My Games of 2011, The Games That Weren't My Games

Much like last year, there were several games that, while noteworthy, I simply didn't get into playing them for one reason or another.  Some because I didn't want to, some because I didn't get to, and some because I just didn't have the funds to justify getting it.  Luckily(?) this year I didn't really have any games that I just didn't get around to playing by some miraculous glut of purchases, so that's honestly one less section that I have to put in, however there's really only two sections that the games for this year to fit into for me.

No Ability

Terraria

I actually keep forgetting about Terraria in every fashion for a multitude of reasons.  It's a PC-Exclusive game that will most likely remain that way, it seems like it's either completely entrenching one moment or completely off-putting another, and I actually own it, technically, but I can't play it because my PC is terrible and has no shaders to speak of in the graphic cards or something.  I know, really authorative on PC gaming specs, right?  Anyways, I got myself a Steam Profile a ways back as almost a cruel joke for myself since I'm not fooling anybody; I can't run shit on this machine.  And shortly after that, I was handed a copy of Terraria and it was going to be fun times because I mean, look at Terraria, it doesn't need -shit- to run, right?  Wrong.  It needs more than I have, which means it's....well, completely untouchable to me for now.

It's unfortunate as, like I said, at times Terraria looks like the kind of game I personally would sink -hours- of my life into when in the right mood, as, despite the lack of 3D space to work with, Terraria compensates by having a lot of 'fluff' items to decorate with.  Dummies that you can put full suits of armor on for display, statues, varied pieces of furniture, etc. the possibilities are already numerous and growing more and more with every update.  It's out-paced Minecraft in that department by quite a bit already and has the added benefit of, well, being more of a game than Minecraft unfortunately.  While I'm not one to needlessly compare the games, as the internet seems wont to do, there are striking similarities and in brutal honesty, Terraria is a more realized game and feels like it's actually past release.  It has actual NPCs rather than placeholders, actual boss fights, plural, rather than only one, and definite 'post-game' content that shapes the world around your character and their designs.

However at the same time as the above, there is only so much that you can do with a single plane of input.  (Well, two as there's a background layer for walls)  You can make things that look kind of neat, you can make overly elaborate towers and tall buildings to compensate for the single plane and....that's about it.  There's not really the expansive feel that you get with 3D terrain.  I mean just look at this video of a series called "Medieval Minecrafting" in which one DurandalofAegis proceeds to make a gigantic castle in Minecraft.  There's a real feel of scale that I really don't think you can recreate in a solely 2D environment.  Maybe I'll get proven wrong, and there is obviously merit alone to Terraria itself, merit that I would've loved to explore personally, but I just couldn't.

Star Wars:  The Old Republic

Another PC offering (as will likely all the 'no ability' games be), The Old Republic and the upcoming Phantasy Star Online 2 caused me to really really consider my position on MMOs because they are both games that I would really like to play.  I'm just not sure -how much- though, as I wouldn't want to pay for the privilege of playing the game I bought with other monies, and that's really a stance I'm not planning on wavering on.  We'll see if that stands when I actually have a computer that could play either game, as I suspect I might buckle under the weight of being able to play something with my Li'l Sis (TOR) or being able to play a PSO game online for the first time after missing out all those years ago on Dreamcast.  All venues that I would consider listening to suggest that TOR is actually something to keep an eye on and to play and, most importantly, enjoy, but I am not really the best judge of these things.  Still, after great enjoyment with the Knights of the Old Republic games, it would be nice to give TOR the ol' college try.

Minecraft

Still.  Goddamnit.

No Hurry

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While it may be considered blasphemy in some places, I don't think Skyrim would have placed very high on my GotY list even if I had played it.  Regardless, I didn't and the reasoning is quite simple:  There's no need to buy Bethesda games at launch.  I have made this point again and again and will continue to make it until it proves to be mis-truth.  The games are generally riddled with bugs that may or may not render some future additions completely untouchable if not just generally hamper your experience, and they will invariably always get some form of expansion packs that are then bundled in when the game goes "Game of the Year Edition" the following year.  And all the reasons to play it, the expansive maps, the stories, but main and side, and the actual experience of the gameplay?  Those will all still be there when you pick up the game a year down the line at a discount with content that people had to shell out half the games value to get additionally.

Regardless, I find it hard to be anything more than a little charmed with the openness and such of Bethesda worlds that so entrench others.  I have fond memories of Morrowind and Oblivion, but they're only of dicking around which you could generally do in most games.  While the specifics might be exclusive to these games, the general vibe is not, nor can it be, so it' not something to really tout.  For instance, the most fun I had with Morrowind was getting it on PC, using the glitch that let you make spells that would permanently buff your stats to make a super dude and then going around and assassinating the guards of the land with shurikens until 1) I died or 2) the game crashed.  Similarly in Oblivion, I had a lot of fun just killing people to throw them into rivers and the like and specifically causing trouble in the district of the Imperial City where the Thieves Guild meets for initiation; hopping up on those rooftops and taunting guards and civilians that happen to be annoyed at you while they just stare at you in impotent rage, it's a pretty good feeling.  Yet not feelings specifically found only in Bethesda games.

Portal 2

I hate to do it, but I gotta be that guy.  I didn't really care for Portal which is no doubt partly caused by the overexposure I and the rest of the internet was subjected to after its massive success.  I gave it a try, played until I couldn't, which meant I didn't beat it, and just couldn't be bothered to care.  Even when I saw the rest of the game via two different Let's Plays I couldn't care.  I realize that's just my own personal thing here and no representative of popular opinion or of even an opinion that you should have, but I can't really lie about it.  And as far as I can tell, Portal 2 promised from day one to be more of the same but bigger and 'better', so I basically just had to write it off to a later date.  I'll give it a try just like the first Portal and since the internet hasn't exploded with memes from the game, hopefully I'll be able to enjoy it a bit more.

Batman:  Arkham City

Much like Portal 2 being more of the same of Portal 1, Arkham City had been described as more of the same of Asylum but, again bigger and 'better' which...just isn't very appealing to me.  I didn't dislike Arkham Asylum, but when I beat it I was very much done with it.  I had done the bulk of the side stuff already, so when the game dumped me back into it after the final boss fight, I could only walk around for a little bit before I shrugged and moved on.  I can't tell what it is, but Arkham Asylum was just one of those games that, while I was playing it, it was awesome and I couldn't get enough until I was finished, and then when I was finished, I just couldn't be bothered to have anything more to do with it, as I said.  It wasn't like the combat wasn't great - it was.  It wasn't like the characters, the acting weren't wonderful and nostalgic - they were.  It just was not a game made with replayability in mind to me, which is a bit rough considering one of the two(?) trophies I had left was to play the game through again on hard.

