The Fifth Annual Coint and Plick Poll for Best Video Games of 2011 - Part One: 74-109

Welcome to 2011, the year when EVERYONE was a gamer. The iOS revolution, the dropping prices in this generation's systems, the fallout from Angry Birds, the novelty of cross-platform motion controls, the continuing evolution of the "art" game, the proliferation of sequels, the broadest acceptance of gaming as a force by mainstream press that could attract eyeballs... pick your reason, but 2011 felt like the first time video games had accelerated into a post-acceptance mode and were simply a dominant media form. Not just for kids anymore.

Coint and Plick offers a peek into the mind of a cross-section of Joe Average gamers; forty guys and gals from their teens into their forties who still enjoy a good orc rampage/bullet hell/spaceflight/historical sim/roguelike/sports fantasy. Much more than giving the reader a definitive "top ten", Coint and Plick is meant as opportunity for the busy gamer to acquaint him/herself with potential missed highlights that are available at discounted prices at an e-store near you. That we are doing this poll WELL after the turn of the year is no accident; I wanted people to have time to really gather their thoughts and estimate what they love. We're not in it for hitcount, we're in it for history and, more immediately, the edification of our fellow gamers. After all, everything on here is good enough to make SOMEONE's top ten of the year. You can hardly go wrong.

The poll was taken in Pazz and Jop style vote/point format: all voters had 100 points to divide among any ten games released in 2011. The maximum number of points each entry could receive was no more than thirty. In the end, 128 games were nominated. Rather than just peel off the top half, I’ve opted to list everything that got a vote here, along with a few links, images and YouTubes of note. We'll have slightly more detailed entries for the top fifty games.

In case of a tie breaker, I went by number of people who voted for a game first and number of people who listed the game as their #1 of the year second. As in past years, in the interests of people's ability to load these image-heavy threads, I’ll be starting a new thread for every twenty five or so entries and interlink the threads.

Bear in mind that not every voter used the full amount of points they had at their disposal, so the numbers don’t crunch exactly. User comments for these games come from individual ballots as well as from past ILG posts; I’ve done a bit of editing to streamline but I’ve made every effort to maintain your meaning. My apologies if you feel misquoted; feel free to correct me on this thread.

I’ll be trying to add roughly between three and five entries per day. If you feel we're moving too slowly, may I recommend that you go play some of the games listed? That's what this is all about!p>

Let's begin by stirring the pot a little with some food for thought and discussion as ILG's own Mordy discusses The State of Gaming Crit in 2011.

Here are my credentials for opining on gaming criticism in 2011:

1. I read a lot of gaming crit.
2. It is mostly terrible.

I realized we were in trouble when reading Slate's 2011 end of year multi-part round table on the state of gaming. However many years ago it was that I read Slate's first round table, I was primarily thrilled that anyone would deem gaming worthy of writing about in the first place. I've had rich somatic experiences playing video games - addictive experiences where I play through the night, intellectual experiences where I solve puzzles or problems or develop strategies for handling challenges, emotive ones where I am touched and moved by a development. It has been clear to me for a long while that if writing can illuminate and convey serious phenomenological experiences to readers, then there should absolutely be great writing about video games by now. But it's 2012 already. The NY Times reviews AAA titles (and sometimes even iPhone titles). Andrew Sullivan runs ridiculous tripe about Angry Birds every other week. The AV Club reviews games every week (NB: their Sawbuck Gamer column is a bright light in a blighted field of subparcolumns). Even that bastion of cutting-edge gaming journalism, Time Magazine, had a list of top 10 games of the year. So I'm expecting a little bit more out of Slate than the regular, masturbatory "what IS gaming about, anyway?" schtick. But that's what I got.

Worse: All over that Slate piece were expressions of world-weariness and boredom. Tom Bissell, who seems like a nice enough guy but whose primary contribution thus far to gaming criticism has been a half-okay essay about how doing lines of cocaine increases the verisimilitude of GTA IV, decides to talk at length about how he can't be bothered to finish games anymore. He only needs to play them for an hour or two and then he's "got it," and doesn't need to bother. He treats this like a virtue -- that he's so sophisticated about the ludic elements of gaming that he grasps them immediately and doesn't need to waste his time. Not only does this ignore the précis that his big GTA insight was that a game can own your life - can invade your living space and imprint itself upon your imaginative space and basically take control - but it pretends as though he's an enlightened spirit for not caring that much. It's essentially taking the same tact I've been hearing about games for years - that they are a juvenile waste of time - and rephrasing it to sound fresh. This is a guy, by the way, who having been given free reign by Bill Simmons' Grantland to write about whatever he wants has chosen to write about Madden NFL, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Batman: Arkham City, Catherine, Dead Island, Gears of War and Angry Birds. With the (kinda?) exception of Catherine, his scope of vision is confined to the biggest, most-mainstream titles being released. Some of those games are great, don't get me wrong; Skyrim and Arkham City are certainly high on my own Coint and Plick ballot. But with all the journalistic freedom in the world, this is how curious he is? What a missed opportunity.

Okay, now I feel like I'm just bashing Bissell, but it's hardly only his fault. Kill Screen, the independent gaming criticism site that not only stole Pitchfork's insider-deep model of reviewing music but actually signed up to publish game reviews on Pitchfork's website, is a source that does review interesting and new games but generally takes profoundly vapid approaches to talking about them. Apparently having decided that the only way to create legitimacy around video gaming is to engage in over-the-top sentiment, Kill Screen has become so embarrassingly pompous that even Proust (well, Stanley Cavell at least) would tell them to tone down the sappiness. If Bissell is constructing a secret history of dismissiveness, Kill Screen is implicitly suggesting that the only valid vernacular of games is one where we're barely talking about games. Instead we're talking about feeling up high school girlfriends, or about how this game is just like how life is like a game, dude.

There’s one guy that I think was doing it right in 2011 and that's Tom Chick. I first read Chick in Computer Gaming World, where he helmed Tom Vs Bruce. He'd take a game, often an RTS or a turn-based strategy war-game and play against his counterpart Bruce while recording their commentary about the game as it was being played. It was routinely amazing and not because Chick is an incredible writer (he's got journeyman chops but nothing flashy), but because the writing was about how gamers actually play games, what happens when different pieces of design and execution gel together. He described complex systems and how they affected his enjoyment of play. We saw him fail or succeed. He does much the same thing now on QuarterToThree. The telling point is that even though it’s rare that I agree with his opinion about games (he often seems to contrarily set himself against big releases), when he rewards a title with a great review, I feel like that’s reason enough to check it out. His obsession with gaming inflames my own. His personal website features numerous playthrough diaries and his forums are overflowing with fans who play together and organize massive season long Madden games where every in game player has a real world player controlling it. These are people who love Pinball FX2 with a passion generally reserved for fine wine, people who have formed a community around loving games because they love games. They're not trying to convince Ebert that games are art. They're trying to have fun.

In some ways, 2011 was my personal worst year for gaming yet. I had my first kid and, as any gamer with a kid can tell you, you don't get to game much for a long time afterward. I was really excited after we ferberized the little girl because that meant I might be able to sneak in an hour or two of gaming after she went to sleep. Even as a new father, I still played far more focused hours than the average casual gamer would consider healthy; my C+P ballot easily could have included twenty or more games. The problem is not the market. As far as I’m concerned, video games still offer plenty of thrills and anyone who was disappointed by this year’s crop was either not paying attention or just hasn’t figured out how to properly communicate natural enthusiasm through writing.

It's depressing that so much gaming criticism is depressing because the games certainly aren't depressing at all! They're beautiful and exciting and they take up way too much of my time and space... both my actual tactile manipulation space (I love holding an Xbox controller) and my mental space. Reading serious contemporary video game crit, I feel like I'm mostly reading the work of people who honestly don't care for or about games. They care about being at the forefront of a new body of critical literature so that maybe they can be considered the Lester Bangs of video games one day. Or they just want to develop a website where they can be a Pitchfork-style tastemaker. Or they're just so unsure about how to best address the new, wider, non-gaming market that they use methods of writing and language about gaming that ignores the intrinsic truths of playing games in the first place.

The secret is that what is appealing about gaming is the gaming, not the literary illusions or the intellectual property being exploited or that, ya know, this game right here (Braid! Limbo! Bastion! Passage!) might finally, seriously, actually, really be art and you love art, don’t you dear reader? So see? Games aren't that bad. But games are bad! They’re bad in the way that Woody Allen said sex is dirty; only if it’s done right. The things that most often turn people off to games are the things that make them great in the first place.

As a for instance: think about how difficult most games are to play, much less gain mastery of. I am sure the sequel to YOU DIED, Dark Souls, is going to place high on this year’s list and part of the reason it evokes so much love from its fans is because it's nigh on impossible right up until the point you figure out a personal, difficult, evolving strategy to cope and when that fails, you have to figure out another tactic until finally it all works and suddenly you feel like you're a better human being. You have gained an admittedly untranslatable skill (no one will ever get a degree in killing that particular demon in that particular corridor) but a skill nonetheless; you can do something you couldn't do before. Or another example of the seduction of difficulty that’s hard to translate to clean critical prose: when you game online against thirteen-year-old kids who yell sexual and racial epithets at you while they're shooting you in the head for hours, the frustration can be excruciating, but as you slowly grow better and better until you're fragging them, damned if it doesn’t feel good. As bad as it feels to lose is as good as it feels to win. That feeling is powerful. It matters. You can't tell the story of the game unless you tell the story of how it feels to play it.

The ideal literary critic doesn't provide a consumer guide and they're not supposed to judge the value of literature. A great critic creates a parallel paradigm that discourses with, not about, the material. That paradigm is what allows a thing to be great; essentially you can't have great literature without great literary critics. Critics establish an audience that allows the work to rise to the highest possible plateau, but they also can transcend, through properly articulated appreciation, what makes a work most gorgeous and significant. It's the second more than the first that is missing in video game criticism today.

The popular opinion is that we are in a pre-Cervantes stage of video gaming; still awaiting our proof of greatness. Ignore for a moment that there was literature of merit being written in the pre-Cervantes era and that, should we choose to pick up this gauntlet, the games we played in 2011 meet that standard. Focus instead on the possibility that if we want to embrace gaming’s Cervantes era that we may need writing gamers, not gaming writers, who can find the Cervantes in the games we have. And not just in games like Braid or Limbo that wear their artiness on their sleeves, but in games where one would never expect to find beauty or deeper meaning. We may discover that the beauty and joy we bring to gaming is the missing element that will elevate games, in spite of ourselves, to the level of art. You'll know you're reading great game criticism when the author evokes the joy of gaming, not of reading. They'll make you excited that you’re still a gamer, sneaking in that hour while your child sleeps. You’ll know you're reading great game criticism because when you're done reading, the first thing you’ll want to do is start to play again.

While we're waiting for commentary on Mordy's awesome piece, might as well get started with the poll.

