Year in Review: This time it’s personal

In my previous Christmas articles I’ve been presenting a purely “news” focussed retrospective on what has pretty genuinely been a bumper year for games. I tried to keep my own views separate from the actual stories but this article is where I’m going to make things personal. 2011 is probably the year that I’ve played the most new games (due to my obligation as a reviewer) and my first full year with the increased insight into the industry that I’ve gained while doing this gig. It’s certainly made things differently but ultimately, unlike the feeling I generally get from some of the my more seasoned peers at major sites, I still feel pretty good about things.

The two events that got under my skin the most were probably E3 and the VGA’s but these things always get under my skin since they generally tend to be really stupid. E3 was tiring because of the nature of the games being revealed; that said I am hopeful that shooter fatigue might lesson after a year which saw the runaway success of L.A. Noire and Skyrim. Aside from Mr. Caffeine the actual show had some cool moments. I’ve periodically thrown on that Bioshock Infinite trailer in the months since June and, at the very least, Mr. Caffeine gave us something to laugh about.

The VGA ceremony was frustrating, embarrassing and inspired some genuine anger but then I have a feeling that absolutely everything on the Spike network would do the same to me. They show/make that shitty program where the IRA fought the Taliban in a car park for Christ’s sake. I also hate the Oscars but that’s primarily because I don’t really like falseness and being bored. Some sort of middle ground seems to be what people want. I can’t really see that pleasing anyone though. Gamers would still say it didn’t put enough of a focus on the industry and people outside of the enthusiast crowd wouldn’t know who most of the people on stage were. The VGA’s were fucking terrible but don’t think it’s something that’s easy to fix or going to miraculously become better next year, especially when they are still on that network.

I also played Duke Nukem Forever and have this to say: if you slapped that alien boob and then laughed or laughed after the game nonchalantly kills off dozens of female characters in service of a lame rape joke, then I hate you and your knuckle dragging outlook on life. That game was a disaster and everyone involved should feel dreadful about letting it see the light of day. It’s not funny, it’s not good and it’s a bastardisation of a game that revolutionised a genre while still being edgy and funny without pandering to lowest possible common denominator. The gameplay and graphics were piss poor too. Fuck Duke Nukem Forever.

Now that those horrible things are out of the way: I really meant it when I said that I think 2011 was an amazing year. When you make up a personal GOTY list and find yourself cutting games like Dead Space 2, Resistance 3, Mortal Kombat, Forza 4, The Witcher 2, L.A. Noire and Batman Arkham City then you know it was a busy time. And those were just the excellent games, there were a ton of good games floating around too. I will now write a bit about my favourite 2011 games but will leave out Uncharted 3 and Bastion since both experiences rely so heavily on scripted stories that I wouldn’t feel right spoiling in any way. Both are amazing games and Bastion deserves special credit since it’s a debut game from a new studio.

Though Skyrim has come to dominate my affections I still can’t forget picking up my review copy of Portal 2 at ten in the morning in a Dublin car-park (that sounds very shady but it wasn’t) after a long and stressful shift in work. I got home and played until I was literally too tired to stay awake before doing the same after another exhausting shift the next day. I got hopelessly stuck on puzzles that would have been easy for a brain with adequate sleep but it all just added to the light strain of melancholy that I think underpins the humour of the Portal games. The situations Chell finds herself in are terrible and they definitely felt that way to me. Add in the amazing characters of Wheatley, GlaDos and Cave Johnson and you have an experience that kept me completely entranced from start to finish. One of my favourite moments from the year was hearing faint strains of the National’s “Exile/Vilify” before stumbling into the room where the song plays: fantastic.

When it comes to Deus Ex I tend to be pretty cynical. Given just how high the bar set by the original is and just how spectacularly the games abysmal sequel missed that bar I didn’t have high hopes for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I am really glad that I was totally wrong. While it doesn’t hit the same heights as the original it comes frighteningly close on some occasions. The most impressive thing about the game is that it never gave off the impression of desperately mirroring the original in the hopes of arousing nostalgic favour from fans. It does nod to the first game on occasion but does so with restraint and poise all while telling a good story and constructing it’s own unique game world. Eidos Montreal deserve more recognition for this game than they received at the time.

Skyrim. What an incredible game. I am ninety hours in and only at level 37 and still a few missions from clearing the games main quest. I’ve just been kind of milling about looking around and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down. Something that game has been rewarding me for. It’s also slowly emerged that I have single-handedly been conspiring to ruin a wedding for the whole course of my character. It all began when I encountered a haughty imperial when I was still a low-level joke running around in skins with a scavenged bow and a few rusty arrows.

The Imperial spoke down to me about his wealth and ties to the Emperor,. I was short on cash and knew I would need some to start lancing out further into the world from Whiterun. I shot him, his wife and his guard down on a quiet road and looted their corpses. I strode off in my new imperial leathers laden down with gifts intended for a bride in some city I had never heard of before. Instead they would be sold to a shop and exchanged for a shiny new bow. The bow I used to kill my first few dragons.

A few hours later and I was set upon by thugs sent by the son of the people I had killed. They carried a note decrying me as a thief and murderer. By now I was well on my way to becoming THE thief but still had relatively little innocent blood on my hands. Several more hours later I become embroiled in a conspiracy to fleece an import/export company. The same import/export company that was being run by a woman who told me she was the emperors cousin and just days from being a blushing bride!

I’d like to think that moments before I crept onto the balcony from which she was addressing her wedding guests and slit her throat (on the orders of a fraternity of assassin’s I had joined) that the news of her companies ruin and guests death reached her. By now I was a master thief, a werewolf, had been a vampire, frequent dragonslayer and a rising assassin. I still haven’t even saved the world yet.

None of this was planned by the game. Any one of those steps happening out of sequence ruins that story but I have that experience because Skyrim never presumed that it knew better than it’s world on what I would like to see. That ruined wedding and dead bride is the reason that I firmly believe that Skyrim is a vitally important game, not to mention an extremely fun one. My favourite from this year and probably many years.

Aside from the actual games themselves this year saw me become a part of the sites pod cast and then televsion show. Both of these experiences are great fun and are essentially both licences to talk shit about games with a group of really nice and funny people. Long may we get the opportunity to do both. In much the same way press junkets are a great way to play new games and feel really tired in a big group of really nice and funny people. 2011 was a year where I realised I was really lucky to be doing this. Oh, and Infamous 2 is only above average and has a bad story – thanks! Happy New Year!