Like the rest of them, I'll play Arkham City one day.  That day is just undetermined and very much in the future.

And finally one last game that wasn't my game of the year and I'm going to give it its own section.

Don't Hate Me, Chance

Dark Souls

I assure you there is a very, very simple reason for why I didn't play Dark Souls this year, nor will I for a while yet:  I haven't played Demon's Souls yet.  I know I was talking about starting that up months ago, going so far as to even plan out my character far in advance, but I just haven't gotten around to it.  Other games take priority over one that's going to stab me repeatedly in the throat while I am learning its ways, I'm afraid, and me being weird as I am, I can't let myself play the sequel before the original even if they have nothing to do with one another.  It's just not a thing I can do, and I would suggest that I suffer for that as others might suggest as well.  While I am assured that Dark Souls is a very good game, I have only been able to muster a wary eye towards it, wanting to know of its ways, yet not wanting to be spoiled on too much of it.  I want just that right amount of preparedness for when I step into its world that I might learn the hard knocks without suffering the easy ones as well.

While there's a few other games that could make this list, these are pretty much the note-worthy games here.  There's really no ill will towards any of them, just not any particularly high level of excitement, either.  And if we know one thing about me it's that that's what I crave:  games that excite me.  Whether it be for the concept alone (Lollipop Chainsaw) or the promise of something I already like, but refined (Like, every sequel this past year that I played), I have to feel something for the game before I want to exchange currency to hold it in my hands.  It'll be a dark day indeed if I lose that feeling, but I really, really doubt that day will ever come, which is something to be quite thankful for.

And Now, I Rest

Game of the Year posts were hard this year for some reason.  I mean, I know it was a rough (read: great) year in general for games which made it naturally hard to pick out just which was your more favorite out of this this and that, but damn.  Making me pick between a Yakuza game and an inFamous game?  Over an Uncharted game?  What the hell, 2011?  So now that it's officially done and over with, I'm just sitting back and taking a breather, getting ready for the storm that'll come tomorrow.  Not...literal storm, hopefully, just a metaphorical one that may or may not be really really bad.  Unfortunately this is another one of those "I'm warning you about something I'm not telling you about" things but in the end, does it really matter?  It's just a personal matter that likely won't affect things here too bad, so it might not be worth bringing it up.

I've taken this down-time to finally indulge in the inFamous 2 soundtrack that I've long neglected as I literally have a download queue in my Playstation Store list for one of the soundtracks, but never downloaded.  Since that would require downloading it, getting it onto my computer, getting it then onto my iPod which has a battery life of approximately shit and I just don't want to be assed with it.  Still, I've wanted to listen to it and, as usual, youtube is more than willing to let me do that.  The above is one of the nicer pieces I've heard so far, but I haven't heard the full run of the soundtracks just yet, so I'm not able to call it one of my, gasp, favorites from the game or really offer much more judgment than "It sounds pretty nice", so that'll have to do for now.  I'm sure you can draw your own opinions from it anyway.

I kinda feel bad that I just don't have more in me tonight, but I really don't.  It's a bit rough churning out posts one after another like I did the last few nights, and to top that off, I haven't been feeling too great lately.  Nothing that won't pass in time, but still, shit kinda stays with you regardless if just to try and slow you down a bit.  Hopefully after tonight's breather of just sitting back with some good music, I'll be right back to snuff.  And hopefully there'll be something friggin' news-worthy finally, as I've found it fairly rough to think of something to write about were I not doing the GotY posts.  So it's a bit thankful that I had those at least.  Though maybe I can do something about Harvest Moon DS since it's been taking up quite a bit of my time lately.  Hrmm.....we'll see I guess!  Until then, enjoy the music, seek out the rest of it to give a listen to if you haven't already, and keep on keepin' on.

My Games of 2011, The Top Two

As I said before, picking my top two games was harder this year than it's ever been for me simply because the two games in question are games that I love so very much for very different reasons, and to pick which I would consider my favorite was just so daunting that it was almost impossible.  And even though I have both games slotted into numbers, it's honestly just a formality at this point and if it were possible, I would just call it a tie.  The next best thing is simply devoting a post to both games at once rather than just touting my number one pick like last year.  Which, as you can tell, is what I'm doing, though I've been wrestling with whether I should keep the 'format' of the numbers or not.  Seeing as I can't determine an alternative that I'm happy with doing, I'll stick with the list as its been ticked off and not worry about it so much.

2. inFamous 2

I don't think there's ever been a game that I've so frantically searched for a Collector's Edition of as I did inFamous 2, and I'm not quite sure there'll ever be a game that I'll do it for again.  It's not that I dislike them or anything, but I very rarely see the extra value of $40 or so with the little trinkets and soundtracks and such that come with a game to justify it.  LittleBigPlanet 2 was the first game this year to convince me that the extra was worth it and not another game could do so until inFamous 2, and maybe it's because of the drastic way I got one at the very last minute, or maybe it's because I just wanted inFamous 2 that much, or a combination of both but when I got my hands on the Collector's Edition of the game it just....it felt right.  Just having that (rather large) box in my hands told me that I was doing the right thing, the thing I wanted to be doing, and that kind of self-vindication is something you only experience a few times in life, I suspect.

The story of how I came to possess a box is a pretty straight-forward one, but it was a rollercoaster for me assuredly, as I never quite knew how I was going to get one, but I knew that I was going to.  The GameStop that I frequented had stopped taking pre-orders on the Collector's Edition by the time I got into it, and even calling around to the other ones I could possibly, feasibly get to yielded nothing.  All theirs were pre-ordered, so my only chance would be if someone decided they didn't want theirs, so I took that challenge and simply waited, counting away the days before release date came to pass.  Calling all those same GameStops informed me that I wasn't lucky enough for one of them to have gotten an extra, and it was still within the holding period, so I had more or less resigned myself to just getting the regular version of the game before a thought crossed my mind.  

"I wonder if Best Buy has any?"

My distaste (which has since been diluted, but not by this) for Best Buy is known, but the chance at this, at my prize, my goal, was too tempting to pass up so I called 'the' Best Buy I could frequent which was right across the road from the GameStop I go to.  "Hey, I was wondering if you had any of the Hero Editions of inFamous 2?"  "Hmm....let me check."  There was a bit of silence as she walked to the area where everything was before the wonderful news came across the line.  "Yeah, we've got a few right here."  "That's fantastic.  Would you possibly be willing to hold one for me if I was to get there within, oh say, an hour?"  "Sure!  I just need your name..." etc. etc.  True enough, I got there as quickly as possible, went to the customer service desk as instructed and claimed what I had obsessed over for so long.  Victory.