It's a nineteen-way tie for #109.
These are the low men on the totem pole, games that only managed a single vote with the lowest possible tally. They are bottom feeders and afterthoughts but they still bear exploration.

http://i43.tinypic.com/sn2cz4.jpg
#109: Amazing Breaker – iOS – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://i.appsafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/amazingbreaker.jpg
Metacritic
Touch Arcade Review
forksclovetofu: Amazing Breaker was among the first apps I bought when I got my iPad and it was absolutely the gateway drug that make me realize the potential for the touchpad + iOS as a legit game system. Think Breakout with sculptures instead of walls and a slingshot mechanism instead of a paddle and you’re most of the way there. The loose collision fields and just-right physics made this a joy to play and easy to return to so I could three-star every level. Even at 2x expansion, the graphics are crisp and pretty and the gameplay is miles beyond Angry Birds.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2whi9lh.jpg
#109: Brink – 360 / PS3 / PC – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://download.xbox.com/content/images/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802425307d9/1033/screenlg15.jpg
Zero Punctuation
Metacritic
Gametrailers
Will M: Overhated. I loved playing it until... well, at least until I had something else to play. I just wish the maps were more interesting, but overall fun art direction.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2w6w9wo.jpg
#109: Civilization V (Updates and DLC) – PC – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://www.digitalbattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Civilization-5.jpg
Metacritic
Gametrailers
lamp: Since its release last year Civilization V has undergone a number of patches, sometimes simple technical upgrades but more often addressing game 'balance'. What this has created is an interesting experiment in game theory being conducted via the game's developers and its most fanatical player base. Every time the latter manage to discover the set of optimal strategies for winning the game the developer's release a patch that demands some new equilibria. As a fairly hardcore Civ nerd i enjoy figuring out what the most efficient path to victory, but these patches have also done a great deal to make the game more nuanced, better paced and more challenging.

Great intro, forks, and Mordy's piece is... wow, impressive. I don't really read much games criticism, so I can't adequately comment on that, but I'm not sure about the 'difficulty' assertion as anything other than a preference. And I could see a good argument for it being a requirement of 'good' games, but there are plenty of games developed now that are really for idling the time away, are marketed purely on the basis of the fact that they are placid, relaxing, that they don't have a win condition.

Yeah, for sure. I didn't mean to limit the definition of a good game to one that is difficult. I was more trying to look at some of the things that make games good, and how they are things that directly run against the grain of what we might socially model as good or valuable. I play a lot of "casual" games and some of their biggest virtues in my eyes are how you can kinda get lost in the meaningless void and emptiness of playing them - that they are placid and relaxing. But instead of acknowledging the pleasure in that almost narcotic experience, Andrew Sullivan posts a hundred times about how Angry Birds is really about geopolitics. It's just totally missing the immediate phenomenological pleasures of these things.

Nice work, Mordy!

yeah, echoing the accolades! i saw it before forks posted it, of course, but i held off on reading it until now so it would be more exciting. thanks so much for the contribution!

gotta say, gaming jouralism isnt really too high on my list of embarassing things about the hobby. as shallow as it can be, it usually functions well enough as a consumer guide. thinking 1up or whatever.

ringing endorsement, i know!

Good stuff, Mordy! I'm totally with you in that I'll keep reading stuff like Kill Screen in the hopes that great communicative writing will appear, but am constantly disappointed by the approaches and styles these writers will take.

Focus instead on the possibility that if we want to embrace gaming’s Cervantes era, we need gamers who are writers who can find the Cervantes in the games we have.

yesssssssssssssssssssss

i didn't vote in this poll because i looked at the list of suggestions and i hadn't played a single thing on it because i spend all my gametime trying to get like planescape torment to run on wine and even though i've now played through vanilla falloutNV four times i still haven't played any of the DLC, but this thread's prolly gonna make me want to start a website w/ yall

we need to get mordy's essay out to the wider internet. how do you make things go viral? do we need to put a hilarious cat jpg somewhere? maybe max can help

good call. i can see this one getting traction. if mordy is cool w traction of course.

Really stellar essay Mordy. Definitely deserving of a wider audience.

Agreed. I've done a final round of edits on the piece (mostly clipping the cursing) with the intent of giving this the best possible chance of virality. Mordy, holler if you want anything else changed around.

What's your thoughts on the New! Games! Journalism! and how that's worked out, Mordy?

he needs to give it a video rant like whiney did with his music journo screed. ooh maybe a colorful hat too.

Wow, thanks everyone. Tbh, I wasn't sure how this would be received esp since I'm still thinking through a lot of this stuff myself and it was def a vehicle of frustration (and probably more so before forks edited it for a PG-13 rating). Forks did a great job editing it and I am very appreciative that he didn't make me look like a total lunatic.

Re New Games Journalism that is kinda at the heart at what the problem is, right? It's the lazy way of taking New Journalism and applying it to video games instead of developing a new way of writing that actually works for video games. In some ways video games are kinda anti-New Journalism in that they ask us to leave behind a lot of our personal baggage to take on these avatars in these constructed realms. But instead you get stuff like Bissell trying to be decadent while he does coke and plays GTA. I don't even know how Hunter S Thompson would write about Skyrim if he were really trying to respond to the medium. Maybe he'd drink tons of Dragon's Breath Mead and run around screaming about how there are cliff racers in his hair? It's also kinda lazy because instead of figuring out how best to write about this stuff, you just take a journalistic model that has already garnered a ton of praise and secured its place in the critical canon and applied it to a new medium.

Mordy what do you think of Yahtzee?

Pretty classic, I'd say.

the game or the zero punctuation guy or both?

Both, absolutely, and bonus points for recording a critique of yahtzee in the style of yahtzee.

A point that Mordy brings up about Demons'/Dark Souls that crystallizes my enjoyment of that game is that it gives you the inestimable joy that comes from learning a difficult skill in a comparatively short period of time. Learning is an endorphin rush and the Souls games provide a steady drip of that rush that is generally less frustrating than it is weirdly rigorous. Learning that comes easy gives no sense of accomplishment. Learning that makes YOU DIED ten times until you realize, "oh, step to the LEFT, dummy" is accompanied by an undeniable growth and the feeling that you are an intelligent machine after all.

Okay I heart videogames full time, until I die, etc, but that's like saying McDonald's apple pies are good because they have Vitamin C in them - true but you should really be getting that shit elsewhere as well.

I dunno, maybe it's because I'm shit at saving as often as I ought to, but I hate dying in games (well, actually, unless dying is an amusing thing to do in itself). But I guess the principle is the same in the style of gaming I prefer - instead of multiple deaths, it's poking this, combining that, examining everything, trying all combinations until you work out what "How appropriate. You fight like a cow" is the proper answer to.

xpost, Andrew - I think forks is not really intending to say that it's a conscious feeling of "oh, I'm an intelligent machine", rather that the process of learning is actually a stimulant in itself, without having to be reflected on. Though I might be wrong?

instead of acknowledging the pleasure in that almost narcotic experience, Andrew Sullivan posts a hundred times about how Angry Birds is really about geopolitics.

Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty stupid. I'm very much for imaginative interpretation and riffing off signifiers and connotations, but that just sounds like a pretentious 6th-former thinking they're clever.

You fight like a dairy farmer.

Not in the boss battle :)

Andrew: I DO get that in other places (most notably of late in pottery) but when it's so rich in a game that it defines how I'm enjoying it it feels worth noting.

and no, emily, you're right on. I like that high!

you can't work out how to answer those duelling questions! the game won't give you the right replies until you've done whatever it is that the swordmaster wants that i've forgotten.

Maybe we should save the soul talk for when it undoubtedly places tho.

eh, i like open discussion.
Though i would like to urge everyone to shell out a buck and get Amazing Breaker; it is great fun and will keep you enthralled for at least a week.

I would but I've heard that it's a "bottom feeders and afterthought" :P

Haha, I think you guys are taking my MI reference too seriously.

xp well hell, so is catfish and I'd give up caviar for that anyday.

NV: with Souls, you CAN intuit how to handle a situation. Sometimes it's blind luck, sometimes it is repetition and sometimes it's skill. What no one mentions about those games is that once you get through the first five hours of banging your head against a wall, the difficulty doesn't exactly ramp. It's consistent but YOU get smarter and better at understanding the confines and tricks. The potential for loss is great enough that you work harder to learn and harder to survive.

is amazing breaker playable on an iphone screen?

Amazing Breaker was made for iPhone actually; I keep waiting for a universal update but none on the horizon.

Also: Will ANYONE else rep for Brink? It looks like cookie cutter Halo to me.

nah i was just funning about Monkey Island but it's an obvious point that the puzzle solving in that kind of game never changes in approach, only in degree, and there's no real learning and grwoth taking place.

none of this makes MI not great, just different

Ok I have shelled out my first cold hard cash as a result of this poll for amazing breaker, didn't even try the free version first.

The puzzle that ultimately did me in for MI was opening the telescope and using the flint and the lens and the gunpowder to blow up the dam to flood the valley to lower to dead body so you can get the rope and climb down into the ravine to get the paddle for the rowboat so you can visit the cannibals. I couldn't figure out how to blow up the dam after solving every other puzzle in that game on my own and I finally broke down and bought the walkthrough (lol pre-internet walkthrough availability days).

dude i probably rang a helpline at some point in MI

All my undergrad friends were playing MI at the same time; we sometimes went to the phone box and spent a night's worth of beer money ringing people to ask if they had answers.

it's an obvious point that the puzzle solving in that kind of game never changes in approach, only in degree, and there's no real learning and grwoth taking place.

I guess that's sort of true? But there is definitely a method of learning about what that approach is, how to solve the puzzles you're presented with. There's a conceptual framework being built - yes, you could brute force the game by trying to combine literally everything but it's better to think laterally (though actually, MI is a bad example here, as some puzzles I only ever solved through brute force).

lol i deleted amazing breaker last night without ever playing it X:

That was a problem I had with the newer Telltale Monkey Island games. I no longer have the patience for the kind of brute force trying to solve puzzles, or trying different things dozens of times until something worked (and hearing the same recorded dialogue each time). Maybe because the gap between those and the last MI game I played (number 3) was so large that I forgot how to enjoy that kind of puzzle solving? Interestingly I never lost my joy in playing IF maybe because you don't have to sit through prerecorded audio + video but can just scan the text telling you that the approach didn't work.

yeah i only briefly looked at that last MI thing but it seemed like 10 minute unfunny cut scenes with a bit of pixel hunting in between

Mordy thats a great essay, made me think of my favorite review of recent years (and one which made me buy the game which is awesome), the destructoid perfect score for Deadly Premonition

http://www.destructoid.com/review-deadly-premonition-165168.phtml

particularly the last several paragraphs which kinda hit the thing you're looking for i think

Oy, yeah, I hate cutscenes. I also tend to play with audio off and have found that a lot of people don't even bother captioning their cutscenes, so they are even more dismally dull. An intro and an outro is enough, and even those aren't necessary.

i am looking forward to Breaker feedback. It's not the best game ever, but it's my favorite iteration of the "use a slingshot to knock shit down/blow shit up" mechanic

loved the essay mordy

in past month or so (since i finally bought a current gen system) i've been really into gaming again and one thing i feel is really missing is good writing on the subject. compared with my other obsession (music duh), this area is definitely lacking but also presents an opportunity. i'd love to see ILX writers get together and do a Stylus-esque website on games.

for example, i'd love to see an essay by difficult listening hour expanding on the struggle to get games running on Wine. i've definitely been there: recently i spent hours tweaking config files to get Oblivion running on my Mac under Wine. when i finally got it running, it turned out that ALL the character models had black skin, like 0x000000 black, and yet i still played through the game. i feel like a good writer could be able to explore why it is that we can spend hours trying to get games running 'good enough' and still be able to get the same amount of enjoyment as if it had been played on a top of the line machine

OK let's do it. Z S is full o'beans, he can set us up something. I've got a domain I'm not using.

if anybody wants to workshop essays throughout the poll, send me a draft and I'll integrate articles amongst the results.

and sure, I'd write about gaming every now and again myself if everybody starts a site. I hit up m@tt to try getting on the g@m3!nf0rm3r teat with a sample piece and never made the grade, sadface.

