Site contributor Tyler Martin has come up with a great concept for a series of articles. By it’s nature (and as you can tell from its title), this will deal with spoilers for Saints Row: The Third. You’ve officially been warned.

Ask any writer: endings are hard.  To create a conclusion that feels satisfying after hours of investment by the audience, an author needs to reward the diligent, paying attention to every clue without punishing the more mild and passive consumer who may have missed a step along the way. It’s a problem in nearly every story-telling medium and possibly even more so in games. If a game isn’t fun, players likely won’t bother to finish it, regardless of the narrative. Not only does a developer need to tie up all the loose story threads, they need to do it in a way that is challenging and fits with the gameplay style. Games should finish in a way that is satisfying from a narrative and a design perspective; if either is lacking, then the ending feels anti-climactic — or worse, it can make the player feel cheated. And the developer must do all this while often leaving room for a sequel or franchise expansion to satiate their publisher. Because of the high degree of difficulty and number of plates that must be balanced, games that get the ending right deserve to be praised. One such game is Volition, Inc.’s ‘Saints Row: The Third.’

On first glance, the ‘Saints Row’ games look like a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ imitation with excessively sophomoric humor. The game reaches a superb balance, however, and in the open-world action genre, hilarious bugs, absurd A.I. routines and responses are a regular occurrence. What Volition did was create a setting and a narrative that matches the absurdity of its gameplay and design.

A common flaw in open world titles is the game-breaking moment that ruins the player’s immersion, either through some bug  or cognitive dissonance between the story and play style. The ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and ‘Elder Scrolls’ series are rife with moments like these. In Saints Row, these moments are all but impossible. The setting of Steelport could never be confused with an actual locale; it isn’t a place, it’s a digital playground. A criminal gang are national celebrities with soft drinks and bobble-head figures, a local game show is centered around killing sprees perpetrated by individuals in mascot costumes, and the mayor is Burt Reynolds. From the start, nothing is sacred and nothing will ever be taken seriously.

It was a risky proposition, as Volition created an experience where they constantly needed to keep upping the ante, crafting more insane missions that were equally impressive and entertaining. There are two possible endings, and Saints Row: The Third succeeds in creating fantastic game endings in both.

The setup for the story is such: martial law has been declared in Steelport and war has broken out between the protagonist’s Third Street Saints, rival criminal empire The Syndicate (who are at this point in the game luchadores) and the federal defense agency S.T.A.G. (Special Tactics: Anti-Gang). The war has reached its breaking point, and the player is left with a choice: pursue Killbane, leader of The Syndicate and the game’s primary antagonist, as he attempts to leave the city by jet; or prevent S.T.A.G. from destroying a local monument, pinning the blame on the Saints as domestic terrorists. Both of these choices come with secondary missions to close out the campaign.

"Gangstas in Space" is the greatest idea I've heard in a very long time.

Should the player choose to go after Killbane, S.T.A.G. destroys the monument and is given authority to bring in a destructive airship, the Daedalus, to attack the Saints. The player must then fly to the ship and destroy it. Success cripples S.T.A.G. and the Saints take control of Steelport. They announce on television that the government response will be treated as hostile, and the player is the new mayor of the Steelport city-state.

If the player protects the monument, Killbane escapes — but the Saints are greeted as heroes and become celebrities again. The follow-up mission features the Saints pursuing Killbane and the Syndicate to Mars. It’s called “Gangstas in Space,” though this is revealed to be a movie. Though the latter is the more creative of the two, both are ridiculous yet wholly appropriate for the story and tone established in the game — but, most importantly, they’re both fun and provide satisfying resolutions.

At the start of the game, the Saints are adored, despite their obvious criminal activities. Members are asked for their autographs *during* a bank heist; however, the Syndicate rolls in and cuts off their cash supply and throws them into a region where they have no control. The focus of the campaign then is to rebuild the Saints and get revenge in the process. Narratively, both endings close with the Saints in a position of power, but in a way that makes the potential of a sequel compelling. The compelling difference between the two finales is that one is closer to the status quo in setting and the other in it’s narrative finish. What makes both of Saints Row: The Third’s endings different from other games is the way they expand upon the tone of the game without a needlessly frustrating final mission — while still presenting new ideas.

How absurd is this? Totally absurd. But it somehow makes sense in the world of Saints Row: The Third.

Far and away however, my favorite part of the entire sequence is the music. Saints Row uses real world, non-orchestral music in its story better than any game since Bioshock played Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker piece “Waltz of the Flowers” during a confrontation with deranged artist Sander Cohen. During the penultimate mission, in which the player chooses their ending, they must drive to a specific point on the map to make the choice. During the drive, Bonnie Tyler’s seminal 1984 hit from the film ‘Footloose,’ “Holding Out For A Hero,” plays over the radio. It’s a ridiculous moment in a game filled with ridiculous moments, but it somehow doesn’t feel out of place. That is what makes the entirety of Saints Row so satisfying: Volition created a world where anything can happen and nothing feels out of place, but what does happen and exists in the world fits so perfectly, it makes for a more enjoyable experience.

I like most of the games I play, but I finished Saints Row: The Third with a smile on my face, and that is not something I can say about many others.