And then I, y'know, played the game and it was just as fantastic as the journey of getting it was and even moreso.  It was the inFamous I'd gotten to know and love, but improved upon so much that it was in an entirely different league.  With the overhaul of the melee system, chaining melee and ranged attacks was actually possible without relying on the Electric Riot Gear method from the original (Polarity Shield + Lightning Blades) so the entire flow of battle shifted dramatically for the better.  The progression of powers really spoke to the theme that the game meant to set; that inFamous 1 was truly an origin story and inFamous 2 was the next evolution of that, into seeing Cole actually coming into real, absolute power.  Beyond mastering his own powers, Cole expanded his versatility by being able to introduce an entirely different element to his repertoire and those powers were certainly crucial to hitting your stride in being a mobile force of overwhelming power.

I can't imagine playing the game without having access to the Ice Launch or the Firebird Strike eventually as both moves became crucial to the fluid movement that inFamous 2 really really mastered.  Getting around wasn't just a breeze, but it was fun just because of all the different ways you could do any given thing.  Really, the whole game was fun for that exact reason, but definitely the movement side of it, if you could single out anything, exemplified that.  While I did have some grumblings with the story, I think it was still handled fairly well, though I'm very much left wondering just how an inFamous 3 could come about.  With any luck, it'll be with as much of a quality jump from 1 to 2, but if we're talking in realistic terms, I should imagine it'll at least keep with the status quo, which I would be just absolutely fine with.

Really, I think inFamous 2's biggest touting point, which is what took it up to the top of my list is that it's a true, honest super hero game that is absolutely fantastic.  People point to Arkham Asylum and City as the best examples of good licensed games we've got, and the license just happens to be a super hero one, but aside from that, what else do we have?  Obviously [Prototype] which came out at the same time as the original inFamous is a super story, though if you were a super villain or merely an anti hero in [Prototype] is quite another question altogether.  Whether [Prototype]'s strength lies within the quality of it's creation or the fun nestled within it's core mechanics is an ever-open debate which leads me to wonder if there are any other super hero, especially original ones, games out there that could be considered 'good' by the general measure?  I'm not sure, which means that inFamous, as a series, certainly scratches an itch that's out there and I'm quite thankful for that.

1. Yakuza 4

That Yakuza 4 is my top game might not be a surprise to anyone, especially after Yakuza 3 took my top spot last time by virtue of being a game I never thought I'd get to play in English.  (Un?)Fortunately, that was almost never an issue for Yakuza 4 as, quite soon after 3 had been released in the West or perhaps even before that, it was already well known that Sega had every intention of giving us the fourth iteration of the series and were, in fact, doing it as opposed to giving us some Sega-quality trolling about it.  It was promised and billed as 'the most complete' localization for the series and followed through with that as well, losing only the minimalist of things in the transition from Japan to America.  Among the cuts were the Question and Answer game in the arcade as it was mostly just Japanese History questions and rather than installing a whole new list of questions, they scrapped it and....not a lot else, I don't think.  Perhaps a couple quests, but certainly not the 20 or so lost in Yakuza 3's localization.

While some might worry that Yakuza 4 made my top spot by virtue of simply being a Yakuza game, I assure this isn't the case, as anyone who kept up with Kupowered after 4's March release knows that I had several, several, several posts talking about my experiences in Kamurocho and the fun that I had with them, going so far as to reviewing the game for the third (and latest) review.  And it was a dangerous thing to do, in a sense, since I was so attached to the game, but it was and still remains my opinion that because I was so engrossed in the game, I was capable of reviewing it well simply because I acknowledged its faults easily, and were able to point them out.  I didn't care about those faults, however, as I had scarce few moments during the game where I wasn't grinning ear to ear from the sheer joy that is the fighting system in it.  It made for awesome stories, both of unparalleled prowess and simple dumb luck that was nothing short of hilarious.

One such story of the latter variety was when I was the man himself, Kazuma Kiryu, taking on one of the many, many groups of street thugs that you'll run across in your travels.  It was fairly routine, I destroyed a couple of them right off so the final two could offer me a little more sport and fun.  After beating on the both of them for a little bit, I decided I was going to kick a bike at one to take him out and then probably drop kick the second, because it's...quite enjoyable. So I kick the bike and it goes flying right through the first guy, knocking him out, but where it gets hilarious is when the bike bounces off a railing and nails the final dude in the back, taking him out as well.  As it was completely unexpected, I couldn't help but let out a loud laugh and a "Yesssssssssssssssssss" of pure enjoyment, excited beyond all else that that had just happened.  That it had been a thing that happened.

In the end, I think it was the multitude of moments like that that Yakuza 4 had to offer me that tipped my opinion in its favor.  That and the fact that I was honestly quite impressed with the battle system, since I had initially worried that with four characters, one of them would assuredly be terrible or at least less fun to play than the others, yet was proven completely wrong.  Not only is every character an island unto himself in terms of quality in his fighting style, that quality translates not only into ability, but the amount of fun you can have with it if you just think about how to best use everybody.  And when I say 'best use everybody', I mean the best way you can, not the way the game wants you to, which is an important distinction to make.  No move in the game is 'great' because the game tells you it is, if it's great, it's because you know how to use it.  And that is a very, very crucial thing.

So in the end, both of my top games of 2011 were ranked so high because of their fighting systems, mostly, and because those fighting systems were damn fun.  Because that's really all we gamers want from our games if fun.  There are times when we get more than that, like a beautiful piece of art that is as it is for being simple with no nonsense tacked on, or a wonderful, emotional story that's actually told quite well, but in the end, we want to have an outlet that makes us smile, makes us laugh, and challenges us to give us something to 'win'.  Sometimes we measure our fun in the victories we've attained, whether it be in sheer numbers or for the quality of those victories themselves, but we're never at a loss for them.  And I think that's been a running theme in my top list here, is that pursuit of victory, which I hadn't even noticed until now.  But in the end, it is pretty obvious as we, for all of our bitching and complaining, truly are among the lucky to have these things, these special experiences of games, come to us and impact us as they do.