Though Mordy, you should forward him your piece for the front page "industry professional" slot and see if he's interested.

im in if i can host "jjjustens sweary corner of exuberance and hatred"

can I do capsule review/impressions, because I don't have the patience to write more than 100 words at a stretch

Forks Video Game Haiku

If you argue that
Deadly Premonition sucks
you hate fun, don't you?

did anyone other than me ever actually play deadly premonition btw?

i really wanted to abbrev the name but yknow

er i did and i couldn't get past the first ten minutes
i honestly needed to try harder

forks I would be up for revising and fleshing out the thing I wrote for my ballot if you have time to do an editing pass on it/you think it is worth it!

cointandplick.com is available fwiw

Breaker feedback

I played through the trial back when it came out. It was pretty fun but it didn't really make a huge impression on me. I thought the overall design of everything other than the cool crystalline structures was sort of ugly and clunky. But it's worth a dollar for sure.

oh yeah dude if you dont hate the first 45 minutes you dont have a pulse, but think of it as a test to keep the unwanted out. after that its all gold xposts

i am basically too poor to play new games (and the only current-gen console i own is a wii anyway, which isn't a console it's a netflix box) but i rearrange my canon a lot and gchat to (sympathetic, usually) friends in the middle of the night about betrayal at krondor or unreal tournament or beyond zork or whatever, so i am always up for writing general stuff/stuff about older games.

i think the reason i put so much time into grappling with wine bullshit is that it reminds me of spending so much of my adolescence trying to find (and then coax into operation) games i could play multiplayer with my best friend who lived on another island and had a mac. (what am i saying. we still do this, except now it's linux-to-mac, so it's even more of a frustrating abstract exercise. the only game that's ever really been reliable is good ol starcraft.)

if you guys start a website, i'll solicit contributions from a buddy of mine who is a for-real published poet, and has written poems inspired limbo and dark souls (i know how that sounds, but they're cool). also some essays iirc.

silby, go for it.
and somebody should squat cointandplick.com imo
and put up furry porn

your first haiku was better

I shouldn't make these decisions while I'm hungry

Happy to redirect the DNS to whatever someone wants to use to actually run a website.

hahahahahaha awesome

did anyone other than me ever actually play deadly premonition btw?

actually playing through this right now! (but very slowly.) twin peaks + silent hill + shenmue - what's not to love? except for the long stretches of totally broken gameplay, I guess.

love the solo car conversations to... whatever they named the DP equivalent of agent cooper's diane!

still, I can't help but wish the whole game was just about hanging out in this weird, off-brand twin peaks town and there weren't any of the zombie 'horror' bits. (do these get any less tedious btw?)

oh well.

Now you got me intersted. I like silent hill games despite the terrible game mechanics.

yeah, the mechanics are prob even worse than in silent hill. but the game is funny and has personality and that counts for a lot in my book.

it's also not particularly scary. I guess it gets a little creepy sometimes. maybe.

silent hill 1 is still the scariest game I've played. gave off a permeating dread; no cheap scares. (haven't played any of the sequels)

did anyone other than me ever actually play deadly premonition btw?

I played about five hours of it.

Also I made people watch the first 30 minutes of the game like five times.

I shouldn't make these decisions while I'm hungry
― tinker tailor soldier sb (silby)

oh wow! i'm honored!

http://cointandplick.com/ <-- I am just messing around with some stuff, I am not the guy who oughta be maintaining or improving the notional website in the long run cuz I am the biggest flake. Just the absolute biggest. But right now just having some fun editing some html by hand and trying out random webfonts.

also that represents like the absolute apex of my design skills right there

are we getting new games listed tnite?

like really this whole operation would be better off with someone creating a tumblr and me pointing the domain at it self xps

Played a chunk of Amazing Breaker last night. Biggest issue for me is the loading screen you get between hitting restart and actually getting to restart. It's probably about .4 of a second so it feels insane to complain about it, but there are so many other games these days that manage to eliminate it altogether, so it's become kind of essential for true just-one-more-go addictiveness.

Biggest issue for me was that I'm not very good at it, and I didn't find it engaging enough to get better. Which is weird - it's a game where the reward is a Big Explosion! - but when I got through each one I just went 'meh, what's the next one' (only played up to lvl 15). I probably played a little longer than I should just to see what wasn't clicking :)

What I didn't realise was that "Think Breakout with [..] a slingshot mechanism instead of a paddle" means "think Angry Birds", which I wasn't the greatest fan of (despite playing all the way through). Not sure why, something about it being in an awkward spot between arcade and turn-based gameplay. But I love Orbital so ¯\(º_o)/¯

Played a chunk of Amazing Breaker last night. Biggest issue for me is the loading screen you get between hitting restart and actually getting to restart. It's probably about .4 of a second so it feels insane to complain about it, but there are so many other games these days that manage to eliminate it altogether, so it's become kind of essential for true just-one-more-go addictiveness.

― JimD, Friday, 17 February 2012 10:53 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was often raised as an issue by spectrum reviews in 1983. you'd have thought they'd have worked it out by now!

http://i39.tinypic.com/jzi1oy.jpg
#109: De Blob 2 – 360 / PS3 – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/De-Blob-2-Review-Artwork.jpg
”Who is the hot girl in de blob 2 commercial?”
Metacritic
Gametrailers
jjjusten: - My number one palate cleansing chill-out game for 2011 is a somewhat slight charmer that manages to at least bring the 360 a taste of the charm of the PS2 era Katamari stuff. INFINITELY superior to the first one, which was cute enough but cursed with the dreaded wiimote sickness and inaccuracy of play. You do have to ratchet back your pulse rate to really dig in on this one, but once you do it is full of rewards.

Was it better than De Blob? I liked De Blob for a while, but lost interest halfway through –– the controls were too annoying, and the difficulty ramped too quickly. As emil.y said elsewhere, it really sucks to die in some games, and this was one of them: the timed challenges, the lack of save options, the repeating of dumb shit and cut-scenes ... does 2 fix any of those?

^^^ This about the controls. It was super fun until the difficultly level got higher and the controls became more and more annoying to deal with.

I probably should mention that Amazing Breaker is one of my favorites of a new style of gaming that I guess you could call "intentional time wasting": it's good for commutes and waiting in offices or playing as I fall asleep and whatnot but I never felt compelled to break it out and play as relaxation. iOS games excel at this and I'm not sure how you "score" something that is diverting first, foremost and only.
I smell an essay!

In any case, would anyone argue that it ain't worth a buck?

http://i42.tinypic.com/zmbocx.jpg
#109: Dungeons of Dredmor – PC / Mac – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://media.techworld.com/cmsdata/products/3292694/dungeons-of-dredmor_590_3.jpg
PC Gamer Playthrough
Metacritic
Ars Technica Review
fennel cartwright: Probably the most hilariously written game on this list. Excellent roguelike gameplay.

De Blob was fun until the "flick to jump" mechanic came in. Then it was painful. wtf were they thinking :(

Dungeons of Dredmor was okay, but in a year with Binding of Isaac...

RE: C+P website, polyphonic kinda is already doing the direct posting o the poll for years past?

huh?

jamescobo you mean?

er yeah sorry i need to eat and my mind is woobly

http://i43.tinypic.com/2zxtjt3.jpg
#109: FIFA 12 – 360 / PS3 / PC – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://cdn4.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/fifa_12_screenshot_3.jpg
Metacritic
Gametrailers
oppet: I agree with most of the critical moans about this year's edition, though I did eventually come to grips with the initially frustrating new defensive controls. The single player element of this game is terrible but I've played so many great matches against my housemate that it would be churlish not to at least chuck 5 points into the pot on its behalf.

http://i44.tinypic.com/313lo4l.jpg
#109: Fisher Diver – in browser – 5 pts - 1 vote - FREE!
Official Game Site
http://cache.erstgames.com/uploads/games/pictures/VR4HZKUZEMNB.jpg
Rock Paper Shotgun
Soundtrack

http://i40.tinypic.com/vg5us8.jpg
#109: A Game About Game Literacy – in browser – 5 pts - 1 vote - FREE!
Official Game Site
http://174.120.103.90/images-freegameaccess/a-game-about-game-literacy-big.jpg
The Stranger
jjjusten: I don't really get into browser or iOS games because they all seem kinda flimsy and insubstantial to me, so maybe the reason that I dug this so much is that it spoke to me on an elemental gamer level - like we're all in on the same joke so why not just accept it? AGAGL is very very smart and very very good.

forksclovetofu: If you’re looking for a smartass, didactic way to explain the base mechanics of gaming to a non-gamer, you could do worse. I’d be curious to see this idea expanded on in more depth for an iOS game where you start with Pong and end up controlling Infinity Blade-esque characters. Non-gaming folks gotta have a starting point!

http://i44.tinypic.com/2kpyx4.jpg
#109: Groove Coaster – iOS – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://bradnicholson.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/GrooveCoaster.jpg
Ars Technica
Metacritic
Touch Arcade Review
Jeff: Good music saves a hackneyed premise! I never thought I would play another rhythm game again (and especially not on iOS) but this one held my attention solidly for at least a week.

I can totally point cointandplick.com at the existing blog for now. Where is that at?

Is groove coaster worth the $3?

Groove Coaster is ABSOLUTELY worth a buck.
Three is more open to interp.

http://cointandplick.wordpress.com/

On a river bed, I found an old man doubled over holding his head. A woman was laid out in front of him, bloody and dead. When I stopped and walked up to him, he stood up and shakily held a gun to his own head. I ran up and pushed him. He dropped the gun and began weeping and then finally glaring at me angrily until I rode away. That’s not a video game, that’s a Cormac McCarthy short story.

re: de blob 2 - yeah the controls are 100% better because yknow buttons are for jumping, not jerking a wiimote around. note: i did not play all the way through, so it might suck in latter points, but its cheap now and a lot of non-frustrating fun so far.

Dungeons of Dredmor was okay, but in a year with Binding of Isaac...

Groove Coaster is ABSOLUTELY worth a buck.
Three is more open to interp.

Who's the cool guy who voted for Fisher Diver?

it wasn't me, but fisher diver was on my shortlist and probably would've made a ballot of 20-25 games

Fisher Diver is pretty cool!

