Game of the Year 2011 // Batman: Arkham City

The "Game of the Year" award goes to the game that had me hooked harder than any other game last year. If I wasn't playing this game, I was thinking about it. It made other games look lazy and deserves to be recognized as the best game of the year.

I've beaten Batman: Arkham City twice. I've done all the side missions—twice—and perfected all the challenge maps. I've cleared out every rotten corner and dank alleyway of Arkham City, yet I'm still eager to get back in there and do it all over again. If you were to suggest that I'm as obsessed with Batman as Hugo Strange himself, well, you'd probably be right.

That shouldn't be too much of a surprise. After all, Batman: Arkham Asylum was my Game of the Year for 2009. It redefined the stealth genre, set a new standard for melee combat, and shattered expectations for what a licensed game can deliver.

And yet Arkham City is even better. Here's why:

You Can Counter Multiple Guys At Once

If I had to identify the single coolest thing about Arkham City, it'd be that Batman can now simultaneously counter up to three attacks. So let's say you're in a fight and you spot two guys about to hit you at the same time; just tap the counter button twice and Batman will brutally rebuff both of them in one swift, violent motion. It's simple, but so satisfying.

But countering multiple enemies at once is just one of many excellent refinements to the combat formula from Asylum. It feels like Batman has a dozen new moves in City, and all of them are awesome. Watching Batman completely dismantle an assault rifle in about one second flat, or punch a dude's face through the window of a car door he was using as a riot shield, or grabbing a guy's metal pipe and bending it in half in front of him is always ridiculously badass.

The melee combat in Arkham City is easily the best melee combat in any game, ever. Even Arkham Asylum.

Now Batman Can Fly

Open-world games often live and die by how fun it is to just mess around in their environments. Put simply: if all you want to do between missions is get to the next mission, there's a problem. Arkham City doesn't have that problem. I burned a disgusting number of hours perching on gargoyles and combing through alleyways, popping Joker balloons and beating up dudes, or doing nothing in particular really, just flying around aimlessly.

Chalk that up to the brilliant flight mechanics that feel like a hybrid of the cape power-up in Super Mario World and the parachute and grappling hook combination from Just Cause 2. Batman can glide, dive toward the ground, and use his grapnel gun to latch onto then boost past structures to maintain speed. It's exhilarating, the kind of mechanic that takes practice to master, but once you have, it becomes second-nature.

A lot of games last year had excellent traversal mechanics, but nothing compared to the raw thrill of hurtling toward the ground at breakneck speeds before pulling up at the last second and soaring away.

Interrogating Dudes, or "Swear To Me!"

The Riddler's a crafty guy. No doubt about that. But Batman is craftier: Riddler leaves diabolical puzzles all over the city; Batman solves them. Riddler plants informants in all the gangs; Batman systematically hunts them down and punches the information out of them. Such is the way of life in Arkham.

It didn't matter what I was already doing; I always stopped to interrogate a Riddler informant if I spotted one. It just satisfied some kind of raw, primal urge in me to dive bomb into a group of thugs, surgically take out everyone but the informant, then lunge and grab him by the throat to begin a friendly chat.

Same with the puzzles. There are an absurd amount of riddles to solve, and I happily completed every single one of them. They weren't just mindless collectables, either. Each represented a unique mental obstacle to overcome, another extremely personal challenge from the Riddler. Real care and craft was put into making the Riddler's influence felt in Arkham City, and it shows.

Batman Has The Coolest Villains

And I don't even think that's debatable, either. From the Riddler's insufferable arrogance to Mr. Freeze's calculated fury to the Joker's chaotic anarchy, Arkham City delivers the best roster of villains in any video game to date as far as I'm concerned.

The sharp writing and outstanding performances from the whole cast play a big role in that. Hugo Strange, especially, is truly diabolical, with his calm, sinister voice demanding that Batman examine his own role in all the madness happening in Gotham: "Your presence creates these animals."

The best part is how Arkham City embraces just how different each villain is. Everyone is a unique threat that must be dealt with accordingly, and each villain challenges Batman in a new way, pushing him further toward the brink. The boss fights in Arkham Asylum were easily the worst parts of that game, but in Arkham City, they're some of the best.

It's Just So Goddamn Fun

And this is where Arkham City absolutely demolishes all competition. There were a lot of fantastic games last year, but none of them had me hooked as hard as this one did, and it all comes down to how unbelievably well-executed the entire experience is.

It didn't matter how many times I told myself that I'd only play for a little while, do a mission or two, then stop — I was always in for the long haul. I hungrily consumed whatever content the game could throw at me until there was simply nothing left to consume, so I started all over again. I blew off class, friends, and work in my relentless, obsessive pursuit to clean the streets of Arkham. I lost sleep and skipped meals. And you know what?

I regret nothing.

If you want to hear how I chose Batman: Arkham City, you can download my deliberation process, subscribe with iTunes, or listen to it below:

Runners-up: inFAMOUS 2, Dead Space 2

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Game of the Year 2010 // Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

The "Game of the Year" award goes to the game that had me hooked harder than any other game last year. If I wasn't playing this game, I was thinking about it. It made other games look lazy and deserves to be recognized as the best game of the year.

This time last year, had you asked me what I thought my Game of the Year would end up being, I'd have scoffed and said, "What a ridiculous question. You do realize that God of War III comes out this year, right?" And yet here I am, giving the award to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, a game everyone thought would be just a lazy cash-in.

Anyone that knows anything about me is aware of my unhealthy love for Kratos and his everlasting rage. So... what happened? Well, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was a better game; that's what happened.

Holy shit that game was awesome.

So what was it that made Brotherhood stand out? Why was it so much better than every other game released in 2010? Glad you asked.