And I think that's why we try to rate them, however successfully or not that happens, -because- they have such an effect on us.  At least, I think that's why I do it, even though it's a very obviously trying thing to do, as I described when it came to these two games.  So hats off to you, Sucker Punch, Yakuza Studios, for making these experiences that I quite obviously enjoyed as much as I did.  Here's hoping to more quality and more difficult decisions like this for 2012's Game of the Year!

My Games of 2011, Part 3

With numbers 5-3 on my list, I tackle three very different kinds of games, not only in their genre and presentation, but in the way I could think about them.  One game really resonates with me, one game left me feeling like a neglectful friend for the majority of this year, and the final one left me feeling like I needed to defend it, which left me dumbfounded at the fact that I felt as much, since I expected it to fair quite a bit better in the collective of the internet.  So, for various reasons, these three games are quite a bit more personal for me, which is why I felt the need to group them together as such.  Not that any of the other games on the list aren't personal in some way, but...well, you know what I mean.

5. Catherine

Oh boy, Catherine.  I wrestled for about an hour last night when I was writing up the previous post about how to explain this one.  In all honesty, if I hadn't split the numbers like I did for the reasons I did, the fact that I just couldn't think of anything would've caused a split regardless.  In the end, I figure all I can do here is be honest since, well, what's going to happen?  Not a lot besides me looking dumb for posturing so much, really.  Though I'm sure it's at least a little obvious why I'm mincing words so much with this one, as it's quite a bit personal.

The core of Catherine's story, very obviously, is relationships - not only the one between two people -in- a relationship, but the relationship between men and women in general, the relationship between friends, and the ways all they can get a bit muddled between themselves.  Anyone who cast even a cursory glance towards Catherine could see that, and I'm trying to make sure I don't spoil anything for anyone here.  By extension of that core value, Catherine also revolves around how relationships can sometimes go bad which is something that can resonate with you if you're in a relationship that isn't going so hot.  I'm sure I don't have to explain any more than that, but at the same time, I should clear up that I can't draw many more parallels than the most basic one I mentioned which is likely a good distinction to make for anyone who knows how the story goes.

Aside from the story is, obviously, the gameplay, which at first sounded like something one would have to just stomach through to get into the real meat and potatoes of the game.  The oddity of that statement is not lost on me, however that really seemed to be how it was billed.  That was all to my surprise when the gameplay of Catherine proved to look interesting, complex, challenging and, best of all, fun, which I still think is a feat worth nothing less than absolute surprise whenever it comes up.  It almost seems like it would be either too simple to be fun or would end up too difficult to be fun, yet it (from what I saw) manages to mostly be right in the middle - challenging, but not overly so, meaning it actually manages to be fun, or at least looks like it.  Trying to think of ways I would go about getting up was fun at least!

4. LittleBigPlanet 2

Despite my constant use of European box art, I am American.  Figured I should say that at some point.

LittleBigPlanet is a series that is very near and dear to me, as anyone who has read this blog should know, so the sheer excitement I had for LittleBigPlanet 2 was nothing short of sky-high levels.  And when I got it, it was glorious, everything filled to the brim with charm and fun, and at the time it wasn't just me enjoying that but on several occasions, my younger nephews who absolutely loved the game as much as I did.  The inclusion of the ability to make little movies and such provided no end of laughs for them since a lot of people took to doing little clip-shows akin to Robot Chicken with quite a few of them being actually funny.  It surprised me too, honestly, much as the quality of a lot of LittleBigPlanet 2 levels did, custom or not.  What also surprised me was how I treated the game which was, in a word, poor.

Maybe it was due to my inability to really devote time to making levels, or maybe it was due to the fact that I had a lot of games that I needed to play (and still do), but after I was 'done' with LittleBigPlanet 2, I moved on to other things, saying "I'll come back to it, I'll come back to it", though I never did.  For what it's worth, I still fully intend to get back into the game, but I'm not quite sure how well that'll go; I still have a mountain of unplayed games after all, and LittleBigPlanet Vita will allow me to have my LittleBigPlanet fix anywhere, worry-free (Since blah, blah, PS3 paranoia, blah blah) without sacrificing quality as far as I can tell.  I'm not sure just how much of LBP2 the Vita version will actually be able to hold, but I would suggest that it's "a lot", and hopefully am proven correct because LittleBigPlanet 2 offered quite a lot of fun among other things.

Still, while I was playing LittleBigPlanet 2, I can attest to always displaying something along the lines of 'giddiness', since that's just how charming the game was.  Every new addition to the game was fantastic and contributed a lot to the experience overall, since for every smart usage MM implemented in the base levels, creators in the LBP community found about five more, ensuring that the 'smart' levels in the user-created territory were just that, if not brilliant.  And it's pretty much for that reason that LittleBigPlanet 2 can manage to be viable at various stages in its life, as all it takes is a community interested in making levels.  As far as I know, there is still a community there, which perpetuates yet other communities to exist, which keeps the game new and interesting in ways that even MediaMolecule couldn't have figured on.  So maybe that's why I feel secure in knowing that the game will still be there when I get to it, even if that's going to be quite a ways down the road.

3. Uncharted 3:  Drake's Deception

Depending on where you look on the internet, opinion of Uncharted 3 seems to range from between "Game is definitely worthy of the Uncharted pedigree" to "Game is not as good as Uncharted 2 which means it's instantly bad" and everything in between.  I have spent quite a lot of time, possibly too much time, trying to justify just why I am in the former camp above, as I very, very honestly found very little wrong with the game.  There were a couple things I didn't care for (similar to Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3 doesn't devote enough screentime to certain characters), but the common complaints never got to me, leaving just an extremely polished cinematic game, just as Uncharted 2 was before it.  And it's for all those reasons that I find it difficult to retread the statements I've made in the past

On Crushing (which is one of the ultimate tests of any game, how well it plays on hardest difficulty), every battle in Uncharted 3 is an intense, calculating conquest and not a simple firefight.  Taking stock of what you're against, deciding when the best time to pop out and fire is, making sure you're utilizing all your moves properly (including the steel fist) and figuring out the best place to get to and how during every fight requires thought and precision and the game happily offers you both, but only if you know when and how to take it.  It's a harsh teacher that I think many were not prepared for, but it's a fair one despite the willingness several people would like to display in calling the enemies "Bullet Sponges".  Any veteran of Uncharted the first (and by proxy the second, but less so there) knows that you aim for the head unless you're running up on them to finish them off with a mighty punch.  Aside from that, the locals are gorgeous, the acting is never dull, and the charm of the characters still hasn't worn off...for me at least.