I'm pretty sure it was me who voted for Fisher Diver. I figured it was on the list, someone else would be repping for it, but nope, just me? I thought it was a great version of that sort of game - it needs a bit of skill, but not so much that it drives a bad gamer mad, and you can grind and upgrade a bit if you are shit, and the story is a very very sweet addition to the gameplay.

(I'm unsure if you can tell, but I'm not a games journalist)

I made www.cointandplick.com a CNAME for the wordpress site for now. jamescobo are you out there? I can transfer the domain to you if the wordpress thing is going to be the home of freshly created coint and plick content like Mordy's essay going forward. Webmail me.

I LIVE~

and fortuitously enough I have been a-portin' this year's entries to the blog tonight anyway so holla at yr boy & tell me what I need to do. also whoever's making the header images for each entry, plz fix the one for Civ 5 so that I can add it.

I would be totally down for making this a repository for ILX gaming essays btw, lord knows there are plenty of times when I get the urge to make lists or erect profane strawmen in defense of random-ass games but have no outlet. how should we handle this? I can just make a gmail where folks can send their blathering missives to and then share the login info w/ a Learned Council of ILX Gaming Elders if that would be easiest.

http://i44.tinypic.com/257q5it.jpg
#109: Madden NFL 12 – 360 / PS3 – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://media.operationsports.com/shots/400/16338.jpg
Metacritic
Gametrailers
tomofthenest: This was my first this-gen Madden and I liked it even if I honestly haven't played it much. Truth is that I don't really understand American football so well and the depth is lost on me. In an average game, either me or the lad will find a play that works most of the time, and the other will spend the entire game trying to find a defensive play that neutralises it whilst losing to a score better suited to cricket than the NFL. Then we repeat the other way round.

http://i41.tinypic.com/a0a24p.jpg
#109: Monsters Ate My Condo – iOS – 5 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://media.edge-online.com/files/imagecache/article/articles/reviews/monsters_ate_my_condo.jpg
Eurogamer
http://www.ienticement.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Monsters-Ate-My-Condo1.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5xuHViALpo
http://www.modojo.com/media/games/monsters_ate_my_condo/ipad/18.jpg
Touch Arcade Forum Thread
http://www.maclife.com/files/u307916/2012/01/reviews/condo.jpg
DJP: Another fucking finger strain game. I am sending Apple my medical bills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5xuHViALpo
Monsters Ate My Facebook
http://assets.ilounge.com/images/reviews_games/92311/6.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuT2tI0_JBo
Metacritic
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/FCKEditorFiles//five-stars-monsters-ate-my-condo.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THfP-CgLIEE
http://www.modojo.com/media/games/monsters_ate_my_condo/ipad/18.jpg

http://i39.tinypic.com/1z3tn2c.jpg
#109: Oh! Edo Towns – iOS – 5 pts - 1 vote
App Store Download
http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/CWDT/aotd-kairosoft-oh-edo-towns-0.jpg?20111109-193656
Metacritic
Touch Arcade Review

http://i42.tinypic.com/256valu.jpg
#109: PataNoir– PC – 5 pts - 1 vote - FREE!
Official Game Site
http://indiegames.com/patanoir.jpg
KillScreen

Oh my god that KillScreen review of PataNoir is so bad

Good God, Monsters Ate My Condo looks like a psychedelic nightmare. Very tempting.

I voted for PataNoir, because I am a massive dork. It's a pretty good example of word-game based IF, and in a way I wish I'd given it more points, but I do remember being frustrated with it a few times (parser problems, necessary items easy to overlook, some descriptions not fleshed out - all in quite a minor way, this is actually a pretty polished game, but just enough intrusions to break the flow of play).

Also, I voted right at the last minute and didn't nominate, so the only text adventures I could remember were from the comp (I voted for two). I'm sure there may have been better ones released last year, I just couldn't think of them.

Oh, and yeah, ugh, people writing IF reviews in the style of IF is so ridiculously cliched and awful.

I might need monsters ate my condo I think

me too. And I don't even play games on my phone.

i think PataNoir is really good, emily -- its been a few years since I kept up with IFComp and new releases like I did in high school + college, but I remember thinking it was pretty striking, esp the entire manipulating metaphors to solve puzzles idea. Still not the best IF noir (which is actually my fave IF game: Slouching Towards Bedlam).

Oh yes, I re-played STB on your recommendation, actually. It is very good, definitely up there.

I've actually been thinking bc of Codecademy that I might write another IF game in the near future...

Only someone who isn't familiar with the NFL could vote for this year's Madden. Very fitting.

I haven't played any kairosoft beyond Game Dev Story. Those screens make Edo Towns look a lot deeper than GDS was?

The only kairosoft game I played last year was the football/'soccer' one, which was mildly diverting but not great. It felt more like a rough idea which had been half-heartedly turned into a full game.

Monsters Ate My Condo is absolutely worth a dollar for the visual style. The game itself is best described as reverse Jenga with extra pattern matching and isn't IMO as engaging as a more contemplative game like Bejeweled, but it's totally insane to look at and probably more fun if you dig twitchy puzzle games.

btw writing that has made me want ro play it again

how many more 109s are there btw?

more posts today plz

I should have given more points to Monsters Ate My Condo

i've been digging the lite version but can't really figure out the mechanics well enough to know when i'm doing well or not, and i can't figure out whether i want to pay for the full version. maybe i will. it's pretty fun.

is part of the joy figuring out how to rack up points, or can i safely look up a gamefaqs or something and get the rundown?

you can look it up, but it's mostly about managing the build of combos along with swapping in the right monster for the right powerup

do all combos result in bronze medals and the only way to get silver/gold/platinum is by combining those bronze medals? also -- can you only combine medals if they're touching each other? can they ever combine when there's a colored block between them? also! what are those cat looking blocks that change color? how do you make combos with them?

- three matched color condos make a bronze
- three bronzes make a silver
- three silvers make a gold
- three golds make a diamond
- no idea what three diamonds make
- three "bad condos"(concrete/bomb) make a cat condo
- cat condos upgrade the condo-making process; 3 color + cat = silver condo etc etc
- the only way to make a combo with noncontiguous blocks is if they are separated by bombs, concrete or cats

no idea what happens if you make a combo with three cats

ok, and how does the upgrade/monster system work? i get that the different colored monsters take the different colored blocks, and also that you can swap them out by getting a similarly colored combo. do they have different buffs? i think i fed a bronze to a monster once and they went to sleep? other times i feed them stuff and shit goes crazy, like UFOs appear, etc. unpredictable tho.

check their bios, they list all the powers there and I might get them wrong but IIRC, when you feed a bronze or better to a monster one of four things happens:

red - monsters fall asleep, you can feed them the wrong color block without upsetting them
blue - your tower straightens up and becomes invulnerable for a short period of time
green - when you form a combo, you generate two blocks instead of one
yellow - the points your score are multiplied by 10 for a short period of time

the nicer the combo block you feed the monster, the longer the phase lasts; I gave the yellow dude a diamond earlier today and I think I was in gonzo scoring time for close to a minute

no idea what happens if you feed them a cat
feeding them bombs pisses them off so much, it's hilarious

more coming later on. work and kraftwerk taking priority.
I can get through the 109's by end of day friday methinks

just discovered that three diamonds activates megazone

ok this condo game is kinda dope

EZ Snappin Biggest Disappointment:
A tie between Assassins Creed: Revelations and Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection HD

If I hadn't played Assassins Creed:Revelations then the incredibly shitty controls and cameras in the Team Ico reissues would have been my pick. I never had a PS2, so was psyched that these "classics" would be coming out. They are beautiful, and I can't wait till my next NYC trip so I can see forks play them. If I had kept fighting with the games any longer I would have needed a new controller because mine would have been in a million pieces. However, I did play the latest Assassins Creed and man, did they fuck it up.

I love Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood; though AC2 had the best locales, Brotherhood's refined combat and assassin recruits were welcome additions. AC:R takes those two further, but then adds in tower defense minigames. I don't know about you, but when I think about the best part of the Assassins Creed series I think top down real-time strategy gameplay. Come the fuck on people! And the only way to avoid this after the mandatory introduction mission is to run around bribing and killing dudes in a strict (but nebulous) countdown after claiming an area. Fuck you and your generic Constantinople which makes it impossible for me to tell where I am without the minimap. Screw you and your bombs I never used, because nothing is subtler than a dude lobbing grenades. And, if that wasn't enough, there are some incredibly poorly done first person memory unlock missions for Desmond the modern day monkey to got through, because again, first person perspective and crappy puzzle platforming are the hallmarks of Assassins Creed. Unfortunately, I'm thoroughly invested with the story so played this all the way through to find out that, yes, you get the endings for Altair and Ezio but the overall story doesn't advance at all! (Note: maybe Desmond's story advanced; I gave up on his memories halfway through the second poorly designed and poorly controlling segment) Seriously, this wasn't flogging a dead horse, this is skinning it, stuffing it, putting it on wheels and pushing it over a cliff.

Reading that again and I think the fact that I really didn't like Assassin's Creed much came through okay.

come on - a tie between that and Ico HD?

I'm sorry, Ico controls like ass. Pretty as hell, and I do want to watch someone play it, but I didn't like playing it at all.

http://i40.tinypic.com/2hxly6h.jpg
#109: Shadows of the Damned – 360 / PS3 – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2010/11/damned.jpg
Gamasutra
Metacritic
Gametrailers

forksclovetofu: This was a very late addition to my list that caught me completely off guard. My experience both with SUDA and Resident Evil is consistently meh; both seem to take their twisted world view seriously. What a treat to find a ridiculous, beautifully conceived world populated by B-movie characters with C-movie dialogue. This is the equivalent of a drive-in movie that you play. So dumb! So fun! So unlikely I’ll ever finish it!

jjjusten: On the plus side, its definitely a genuine Suda 51 thing: lots of completely insane decisions and ideas. The times where it really works is totally rewarding and its far more playable in the conventional sense than No More Heroes ever was. Environments are really interesting, and the visual design in general is fantastic. The points where the game steps outside of itself and does meta commentary on how the main character is an idiot all really work, including an amazing section where Garcia (the main character) is reading a book aloud and struggling to make it through some of the longer words. The voice acting in this is about as good as it gets. Shadows also never becomes boring; the pacing is top-notch. The use of puzzles, some of which are among the best (not hardest) I’ve seen in a long time, is almost revolutionary.
BUT
The sense of humor is juvenile in the extreme, which sometimes works, but when you’ve heard Garcia say "TASTE MY BIG BONER!!" seventy times in a row it really starts to wear on you. It also falls victim to some brain destroying mistakes wrt to save point placement and unskippable cutscenes, not to mention the dreaded “timed run away while dodging obstacles, oh you couldn’t? so do this section 50 times in a row” issue. There are times where the controls are weirdly unresponsive, always at the worst and most crucial points. And make no mistake, this game is mercilessly hard in spots, even at the lowest difficulty level, so the great setpiece moments seem to go by too quickly while the grindy shit can take up 30 minutes of furious yelling. Weirdly, the ending is really unimaginative and uninspired and seems like a somewhat generic ghostwritten section given all the great writing that came before.. I have significant suspicions that the last 30 minutes might have been taken out of Sudas hands. It’s that bland and out of character

Unless you are a glutton for punishment, there is no replay value here; it just opens up harder difficulty levels. Shadows is well worth a rental (or a cheap purchase) and paradoxically its still probably one of the best games I have played this year, but its going back to Gamestop for a swap because I cant imagine popping it in again any time in the near future. For all the great “show your friends this crazy shit” possibilities, the savepoint system doesn’t allow you to go back to specific points; its an autosave only once through and done thing. If I had a bunch of friends to swap games with, I would force this on all of them. It’s the sort of game that you really want other people to play. It is in the wheelhouse of lots of my favorite off-kilter games (MadWorld, House of the Dead, Deadly Premonition, Bulletstorm, etc) but its defiantly unbroken which, in some ways, makes it less likeable.