Hero Academy is one of the "it" games for iOS right now. Doug happens to be really bad at it.

I suck at Hero Academy.

I’ve played a half-dozen games against site contributor Tyler and lost each of them. I’ve started playing another friend, too, and have summarily lost to him as well. As I write this I’m in the process of starting another game, surely to be lost. Hero Academy isn’t a simple game — it’s a turn-based strategy-ish game that uses asynchronous multiplayer and the shuffling of your deck to keep you on your toes. I’m consistently over-aggressive and trying to rein that in is proving difficult. Plus every game is against a human, making things even trickier. The turn-based nature of combat allows you to plot out what to do next — and to contemplate how it all went wrong.

Why do I keep coming back, though? Well, it’s fun. But what does that mean? Many people smarter than me have done studies and a conclusion to draw is that playing games we enjoy taps into pleasure centers in our brains. Do something right in a game, get a little squirt of happiness into your nervous system (or, suggested in the above article, get MORE than on average from other activities). This, writ large, is gaming.

So playing games feeds into a chemical dependency. But what I like and what you like are very different things – taste is, of course, relative – and how we define fun is what drives variety. I’m loving trying to solve the riddle of Hero Academy, especially as unwrapping Tyler’s strategy makes learning almost double the work compared with a single-player game. AI routines aren’t quite good enough yet to change strategies completely or also mess around with your head. I may not be successful right now, but I’m enjoying the process and hopefully will be successful sooner than later. My brain likes what it gets from this game; it clicks. It’s why I like the Kairosoft games on iPhone, it’s why I like Tiny Tower, and it’s why I put endless hours into soccer and racing games on consoles.

Perfect like the 2008 Detroit Lions.

Sometimes, however, my synapses don’t click with games, and that can be frustrating. Even more so, it’s frustrating when they’re games that so many people love. It’s really sad to admit as a hardcore gamer, but I haven’t played all the way through a Zelda game ever; I’ve only finished one JRPG, and only ever started one Final Fantasy game. Ditto with Starcraft, Pokemon, Half-Life, and Call of Duty. It’s not that these are bad games or not games I could like; they just don’t grab me. Other games lock me in a vice and suck the life out of me. There’s a reason why I put hundreds of hours into Konami’s Pro Evo Soccer games.

Does this make me a bad gamer? I’m conflicted. Is it enough to give something a chance? Does it mean I’m inherently broken if I don’t get sucked in by games that are universally praised as great?

It’s an interesting and difficult question to ponder. But in the meantime, I’ll continue playing Hero Academy and (most likely) losing.

As with all industries, the internet has turned the video game economy on its head. Ask anybody with a broadband connection and an internet-ready entertainment device how they consume most of their entertainment and it’s pretty likely that they’re getting a good chunk of their media through direct-download systems. Whether it’s movies and television through Netflix or Hulu or game downloads via Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, content providers are quickly learning just how lucrative a direct point-of-sale connection to their consumer base can be.

An entire new subset of the games industry has come to thrive in this new marketplace — the mid-budget indie game. Tiny developers like Playdead and Number None were able to have a dramatic effect on the gaming space with their stunningly creative and highly polished games. And in looking at the mobile space, there’s a much more diverse and, in my opinion, profound transformation taking place in gaming with an inexpensive, low-friction ecosystem for consumers to dive into.

But there’s an even more profound transformation taking place in the PC-gaming space. Indie poster-child Mojang has seen an unprecedented success with Minecraft, which has sold nearly five million copies at a going rate of nearly $27 as of this writing. Considering this is the work of just a handful of people, the return on a game like Minecraft is dizzying to anyone who follows the machinations of the games industry — and nothing short of inspiring to an up-and-coming developer.

So What About Double Fine?

Double Fine’s no stranger to the downloadable space, having released a quartet of creative, fun titles over the various digital distros in the last year or so, but this latest venture with Kickstarter is something else entirely.

The project is simply known as Double Fine Adventure. The details are relatively sparse, but if you’re familiar with Double Fine’s history and the track record of veteran designers Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, the premise is damn exciting:

• A classic point-and-click adventure game developed by Tim Schafer and a small team within Double fine
• An ongoing documentary covering the game’s production produced by 2 Player Productions, famous for producing the first season of Penny Arcade: The Series and the upcoming Minecraft documentary
• An entirely fan-funded endeavor that bypasses the traditional developer-publisher system; instead, the fans cover the costs and Double Fine releases directly through Steam

Personally, I can’t wait to play this game and to follow along with the documentary-style updates. But what’s got me most excited is how a relatively well-established game developer has decided to eschew the traditional publisher relationship and all the benefits that come along with it in favor of charting its own course. The barrier to releasing a game on Steam is relatively small, so much so that it’s probably a safe wager that people would be willing to fork over $15 directly to a developer in exchange for a cool new game that targets a “dead” genre with a small but highly devoted band of supporters.

Double Fine’s initial goal: $400,000, with $300,000 going to the game’s development and $100,000 funding the documentary. And now, less than a week since the Kickstarter went live, they’ve more than quadrupled that fundraising target with a month left to go.