I decided this year that instead of saving number one for it's own post, that I'm going to put my top two picks together in a single post.  This is mostly because I honestly, literally sat for half an hour or so trying to figure out just which game deserved the number one slot which I think suggests that they both did.  Still, only one game can win and in the end, I did have to pick that game, but for any reason, and at any other time, they could be almost interchangeable as my favorite game of the year, which is what I suggest personal Game of the Year lists are for.  So I think it's only fair that I talk about both games at the same time to really show that off, that they're both deserving of that high praise.  Because there is going to be a whole lot of praising going on, I can assure you of that.

My Games of 2011, Part 2

Tonight's post of picks 8-6 for my GotY list is going to require a little more care than it might otherwise for the simple fact that one the two games that I didn't play, but felt as if I could place, are within these three slots.  Obviously, without actually playing the games myself that means I did happen to miss out on some of the actual experience of it for better or worse, but, and while this is a dangerous thing to state it's normally true, you can sort of get a feel of a game to be able to tell how your overall opinion of it might go.  We are often wrong in those times, and it's quite possible that I will be proven wrong when I do eventually get to play these two games, but, for my part, I could only suggest that I'd expect these two games to actually exceed what I thought for and of them, knowing what I know about them.  Which is enough to have spoiled me on some of each game but certainly not all of it, so unless the parts I missed are akin to the optional content in Chrono Trigger DS, it's not going to negatively skew anything.

Much like yesterday, however, I make this big opening paragraph about the 'big issue' of this crop of games and then the first game I bring up isn't affected by that at all.  Where I haven't played a couple of the games on my list, the first game up here is the game I've played the -most- by far this year with, in all actuality, something like 140+ hours invested in it between its two parts.  Astute readers of the blog will be able to figure out the game by that, but if it wasn't obvious by that, then I'll just go ahead and say it.

8. Dynasty Warriors 7 (And Xtreme Legends)

Know that the above figure is no exaggeration - I know for a fact that my playtime of the original game broke 100 hours.  I know this because when I was copying my save from the HDD to my Memory stick directly after Platinuming it (I believe this was when, at least) I noticed for the first time, that a Play time was displayed and that playtime had 100 or 101 in the hours spot which seems absolutely ridiculous to me and is in fact the only reason why I remember it.  While I have spent a -lot- of time with Xtreme Legends, I'm not prepared to say it's as much time as the original yet, and a conservative estimate puts it around 30-40 hours overall, given the amount of grinding I've done on that game.  Getting the weapons, beating every mission at least once and then several, several times more to unlock titles for over half the characters in the game...it all adds up, clearly.  And it clearly speaks to just how much I am able to enjoy these games.

They are not the best games by any means, but they are games that scratch a very specific itch, fulfill a very specific craving and are generally simply a means to an end.  I'm sure we all have games like these, games that we acknowledge aren't the best, sometimes even aren't that good, but we love them because of what they have to offer.  And the Dynasty Warriors games offer me to build up a bodycount in the thousands per level by simply cutting swaths through anything that isn't allied with me.  Where some action games and FPS can try and guarantee you carnage on a grand scale, none of them can boast quite like KOEI can, if only in that very specific department.  And it's for that that I have bought, played and enjoyed about every Warriors game I can get my hands on and will continue to do so.

Dynasty Warriors 7 placed like it did for generally impressing me more than a Warriors game has done in a while.  While it's easy to get lost in the grumblings I have at the grinding and the pure stupid it propagates through poor interpretation of history, Dynasty Warriors 7 is actually really quality in terms of the games that came before it.  The way it handles the story modes is slick and innovative for the series and the game just looks generally a -lot- better than iterations before it, which while being coupled with the 'winning formula' from previous games that aren't 6 (more varied weapons and movesets, having different levels of every weapon, etc.) it's just a recipe for success.  It's not perfect, and it still lacks a little bit in my opinion (Free Mode battles, a few different generic enemy models would've been nice especially for the Nanman battles and a return of personal items would've been nice) but it's probably the best Dynasty Warriors game since 3 or, depending on your perspective, 5 (Since both of those are generally touted as 'the best') and that really means something.

7. Ghost Trick:  Phantom Detective

Some of you might remember that I have some very, very strong opinions about Ghost Trick that sort of hover around it being "my favorite, if not the best, DS game of the year" which is reflected by it being one of two DS games to be featured in my list and the highest ranking of the two.  It's also reflected by Ghost Trick being the first game I reviewed because I felt as strongly as I did.  I understood just how I could like a game so much, yet be as objective as one could expect about pointing out its flaws, of which Ghost Trick certainly had a few.  Yet I was more able to celebrate all of Ghost Trick's successes with gusto that was deserved, not given, than I was able to criticize its short-comings given that I had to actually think about just what I didn't like about the game.  It was only after playing through it twice entirely that I had managed to compile a short list of deficiencies that I very nearly discarded from my mind directly thereafter.

Basically, the defining downside of Ghost Trick is the one shared by all, or at least most, of puzzle games out there:  they're lightning in a bottle.  Brilliant, beautiful, intense and wonderful, but only for that one first moment that you can never catch once more.  You open that bottle when you finish it and you're left with only the memories since you can always put electricity back in the bottle, but it's never going to be as vivid as it was that first time.  I'm not going to argue if this method is more effective than other games that manage a little more staying power at the cost of not having a few of the types of moments Ghost Trick offers, but it certainly worked for this game and I can say with certainty that I'm quite glad I actually grabbed the game when I did and played it.  With it giving something of a turning point to me and this blog, who knows what would've happened had I not!

6. Dead Space 2

I recall quite easily stating something to the effect of "I hope Dead Space 2 doesn't end up on my 'Games that weren't my games of 2011' list" last year because Dead Space 2 promised to be more of the same of the original in terms of quality.  The original Dead Space is something that I sometimes am amazed that I played all the way through, seeing as I am very, very susceptible to being scared far too much by things that aren't real - things like particularly scary movies and shows, frightening imagery and the like, but I managed through it because for as scary and unsettling as the original game was, it was also very, very good.  Most took to calling it RE4 in space, but it was quite a bit more than that, if only for the fact that (yes, I said it before and will continue to say it) it didn't control poorly.  The aiming was nice and smooth and responsive, you could actually move while aiming to assist in that, and the melee options of "Pistol Whip" and "STOMPYSTOMPSTOMP" were visceral and actually quite useful.  I recall quite fondly a moment in Dead Space the original where I ran out of ammo completely, but managed to stasis an incoming Necro to pistol whip/stomp him to (re-)death before resuming my frantic search for plasma energy.