Like I said, it’s complicated.

http://i40.tinypic.com/20p8rap.jpg
#109: Sid Meier’s Pirates! – iOS – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://screens.latestscreens.com/showrandomscreenshot.php?lcname=sidmeierspirates&lcplatform=
Metacritic
Touch Arcade Review

Euler: iOS gaming was where it was at for me in 2011, mostly for practical reasons: I'm on the road a bunch and don't get much more than an hour a day of console time even when I'm at home. But my iPod & iPad are with me always. Also I AM A CHEAPASS and don't buy new console game. In 2011 I spent most of my console time playing Assassin's Creed & Tales of Vesperia & the Saboteur & Dragon Age: Origins. Why? Because they were cheap and looked and played great!

jamescobo: Okay, the touchscreen controls for the iPad version of Pirates can officially suck it. Ditto for the relentless loading times.

http://i39.tinypic.com/24e5au8.jpg
#109: Streetpass– 3DS – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://www.vooks.net/images/video_streetpass.jpg
”World of Walkcraft”
Metacritic
Streetpass NYC
Ian F: I don't think there's ever been a game before that I would only recommend if you have live in a major city (and preferably have a daily commute on the train), but that's the case for this one. The bit within the game is just enough of a game to be fun, and short enough to easily be played on the same commutes, but the real fun game is going in search of other 3DSes, or the mystery when that green light on the 3DS lights up and you try to work out who else around you it was based on a Mii and the minimal information ever-protective Nintendo allow you to share. Getting the Tube to various places suddenly becomes a game in itself, keeping the 3DS batteries alive throughout events where there will be a lot of people a strategic struggle.

i don't think i voted for this xp, but i have what to say about Pirates!:

amazing. i playd the original back in the day, but it feels like Pirates! was a game waiting for iOs touch screen to really glow. The pirate ship battles unfortunately worse on touchscreen but everything else is better. especially swordplay which is amazing swiping this way and that riposting, and dancing which is also mechanically improved. a really inspired update of the game (if only they did ship combat control better too - only blemish imho).

I'm with Mordy's: I'm the pirates voter but ship combat's a drag, slow & awkward. But I'd never played it before this take on it & it's been great fun.

nice to see someone repping for Shadows of the Damned... I'm a Suda 51 lover, but never got around to it, hopefully I can grab it on the cheap this year

gamefly is selling it for 18 dollars

hmmm.... damn you forks! :P maybe, maybe

ok u bastards i will be downloading the full version of monsters ate my condo once i get home

monsters ate your resolve.

I get too antsy when I place MAMC.

yeah, it's a stress game for me too. looks good though!

so forks did you end up being the voter for shadows of the damned? or did i vote for it?

that was me

huh i should have thrown that one a bone too. too many good games this year!

hey jjj I was gonna gift you MAMC for yr birthday ;_;

well i havent bought it yet so. uh. surprise?

Withdrawal has forced me to buy rage to pass the time you monsters

New games, plz!

I swear to god 2 more days without results and i will buy the last Templar I swear to god

i won't let that happen
let's get a few in tonight and knock out the end of the 109's

Zora / Surfing at Work's Biggest Disappointment
Tiny Tower (iOS)
There are people who failed to get hooked by Tiny Tower. Had I been one of those people, I might have been tempted to bung it 5 points for providing a few hours of mobile diversion. Instead, I am flushing this game down the toilet of failure because I *did* get hooked. It seduced me and then, like a bad boyfriend, kept me hanging on too long with promises of satisfaction that never came good. Hour after hour of gazing lovingly at the game while it did very little, waiting for the rewards that were ever fewer and farther between, grappling with an increasing sense of disappointment and ennui... I briefly considered throwing money at it to try and raise the fun quotient (the gaming equivalent of a dirty weekend in Paris, perhaps), but realized eventually that this game just doesn't care about you or your feelings. It was never going to give back what I'd put in. It was with more relief than sorrow that I finally wielded the big delete finger and said farewell to my Tower's denizens.

Seconded

was too lazy for a hate-vote but that woulda been it

Tiny Tower is a great disappointment pick. I wasted so much time on that shitty game.

i only found tiny tower a few days ago but it immediately displays itself as 1) not a game and 2) just pure iv drip addiction -- it's like a chatbot without the nuance, that texts you, and it steals its art from fez, and vvvvvv, and basically it is everything that is the worst about """games""" on phones and i fucking hate it basically and i will probably look at it before bed. fuck tiny tower.

http://i42.tinypic.com/152bxip.jpg
#109: Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition– 360 / PS3 / 3DS – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://www.gamingunion.net/newsimg/super-street-fighter-iv-arcade-gets-evil-ryu.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULMahkIjBeE
Chun Li Recycles
Metacritic

Nhex: Getting the rhythm of those charge ultras is a little weird at first, but you can get it down. I don't know if I can describe it well, but it's you hold (DOWNBACK), then you go BACK, FORWARD, BACK+PUNCH, your stick/pad movement should be (HOLD), TAP-TAP-TAP. The easiest way to mess up that kind of Ultra is to "roll" the joystick inputs so instead of going right-left-right, you're going RIGHT-down-LEFT-UPLEFT-LEFT-down-RIGHT or some such. Open practice mode and turn on the inputs so you can see what you're doing.

http://i40.tinypic.com/mx0cg0.jpg
#109: Tales from Space: About a Blob – PSN – 5 pts - 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://southernfriedgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/tfs1.jpg
Metacritic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfFgzKpPQag

http://i39.tinypic.com/20h3na1.jpg
#109: You Don’t Know Jack – 360 / PC / PS3 – 5 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site

http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/184692-hd.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP9hwhikq2s
Metacritic
http://abuggedlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/you-dont-know-jack.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4OLbedxung
Eurogamer Retrospective
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/8/80908/1701013-chicken_super.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17O8i6E5qFI
http://media.avclub.com/images/media/game/1013/youdontknowjack_g_jpg_627x325_crop_upscale_q85.jpg
Jjjusten:Hey look, its the first modern gen trivia game that didn’t make me buy some stupid accessory or mire me in gormless unfunny bullshit! Well scripted and immensely well done all around. I appreciate the TONS of content right there on the disc so you don’t have to run to the download store twenty minutes after popping it into the drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRfV_GH9pmc
http://levelingdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/You-Dont-Know-Jack-Screenshots.jpg
Gamesetwatch interview with Jellyvision writer Phil Ridarelli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VPTGMgV-oY
Gametrailers
http://magiclanternfilm.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/jack-s.jpg

I'm guessing yr pretty busy forks, but a week in and we're still not past #109! I'm worried I might no longer be on this earth by the time this thing wraps up.

I recommend more vitamin d

lol that wasn't the blurb I sent in for SSFIVAE. i liked the choice from the thread tho!

I seem to remember from lurking during previous years that these results roll out pretty slowly. I'm not entirely sure why, I'm just getting antsy and trying to resist the temptation to go MORE MORE MORE QUICK QUICK QUICK.

they do roll out slowly, but we usually got a few games every day... since there's well over 100 it still took over a month

about a blob was my vote. i don't have much to say about it. it's sort of a katamari platformer (but not as good as that sounds).

i was thinking about picking up a version of SSF4, what's the difference between the arcade edition and the regular?

No point in getting any version besides the Arcade Edition, has the newest tweaks, the most characters, the most stages, etc. It's the third version, after Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV.

AE has 4 more characters (using only one new model) and an intentional unbalancing of the characters that they have now balanced out again through a patch.

i try to tell forks every year that he shouldn't post every single game that gets votes but he don't listen what can ya do :/

http://i.imgur.com/dPSPE.jpg

i was gonna say. how many ppl even voted?

Guys this is a really confusing thread for the layman

New highscore: Got 30,895,214,673 on M.A.M.C.

my final comment would be to take a tip from how the action movie results were presented. nice and neat without a bunch of pointless links and youtube videos. personally have zero use for any of that.

Bah whatever, I like the presentation forks does, I just hunger for mooooore

same, the orgy of media is part of the fun

i often find the links useful tbh altho if i had one tiny quibble it wd be the filling up of the admin log with forks' fannydangling ;-)

Current format is great imo. Even the slow rollout is fine by me (except its irritating to see new answers, click to see what the new results are, and find its actually just people complaining about the lack of new results).

Nothing new until someone mails forks with proof they've completed the previous game.

the media pile-on is kind of deadly to a lot of computers more than a couple years old, i fear

If your PC is that old, you shouldn't be spending money on games anyway.

Other platforms be existin'.

xp Lots of people don't play games much on their computer, dude.

tbh I am happy forks does it this way if only because it seems to have gotten half of ILG on the MAMC bandwagon; I sort of don't care about the rest of the results now

I've just sprung for the full version fwiw

http://i42.tinypic.com/149m5i.png

Wrt older computers, checking "images off" in prefs should make that problem go away

Oh, heh, didn't mean "don't buy PC games", meant "don't buy any games, save up for a new PC". But hey, shit gag anyway.

you are not alone
i am here with you

new games plz

yessssss

i am waiting to give all of you my *considered and erudite opinions* on unpopular id game rage in case it shows up here so

jjj

did you get my gift of MAMC to u

I'm on tenterhooks waiting to say "ooh, I'll check that out" for more games that I will doubtless end up not checking out. COME ON, FORKS.

Part One

oh wait srsly!! no let me go check xpost to djp

I'll pay you 5 dollars to post the next game.

i have not received MAMC yet, but that might be because i dont know where to look for it - at work atm so i couldnt download it anyway

EXCITED

check yr email? they asked me to provide an email address so I used j---j----- @ gmail

those dashes probably f'd it up.

hmmm bastards denying me monsters eating condos so far, will check when i get home. also you are awesome

I'm in the office till 8; will be working on this from like 5 to 8 EST
you bastards

we <3 u forks

yay forks! if nothing else this might save everyone from continuing to watch me squabble w/shakey on the comedies nom thread

2 way tie for #107

http://i40.tinypic.com/141sehu.jpg
#107: Mass Effect 2: The Arrival DLC – PSN/XBLA – 6 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/194762-shep.jpg
Metacritic
Gametrailers
GameInformer
Jeff: Not as good as Overlord and nowhere near as good as Lair of the Shadow Broker, but it's still Mass Effect and therefore awesome.
Telephone Thing: I just finished Arrival and, though it isn't as half-assed as I'd expected, it's actively insulting, railroading your character into committing a war crime no matter what choices you make.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2eaou4y.jpg
#107: Radballs – iOS – 6 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://alinear.net/radball_huge.png
Touch Arcade
Metacritic
Interview with Radballs composer Neil Voss

polyphonic: Bejeweled + Lumines + DJ Hero + a dog wearing sunglasses / riding a skateboard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWvGcUn8U8
kingfish: The aesthetics are actually more the point than the gameplay.

