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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Best Surprise 2011 // inFAMOUS 2

The "Best Surprise" award goes to the game that didn't have a lot of hype behind it but turned out more awesome than anyone could've imagined. It went from being off my radar to taking up all my time.

I loved the first inFAMOUS.

Even after I'd beaten the storyline, I spent hours collecting the last of the scattered Blast Shards and finishing up any leftover side missions. Sometimes I'd just glide around, doing nothing in particular. Maybe I'd blow up a car or three. Maybe I'd do a Thunder Drop off the tallest building I could find. It didn't matter what I was doing, really; I just liked inhabiting Empire City and playing as Cole. Even so, I couldn't bring myself to feel anything more than dread for inFAMOUS 2.

Blame that on the first major reveal for inFAMOUS 2, which showed off a newly revised Cole, swapping out the bald, bland superhero with a gravelly voice for a trendy, tattoo-laden playboy with a cocksure swagger and a seemingly endless supply of clever one-liners, now fighting against the Reapers from Blade 2 with giant lobster claws for arms.

Uh, what?

It only got worse from there. The second major reveal detailed the characters who'd be surrounding Cole on his latest adventure. Even as the developers recognized that Cole's buddy, Zeke, had been one of the worst parts of the first game, they promised that he would still be a major character in the sequel. As well, they showed off the two new ladies in Cole's life, Nix and Kuo, who would represent the newly revamped moral choice system. You see, Nix, a sultry African-American character who wears revealing red leather, keeps her hair in dreadlocks, and has fire powers, would represent "evil," while Kuo, an Asian-American character who wears a business casual suit, is a government agent, and has ice powers, would represent "good."

What's that called, children? Say it with me now: subtlety. Very good!

It honestly felt like the developers at Sucker Punch Studios were trying to burn their own franchise to the ground. It was the only explanation. Then—suddenly!—as if the clouds parted to allow God himself to intervene, Sucker Punch came to its senses. Cole was turned back into that beautiful, bald man we all grew to love (or at least tolerate) in inFAMOUS. Nix and Kuo ended up having much more depth than we could've anticipated. Zeke got a true character overhaul that not only made him bearable, but likable. Even those dumb lobster zombies turned out all right.

But that's not all. inFAMOUS 2 represents a true distillation of everything great about the first game while still layering on smart changes of its own. Take Cole's new Ice Launch power. When he uses it, ice rises from the ground, thrusting him forward higher than he could ever jump normally. It's a satisfying move that removes one more obstacle in the player's exploration of the city. But the true brilliance of the Ice Launch comes with the new electrical wires placed above the street just out of jumping distance, but at the exact height of an Ice Launch. Rather than having to climb up a power line to start Cole's electric grinding, the Ice Launch allows players to simply tap a button and speed away.

It's that kind of brilliant design that led me to call inFAMOUS 2 "one of the most perfect games I have ever played" in my review. Once again, I found myself playing for hours with no real objectives. I'd see how long I could skate along power lines across the city without falling, then test whether or not I could throw a car and tether to it while it's still in the air.

Based on those initial reveals, I thought Sucker Punch had completely lost sight of what made the first game so special. I thought I was going to hate inFAMOUS 2. Instead, it absolutely blew me away and became one of my favorite games of the year. I'm sorry I ever doubted it.

If you want to hear how I chose inFAMOUS 2, you can download my deliberation process, subscribe with iTunes, or listen to it below:

Runners-up: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Catherine

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Most Disappointing 2011 // Mortal Kombat

The "Most Disappointing" award goes to the game that seemed like it was going to be absolutely incredible, but for whatever reason, it just didn't live up to the hype. I was expecting to love this game and instead was completely underwhelmed.

It's really weird to be giving Mortal Kombat, a game I once called "the most fun fighting game ever made," the Most Disappointing award for 2011, but here we are. I guess that's just what happens when you ship a game with broken online play and don't fix it for six months.

When it comes to fighting games, I'm an enthusiastic tourist. I love hearing about all the crazy strategies, watching the pros duke it out in tournaments and sharing the inevitable YouTube clips later on, but unless it has "Street Fighter" in the title, I'm probably not going to be "hardcore" about it.

I got hardcore into Mortal Kombat.