It's for those reasons that I am genuinely disappointed in myself that I didn't pick up Dead Space 2 this last year and that I had to resort to a (very good) LP to finally introduce and carry my way through the game.  It is most certainly not the same thing, especially with a horror game that is actually scary like Dead Space 2, but it was a good window into the story and the mechanics and offered me the opportunity to see what was polished and what wasn't.  Perhaps it was because I wasn't immersed in it, but I found it quite hard to call the story of the overall game, or more specifically the flow of it, 'great' but merely 'good' at best.  This was balanced out, however, by the inclusion of the Javelin Gun which looks to be the single-best weapon of any game from 2011, or at least high up in the running for it.  Really, the whole inclusion of actual impalement physics was enough to make me feel literal pain and shame for not buying the game.

Much like the two games from last year's list that I included prior to playing, I only included Dead Space because I can very easily imagine just what my experience with the game will be like, more or less, so I can take that and put it where I feel it'll rank. While I feel it's entirely possible that the game will be very different from my expectations, I imagine the difference will be in the game's favor rather than against it.  After all, that Javelin Gun.  It's a wonderfully compelling argument, I'd say.

While I hate to seem like I'm breaking up these posts even more than normal by offering only three today, there's a good reason for it, which will get explained in due time.  Most of it is that I'm finding it hard to really parse out my reasons for number five being where it is, as some of it is....well, personal reasons.  Which is an odd thing to say, of course, but it's something I've been thinking of since being exposed to the game and I have to, very carefully, figure out just what I want to confess (not only here, but to myself) regarding it.  I only hope that I can better formulate my feelings tomorrow than I was able to tonight, but I figure I'll manage.  Somehow.

My Games of 2011, Part 1

So, the moment I've been dreading and anticipating is upon us, the actual 'let's quantify the unquantifiable with rankings' time of Game of the Year voting has been up on PA for a few days, but I've been doing a little research into one of the games on my list so that it could, in fact, make it on my list.  I'll explain when we get to it which should be tomorrow's post.  (Yes, I'm dragging it out over the days like I did originally, mostly because I've gotten a little more accustomed to doing this and might be a bit more verbose this year.)  Aside from the way I'll be handling the list in multiple posts, there are a few odd similarities with this year and last years list that have me a bit confused, though I suppose these things just happen.  Like last year, my list contains 12 games when I've worried for half this year that I wouldn't make 10, and of those 12 games, I've only physically played 10 of them, leaving me with two games that I feel I am knowledgeable enough to rate without having played them directly.

Neither of those games are in this post, however, so rest assured that I'm not simply grabbing two games and throwing them at the end to pad the list up.  Quite the opposite as they both scored fairly high for reasons that I'll get into when their number ticks up.  First up, however are four games that brought a range of opinions to the table, from disappointment to being impressed and from quick, satisfying romps to prolonged, satisfying, yet still unsettling sessions of a game whose length is measured in days, not hours.  I won't say that they 'earned' their spots on the list, because that implies that the games higher up 'earned' their spots as well and, with only a couple exceptions, they're basically numbered by happenstance and is not indicative of overall quality.  So, of course, with the first game on the list, I'm going to go right against that and speak directly to its (lack of) quality.

12. Pokemon White (and Black)

I've said it a few times before, and I'll likely say it several more times before all is said and done, but I did not like Pokemon White.  For what had been all but billed as a reboot of the franchise, willing to make all sorts of much-needed changes to the 'formula', White proved to be 'yet another pokemon game', doing absolutely nothing that the hype attached to it which was rather unfortunate as you might guess.  Even though it was all 'different' it was all the same and that's certainly not a step in the right direction for a game that has the possibilities and potential as the Pokemon series.  So this would be the real disappointment on my list and, were it not a game that I obviously liked despite everything I hated about it it wouldn't be on my list period.  Regardless, its spot on the list ensures that I'll get to air out all of my concerns and complaints.

As I said, the thing that bothers me is just how much White is the same as everything that came before it.  Same stupid storyline with a kid going out to index pokemon for a professor who has a bunch of aides but instead chooses to rely on a plucky tween from the same knowledge, same stupid plot hook of Team (Word) being stupid and eventually getting their crap kicked in by said tween, and same "Go here, challenge gym, win, move on, repeat" formula that certainly drives the game forward, but in a rather shoddy way nowadays.  Even all of the 'new' pokemon that they stated with vehemence that you had to use, as no other pokemon from previous iterations would be available prior to beating the game (which was instantly disproved by the existence of the Dream World which sent me a Farfetch'd before my third badge I believe) had very obvious roots into the design of pokemon past.  The same Fire, Water, and Grass starters, the obvious Pidgey-line, the obvious Geodude-line, etc. etc. were all present and accounted for, as were the fuck-off instant-run Legendaries that haven't been a good idea for three versions of Pokemon and do not change in that.

The other issue at hand, and this is the one that I really, really take issue with, is Team Plasma.  Not only do they mark a continuance of relying on a plot hook that's been tired for a long time, but they manage to be the single dumbest thing to ever grace a Pokemon game and possibly DS games in general.  There's spoilers here, but they're mild because who plays Pokemon for the story, honestly.  Anyways, the message Team Plasma is trying to spread is that Pokemon Trainers are committing unspeakable evils by using pokemon to fight battles for nothing more than pride and profit, which is okay enough of a message I guess.  Where it's muddled is how Team Plasma uses pokemon to fight trainer pokemon to convince the trainer that they're stronger so the trainer should release their pokemon.  Just mull that over a bit - Team Plasma uses pokemon battling to promote anti-pokemon battling beliefs.  Yeah.

Still, I enjoyed Pokemon White as I enjoy any pokemon game; it was fun building a team and getting across the various gym challenges and I was more than happy to start meta-planning super teams, but eventually I just got tired.  It's the same thing I've been doing since Pokemon Red and unless there's an actual change of form between Black/White and the next iteration (not the inevitable Grey version), it'll be the last time I'll bother with it.  Of course, I'm lying, but when I play the next iteration, if it's the same old thing, I just won't even bother to mention it.