I have a feeling Double Fine knew they’d hit the $400,000 mark with some time to spare. But I don’t think anyone saw this happening. As an idealist and as somebody who tends to sympathize with the sort of people who give a shit about supporting high-quality work, it’s been wonderful watching the dollar total rise daily. I couldn’t have been happier to fork over $30 to guarantee a copy of the game and its soundtrack as well as a high-definition download of the documentary series. As a kid who grew up playing Schafer’s classic point-and-click adventures until I’d nearly memorized their entire scripts, there’s something so comforting to know there are throngs of people out there who remember just how great an experience that style of play can be.

So Now What?

I don’t know. I guess we’ll see what happens. Double Fine certainly isn’t the first company to raise money for a game on Kickstarter, but it’s by far the most visible — and it’s had what has to be the greatest financial success in doing so.

There’s been a lot of talk about what this means for the future of games, such as:

* Are publishers necessary any more? (Yeah, probably)

* Will we see more well-known game devs reaching out to fans directly to finance games? (Absolutely)

* Is this a good thing for game developers? (I think so)

The social internet is a wildly transformative beast, and Double Fine’s Kickstarter experiment is solid proof of that. This sort of thing never could have happened even four years ago. But today it’s 2012, and more than ever, people have the power to share the things they care about with the people they know. Word-of-mouth has always been a force to be reckoned with, but as this Kickstarter shows, it’s now moving with unprecedented virality. There’s a nimbleness to the way that word about this game spread that no publisher could ever hope to replicate, even with a multimillion-dollar advertising budget and countless purchased cover stories in the gaming press.

It’s only going to get more interesting from here.

Spencer’s up next with his other favorites from last year.

Iron Brigade (formerly Trenched)

The first of two developers returning from my 2010 Honorable Mentions, Double Fine’s latest, Iron Brigade (prior to a legal dispute, it was Trenched), may have been made specifically to hit all the pleasure centers in my brain. Giant robot shooter? Check. Tower defense? Check. Alternate-history/sci-fi Great War setting? Check and check. Layer on heaps of Double Fine’s comedy writing and art style, and you have an amazing, entertaining diversion that defies easy classification. Exclusive to Xbox 360, this was perhaps the only reason I was miffed when my Live account ended up hacked.

Orcs Must Die

Mechanically, Orcs Must Die is something like Tecmo’s Deception mixed with God of War: a trap-setting almost-tower defense game where you can wade into the fray with your sword if things get hairy. In addition to this, it adds hilarious dialog and general silliness – the orcs would be almost sympathetic if they weren’t mentioning their desire to kill humans, and they’re downright funny even as you mow them down. Top it off with a protagonist who may as well be an ancestor of Bruce Campbell, and you have a guaranteed winner. Frequently hits Steam sales, plays great with a gamepad.

The Stanley Parable

To be honest with you the reader, The Stanley Parable is not, strictly speaking, a game. It’s more of a game about a game, or perhaps a game about games. However, curious little experiment though it might be, it’s a compelling narrative, one that will hopefully make you wonder about games as a medium for storytelling. A remake is on the way, implementing more of the designer’s original vision – in the interim the mod remains free for your enjoyment, and quite fascinating in its current state.

Atom Zombie Smasher

Blendo Games returns with what might be called “Hipsters in the Zombie Apocalypse.” Atom Zombie Smasher is a curious, clever take on the real time strategy and tower defense formats (little bit of a theme in my selections this year). Like its predecessors, AZS is quirky, off-beat and loads of fun, all the way down to its 60s surf-rock soundtrack. Pack up your helicopter, lock and load with the 56th Badger Infantry and enjoy.

2011 has been a strange gaming year for me. I’ve been able to follow the industry as much (or more) than ever before thanks to some fantastic web sites and podcasts, but for much of the year I couldn’t (and didn’t) buy a new console game. I’ve made up for lost time since October, but much of my attention has also gone to older titles. I almost excused myself from Game of the Year discussions by default.

But there are many games that I have played which deserve recognition. So kick back and read on!

Assassin’s Creed II and AC: Brotherhood

I may not have played this year’s offering, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, but this has still been a very Assasin’s Creed year for me. I flashed through the two AC2 games in the early part of this year and enjoyed every bit of my brief Italian Renaissance vacation. As much as I saw the promise in the first game, it had incredibly stilted pacing and relied on the same three tricks to progress the story. However, from the moment you take control of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the series comes into its own and flourishes. Revelations may have eaten away at some of the goodwill the series developed, but these two games were amazing.

Shadows of the Damned

Proof that Japanese developers can still produce quality games. It’s far from perfect – some sections pass over from difficulty to frustration, and the “Big Boner” section is a joke that goes on far too long – but Shadows of the Damned is an engaging road trip. The gun-play and combat is well balanced, and all of the story beats are funny and well written. In the year when Duke Nukem finally returned, Garcia F*cking Hotspur slapped him in the face and stole his crown. Props to 8-4, Ltd., for the excellent writing in the game – hardcore gamers may know their other work, including previous lives at Electronic Gaming Monthly. This game is now just $30 on Amazon new; please go pick it up.

