orangerful | Video Games of 2010 (Reply)

It was a good year for video games, lots of highly anticipated sequels and a few new games and peripherals. Here are my top picks for the year:

I Don't Have A Life Outside This Apartment, But I Play One On PC - Sims 3 (Ambitions Expansion): By far the best expansion pack for Sims 3, Ambitions created a new set of mini-games for your Sims. Instead of disappearing for 8 Sim-hours a day, your Sims now needed your guidance at work. One of my older Sims quit his day job to become a firefighter, another followed his dream to become a hairdresser. And I created a whole new Sims (Lisbeth Salander, yes I'm a book geek), who began her career as a private investigator (sady, I was not allowed to set anyone on fire). I plan on having her children grow up to be ~~Ghostbusters~~ paranormal investigators. Late Night also came out this year, but I found that add on more like a seperate game since it all takes place in a new city that runs completely different from the 'burbs your Sims normally reside in.

Sequel I Was Really Looking Forward To But Ended Up Let Down In The End - Bioshock 2: I braved snow and ice to get the special edition of this game because I LOVED the first one. And while it was fun to revisit Rapture, Bioshock 2 didn't quite recapture the magic of the original. First, there was too much emphasis on Big Daddy battles, which were like mini-boss battles. I disliked boss battles of any kind, so having to do this contantly was not my cup of tea. And the Big Sisters were just mean. I need to go back and start over, maybe play on an easier difficulty and just beat the game...though I was already spoiled for the twist ending by the action figure I bought at SDCC.

Sequel I Wasn't Really Interested In But Am Now Playing Through A Second Time - Mass Effect 2: Don't take away my geek-card, but I hadn't even finished Mass Effect when ME2 was released. In fact, I played through ME2 before I finished ME. But ME2 was so amazing, so awesome, I actually went back and finished my ME game and then imported my new Shepard and have started ME2 again! And I'm already thinking about what I want to do with my next playthrough (I'm gonna try to be totally renegade). They actually improved a lot of the gameplay elements from ME to ME2. I agree with what Adam Sessler said at PAX - I wish they would go back and remake ME with the control scheme from ME2 - it's that much better.

It Keeps Getting Better - Rock Band 3: While it wasn't leaps and bounds different, all the tweaks to the game that are in Rock Band 3 were upgrades that needed to happen. And the fact that I was able to get 7 people playing at one time (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, 3 mics) at my party in November was awesome. The keyboard is a cool feature and I think the addition of the "pro-mode" was genius, encouraging players to go a bit above and beyond, but letting those of us happy to just push buttons keep playing on our own level.

I Built A Whole New PC For This One - Civilization V: I was a Civ IV addict for a long time. The game is a total time suck but it's worth it. Civ V changes gameplay in a few ways - hexagonal spaces on the board, no unit stacking, city-states - and it made a big enough difference that I'm sucked back in yet again. Plus, since I have a shiny new computer, I can play online with no problems! I don't know if it's because I played Civ before or if they dumbed it down, but I feel like I understand this one a bit more than the last one. Far less micro-managing by default though you can really get in there if you want to. I've already lost many an evening to this one.

What? I Didn't Know That Was Out But I Need It - Super Mario Galaxy 2 - My poor Wii - I hardly play with it anymore. As you can see from this list, most of my gaming happens on the Xbox or PC. But when a game made by Nintendo comes out, you kinda gotta get it! The sequel brought more of the same but why try to improve a game that was already awesome? I played this non-stop for awhile but then something else came out and distracted me and now it's sitting, half completed...heck, the disc might still be in the Wii as I type this.

Impulse Purchase of the Year - Red Dead Redemption: This one was all over PAX East and I knew it was a Rockstar game. I always wanted to like GTA, but I just never got into it. But RDR is pretty much GTA set in the old west...which apparently I'm find with! Being a lawless rogue back in cowboy times is charming! I haven't really played it enough, but it's one I keep meaning to go back to because it was such a good time.

Game That Made Me Want To Flirt With Everything That Moved - Dragonage - I'd never really paid attention to the romantic quests in games, but reading

faeriesfolly and

lostacanthus post about their virtual romantic encounters made me want to try it for the lulz. And with Alistair, it's all about the lulz. And to top it off, it was a good game too! Not quite as good as ME2, but still a lot of fun...and I've already pre-ordered DA2.

I Tried To Resist - Fable III: I didn't really like Fable or Fable II. I felt the prologue went on too long and playing a "kid" got old fast. But Fable III skips that whole thing and just jumps in to the good part. I had no plans to play it, but my brother bought it and was done with it, so I "borrowed" it. I think I've played it more than any of the previous Fable games. I still find the controls a bit wierd and the NPC characters annoying...but now I'm thinking that because they annoy me, I could create an evil character and easily kill them all with little regret. But, right now I'm trying to get the loyalty of Bowerstone and get rid of the STD my husband gave me on our wedding night.

I Didn't Fall Off The Wagon, simontrueheart Pushed Me - World of Warcraft - Look, I had stopped playing this game for at least a year and I was fine. I was happy! Do you see all the games listed above that i had time to play?? But then over Thanksgiving, Alan shows me all the big changes that occured in WoW recently and PULLED me back in!!!! Now Inara is running all over Azeroth, struggling to reach level 85. *sigh* Yeah, its' fun. I just wish there wasn't a monthly fee.

Sir Not Appearing In This Film - Limbo: I forgot to put LIMBO in my little graphic up there, but it must be mentioned. It's an XBL Arcade exclusive game and it's a lot of fun. Eerie, creepy, and puzzle-y. I would call it this year's Braid - an independant game that is just as good as anything put out by a major developer. If you've got the MS points to spare, I def recommend downloading it.

Most Important Release of the Year, It Changes Everything - Kinect: I waited all year for this. Heck, I've been excited about it since Felicia Day posted the video of her playing the demo last year. Then the PS3 Move came out, and I started to get nervous because the reviews were so lame. Suddenly, I got worried that the Kinect might not be everything I had hoped. Luckily, Microsoft knew this was going to be a dealbreaker. The Kinect works as promised and just amazes me every time I play. Sure, I get nervous that it's watching me and plans on killing me in my sleep BUT it's so damn fun to play! Kinect Adventures, the game that comes packaged with the peripheral, gives you the most basic introduction to what it can do. You have to unlearn what you've learned from normal videogames - the natural pause between each action, the idea of going back to a start point after each move - and let your mind THINK it's in that virtual world. It's hard to explain until you play, but you really can't ace a game of Rally Ball until you stop waiting for the ball to be in a certain spot...you have to move quickly to keep up. It's easy to see that they can build games for all ages, but other games that will take time to master. The demo for Dance Central, also included on the disc, blew me away. The fact that I get to do dance moves (instead of just stepping on a mat) is crazy and fun.