Alien Swarm PC

Free. Good and free. A fantastic co-op game with a lot to offer to the community in terms of custom made levels and items created by the community on the engine. Visually the game is fine. Nothing outstanding and nothing disappointing. And again. Free. If you don’t have this game by now get it. I don’t see why you shouldn’t. If only to see it.

Hard drive Worthiness – 6.5/10

Alpha Protocol PC

An experience. It has what I feel is the best conversation HUD out of all the RPG type games I’ve played so far.  Experience-wise though Alpha Protocol was greatly lacking, and it sucks that Obsidian Entertainment got as much of the shaft as they did from SEGA. Hopefully they have found a better home in Bethesda, though from what I’ve seen and heard they are still very fledgling as a company. Alpha is one of those bargain bin games thats worth a look at a reduced price.

Hard drive Worthiness – 4.9/10

APB PC

I said this game was crap when I beta’d it. I was told off by fans despite my experience with MMOs and what makes them fail. Release day came and went and so too did APB. Its been picked up by a company that feels it can “save” it. We’ll see. I will say still that the art department for APB was incredible though. Much props and I hope the concept artists do well in their futures.

Hard drive Worthiness – 1.1/10

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 PC

I played the crap out of this game. Loved it in it’s early build and was great at it. The strategies, team play, weapons load outs. I loved all of it despite a lot of the issues PC side that made the game break due to EA’s servers. Then they patched it. Then they patched it again. And one more time. And again. The game I loved was gone. Handed to people with a need to be overpowered and not require class play. The more I played the worse I felt. Like watching a close pet bleed to death slowly. It made me angry and sad to a degree I didn’t think I could feel. Now the expansion is out and I’m being told its back to the way it was, but screw that. All it takes is a patch and my money I spent won’t be worth it.

Hard drive Worthiness – 4.2/10

Blacklight: Tango Down PC

LOL

Hard drive Worthiness – 1.0/10

Blur PS3

A bunch of racers came out this year and I played most of them. I did not like Blur. The way everything felt more mechanical than fluid really made me hate playing it. I will say I usually don’t like racers anyway. Just throwing that out there.

Hard drive Worthiness – 3.7/10

Deathspank PC

I have always enjoyed quirky games. Specifically things along the lines of Tim Schafer games like Psyconaughts and other Double Fine productions. Deathspank started to get me there but it always felt like something was missing. Some grander notion that would have put the game up on the pedestal of different that I wish more games would strive for. Deathspank by no means was another complete wash, rinse, repeat of former titles but it really didn’t push the envelope as far as it could have. At least in my opinion.

Hard drive Worthiness – 6.9/10

Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance PC

I was going to write a full review for this but then I realized I had no pictures for it and had gone to the end. I couldn’t bring myself to another round of play since I pushed myself to do as many quests as possible the first time through and had scoured every inch of Divinity II’s world. Considering the vast amount of other games I had to play there was no way I was doing that again. Divinity II was a good experience though. Specifically the Flames of Vengeance release (also known as The Dragon Knight saga) due to its revamp of the first part of the series. I’ve always admired studios that go back and increase the quality of the original and release more content all in one package and make it easily accessible to people who owned the game prior by reducing its cost, and at that I have to give it to Larian Studios for doing a good job.

Hard drive Worthiness – 7.2/10

Dragon Age: Origins (Awakening (kinda)) PC

Maybe I should have bought this game right away and stuck with it. Probably shouldn’t have waited for the whole package to go on sale. I feel that with how much people hyped the game up for me that I’m tainted. I can’t stop focusing on the bad and writing the good off as something that has already been done anyway. For me the game was not visually stunning, the character choices were actually quite shallow and the dialog was not as intuitive as people led me to believe.  Visually The Witcher was better in my opinion. Character choice creation still goes to Titan Quest for me as well and the dialog choices in Alpha Protocol were just better. I don’t know. Again maybe its because I work at a game store and had people busting o-faces over this game for the longest time before I got it. Meh….