Woah, arrival was fucking awful, and I'm one of the ones who pretty much enjoyed every other bit of ME2 dlc.

the fact that there is a game called radballs seems like some sort of self-aware cosmic gamer joke

deezballz

Was arrival that bad? It had some decent parts, I definitely liked it more than Overlord (aka timefiller firewalker RMXXXXXXX fuck a hammerhead) and I liked it WAAAAAAAY more than the previously mentioned firewalker (fuck fuck fuck a hammerhead). Yes plotwise it was a pile of ugly non-interactive war crime, but the semi-stealth bit was tolerable, and the five-wave fight was really great, and the help-to-not-help twist was pretty neat, and the map looked pretty great. I get the arrival love.

Shadow Broker DESTROYS it though.

yr not supposed to say "previously mentioned" when the previous mention was earlier in the sentence y/n english is tough

if i was subbing you i'd remove it but this is a message board so relax say i

Well, firewalker was free so I don't really count it (you're right though, it's rubbish). Overlord didn't have much going on gameplay-wise, but gameplay isn't what I want from Mass Effect anyway (I know, that sounds nuts) and I remember really liking the style of it. Arrival was just bland and tedious and perhaps also more disappointing just because it was hyped as a kind of bridge point or something between ME2 and ME3: I guess I wanted more and better story, and didn't get it.

so basically can we just 'call it' for radballs at this point?

3 way tie for #104

http://i44.tinypic.com/os62wj.jpg
#104: And Then, the Ghost Saw Hands: A Game I've Never Played (aka Hands Up) – PC – 7 pts – 1 vote - FREE!
Official Game Site
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/2140/handsup.png
bamcquern: A game about a ghost travelling through a pink underworld of disembodied hands while "Hands Up" by Ottawan plays in his head. It was programmed in two hours by using an app called LogMeIn that allows you to access your computer through your phone. I voted for this because I'm never sure if I play it because it's fun or because I like the song. What I mean is that it is (or was) a two-pronged addiction. And I realized tonight at dinner that it has this amniotic/gynecological thing going on.

http://i44.tinypic.com/ff7343.jpg
#104: Forget Me Not – iOS / PC – 7 pts – 1 vote - FREE on PC!
Official Game Site
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/2292/forgetmenote.png
Touch Arcade
Metacritic
PC Version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuYAf-LVXWU
bamcquern: Endless Pacman with endless guns. Two players can blast each other at the same time. Includes self-destructing levels, large flapping ghosts, snacks, combos, abstractly cartoonish enemies, and wraparound levels that let you shoot your own butt (which will blow you up). The sound effects burble, burp and plop, often in motivationally ascending tones. Every game is different.

http://i40.tinypic.com/4h6pu1.jpg class="noborder">
#104: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean – 360 / PS3 – 7 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://www.toyark.com/news/attach/1/9/9/9/Lego-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-White-Cap-Bay_1296736839.jpg
Metacritic
Gametrailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sS8hgKevl4

It's usually me who drops a lone vote for a Lego game each year, but I didn't this time round. 3 new titles came out in 2011 (too many!), POTC and Harry Potter 2 did nothing new at all, and the third Star Wars game tried something new (Er, lego RTS levels) but they just added big difficulty spikes wIthout adding any fun, which isn't what under-10s need.

fuuuuuuu-

sorry about the broken/incorrect title images for the Ghost Saw Hands and Lego Pirates! Will fix later tonight when I get home. :-/

no biggiez dude.

downloading Forget-Me-Not right now

It looks good, right?

bloop bloop bloop, I should play more after I get some work done/finish eating lunch before the cat steals it from me

I voted for Forget Me Not. Here was my blurb:

Forget Me Not takes unironic inspiration from games like Pac-Man or Centipede and makes something new and exciting. If this had been in the arcade in the early '80s people would be obsessed with it, and it makes good use of touch controls.

aw shit, i think there was an error there in that I didn't connect that Forget-Me-Not and Forget Me Not weren't two separate games. By that standard, let the record Forget me Not has 19 points and is in something like 50th place. However, I have hours logged in organizing this nonsense and am not quite willing to be a pedant about it. Mea culpa and it's a good game is all.

this is the first year i feel a little left out for not having access to any iOS platform

last year was mine. It definitely helped motivate me to get a pad.
BTW, Incoboto is AWESOME

Four way tie for #100.

(I am really slow at putting these together, sorry, but I will definitely make it through all 4 tonight, and possibly go beyond if you send me digital alcohol)

#100: Child of Eden – 360 Kinect – 8 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://i43.tinypic.com/kcmiy0.jpg
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i41.tinypic.com/214qkcl.jpg
NYT
Ian F.: Playing this on Kinect felt like the future in a way that nothing else in 2011 came close to. It didn't last for long, but while it did it was total jaw-dropping sensory interaction overload. If they got Perfume to soundtrack it rather than Genki Rockets it would probably move up another few places.

http://www.drinkhacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/glenmorangie-original.jpg

great, now there are teeth marks in my screen

Ha, I thought the Glenmorangie was a game result at first. Would Play.

http://i40.tinypic.com/xfds06.jpg
#100: Last Rocket – iOS – 8 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://i40.tinypic.com/xfds06.jpg
Touch Arcade
Metacritic
http://i40.tinypic.com/25g5gyd.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6h8AQ5zwL0
polyphonic: A great real-time puzzler with cute pixel art and an interesting game mechanic.

well, it was inevitable that I would screw something up within 2 posts. Forks can fix the double image later, sorry for the eyesore!

"we'll fix it in post"

http://i44.tinypic.com/f092xj.jpg
#100: Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars – 360 / PS3 – 8 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i44.tinypic.com/2rh7o0z.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlJZl1Lq8M

http://i39.tinypic.com/2rmr5o1.jpg
#100: W.E.L.D.E.R. – iOS – 8 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
http://i42.tinypic.com/dzh7x0.jpg
Touch Arcade
Metacritic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvZUFaMnZRE
Jeff: Addictive letter swap, word making game. In the later levels I spend so much time thinking about each move, it sort of drives me crazy. Occasionally, I've looked at the screen for 30 minutes before making a move.

I have played a lot of WELDER, but I couldn't vote for it because it makes me so angry.

The new update SUCKS. I wouldn't have voted for it if I knew what was coming.

hmm... but it just went on sale to $1..

I HUNGER
FOR RESULTS

Monsters Ate My Poll Results

How many games have you completed in the last two days? NOT ENOUGH. GET BACK TO WORK.

zs?

yeah, i will post a few before going out to be with my new gf (the true reason i have not completed enough games in the last few days. this is all her fault!). it's just really tough to turn down awesome nights with this wonderful being by saying "i'm sorry, i can't. i have to post a few more results from an online best of 2011 video game poll tonight." but i will do a few between dinner and heading out tonight! and then tomorrow afternoon i'm off of work, so i will do more!

dude, as we all know video games and girlfriends dont mix, priorities man cmon jeez

http://gifs.gifbin.com/400774sw53.gif

3 way tie for #97:

http://i42.tinypic.com/9hsylj.jpg
#97: 2012 IGF Pirate Kart – PC – 9 pts – 1 vote – FREE!
Official Game Site
Paste Magazine - Outsider Videogames: 2012 IGF Pirate Kart
Rock, Paper Shotgun
Compilation of Twitter Reviews
http://i40.tinypic.com/359yhcz.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti1buJ6Nra4

http://i41.tinypic.com/n4cv2w.jpg
bamcquern: An incomplete list of games in the 2012 IGF Pirate Kart that don't suck:

I'm Being Eaten By A Spider-Queen (And I Don't Like It One Bit!)
Wee
Stork Ride
The Great Star Fusion
Run! You Fucker!
NetPack
Dorkgimp Weinerstink: They're Out to Suck Your Brains!
Mattar Iject
I'm Not a Bad Person, I Just Have Low Self-Esteem
Fuck All Y'all
Eliza Edith Escapes Expiration
Motion Columns
Let's Typing Some English
The Deathracemas
Virtua Swordsman
Bushido Code
Needlesoft Haystack Explorer
Murder Dog IV
Crime Zone
SAKE EXPRESS * PRO WRESTLING
Attack of the Heavenly Bats
Bang Bang Roguelution
Klik Asia
Cubetendo
Silent Skies
Canabalt for Pink Daleks
SSSHIFTY
Tyrion 2011
Shoot One Million Rockets at One Million Enemies
Söze
Betasuppe
Arenatron
Space Phallus
Maveric Minibuss
Oceanspirit Dennis
Spike Sisters
Lazer Bitches
Write
pongpongpongpongpongpongpongpong
Rogue Hockey
Aubergine vs. Magenta
Lava Bricks
Babymine
Tanks vs Aliens
rougelaika: a remembrance

http://i44.tinypic.com/28qw3cx.jpg
#97: Escape from Puppy Death Factory – In Browser – 9 pts – 1 vote
Click here to play it on the official website
Developer’s website
http://i39.tinypic.com/so02so.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xnVA2m3OSY
abanana: Tricked me into thinking it would be a Metroid clone then turned out
to be an innovative puzzle game. Even better.

fixed dupe w/MOD MAGIC

thanking you!

http://i39.tinypic.com/5osidz.jpg
#97: Rayman Origins – 360 / PS3 – 9 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i39.tinypic.com/25fpwlv.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQX_6ovlPdU
polyphonic: This game is kind of a masterpiece. One of the best two-player sidescrollers.
jjjusten: ok so is it possible that Rayman Origins might be super awesome? because this demo is super awesome

i didnt get it in time to vote but if i had...

anyway the answer is YES IT IS TOTALLY SUPER AWESOME

i only played the original rayman, for ps1, and i remember it was a lot of fun and very challenging, in a good way. is it still kind of really difficult?

(or maybe i just wasn't very good at the first one?)

This game should be muuuuuch later in the results.

It gets challenging, but I think it's balanced really well. There are parts that are quite tough, but if you fail it doesn't knock you back too far and so it's not as frustrating as it could be.

21 way tie for #76 -

http://i40.tinypic.com/de1tz5.jpg
#76: Aliens: Infestation – DS – 10 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
Eurogamer
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i43.tinypic.com/51v9j6.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GtOOIs6unw
jamescobo: Aliens: Infestation looks like a must-get

I suck at Rayman. Which bums me out, because it's BEAUTIFUL.

That's funny. The game that was sort of a prototype for Escape from Puppy Death Factory is included in the Pirate Kart. It's called Ssshifty. Escape from Puppy Eath Factory is better, though. Anna Anthropy's write-up is cool:

http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=1231

....and sorry, I have to leave now to go meet up with my girl and feel like 3:20 in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOfb-YZYU5g

more tomorrow!