The iOS Section: Tiny Tower, Tiny Wings, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, Ticket to Ride Pocket and GP Story

In the year of me not buying any new games, I have to add a condition: I didn’t buy any new console games. However, a fleet of iOS games – Tiny Tower, Tiny Wings, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, Ticket to Ride Pocket, and Grand Prix Story – have kept me occupied for a very long time this year. Others may write about Tiny Tower, but it’s the perfect check-in game, requiring just a few minutes every day to keep progress moving. Beyond that, it’s got a fantastic art style and sense of humor. Tiny Wings continues the strong history of bird games on iOS, and with simple but genius gameplay. Ticket to Ride Pocket is a great translation of the board game. Grand Prix Story is the newest in a long line of Kairosoft management games, but this time in the realm of auto racing – perfect for me. And Sword and Sworcery is easily the best iOS single-player experience on iOS yet. A stellar year for gaming in your pocket.

NBA 2K12

And here’s where I’m sure some of our readers will roll their eyes. I know Spencer already has! It’s hard to top the highs of NBA 2K11 last year, but somehow NBA 2K12 has managed to grab me even more. If 2K11 was the great leap forward, 2K12 is a great evolution from its predecessor. The gameplay remains fantastic and the two ancillary modes – MyPlayer and Legends mode – have been improved to be a lot more fun. MyPlayer no longer requires you to start as a nothing player, and the Legends mode has expanded beyond just Michael Jordan to encompass almost 20 of the NBA’s greatest players from throughout the league’s history. It still looks and feels like an NBA broadcast (I’ve actually fooled a friend into thinking this) and makes me fall in love with basketball even more. I’m not sure if I burned myself out on EA Sports’ football titles or if they have stayed stagnant, but 2K12 manages to feel fresh despite being iterative. I will be playing this for a while.

And here we are friends, at the end of our third-annual Game of the Year awards ceremony. We laughed, we cried and we certainly didn’t argue as much about the placement of 2011′s games as we had in 2010. This is a good thing.

By a near-unanimous vote (meaning three out of five of us agreed), we bring you our finest and most spectacular game of the entire year that was 2011.

As is our custom, we will next post a list of Honorable Mentions from each of our handsome and intelligent contributors during the coming seven days. It will be our individual chance to showcase the titles we think deserved a top spot but were perhaps outvoted on, or we might just tell you what Flash games were the coolest. Time (and editing) will tell.

Thank you for reading!

#1 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

November 2011 | Developer: Bethesda Softworks | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows

It can be exhausting reading multiple year-end top 10 lists and seeing the same titles mentioned again and again. Reading more than one list of 2011’s best games will likely lead to repeated mentions of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and many of them will have it in the number one spot. This is not without merit; Skyrim could never be a book, a comic, a movie, or any other type of media. What makes Skyrim exceptional isn’t the narrative, but the world Bethesda created and the radically different experiences any given player can have in it.

Of the number of people I know playing Skyrim, not one of them has had an identical experience. No one chose the same specialties in combat with the same race or went the same direction in the world. Players that have already invested nearly a hundred hours into a single character may never encounter moments or segments of the world of Skyrim that I have in a fraction of that.

Volume and variety, however, are not what make it the best game of the year. What makes the latest Elder Scrolls title the best game of the year is when that volume and variety are consistently fun and interesting. Bethesda’s open-world RPGs are riddled with exciting highs and disappointing lows. At some point in previous installments it becomes easy to discover a game-breaking character build or an optimal progression with which to approach the quests and the world; this leads to a sense of repetition that ruins the experience. This is one possible reason Fallout: New Vegas got a fraction of the attention and accolades Fallout 3 did.

Skyrim has something that its predecessors in the Elder Scrolls series couldn’t offer: true gameplay role-playing. Many RPGs will provide the player the freedom to choose a specialty or style, only to show them hours down the road that they had shot themselves in the foot. Skyrim is the first title I’ve played where every different approach seems feasible. While it can sound very cliche, it is a necessity in a title offering this much freedom, and Bethesda nails it.

To truly put an exclamation point at the end of my endorsement of Skyrim as the Silicon Sasquatch Game of the Year for 2011, I’ll just say this: I’m playing what is perhaps the most broken version of the game (PlayStation 3) from a developer famous for broken games. In addition to this, my PS3 recently died, costing me my save games — a total of sixty hours, minimum. Despite all that, I still can’t wait to jump back into the world of Skyrim and build a new Dragonborn. That is the greatness of Skyrim. The allure isn’t so much about what will or does happen while playing, but the promise of what can happen that makes every experience different and worthwhile. – Tyler Martin

The release of an Elder Scrolls game is almost a religious holiday. Casual gamers, hardcore naysayers, JRPG fans and many others put aside their differences and just play these games — for hundreds of hours. It’s a certain type of magic that not everyone appreciates or understands, but I believe Bethesda’s fantasy simulators (because really, you’re simulating an entire existence within a vast, albeit fantastical, world) resonate with a vast majority because they are perfectly vague.

We’re given a plot that is truly inconsequential. We’re dropped in a world that has few limits. We’re encouraged to write our own stories and pretend — via a polished game design that helps us coax out our inner children — that we can be a lizard wizard, or whatever else you can imagine. In this way Skyrim is the same as Oblivion, and Morrowind by extension. But it is the most amazing iteration Bethesda has ever released.