For a while, that's all we played in my apartment. We'd crowd together on the couch, laughing and trash talking and setting up ridiculous matches where we wouldn't know who we'd be playing as or against, or even if our characters would have arms. It became the new go-to party game.

Pretty soon, I found myself on Mortal Kombat strategy forums, figuring out the best combos for my favorite characters, then practicing them for hours in the Practice mode with all the damage percentile and location displays turned on.

Then summer rolled around and I was home again, now without quick access to friends and roommates who wanted to play. I'd been clamoring for a real challenge though, so I was excited to move the fight online. I wasn't excited for very long.

"The online multiplayer experience is one of the worst I've ever had," I wrote in my review. "If you're lucky enough to connect to a match, prepare for an unplayable, unresponsive mess. Lag pervades every aspect of the experience, even the character select screen. The developers keep promising some magical patch to fix everything, but it's already over two months too late for me. As far as I'm concerned, Mortal Kombat doesn't even have online play."

I had reached rock bottom, now finding myself on Mortal Kombat tech support forums, poring over angry posts from other frustrated players all looking for a solution. For me, that solution never came. By the time NetherRealm Studios had finally patched its game up to a working standard, I'd already moved on.

I've heard that the game works online just fine now, but I haven't checked — I haven't touched Mortal Kombat in months. I'm out of practice and I just don't care anymore. If I want to play a fighting game online now, there are much better alternatives, like, say, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition, which plays beautifully online.

[Update 1/13: A friend convinced me to try the online play again. "Just one match," he said. "See if it's changed." So I tried it. I won the match, but the character select screen lagged, the match itself lagged, and even the Fatality animation at the end lagged. And that's while running the latest patch, 1.05. So yeah. Turns out that it's still messed up.]

Offline, Mortal Kombat has no equal. It's the best fighting game in years, hands-down. But that's precisely what made its downright atrocious online play sting so much. There were worse games in 2011, but nothing disappointed me more than trying to play Mortal Kombat online.

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

Runners-up: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Killzone 3

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Most Potential 2011 // L.A. Noire

The "Most Potential" award goes to the game that sounded awesome on paper and had real flashes of brilliance, but could still be so much more. Hopefully this game will get a sequel that can deliver on its promise.

I did not finish L.A. Noire. I made it about halfway through the Arson Desk, which means I'm maybe an hour or two away from finishing the game. But I can tell you right now: I'm never going to finish it.

It completely broke for me after the Homicide Desk, about halfway through the game. I realized how utterly formulaic the game was: You get a case, examine the body, collect evidence that leads to new locations with more clues to find or people to interrogate, and once you've exhausted those, solve the case. Rinse and repeat. Nothing I did felt like it mattered anymore, so eventually, I just stopped.

But until that point, L.A. Noire had been absolutely blowing my goddamn mind. I'd never played anything like it. I was being challenged to think like a real detective, learning how to interpret evidence and use it to either corroborate people's stories or catch them in their lies. I couldn't play it absentmindedly, either, since a sharp eye was always needed to read people's faces during interrogations.

Oh man, those faces.

L.A. Noire broke every other game for me. I simply can't look at other games anymore without thinking about how awful and fake the characters look. The MotionScan technology at work here is astounding, easily single the most impressive thing I saw in a game all year. It uses 32 high-definition cameras to capture every little detail about an actor's face as he performs his part, and the results are stunning. The characters in L.A. Noire actually emote. They look like real people, and that's because they are.

I want that technology in every game I play from now on. In L.A. Noire, it was an essential part of the game since you needed to study people's faces to determine whether or not you should trust them. While most games don't really require this level of detail, they could all benefit from having characters that look and act like real people. It's a huge leap forward in the art of telling immersive stories in games, and I know this term gets thrown around a lot, but I really believe that L.A. Noire represents a watershed moment for games.

L.A. Noire reminds me of Heavy Rain. Both are deeply flawed games, but they're also incredibly ambitious in the way they attempt to push the medium forward. I don't know that I would necessarily want an L.A. Noire 2, but I definitely do want more games like it.

If you want to hear how I chose L.A. Noire, you can download my deliberation process, subscribe with iTunes, or listen to it below:

Runners-up: Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, Red Faction: Armageddon

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