I was watching some let's play of Rayman Origins with a little kid doing co-op with an adult. It was cute. The kid didn't want to talk very much.

Sucks that a good-looking game like Aliens: Infestation has to be on a portable system.

21 way tie for #76 -

JESUS

one vote, 10 pts, woo

to be followed by another 20 two votes, 10 pts presumably?

Yeah we're gonna be on 10 pts for a looooong time.

God, that guy in the let's play for the pirate kart is such an asshole. I want to kick him in the nuts.

is Aliens: Infestation good enough to warrant me finding my DS (haven't played it since we moved in Sept), finding the charger, finding my r4 (or whatever it's called) pieces, finding the game, loading it onto my card, and playing it?

alternatively: good enough to purchase?

Yeah we're gonna be on 10 pts for a looooong time.

I solemnly swear that we will not.

Well I mean at the very least we will be there for like 30 entries.

re: aliens: infestation - I'm the one that voted for it but stuck it at the bottom of my list. it's fun but gets tedious. a little too much backtracking for my tastes and I wish enemies didn't always spawn from the same spots. it's no super metroid but it does have its charms. plus aliens and space marines and stuff.

I got Rayman Origins, played it for a bit with a friend. Now the game is absolutely gorgeous, and for that alone I don't regret purchasing it, but I don't quite see why it's a great platformer? Or does it get a lot more interesting after the first world?

The videos I've seen look attractive, but the game looks undesigned.

Yeah, as pretty as it is, there's no real coherency to the characters or world whatsoever. I have no idea what the heck I"m looking at half the time.

all those titles in the pirate kart are fkn hilarious

Sucks that a good-looking game like Aliens: Infestation has to be on a portable system.

lolwut

yeah, was thinking that the ds is really the perfect platform for something like 'aliens: infestation' as welll

http://i40.tinypic.com/20p8tuu.jpg
#76: Aquaria – iOS – 10 pts – 1 vote
Official Website
Touch Arcade - ‘Metroidvania Goes for a Swim’
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i40.tinypic.com/289ykk1.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqY9mDOw-UI
Jeff LeVine: I tried out the demo a while ago (a year ago?) and thought it was pretty neat. Very relaxing / very nice music / a little confusing.

got the PC demo of this and it's not chill enough imo. it's no Endless Ocean or Ecco

why dont we just skip down a bunch and list #51-100093 later? i mean even the action poll didnt try to do 109 entries

and that was for ALL ACTION MOVIES EVER and had like 100x more voters

but it's way more than 109 with all the ties, right?

you should run your own games poll and decide how you want to do it.

im too busy running your mom iirc

oooh. You got me.

i got your mom iirc

brilliant!

http://i43.tinypic.com/20zqpf5.jpg
#76: Atom Zombie Smasher – PC – 10 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i43.tinypic.com/f563ja.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CykKXFNiuQ
fennel cartwright: ludicrously compelling in its simplicity. Beautifully scaled down.

http://i42.tinypic.com/119sb5t.jpg
#76: Bejeweled Blitz – iOS – 10 pts – 1 vote
Apple Store
Touch Arcade
Metacritic
http://i44.tinypic.com/258uomr.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwnSbUjmksI
DJP: I would have rated this game higher had I not given my finger vicious repetitive strain playing it.

http://i40.tinypic.com/d752u.jpg
#76: Crysis 2 – 360 / PS3 / PC – 10 pts – 1 vote
Official Game Site
Metacritic
Gametrailers
http://i43.tinypic.com/730xmu.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2UCnblmOMY
jjjusten: bulletstorm demo for me was basically elevated thx to playing the crysis 2 demo just before it but i would be the first to admit thats kinda like giving a thumbs up to spoiled milk because at least it washed down the taste of that shit sandwich you just finished

lol is "#76" a 21-way tie?!?!

We're going to get through this, people. We're going to get through this.

Crysis 2 is visually so beautiful. The graphics, sheesh. But no one ever talks about this game so I guess the game must be boring or somefin

s10cks u gotta chill man, srsly

I voted for crysis 2 and I guess it's mainly because I never had a pc which could run crysis 1 and yeah, it's technically and visually amazing. And then I guess as a military-style shooter it's pretty vanilla. Stealthing kind of breaks it, you could speed run the whole thing in under an hour pretty easily if you just stayed cloaked, so any bits you do actually play, you need to actvely choose to play. But yeah, it held my attention and I finished it and it was a pretty fun time overall.

Quote for the back of the box right there.

Sucks that a good-looking game like Aliens: Infestation has to be on a portable system.

lolwut

―thomp, Friday, 9 March 2012 21:38

yeah, was thinking that the ds is really the perfect platform for something like 'aliens: infestation' as welll

― Alan N, Friday, 9 March 2012 21:45

Because I don't want the eyestrain or neck pain that a portable would give me. Portables are for children. Plus, why is a small screen better?

not 'better' but smaller screens are more... portable? the positives for a game designed to be played in bursts are p obvious. this was a fun game for me to play on the subway one time when i had an hr long ride last summer or a couple nights when i couldnt fall asleep, you know?

Yeah, I can see that.

Portables are for children

think the DS and its target audience kinda shattered that idea.

i'll give you the PSP

Awesome, you want my address?

Anything going on here?

ZS is getting his kicks offline.

are people going to get mad at me again if i once more suggest streamlining this thing a bit?

right with you

http://media.egotvonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/a97878_protest-sign_2-angry.jpg

I agree with streamlining

I agree with streamlining

so much that I felt the need to post TWICE

i mean not to beat a dead horse but when you have a 21-way tie for #76, maybe the list should start a little lower.

Further queries along these lines must be accompanied by a list of polls you have run on ILX, or a picture of you pissing up a rope.

so i guess the answer to my question was 'yes'

I don't think the problem is how many of the results are rolled out, I think the problem is that they're not being rolled out.

i think the problems are intertwined.

sorry guys

bought de blob 2 dead cheap as a result of this poll and have had tonnes of fun with it the last couple of days. i say keep the results maximal - i'm more interested in hearing about the great obscure stuff than which if the big titan games of last year was our very favourite.

nobody blames you Z S, we blame... the system

and zs you are doing an awesome job so chill dude, it'll be ready when its ready xp

If we didn't post every game we wouldn't all have been scoring billions of points in Monsters Ate My Condo!

i would still have a condo :(

i will post more tonight, promise. and, hopefully forks is ok with it, but at least for the remaining games in the 21-way tie, i'd like to go with a leaner style (just the results and maybe a single link/comment) in the interest of time.

all im saying.

glad you bought de blob 2 stevie - its still my best unwinding game of 2012 bar none. def reminds me of that sorta zendown katamari vibe

actually it kinda hurt to only give it 5 points but OMG SO MANY GOOD GAMES THIS YEAR

loving colouring the world, really enjoying all the landmarks sidegames, and really really loving how every new building you colour adds harmonic notes to the soundtrack - thanks for reccing, jjj!

Alright dudes, get ready. I'm going to start rolling out the rest of the #76s, about one every 20 minutes.

Yessssss

i'll include comments where i can (from the ballot submissions, and also just from ILG in general), but for some games, like this next one, there wasn't much that i could find.

http://i41.tinypic.com/nlwnyr.jpg
#76: Dodonpachi Resurrection – 360 – 10 pts – 1 vote

man, that game looks EASY

shmup?

yep.

http://i42.tinypic.com/6okbcj.jpg
#76: Fight Night Champion – 360 / PS3 – 10 pts – 1 vote
Will M: The single-player story was bold and I have been craving story-based sports games for a long time. I hope this is an ongoing trend, maybe even in team sports games (I would seriously love an MLB game where you have to choose to take or avoid steroids, train or go out and act famous, all that cyncial baseball shit).

i've only played one fight night game, and i spent most of the time getting paranoid about whether or not i was breaking my controller with all of the intense analog stick action.

I didn't mean to be over-critical, ZS, sorry. But yay that we have more games coming!

oh, it's ok! i think it's a good idea to go with a more streamlined approach anyway, at least until we start hitting the top 50 or so. so no big deal!

Dodonpachi was right around the top of my 2010 list. Amazing ios port, that.

The Fight Night games are really cool but I am so bad at them.

i've been pleasantly surprised at how well the bullet hell/shmup games translate to ios controls

http://i43.tinypic.com/2z4jzac.jpg
#76: Football Manager 2012 – PC – 10 pts – 1 vote
oppet: The first FM game I've got into for years. It seems to have got a bit more accessible, so it's actually fun to play again. I wish I could still just hold the post-game press conferences in my head instead of having to choose from some tame options in-game.

Eyeball Kicks: I genuinely don't get how productive adults might go about playing this year after year. I played Championship Manager in 2000 and it fucked up the year 2000 for me. I thought, after that, that I would avoid these games until I had serious time to kill. Ten years passed. I played Football Manager in 2010. I didn't really have time to kill but what the hell. 2010 was then fucked for me also. My sole achievement in 2010 - in the whole of life! - was winning the SPL ten times in a row. In a way, that was a fucking big deal, at least in the context of Scottish football. In other ways it was not: it had not actually taken place in the context of Scottish football but just in my drunken head and in my Dell PC. I got a big kick out of it and I'll do it again in 2020. But you all make it sound like you can do this in the same days that you work and create and make love etc. I wish I could, because there's nothing more fun!

football manager 2012 (release date is 21st oct)

can i just point out that there's a 400+post thread dedicated to this game, and only one person voted for it!

it's on one of those ... other ... boards

well, it looks pretty cool. look at that awesome explosion in the stands that the devil with the ball in his hands triggered with his mind!

i should prob take a look at that fight night game, ive heard nothing but good things, and as a dude who thinks mma games can suck it i could use a techy brawler where no one can teleport or shoot fireballs.

on the other hand shmup/bullet hell stuff has zero interest for me, but i respect u maniacs

http://i44.tinypic.com/156vk3a.jpg
#76: Minotaur Rescue – iOS – 10 pts – 1 vote
http://i43.tinypic.com/5nr76d.jpg
polyphonic: downloaded Minotaur Rescue and could not figure out how to play it, as usual with Llamasoft games. But I like the idea of it.

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#76: Goat Up – iOS – 10 pts – 1 vote
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Woof: Goat Up and Minotaur Rescue go together for me - cheap dose of Jeff
Minter psychedelics, controls feel good, lots of idiosyncratic detail,
nice fake-up of old school games.

hello 2/5 of my ballot.

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#76: Kingdom Rush – iOS / In Browser – 10 pts – 1 vote
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agent hibachi: awesome, cartoony little tower defense game; in a market festered with them, this one stands out by being perfectly balanced, adorable, free, and just mysteriously addictive. i probably played this more than anything in 2011, just to rerun and three-star every level.

i played a lot of this until, as with all TD games, i reached the level of the difficulty curve i just couldnt get past

(which was like 95% through the game, but it still chafes that i havent finished it)

(all i want to do on my ipad is play TD games, basically.)

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#76: Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky – PSP – 10 pts – 1 vote

not much chatter on this on ilx, so if anyone has any thoughts...