Perhaps other games in 2011 took more risks or showed us unexpected things, but I can’t deny the genius that is Skyrim’s freedom to play and the brilliance of the game design that engenders an endless amount of roaming, looting, exploring and hoarding every piece of gear I find. Seriously, I need three houses just to sanely organize my stuff.

This is a better Elder Scrolls game in how it looks, plays and sounds. The character models no longer look like unfortunate troglodytes, the combat and character advancement trees are natural and logical and even a fleeting memory of the soundtrack gives me goosebumps.

I can’t recommend any other game from 2011 more than Skyrim. It’s an overdue fulfillment of an unspoken promise that Bethesda made to fans nearly 20 years ago when the first game came out on DOS — technology just had to mature to give us what is the grandest vision of the best videogame escapism in existence.

You will lose yourself to Skyrim, and you should be happy about it. – Aaron Thayer

Only three games are left to cap-off 2011′s best of the best. Well, we should be more specific and write that only one game is left after you finish reading this entry.

And no, number one is not Minecraft.

#3 – Bastion

July 2011 | Developer: Supergiant Games | Xbox Live Arcade, Windows, Chrome

The “games as art” debate is a perpetual absurdity, a sort of an inevitable occurrence as the gaming community is dragged, kicking and screaming, toward something resembling maturity. Self-appointed defenders screech that games must be art, crusaders and conservative parents screech that games must not be art, and the majority of us just shuffle about trying to ignore both sides.

The honest truth is that games are an art form, one that can range (like every other art form) from low-brow to high and pure. And yes, many games are low-brow: I defy anyone to say that most film tie-in games are particularly inspired, or that most action games are masterworks of fiction. The high end is relatively sparse, relatively unpublicized, as gaming grows and progresses – it’s easy to get caught up in the now-pedestrian scenes of “yet another modern first person shooter” and lose sight of the artistry involved.

Every so often, though, a game comes along that reminds us, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that yes, games are art, and they can be every bit as beautiful and compelling as the finest films or celebrated paintings. In 2008, Braid reminded me of this fact, and this year, Bastion reminded me with greater fervor.

Bastion wasn’t even on my radar at the 2010 PAX10, nor did it catch my eye during this year’s Xbox Live Summer of Arcade promotion. I heard some rumblings about its quality around its August release on Steam, but I didn’t even buy it until it went on sale around October. When I finally played it, I began to resent my prior, ignorant self – so beautiful, so well created, it went from an idly-discussed name to my pick for Game of the Year – a position so firm that it did not exactly ingratiate me with our other panelists.

By genre, Bastion is an “action role-playing game,” a broad category that, comparing camera angles, might have it hastily dismissed as a Diablo clone. But the gameplay, while excellent, merely contributes to the game’s wonder. Bastion’s art and graphics, much like the story, is the offspring of Braid and Firefly; beautiful, oil painting-like colors, with hints of eastern influence. From the very start of the game, the sights, by way of their quality, immediately allude to everything that makes it so special.

The gimmick that put Bastion on the map for many was the narration system, but being so well executed, one could hardly consider it gimmicky. In most (if not all) games, the story is tucked around the edges of missions, crammed in via cutscenes, or provided through dialog mid-mission. But in Bastion, your very actions are narrated. Rather than playing a game with a good story, you play nothing less than the story itself –nothing I’ve encountered to date is more captivating.

And then there’s the music. Many games have good soundtracks, but I’ve listened to Bastion’s soundtrack more than any other album this year. Darren Korb, the composer and performer, took the setting and tale of the game and made an incomparable accompaniment. Ranging from country twang guitar to mid-eastern mizmar, and always arriving at just the right time throughout the campaign – be it a quiet moment or a frantic battle – the music expertly meshes with the rest of the game.

Bastion is a very good game. It has its flaws, sure – the lack of multiplayer was considered a severe oversight by many – and it’s not the best game of 2011 (according to this site’s assessment, and others). However, as an experience, taking into account the superb, varied action-RPG mechanics, the lovely art, the unique and compelling narration system, the wonderful story, and the undeniably inspired music, Bastion is perfect. It is, beyond a doubt, the best experience I’ve had this past year, and if you have a head for games, an ear for music, and a heart for stories, it may well be the same for you.

Developers Supergiant recently released cheap-or-free (per platform) DLC, encouraging people to play through their game again.

The truth is, I’ll never need an excuse to return to Bastion. — Spencer Tordoff

#2 – The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

November 2011 | Developer: Nintendo | Wii

Over the last few years, Nintendo fans like myself felt exhausted by the Zelda franchise. It’s a frustrating conundrum that a game like Twilight Princess was better-produced than most titles, but still failed to be more than hollow and incomplete in many ways. I, along with others, threw up my hands at this Wolf Link concept and said “It’s good, but it isn’t Zelda.” But what is a Zelda game? Is it Ocarina of Time? Is it a Link to the Past? Maybe the idea of a perfect adventure alongside Link is a hazy nostalgia picking away at objectivity to make us insist (or hope) that every Zelda released has to be the best game ever, because at one time in our youth they were.