11. Sonic Generations

I just recently went through Sonic Generations, so I'm fairly convinced that I know where I wanted to place it, and while I'm comfortable with where it's at I am a bit surprised.  There's very little about Sonic Generations that I disliked and, in fact, quite a lot that I liked about it.  So why is it so low on my list?  I suspect it has something to do with just how short it is and while it manages to impress, it doesn't stick to you.  I can't call it forgettable because that would just be dishonest, since it's very memorable if just because of all the neat versions of stages that are brand new, as well as faithful recreations of others.  Generations has the most consistently good gameplay of any Sonic game for a long time, as it takes the best part of the last 'good' (or at least not absolutely terrible) Sonic Game, Sonic Unleashed (though Sonic Colors is supposed to be rather good as well), in the form of just straight-forward speed-focused maps (from Daylight Sonic, obviously) and makes a game out of it without bogging it down with something unnecessary.

Really, though, Sonic Generations -did- need a little bit more of something.  Sure, you have all sorts of challenges as optional content that will likely add quite a few hours to your total time if you should go for it, but there's very little reward for doing any of it.  Getting Red Rings unlocks artwork of designs from previous Sonic games which is nice and all, but hardly locked to the game itself.  Beating the challenge levels gives you a bit of e-cred, I suppose, if your time is fast enough, and every level has a bell associated with it that'll get you a song to play during other stages or yet more artwork.  But it's all just stuff that's sort of there in the literal backroom of the game that you could very well go through the entirety of the game and not see a bit of it.  I guess what's to be said of it is that it was designed for replayability to be a main factor of your enjoyment, since there's always ways to get a better ranking and a better time on those levels, so it's all up to you to do it.

10. Shadows of the Damned

Shadows of the Damned provided me quite a bit of surprise when I started it up, some welcome and some less so, but nothing overwhelming either way.  After changing the controls to something not-terrible and reminiscent of Resident Evil 4 (which renders the first part of that sentence redundant), I was able to actually play Shadows of the Damned and even grow to enjoy it as I ran through the initial sections of the game.  I became increasingly impressed with how the game opened up to you, very subtly guiding you along its paths and teaching you how to play with the tools it offered in a surprisingly intuitive way that eschewed conventional 'kill 'em with tutorials' methods which was a rather welcome relief.  There was unfortunately a drop-off directly after I came here and sang its praises for doing just what it stopped doing directly after I said it was doing it.

An area that was fraught with things that made the game quite different than it had been reared its ugly head, complete with unintuitive bosses, instant deaths everywhere, and frustratingly difficult sections stemming from those two factors.  While I'm fairly confident that that cleared up directly after, as I touched into an area following that and was met with quite a lot of weirdness and comedy (Johnson and the pay phone, for those of you who've played) that wasn't too bad, I still can't really forget that the game essentially 'fooled' me, or that I think it did with how that whole thing worked out.  Afterwards, I learned a few things that would've been much nicer to know prior to being past them already, which only suggests that the intuitiveness of the first real boss fight was long gone and the game suffered for it.  It is rather unfortunate that I'm gauging this game while not having actually beaten it, and it's possible that I'll sort of change my stance on it sometime down the road for the better, where it's at right now is fine enough I think.  Remember, it might be '10th', but that doesn't mean I think 9 and above are better, just that they struck more chords with me that I had to consider them more.

9. Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3

The last game in this section of my GotY list is a game you've no doubt noticed I've whinged about on a fair few occasions.  I just plain don't like the map design and I think the way that story was handled on top of that was fairly poor.  That hinders the way that not only the original story can be told, but also the way the 'historical' accounts (read:  storylines from the anime) which bothers me quite a bit.  However, what the game annoys with in terms of poor design, it makes up for with simple quantity of quality Mobile Suits and pilots that will certainly grow into the next iteration as well.  Having the choice of being able to pilot Wing Zero, Epyon and Deathscythe Hell is honestly a little thing, but it's such a big thing for me and it makes me genuinely excited for the prospect of playing it again every time I load it up.  Not only that, but the chance to eventually get silly by hopping into a Ball or a Gouf or a Zaku II and destroying on a wide scale is tantalizing.

I'm honestly a big fan of the Dynasty Warriors style of run around and wreck stuff, which I'm sure you're all familiar with by now, so having it on my list should come as no surprise.  And while some will argue that the 'quality' of the gameplay is not there, or is at least dwarfed by that found in Shadows of the Damned or Sonic Generations, I say it's the gameplay that strikes more with me, hence its spot.  Quite simply, being able to store up Special Attack gauges for Wing Zero's Beam Cannon and then blasting hundreds of dummy suits to oblivion in a snap via a broad swath of destruction is something that cannot and will not get old no matter how many times I do it.  Similarly so with DeathScythe Hell's simple slice-through attack; strong enough to demolish most Mobile Suits with that single strike he makes, it's quite entertaining to unleash on someone intent on ruining your day.

So that's 12 to 9 for my Games of the Year 2011.  It was rather difficult actually getting the list put together as I've inferred, and three of these four games were fairly difficult to place, but I'm pretty happy with how it is.  Again, by no means does a game's spot at number 9 mean that I think the game at number 5 is objectively better, but when presented with numbers to assign, that's just kind of what you have to do.  Tomorrow will obviously bring numbers 8 to 5 and hopefully will be a little easier to write than tonights, though I suspect it won't.

Listen Up, Pendejos!

Garcia Fucking Hotspur is in town to wreck everybody's shit.  At least, that's how I felt when I started playing Shadows of the Damned earlier today.  Yes, it's a new year, but the nominations over at PA haven't gone up (which is a little suspicious and disheartening) so everything I get in before that point (Or, like, the 9th when I made my first post in the series of GotY posts last year) I'm counting towards last year played.  It's sort of cheating, I know, but damnit, I can't not count Shadows of the Damned (and Sonic Generations, which I'm likely going to try out tomorrow) towards GotY after playing it since I haven't voted/made my list quite yet.  It's that good which just makes me all the more excited for Lollipop Chainsaw that just had a new (sort of annoying to watch) trailer go up.

I do have my complaints, but they're fairly negligible and I've eliminated one fairly completely already:  the controls.  As soon as I started in the tutorial (which was fantastic, btw) and I started aiming, I went, "ohhh nooooooo" because I started flashing back to RE4.  I have just never been able to find RE4's aiming controls 'precise' by any measure of the word, which means my cursor just sort of flies around, which means I can't do well at the game.  While Shadows of the Damned is inherently better than RE4 (I was going to add the quantifier of "in this department" here but, nah) for allowing you to move while aiming it still had the same fly-around, loose aiming that I'd come to loathe.  So I had to do what I've never done in a game (in recent knowledge) and go into the sensitivity and adjust it to waaaaaay down, I think to the two bar point.  It's a -lot- better now.  Once the game gave me a melee option on top of that....yeah.  I'm good.  It's good.

