Games of 2011

My favorite game of the year was Catherine. It had an interesting story, great music, and unique and challenging puzzle gameplay. Runner up goes to Portal 2, which was incredibly well executed, although not as groundbreaking as the original. I give a loving nod to Bastion for its gorgeous graphics and sound and tight gameplay, despite not being a big fan of dungeon crawlers.

The least fun I had with a game this year was Monkey Island 2 Special Edition. By increasing the number of areas and items over the original, it made the puzzles even more obscure and frustrating. Toward the end, I was looking up solutions regularly just so I could be done with it.

It was a year of replays! I replayed Silent Hill 2, Machinarium, Portal, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and World of Goo. The latter three were ports from the originals, which I also previously played, but they were all essentially the same game.

I finally finished Patapon and Metroid: Other M, which were started in previous years, and I found both to be fairly enjoyable. I recall neither of them grabbing me originally, so I guess sometimes you just need to put a game aside if you're not feeling it.

Out of the 23 games I obtained this year, 16 (70%) were downloaded! This is up from 60% in 2010 and 47% in 2009. I hope this trend continues so I don't run out of space for my games!

inFAMOUS, WipEout HD, Pursuit Force, and LittleBigPlanet (PSP) were free from Sony after the PlayStation network hacking and subsequent downtime. Atom Zombie Smasher and Tales from Space: About a Blob were unexpected freebies from the PAX exhibition hall. Toss those aside and I would have beaten more games than I obtained, but I can't deny the reality that I did not.