Hard drive Worthiness – 3.5/10

Global Agenda PC

I don’t know. I hate it and I love it. I do have to hand it to Hi-Rez for being so active with it though. Deciding to go into a f2p model and apparently having it work. Jumping at every chance to make the price appealing and give the community more to do. It is truly a fantastic idea. But the balance last I check was horrible. I guess it truly is one of the meh games of the year for me.

Hard drive Worthiness – 5.2/10

Heroes of Newerth PC

I loved this game model. Played it since the beta release in Warcraft 3 in the form of DotA. I’m glad to see the devs have all found places to go and generate money for their good ideas and S2 Games was a great place to go. The programming work as S2 has always been top notch in my opinion and its good to see it reflected in the quality of game that is Heroes of Newerth, even if I fell out of it.

Hard drive Worthiness – 8.8/10

Just Cause 2 PC

To me this game is an engine test. Something to show off the engine used to other developers and to potential sources of funding. The story, voice acting and overall terrain development was far to simple to be a polished game, but conceptualizing what the engine can be used for in other titles really got my mind running. The “what if”s were flying around while I was playing. This engine in a Monster Hunter game. This engine refined to make a GTA in which every building was accessible. Things like that. But as a stand alone Just Cause 2 was not really fun or impressive with how it used the engine itself. Potential not matching product.

Hard drive Worthiness – 4.7/10

Mafia II PC

Got this on the cheap as well. I felt that the story didn’t need the engine it was on. The minor details were all there to draw you into the game. Snow settling on the tops of cars. The highly destroyable terrain. A lot of stuff that didn’t need the engine meant for large area rendering. The story was so focused and fast paced that there really wasn’t a reason to look at other stuff, but the things you were exposed to were very amazing along the way regardless. A solid purchase.

Hard drive Worthiness – 7.2/10

Metro 2033 PC

One of the first true DX11 games in my mind. An intense visual display along side a very solid story all held together by what felt like a well tuned machine of an engine. 4A brought the vision that GSR started to a new level. I hope the people at GSR really get their shit together after seeing what this programmer from 4A was able to do with their base concept of rendering and lighting. As for Metro 2033, it may have flown under the radar but the spit shine polish it brought with it has it deserving so much more attention.

Hard drive Worthiness – 9.6/10

Mount & Blade: Warband PC

Something about foreign soil games this year. Its like the companies try harder to impress on a limited supply of tech. Mound & Blade Warband carries this feel. The seemingly limitless amount of gameplay functions give it something most games forget to do. Give the player a ton of options and shit to do at any time. In 600 days of in game time you can become a king in your own kingdom. Marry into a leadership role and show your country just how powerful you can make it. Be a mercenary hunted by countries that wish to use you to turn the tides of war. Hold kings hostage or turn their families against them. M&B gives Tale Worlds slapping rights against any company with more power behind them putting out lesser games in my honest opinion.

Hard drive Worthiness – 9.7/10

NBA Jam Wii

I was never part of the nostalgia group for this title. Even so, I was able to pick it up and learn it. That was the best part about classic titles like this. Anyone can learn if they have 10 minutes to spare. A good way to kill time but I have no plans to take it to a professional level.

Hard drive Worthiness – 7.3/10

Poker Night at the Inventory PC

Cheap, and I’ve always wanted a poker game of some kind. Its good to see familiar faces in it, too. All in all a well devised product.

Hard drive Worthiness – 7.3/10

Resonance of Fate PS3

First thought on this was “finally a JRPG that I can really get into.” That is about where I was for as much of the game that I went through. So what if the story is disjointed. It plays like how Cowboy Beebop was written. In episodes. And it worked for the stylization of everything.

Hard drive Worthiness – 7.5/10

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom PC

This was one of the first RTS games I got into that wasn’t about micro managing an army more than anything else. This was an economic and political RTS, and it was a welcome reprieve to the Dawn of Wars and the Starcrafts out there. And this is one of those hella’ hard to master games that you can actually enjoy mastering.