The voice-work is quite enjoyable, even going into the endearing range at certain points (storybook time with Johnson, for example) and I have no real complaints with that so far, aside from the fact that the animations don't always quite match them.  Which is not so much a problem with the VA as it is with the animation department, obviously, but a disconnect between the two bears mentioning them both.  For a moment, I didn't even notice Steve Blum starring as Steve Blum starring as Garcia Hotspur, which I think says a lot for his work in the game.  Sure, you know it's him eventually, but at the start, you just get to enjoy the accent for what it is and even after you get that, even if you're trying to think of all the other roles you've heard him in.  His banter/exposition with Johnson as you go on is quite nice as well - very funny and enjoyable without coming off as too forced, despite Johnson being your tutorial vessel for the start of the game which I'm still in.

What I'm most surprised about is the general atmosphere the game has, as it's quite honestly schizophrenic....but in a good way.  The banter and such between Garcia and Johnson distract from the fact that you're playing a game that can actually unnerve you at points, like when you stop to take a look at just where in the hell (pun not intended) you are only to realize that there's a pile of corpses nearby or a hellish bramble growing up out of the ground, looking a distinct blood color.  Or, as per a moment earlier that managed to completely take away my grin and replace it with a slight unnerving feeling, when I went down an inclined road to get some ammo and was followed by a compliment of rolling, groaning severed heads, of which I didn't realize what they were until I stopped and went back down to double-check on them.  It's a nice blend, I think, and one I'm pretty interested in following further.

Something else I have to say for the game is that either I'm just really good at it, or it is really intuitive with showing what it wants you to do without outright telling you first, obviously waiting to see if you need a bit of friendly advice before shoving it down your throat.  I've had two boss fights so far (though I suspect the first was just a mini-boss) and with both, it was easy enough to look at them and figure out exactly what I needed to do with them both.  I actually felt like the game taught me its mechanics without telling me them which is something we're sadly lacking these days.  Without giving too much away, after exposing the weak points of both bosses I fought against, the second reminded me of the first for a very obvious reason, which let me know to start shooting it, which I think is just what we need.  No hand-holding, no "Okay, this is what you have to do, don't forget to breathe..." levels of over-exposure, just the game sitting back in its chair and watching you play it, looking to see if you struggle before letting you know "Hey, you need to do this." and reclining back once more.  This might change later on, but I'm fairly impressed with it currently which is a statement that goes through for pretty much the entire rest of the game.

On the whole, I've just really enjoyed Shadows of the Damned even for what little I've played of it, and I'm fairly glad that I've skewed my own system to let it into the runnings for my GotY.  Not sure where it's going to be placed (nor am I sure about any of the other games, this is going to be really damn difficult) but it's going in there somewhere.  And aside from that, it's just a really good game, obviously, that I'm glad I decided to throw in despite wanting to destroy thousands of Mobile Suits with DeathScythe Hell some more.  Because goddamn, DeathScythe Hell is badass.  But that's a conversation for another day, obviously, as this has been Shadows of the Damned time.

Too Many Games

 

It's about that time again.  Fall time, that is; when everyone starts staying inside more and more, and as such, game developers release more games to give you more reasons to stay inside.  And I am just....just not ready at all.  I had wanted to start a backloggery for the longest time to get this all sorted, but for a while there, it was unavailable for new registrants while the guy running it updated the servers and dealt with some health issues at the same time.  I imagine he's gotten over them, as a little while ago, I noticed the site was back, but I hadn't ever bothered to register.

Well, at least until about five minutes or so ago.  Off the top of my head, I could think of 18 19 21 22 (would you believe that I've thought of more games this many times during the typing of this post?) games which are shown in my profile I have to finish, and that's without really going and looking at my stack.  That....that is a lot of gaming.  I might change a couple of those to Null (Like PSP2) since I'll likely be playing them for a time longer without really figuring on a 'complete' goal, but for the most part, these are games that I haven't even started, much less put anything resembling completion into.

It's.....it's difficult.  My main issue right now, in all honesty, is my PS3.  I do not trust the thing.  I feel like it's on its last legs for some reason (most of that being that whenever I turn it off after playing Darksiders, it does the three-beep "I was still doing stuff, you jerk" turn off, which, no, it is -not- doing stuff, the light isn't blinking) and honestly, if it breaks, I don't know what the hell I'll do.  I don't really have the cash to shell out for another $170 replacement, much less spend $250 on a brand-new one.  If I had $250 to spend, it'd be in an account labeled "Playstation Vita" anyways.  Given that I've been jerked around by a YLOD already and the bullshit accompanying it, it's not a thing I would like to go through again, and with summer being as hot as it is, I don't want to tempt that fate once more.

Is it any more avoidable by not enjoying my PS3 for the simple pleasure of looking at it and saying "Well, it's not broken at the moment"?  I'm not willing to say it is, really, since I hate not playing it.  And while I've had a few bouts of "Fuck it, come what may", with the fall/holiday crunch coming up, I can't really afford to be that gung-ho.  But on the other hand, I can't exactly afford to just let all these games that I paid for sit unplayed when there's just going to be more coming out that I will buy and, I guess, not play.  Thus, the Sisyphus image above.

I guess the upside is that my list of games I'm looking forward to with any sort of certainty of purchasing is rather short at the moment.  Then again, I haven't done a lot of research.  But I know that I'll have to track down Dynasty Warriors 7:  Xtreme Legends, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection, and the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.  Of course, the Zone of the Enders HD Collection is on my radar as well, but it's release seems a little less tangibly close than MGS'.  I'm sure there's plenty of other games that I want, but I'm reasonably sure, out of all the releases coming out relatively soon that these are the ones I 'need'.

And of course, this is neglecting the fact that there are games already out there that I 'need', off the top of my head, Dead Space 2 and Catherine, which I -would- like to purchase and play at least one of those before the end of the year, as my list of games that I've played from 2011 is....well, not up to par, and doing a top ten Games of the Year for 2011 series of posts will be a little difficult if I don't have 10 games from 2011 played!  (I think I'm up to six or seven currently.  Btw, did you know Ghost Trick was released this year?  I didn't, until I started thinking about the games I'd played this year.  I have -no- idea where it's going to place.)

There are worse things to complain about, I suppose.  But still, this is rather unfortunate!  Hopefully with the backloggery and Fall (and with it, colder temperatures) coming, I'll be able to kick my gaming into a higher gear and get through this list.  And now that you have the link, you'll be able to follow along as well!  I guess.  If...y'know, that interests you.