I was the dodonpachi vote, and fyi, the euro release will play on a US x-box

i'll chat when you post games i've played :/

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#76: Mage Gauntlet – iOS – 10 pts – 1 vote
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no quotes on this one, either. i did actually buy and play this - for about 2 hours. i didn't even really get out of the beginning castle because i was so fucking bored. the controls were weak, and i just remember pointless hallways with nothing to do.

however, it's possible that the game got way better after that. maybe the pointless hallways near the beginning were a confidence-booster for beginning gamers - "look how good you are at walking down these hallways and then talking to another guy! keep playing!"

so, who voted legend of heroes? lamp? wanted to play that but didn't get around to it.

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#76: Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers – XBLA / PSN / PC – 10 pts – 1 vote
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agent hibachi: the best way to play a relentlessly nerdy, expensive, socially disabling game: in ten minute bursts on the xbox, zapping computer generated fools with awesome cards. the cheapest time machine to 1993 you can get. dork catnip.

xpost yep, it was lamp

I actually played this! It's - um - well, the matches are brief and not terribly unfun, but really all the good stuff about playing MTG is playing with the actual cards, with an actual human sitting across from you. Considering the fact that this game has neither of those two essential things, it does okay.

I never got into playing this multiplayer fwiw, only did some of the single player campaign, so it could be better then.

Also, I may have abandoned this early because as nerdy as you think MTG is? It's pretty much doubly nerdy playing it on your 360.

waiting for TiTs to pricedrop on PSN

^i tried the demo looking for a socially acceptable M:tG nostalgia fix, but really the whole fun for me was putting a deck together, and trying to puzzle through the timing & mechanics of a turn with someone else.

waiting for TiTs to turn up on Steam

gonna be waiting a while for that

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#76: Mortal Kombat – 360 / PS3 – 10 pts – 1 vote
Nhex: The last several iterations of this series haven't been particularly interesting, with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe being a downright disappointment in countless respects. So, with a new studio under Warner Bros., Ed Boon did an effective franchise reboot. It shamelessly ripped off Street Fighter IV's strategy - returning to the 2D plane as well the feel and mechanics of - well, let's be frank, the last time the series was actually pretty good - Mortal Kombat II. They deserve massive credit for doing this even better than Capcom in many ways. The story mode has the tone of Saturday Morning Watchmen, but with all seriousness, deserves huge credit for the presentation in tying every character into an epic story mode that's raised the bar for every AAA fighting game (not to mention the Kombat Tower). Bonus points for Freddy Krueger as DLC, too, that made me smile.

i liked Mortal Kombat vs Dc

xxpost

not that long, xseed are bringing Falcom PC games over, already announced 2 Ys games & heavily hinted TiTs is next

see I was just making an easy joke about that acronym

oh you

tbh I have no idea why I haven't already purchased Legend of Heroes: TITS

so, who voted legend of heroes? lamp? wanted to play that but didn't get around to it.

yeah... twas me... i thought i wrote a little thing about it for forx idk its pretty much good in exactly the way you would expect it to be and tiresome in the same.

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#76: Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets – 360 – 10 pts – 1 vote
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another shmup. btw, it seems to be impossible to find any high resolution images of this game on the internet.

i loved mortal kombat for several days, but then realized that fighting games just arent really my thing, and i am slow and old, so it went back to gamestop

anybody who is into fighting game stuff tho should pick it up for sure, it is crazy huge and FULL of content

i forgot that mortal kombat even came out

i remember a time when a new mortal kombat game was a huge deal. now it's like one step above shovelware

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#76: Okamiden – DS – 10 pts – 1 vote
Salsa Shark: Cutest game of the year by far. The art style is almost exactly the same as Okami and a lot of the scenery is taken from the Wii version (with some removals and some additions) so even though it's a completely different platform the two games still feel very, very similar. As for the differences: the paintbrush mechanism works much, much better on DS than it ever could on Wii or PS2, but despite this enemy battles were one of the biggest downsides to Okamiden. It's too easy and tempting to just do 'pause-slash' over and over to defeat bosses, and in fact in a lot of cases it seems to be the most effective option. It's a shame because most of the bosses are enjoyable at first... and then they become a bit of a slog. The other downside is that the DS feels way too restrictive for an open-world style game with large landscapes; as much as I enjoyed Okamiden overall, I really wished I could be playing it on a proper television, even if it meant sacrificing the stylus for the wiimote.

never sacrifice anything for the wiimote

i would rather use the POWERGLOVE than the goddamn wiimote

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#76: Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 – PS3 – 10 pts – 1 vote
EZ Snappin: Another PES, another batch of small refinements to keep me engaged. This time it is the much better AI scripting, and, as I only play single player "be a pro" modes in sports games anymore, that makes all the difference. Not perfect (not with these floaty shots), but good enough.

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#76: Scribblenauts Remix – iOS – 10 pts – 1 vote
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I really want TiTs

i have tried so hard to enjoy scribblenauts but it just doesnt click with me - i am glad to finally get the chance to try it thx to iphone port tho

It worked great on the iPad but I don't know, maybe the iPhone would be too small?

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#76: World Cruise Story – Android – 10 pts – 1 vote – Top Android exclusive
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agent hibachi: really, pick whichever game dev-style sim you feel like playing and drop a few bucks on it. i chose to herd doofy little pixelated tourists around a spreadsheet-driven world. i don't think it's possible to run your ship aground but a sick part of me wishes they would patch that in.

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#76: Zen Pinball – 360 / PS3 – 10 pts – 1 vote

#76: Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets

another shmup. btw, it seems to be impossible to find any high resolution images of this game on the internet.

― 1986 Olive Garden (Z S), Wednesday, March 14, 2012 1:38 PM

There are no high resolution images because those games have no high resolution assets. Their native resolution is 240 x 320.

My zen pinball vote was partly for the iPhone version, and partly for the 3DS version, and partly for the new tables in the 360 version. Between them they've eaten up hours of my time this year (without me ever managing to rack up any half decent scores). It's just pinball done incredibly well.

#76: World Cruise Story – Android – 10 pts – 1 vote – Top Android exclusive

lol something so sad about that

sorry, I fell asleep! now I'm that I'm back in this other world of the living, let me finish up with the last two for today.

Two way tie for #74

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#74: ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection HD – PS3 – 10 pts – 2 votes
CraigG: Shadow of the Colossus is one of my all time favourite games, and one of only a handful of games where I find myself wandering around humming the music (even in the years and years between when I completed it a couple of times on PS2 and buying this on PS3, and I never played it in between). Ico I only ever played the demo on PS2, so was glad when they HD'ed it too. It's a beautiful game, too. Again, I don't think there's much to say that wasn't said when it came out 10 years ago, or whenever that was!

polyphonic: The most artistic uses of 3D in a video game that I've seen. Two great games that are much improved in this edition.

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#74: Wonderputt – In Browser – 10 pts – 2 votes
forks: everybody should try this, it is fucking great

I completely forgot Wonderputt! Great game.

i liked it when i played it but the fact i haven't thought about it since says something

IS THE ahem, is the ico collection good? i heard some complaints. from various quarters.

Wonderputt is kinda the golf version of that guy who made all those little browser based evolve RPG toys. very pretty and cool looking, but not really much of a game (and now that i mention that guy, i realize that i don't remember his name or any of his games' names and can't find him in google)

found it - this guy: http://www.eyezmaze.com/grow/v3/index.html

yeah those grow games held my attention briefly too but they seemed like mostly just trawling thru trial and error

really striking visuals tho iirc

I couldn't deal with Wonderputt at all. It's beautiful, but I couldn't get anywhere with it.

The Eyemaze Grow series contains some of my favourite web games ever. But yeah, I get that they're not really 'game' games. I suppose the thing I like the most is that failure is often just as awesome as success.

I almost voted for Kingdom Rush, but to be honest, I found it more annoying than a lot of TD games - if I get stuck I do like to be able to improve through grinding in that sort of game. Puzzle-based stuff I don't mind agonising over but anything aside from that I do like to be able to force my way through if I have to.

holy crap ok maybe we're moving a little too fast now. the space between entries was to give us some room to talk, ya know...

honestly i'm kind of i'm the only one who voted for MK! along with Portal 2 it was the major AAA release in the early half of the year. if you have ANY fond memories of MK 1-3 you gotta play it, it's just ridiculous stupid fun in the single player modes, and the multiplayer is better than all the old MK games (not saying a lot there i know but still)

i mean, is there any other fighting game that unifies every single character into one coherent story mode, forcing you to play as everyone through the same plot? and they don't even cheat by making you replay events, the story keeps moving on as you move from chapter to chapter. yes, it is the dumbest story ever, but i'm still in awe of how hard tried with it (I heard MK vs DC might've done this but i didn't play enough of it to see
)

Scribblenauts: neat, worth a buck i'd say

Zen Pinball: i'm totally obsessed with this on xbox now, and the iOS version controls surprisingly well

second paragraph: kind of surprised

holy crap ok maybe we're moving a little too fast now. the space between entries was to give us some room to talk, ya know..

Yikes, sorry! Yeah, agreed it was a little fast today, but I wanted to move us forward in the results since I had been slow recently. Once we get into the top results, I'll definitely slow it down a bit (while trying to remain consistent in the rollout).

This is good. All good.

it's cool man! i'm happy you're back yo

trying to remember how many of my awesome choices i have left - spoiler: if i had played it before C&P voting i would have had rage in my top 5 for sure, but i have the feeling it might not place. DONT ANSWER THAT, i hope i am wrong, but if im not, its really worth a shot, dudes that kept saying that it is a short game are doing it wrong, because i am 15 hours in and havent even gotten to the second major settlement yet. and oh shit does it look O_Omazing.

see now if it does place you can farm this quote

So many games I have never heard of! <3 this

i voted for wonderputt! totally playable and fun imo. i want a sequel immediately.

i would have voted for ico/shadow of the colossus if i had a ps3. i'd love to play sotc again, and i've still never played ico.

I got ico/shadow of the colossus at xmas time. I've only played a small bit of shadow of the colossus and it's certainly beautiful but I have definitely had issues with the camera that make the game more frustrating than it needs to be.

i didn't mind it the first time around (on ps2), but maybe i've been ruined by decent game UI by now

this reminds me of my reaction to the beyond good and evil 360 port - super excited until i spent a bunch of time staring at walls or getting nauseous as the turn ratio ratcheted out of sync.

i couldn't hang with that one either

yeh i was a bit disappointed when i replayed SOTC over xmas
the clunkiness of the controls didn't help, but i think the main problem was that the game is at heart a puzzle platformer, and once you know how to do the puzzle part the rest of it becomes kind of rote - there was only one colossus i didn't immediately remember how to beat :/

#76: World Cruise Story – Android – 10 pts – 1 vote – Top Android exclusive

lol something so sad about that

― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Wednesday, March 14, 2012 5:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i know, i would have played it ON IPHONE but i needed that 4G mang

it is literally the only game installed on my phone so it is sad, lol and appropriate

The Fifth Annual Coint and Plick Poll for Best Video Games of 2011 - Part Two: 51-73