It Was The Boldest and Most Ambitious

On the surface, Brotherhood looks like an incredibly unambitious, uninspired game. It's set in the same time period as the last game and stars the same character, which initially seems like a betrayal of the franchise's core tenets. But those are such petty gripes when you consider how bold the game was in every other way.

Faster, better combat. Crazy new gadgets like poison darts and parachutes. The ability to leave the Animus any time you want. Challenge rooms. Recruiting, managing, and fighting alongside other Assassins. Multiplayer. Everything that happens in the last hour of the story.

Really, for such a big-budget game, it's shocking (and more than a little refreshing) how many risks it took. No other game last year felt this ambitious.

It Had The Coolest, Smartest Multiplayer

I'll be honest: most multiplayer games just don't seem to do it for me. They're too mindless and don't encourage style. Not to mention that I think playing against other humans is an incredibly overrated experience. It just feels like an empty experience, lacking the sense of purpose that a single-player campaign offers.

Brotherhood's multiplayer is unexpected, innovative, and fresh. It brilliantly slows the pace down dramatically, forcing you to play with flair and craft an interesting experience for both yourself and your victim. It's not just about whether or not you killed an opponent, but how.

That sense of purpose I've been craving is there, and the paranoia of knowing that unseen enemies are hunting you down is exhilarating, whether or not you're the one with the controller in your hand. It's everything I've wanted from multiplayer games lately.

It Was The Most Empowering

I don't care how awesome your customized gun was in Black Ops or just how "unleashed" your Force powers were, you simply cannot beat Ezio's finger.

Now, I don't mind feeling weak in video games; in fact, I often prefer it. It's usually much more interesting to play as a weak character than a stereotypical, overpowered badass. But when Brotherhood offers the ability to whistle and point at someone, then have your Assassin pupils appear out of nowhere to kill them, it's hard to argue.

The gutsy move to switch from flying solo like in previous games in the series to rolling with a crew of fellow killers really paid off. And so did the quicker, more brutal combat that made Ezio seem more like the bubonic plague than a mere Assassin.

It Was The Most Addictive

That burning tower represents my free time.

Even if I was only planning to play Brotherhood for a little while, I still made sure that the next couple hours of my schedule were clear. There's always something to do that's just around the corner, whether that's another shop to renovate, a side mission to take on, a flag off in the distance to collect, Assassin recruits to send on missions, viewpoints to get, towers to burn, etc.

And it's all really fun.

Brotherhood doesn't care that you have a life outside it. And you know what? Neither did I. It kept me up late at night and early in the morning. If I didn't outright skip class to play it, I spent the time thinking up multiplayer strategies. It's a stunning example of how to make an open world feel full.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood hooked me harder than any game last year, and that's why it's my Game of the Year for 2010.

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Game of the Year 2009 // Batman: Arkham Asylum

I don't think it's possible to truly convey how obsessed I was with this game. If I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about it. I skipped meals; I lost sleep. I remember starting a session as the sun was just starting to set and ending it because I noticed the sun was just starting to rise. My roommates would loudly discuss whether to give me an intervention or just kick me out and replace me with someone less nerdy.

So what is it that made this game so addictive?

It Had The Best Combat

Punching dudes in the face in Arkham Asylum feels as polished and satisfying as jumping in Super Mario Bros. or shooting in Modern Warfare. It's in the way Batman leaps to your next target to keep combat flowing seamlessly and quickly. It's how responsive the whole system is, allowing you to counter incoming hits even if you're mid-combo. It's how those combos are based around reflexes and intuition rather than rote memorization. It's how Batman's boot sounds as it smashes into somebody's teeth.

Even though Batman can't shoot electricity out of his hands or turn his arm into a tentacle blade or even kill two guys at once with hidden blades, he still ended up feeling like 2009's most powerful character.

It Reinvented Stealth

I'm usually a bigger fan of the idea of stealth in games rather than the execution. There's something supremely rewarding about taking everybody out without being seen, but most stealth games are just so boring or make you feel so weak or are so shoddily put together that it's usually not even worth it. But Batman does stealth in a way that other games don't: You are the aggressor. You are the predator. You aren't hiding because you have to; you're hiding because it scares your enemies that they don't know where you are.

I'm completely confident in saying that Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best stealth game ever made.

It Created The Best World

Every year, we get one virtual world that stands head and shoulders above the rest, embedding so much life and history into the very walls themselves that they become a fully realized character. In 2007, it was BioShock's Rapture; in 2008, it was Dead Space's USG Ishimura. Now it's Arkham Asylum.

It's a world that feels like it existed before you got there. It feels like Arkham Asylum. You can see Wayne Enterprises off in the distance. There are old passageways only Batman knows about. There are patient interviews and biographies littered everywhere. There's evidence of almost every villain having been there at some point. My reaction upon stumbling across Calendar Man's cell? Pure joy.

Not even Renaissance Italy felt this real, and that place was real.

It Was An Awesome Batman Story

Oh, man. There were so many great moments in this game. Remember when Batman tells Bane he's going to break him this time? Or when you find out that Batman made a second Batcave? Or the party that Joker throws for Batman? Or the Scarecrow stuff? Dude, the Scarecrow stuff.

To top it all off, the stars aligned with the voice cast to remind us how amazing the Kevin Conroy vs. Mark Hamill matchup is. And boy, is it.

It Was The Most Fun

I played it, then I played it again. I perfected all the challenges, then created new challenges for myself. I solved all the riddles and found all the Riddler trophies. I played the extra Joker content and the free DLC maps. I earned that Platinum Trophy. I have seen and done everything that game has to offer, and yet, I still want to go back and play it all over again.

No other game put a stupid grin on my face like Batman: Arkham Asylum did, and that's why it's my Game of the Year for 2009.

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