At this point the beloved franchise is too much a part of this industry’s history to be looked at with such objectivity: all of us have been influenced by one of these games directly or indirectly – lock-on action targeting says hello. But Skyward Sword somehow came at the perfect time. I was scared of another disappointment, but I was going to play it anyway. My expectations had been set low at the end of the Wii’s lifecycle. Yet what I played of this final Zelda on the Wii, from the first minute to the thousandth, was magical. And that’s truthfully the best word to describe The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: magic, of a purely Nintendo variety — a game that was so sorely missing since 2006.

What makes Skyward Sword nearly the best game of 2011 was how it took 25 year-old tropes and finally did something constructive with them. Link is a hero and Zelda is a maiden in trouble – we all expect that. But what I never expected was to see a deep, moving friendship develop between these two iconic characters. Even more amazing is how the game pulled it off without Link saying a word, as is customary. The animation and facial expressions in this game were near the quality of Pixar, and that is extremely impressive. Someone at Nintendo finally took the time to develop a sensible backstory and flesh out its characters to give players a reason for the quest, and not just because it’s expected of them.

This is a game any current or one-time fan of Zelda should play. It’s a wish list from your childhood: sweeping orchestral scores, paintings come to life, living characters with real emotion, fighting that requires skill and strategy and, most amazingly, a true beginning for the entire Zelda mythos. The plot is well-written and lends a truly epic feel to a series that always tried to be like a storybook, but let itself become constricted by its videogame nature. I’m happy to say that Skyward Sword fulfilled and then exceeded all of my gripes and guffaws about the series – what was stagnant is now stupendous, and I haven’t been so excited for the future of Zelda since I put the Master Sword to rest at the end of Ocarina.

Put aside your jaded skepticism and pick this one up: It’s the Zelda you’ve wanted to play for a very long time. — Aaron Thayer

We’ve reached the halfway point for our top 10 games of 2011! Boy, were there a lot of sequels last year or what? At least we liked them.

#5 – Battlefield 3

October 2011 | Developer: DICE | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows

Let me be frank: Battlefield 3 made this list because of its multiplayer. The heavily scripted singleplayer and the blink-and-its-over cooperative missions were afterthoughts; paltry dinner mints to the filet mignon that is 64 players fighting simulated war.

It may be hypocritical for us to vault a title so high for one part of its overall package, but I argue that what’s contained in the multiplayer portion is almost enough to make it 2011’s best overall game.

“Battlefield Moments,” a sly marketing term DICE has used in the past to describe the unpredictability of the series’ online combat, are what justifies the hundreds of hours fans spend playing each iteration of the core formula. Anyone you talk to about Battlefield has several “This one time…” stories they can ramble off with exuberance and ease. What excited me the most about Battlefield 3 is that its calculated leap ahead with a clever Facebook-like web platform and quality VoIP and IM services (among many other things) has refreshed my stock of “moments” through my hard-won accomplishments and fantastic victories.

Battlefield 3’s insistence on surpassing its competition with its web-only matchmaking service on PC and an aggressive marketing campaign aimed at flexing its muscles against Call of Duty — and risking alienation by perhaps trying too hard – at least proves DICE as a forward-thinking and dedicated company. And perhaps it’s proof of how good the core Battlefield principles are (massive and unscripted teamwork-focused skirmishes) that its sequels aren’t scoffed at like Call of Duty’s, but eagerly picked clean by an equally dedicated fan base. The magic of Battlefield 3 is that both its developers and its community want this game to be so much better than it already is.

I loved every match I played of Battlefield 3, win or lose. The graphics are gorgeous, from sun glares blinding me before an attack to helicopters kicking up dust as they unload their troops. War shouldn’t be glorified or romanticized in this voyeuristic era, but Battlefield 3 does more to make battle come alive than any other shooter I’ve played. When you experience Battlefield 3, you should feel excited to be part of the best online shooter released not only in 2011, but in the past five years. — Aaron Thayer

#4 – Portal 2

April 2011 | Developer: Valve | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows

The original Portal was an experience that caught a lot of people off-guard, myself included. The Orange Box was an incredible bargain, with Half-Life 2 and both of its episodic semi-sequels included; as far as I was concerned, Portal was just a first-person-puzzle cherry on top. Despite the brief length, it became abundantly clear once you played Portal that it was the reason to get the Orange Box.

Portal 2, unlike many sequels on our list, doesn’t fix problems with its predecessor, mostly because Portal wasn’t a very flawed experience. What Portal 2 does is expand the ideas that made its predecessor so great into a fuller experience that never feels diluted or redundant.

The writing is what truly makes Portal 2 stand out. Valve created one of the most humorous, triple-A games in years, and not even once does it lower itself to a single dick or fart joke. The sharp writing is complemented by incredible voice acting that sets a new standard for games. That Stephen Merchant and J.K. Simmons do such an astounding job conveying depth and personality in their characters is made even more incredible by the fact that one voices a robot and the other a recording for a character that is long-since deceased and never truly interacts with the player.

Portal 2 would not warrant mentioning, however, if the gameplay did not match the polish of the presentation. While the portal gun is still leaned upon heavily for most puzzles, new additions are clever and fit the atmosphere and set-up of Aperture Laboratories perfectly. No moment feels tacked-on, and for a campaign that is more than double the length of Portal 1, it breezes by. All this is wrapped up with an extremely satisfying ending and what is likely the best use of the moon in a video game since Duck Tales on the NES. If there was any glaring flaw in the game it’s that the co-op mode is very much a take-it or leave-it affair, but the story of Portal 2 is unlike anything currently existing in games. Portal 2 isn’t perfect, but it does come damn close. — Tyler Martin

We’re back with our sixth- and seventh-best games of 2011!

