lightly.

VGOTY 2011 #4 - Catherine

Technically speaking, this is the only original game on my VGOTY list, as all the rest are sequels, follow-ups and "spiritual successors"; but Catherine is a 100% unique game and one that really interested me as soon as I saw a video of it on Giant Bomb about a year ago. Its difficult to explain the experience of playing this game, especially as I mostly played it during the midnight hours in the summer holiday. Even now, I get a strange feeling at the pit of my stomach if I think of the hypnotic atmosphere in the 'Stray Sheep' bar as Vincent (the main character) drinks the night away with his friends. I'd cling onto every available second, talking to as many people as possible and ordering as many drinks as I could knowing full well that as soon as I left the bar one of the most nightmarish and difficult games of the year was about to !PUNISH ME... HARD!

Catherine is a strange mix of light-RPG dialogue trees, relationship simulator and insanely difficult block-puzzle game that is hard to accurately describe and unlike anything else I've ever played. It is also one of the few games where I have finished it and immediately jumped straight back in for a second run-through. The replay value is amazing not only because of the trophies for clearing levels with greater skill, but also the dynamic "morality" meter and different paths through the game - leading to one of, I think, nine different endings!? The voice acting is also impeccable and the script is great; dealing with mature topics that are usually unseen in video games such as infidelity, and this makes a sharp departure from the sci-fi and fantasy offerings that permeate the rest of this VGOTY list.

The obvious elephant in the room though is its notorious difficulty: the Japanese release had to be patched because people complained about the game being "rape-ass-hard"... just to confirm, THE JAPANESE COMPLAINED ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY!! You know that it's going to break your face when that happens. The US release (which I played) came with the patch already as part of the game, but it is still an extremely challenging game. However, like other titles such as Demon's Souls, it's this heightened difficulty and expectation from the player that makes this game so rewarding to play through and overcome.

VGOTY 2011 #5 - Dead Space 2

Dead Space 2 was released right at the very start of 2011 and unfortunately this has lead to it missing out on a lot of deserved recognition and awards; I guess the gaming press and the general public have a very short memory. The first game in this survival horror franchise was exceptionally good and really took the crown for the modern third-person-shooter-survival-horror game from Resident Evil (since the overwhelming disappointment of the fifth game in that series). No longer could you skulk in corners gunning enemies down as they slowly shambled towards you... no the necromorphs were in hidden monster closets everywhere and they leapt, crawled and slithered at you with talons glistening in gore. In short, Dead Space rocked! Dead Space 2 is even better.

The sequel improves on the original in almost every conceivable way: the graphics are sharper and more varied in location, enemy design and special effects push the engine - the presentation in general has been beefed up considerably with some amazing set-pieces that give Dead Space 2 a real cinematic feel and made your heart pound out of your chest. The music is absolutely fantastic (kinda like a mix of Bioshock and the original Dead Space that gives the game a lonely but scary atmosphere) and the gameplay has been tweaked and polished to a shine - hell, there's even a decent little multiplayer mode if that's your thing, although it really isn't needed in a fundamentally single-player game.

For me, Dead Space 2 kicked off 2011 as one of the best years for video-game sequels and really set the bar high for this type of game. While I love traditional survival horror, this franchise has taught me the merit of adding a more action-orientated slant to the claustrophobic scares and dark atmosphere of this genre.

Video Game of the Year (VGOTY) 2011 - Intro and Disclaimer

2011 has been an absolute scorcher for video games; I really can't remember when I've been so spoilt for choice and there have been so many amazing games vying for my attention and ££!! The end of the year has been especially jam-packed with so many triple-A behemoths that I simply haven't had the time to play through them all - currently I'm looking at a 16-game queue to play through, which will only get bigger as I pick up those games I missed in the January sales. *wibble*

So, my disclaimer is that there are some very obvious VGOTY contenders that I have not played and therefore they could be better than some of the games I have included in my list: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword quickly spring to mind. I may update my blog in the future after I've gotten around to playing those titles and other games such as Dead Island if they usurp things from their current positions in the gamely court; but for now please read on - I'm gonna kick off with a top five rundown of my VGOTY  and then I might make some more generalised entries covering the nitty-gritty of video games in 2011. Lets begin...