Hard drive Worthiness – 8.2/10

Split Second: Velocity PS3

Probably the only racing game in years that I am truly able to stomach. I prefer this over the power up type games because the powers in this are based completely around skill. Drifting, drafting, avoidance. You have to have skill to gain power as opposed to pick the right power up and just win. A truly well done racer title for people who aren’t more into the flawless simulation aspect of racing.

Hard drive Worthiness – 6.9/10

Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty PC

I got this for free soooooo… ya. I feel Blizzard has alienated me enough. From firing their Diablo team, to only ever recycling fan boy titles, to stealing their RTS concepts almost directly from Games-Workshop, to screwing my class in WoW over, saying it was working as intended for months on end then going back on their guns and saying they did mess up a long time ago and not actually fixing it. Fuck you Blizzard. Then you had to go and sell your soul to Activision. Lord of the poor business sense. Again. Fuck you Blizzard. Though Star Craft II brought back a little nostalgia, it wasn’t enough to let me forgive you. Maybe Diablo 3, though the taste of you screwing over Blizzard North is still fresh in my mouth.

Hard drive Worthiness – 6.5/10

Super Street Fighter IV PS3 X360

Its Street Fighter. What do you want me to say. It has a couple new characters and it even brought back some old favorites. More to come as well. It has a great community, too. There you have it.

Hard drive Worthiness – 8.3/10

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars Wii

Loved it. Honestly this made my Wii worth it. One of my favorite fighting games out there. Granted the American release removed some things I loved in the Japanese release, like the use of character themes when the fighters swapped out. But the characters that were added in over here made the game fantastic. Tat v Cap is also one of the few games on the Wii that has a proper match making set up, though lag and lack of people playing online is a huge problem.

Hard drive Worthiness – 8.5/10

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising PC

A truly fantastic expansion to a great IP. I’ve always respected Relic for making this work. As a fan of the table top game, I’ve always wanted a proper iteration in the RTS world and this seems to be it. The original DoW, though fun, had a ton of faults that took me out of the game, but with this new release focusing more on combat than base micro, I find myself engrossed in everything about it. Plus it brings a survival mode to the table and with the next expansion, a massive increase in story mode. In summation… WIN.

Hard drive Worthiness – 8.8/10

Worms: Reloaded PC

Nostalgia-game-of-the-year. So that makes this more personal than global. Keep that in mind with my scoring. Worms works. I love the local play. I love the online with friends. I love the unlockables. I love the customizable game types. I love the new weapons. All in all this is one of my favorite games to have seen remade.

Hard drive Worthiness – 8.4/10

In Summation

A fairly mediocre year, however the highlight moments had a good amount of impact on my gaming life.

The year 2010 as a good time for a gamer to come out of a coma – 7.9/10

After Bioware snuck the new DLC for Dragon Age: Origins onto XBL yesterday, they had to pull it after finding out that the new DLC  seems to cause specialization classes to not work correctly. BioWare’s Chris Priestly explains the situation in the forums.

No word on if this also affects the PC and PS3 version of the DLC but Chris assures everyone that Bioware is working on a fix for the issue and should be done soon.

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, BioWare’s next thread in the Dragon Age: Origins tapestry, occurs following the events of Dragon Age: Origins and puts players into the role of a Grey Warden Commander entrusted with rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens. In addition to rebuilding the ranks of the Grey Wardens, you will be tasked with uncovering the mystery of how the darkspawn survive after the slaying of the Archdemon. How players choose to rebuild their order, resolve the conflict with the mysterious “Architect,” and determine the fate of the darkspawn are just some of the many intriguing moral choices that will shape each player’s heroic journey. Players will be able to import their character from Dragon Age: Origins or start out as a new Grey Warden from the neighboring land of Orlais.

“Awakening” will be released March 16, 2010 on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and PC for $39.99  and will require Dragon Age: Origins to play. Kind of odd that this is announced right after the DLC “Return to Ostagar” was delayed until further notice. It was suppose to be released Jan 5th, 2010.