#7 – Bulletstorm

February 2011 | Developer: People Can Fly/Epic Games | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows

Bulletstorm is not for everyone. More specifically, and with apologies to South Park, it probably should not be played by anyone.

To start with, it’s crude, crass and offensive on all fronts. It celebrates the old ultraviolence with a gleeful zeal. It’s stuffed to the brim with protagonists who treat cursing like a bold and experimental new art (at least, I’ve never heard anyone threaten to “kill my dick” before).

From the outside, it looks like everything that’s wrong with the video game industry — a sloppy concept hacked together by a marketing team vying desperately for the 18- to 35-year-old male demographic. But looks can be deceiving.

Yeah, Bulletstorm is crude, crass and offensive, but it’s absolutely brilliant in its execution. Within a few minutes, it’s clear the game is just as acutely aware of how ludicrous it is, with characters often questioning the bizarre vulgarities being spewed and the nature of the gross, kinda-human enemies you fight in droves. But the surprisingly witty setting plays second fiddle to the game’s core shooting mechanics, which are nothing short of inspired.

It comes down to two fiendishly clever concepts that come together in a wonderful way. First, the leash – a tether you fire from your arm that connects with enemies and flings them into deadly obstacles, pounds them into the pavement or draws them toward you in slow motion. This unprecedented element of control over your enemy presents countless opportunities to pull off Skillshots, which are clever miniature challenges that push you to finish off enemy after enemy in style. It’s fiendishly addictive and remains fresh throughout the game’s well-paced campaign.

Bulletstorm doesn’t have the best weapons (that honor probably belongs to Resistance 3), the most robust multiplayer suite (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3) or the most improved competitive multiplayer experience (Gears of War 3), but it does what all of these shooters were unable to accomplish: it made fast-paced first-person action feel fresh again. To me, that’s worth a lot.  — Nick Cummings

#6 – Deus Ex: Human Revolution

August 2011 | Developer: Eidos Montreal | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows

We are living through the death of science fiction as a genre – its greatest dreams shelved and dismissed, while its nightmares become the stuff of daily news headlines.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, then, is something of a relic. The world of Human Revolution is staunchly rooted in the setting crafted for 2000′s Deus Ex (and 2003′s Deus Ex: Invisible War). It’s not an optimistic world per se – one concerned with both conspiracy and the then-conceivable consequences of future cybernetic / genetic modification – but in the present, where the continued existence of society can seem questionable at best, it can seem downright sunny.

Like the story, gameplay in HR is taken straight from the original. This gives some aspects of the game a dated feel – dialog choices are effectively binary, inventory management is somewhat clumsy, and the upgrade / levelling system is unforgiving. These are only minor detractions, however, from what is perhaps the most finely-crafted sequel that I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. The game doesn’t feel like Deus Ex; it is Deus Ex, in perfect year-2000 form, polished to a mirror shine. There are just enough concession offered to fool the modern console gamer, but even with a gleaming graphics engine, a set of mandatory “boss” battles, and the addition of 3rd-person steath and weapon ironsights, the game never quite makes it into this decade.

And that’s where the beauty of Human Revolution truly lies; not in it being a modern game, but in it providing a near-perfect last-generation experience. Before expansive sandbox environments, we had carefully crafted levels that could be solved in myriad ways. Before heroic regenerating supermen, we had to sneak carefully and pick our battles prudently. Before concerns of accessibility and simplicity, we had games that did not fear depth and complexity. Before endlessly topical desert wars, we dreamed of a gleaming future – one both hopeful and frightening.

In all, Deus Ex: Human Revolution feels like a love letter to me, the PC fanatic around the turn of the millennium, carefully concealed in a wrapping of bloom and bossfights – as though Eidos Montreal were holding a lone finger to their collective lips, offering a knowing wink and nod. The difficulty selection screen could not be more telling in this regard.

“Tell me a story.”

“Give me a challenge.”

“Give me Deus Ex.”

— Spencer Tordoff

Did you miss us? Because wow, we sure missed you. It’s been a few months, but we’re back with another top-ten list for the year that was 2011. Just as we did in 2009 and 2010, all five of us met one day in late December and spent hours debating what we felt to be this year’s best and most important games.

However, this was our first year where everyone was hundreds of miles apart from each other. With Doug and Tyler in Japan, Spencer in Seattle, Aaron in Portland and Nick in Austin, the logistics were a much bigger hurdle this time around. But thanks to the magic of Skype and an inexplicable need we all share to see our games make the cut, we’ve pulled it out again.

A couple things to keep in mind: We are only evaluating games that came out in the year 2011. That gets a little murky when you look at things like the PlayStation 3 enhanced release of Mass Effect 2 and Minecraft officially leaving beta, so we decided that once a game is evaluated in one year, that’s it. Barring anything short of a comprehensive remake, it probably shouldn’t be considered a game that was released in 2011.

Next week we’ll bring you each writer’s list of personal favorites, but for now, let’s get started!

#10 – Jamestown

June 2011 | Developer: Final Form Games | Windows, OS X, Linux

2011 was not a year in which I expected a top-scrolling shoot-em-up title, much less a finely-hewn one packed with fun and whimsy.

But then along came Jamestown.

Three-man indie outlet Final Form Games took the tale of Roanoke colony and gave it a sizable steampunk (Enlightement-punk, perhaps?) twist. The resulting story, set on Mars, is chock-full of charming pixel-art, lovely music, and engaging, classically-inspired bullet hell gameplay to accompany the alternate-historical figures. A recent expansion, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot, adds three new ships, bringing the total to seven playable vessels with diverse and enjoyable playstyles.

Perhaps the highlight of Jamestown, however, is its four-player local co-op mode. With extra controllers, plus mouse and keyboard, friends can tackle the insipid Spanish (and their vile Martian allies) together – activated abilities can shield your allies, and power-ups can bring them back from a death much sooner, making Jamestown one of the most teamwork-friendly shoot-em-ups ever.

In making Jamestown, Final Form crafted a game that at once hearkens to arcade classics (Capcom’s 1942 series and Seibu-Kaihatsu’s Raiden Fighters both leap to mind) while standing on its own merit. The title hits Steam sales frequently: bullet hell fans, history majors, and anyone who has friends would do well to give it a try.  — Spencer Tordoff

#9 – Dead Space 2

January 2011 | Developer: Visceral Games | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows

As a young teenager growing up in the quiet safety of the suburbs, I rebelled against the sterile world around me the only way I knew how: by digesting the most controversial media I could get my hands on. I read subversive books and comics (think The Catcher in the Rye or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac), I listened to music my parents despised (Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down) and I played controversial video games. Not just Grand Theft Auto or Mortal Kombat; I mean truly unsettling stuff, like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. In short, I was trying really hard to be edgy, whatever that actually means.

Years have passed, and while I’ve long since abandoned the books and music of my formative years, I still love a good, disturbing video game. And while the survival-horror genre as we know it is long dead, a new player in the horror genre has risen to the challenge, blending a (for lack of a better word) visceral combat system with tense exploration and — somehow — a compelling and nontraditional narrative arc.

That’s Dead Space 2: the second coming of the horror game, blending traditional elements of suspense and terror with modern-day game mechanics and a rich, engrossing setting not possible on older hardware.

The original Dead Space hinted at a game like this, but the experience fell short in a number of crucial ways. Dead Space 2 fixes every problem I experienced playing the original, such as arbitrarily boxed-off play choice mechanics and a story with a few too many repetitive action sequences, and keeps things fresh with an astounding variety of action sequences buoyed along by a great character progression system and a dark, unsettling, and compelling story.

The horror genre may be all but dormant at this point, but with games like Dead Space 2 stepping in to fill the void, there’s never been a better time to scare yourself witless.  — Nick Cummings

#8 – InFamous 2

June 2011 | Developer: Sucker Punch Productions | PlayStation 3

If asked, I’d be the first member of our staff to call out InFamous for what it was: underwhelming. While Sucker Punch tried its best to create a new franchise, something opposite of Sly Cooper’s lightheartedness, what was released was another tired, open-world acrobatic platformer with absolutely no charm. But here we are in 2011, where the sequel to such a low pedigree is taking a spot in our 10 best games for the year.

InFamous 2 fixed everything that was wrong with its predecessor so naturally that I checked the credits wondering if Sony didn’t pawn the franchise off to a new developer. It’s a testament to the studio, which this year became a wholly owned part of Sony Computer Entertainment, to learn from its mistakes and push its team to realize the fun of InFamous’ core concept: Who would a normal guy become if he had superpowers? Uncle Ben would have had a lot to talk to Cole MacGrath about.

What makes this sequel so great is it doesn’t feel iterative. While I definitely killed bad guys, tested my moral fiber and collected lots of blast shards (again), the Cole MacGrath I played was a likable person — if you follow a good karma path, anyway. He’s a smart ass, but he cares about his friends. I found myself relating to this bro-dude, someone who was a glorified cardboard standee in the first game. Eric Ladin, the voice actor who replaced Jason Cottle, did a damn fine job of filling out the mannerisms and traits of a character that had been so very bland. Even the facial expression technology was an amazing feat compared to the first. At times the game fooled me into thinking it was an animated feature film with its fluid movements and beautiful color palette.

A lot of what made InFamous 2 such a fantastic title was its confidence in switching things up. A new voice actor, a new locale and a new look for Cole, before Internet fandom killed that idea. But the rest of these massive changes lived on, and New Marais was the perfect alternative to the greys and browns of Empire City. The New Orleans stand-in is a neon-drenched paradise of debauchery and southern charm. A lot of people talk about how open world games try to seem “alive” and well-lived, but very few reach a level of detail as Sucker Punch did with its humid coastal sandbox.

InFamous 2 took a lot of risks in changing so much, but every decision was the right one. In an industry where iteration is fact, I can’t recommend InFamous 2 more for how humble its developers are to admit where they failed and focus their resources on actually making a better game — not just saying it is. 2011 had many sequels, but InFamous 2 was one of the best.  — Aaron Thayer