The Outlaw's Game of the Year

Welp, it's the new year, and for video games it means two thing: Looking forward to a new year's worth of releases, and looking back on the best of the previous year. I'm a day late so let's not dilly-dally!

GAME OF THE YEAR: BATMAN ARKHAM CITY

Surprise! I picked the Batman game! But it freaking deserved it! It had everything. The best combat, the best story, albeit not the best script (that honor goes to the runner up), and some of the best acting. Everything worked into making the Batman mythos feel incredibly alive. The villains, the allies: GOSH, IT WAS ALL SO GREAT! How they smoothed out the combat to near perfection astonishes even me. The addition of the quick-fire ability to so many of the gadgets makes fighting incredibly varied and still incredibly smooth. Stealth is still great and seeing your victims get more and more terrified is always incredibly satisfying. Mark Hamill gives the most chilling Joker performance Ive ever seen and Kevin Conroy is still the best Batman. Throw in amazing villain cameos, some of which I'm still finding, some actually difficult Riddler challenges, and the absolute best way of getting around an open world map in a video game ever add up to what has to be my game of the year. And as an added bonus, they also went ahead and wrote the best theme of the year, too.


Seriously... This is amazing.

Just like the title character, Batman: Arkham City can't be beat. (Don't read the comic Knightfall. It makes this final sentence make less sense)

RUNNER UP: PORTAL 2

D'awwwwwwww

 Portal 2 is absolutely one of the best games I've ever played. It's even better than it's prequel. The issue, however, is that it doesn't have the same impact. It does everything the first game did, but bigger and with even better writing. In fact, the writing is the best of the year, and Cave Johnson is the best new original character by far. The addition of mutiplayer puzzle solving was also great. Yet, for some reason, it just didn't do for me what the original did. When I played 1 I felt like I was playing something completely new and different. Now I just feel like I'm playing Portal. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense to anyone else, but it does to me, dammit! But I'm not insulting it. I'm giving it runner up!

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: DUKE NUKEM FOREVER

That blank page should be the whole book. Also, don't look directly in the eyes of that troll child.

Oh, Duke. Duke, Duke, Duke. What the hell happened during that development cycle that lasted over a decade. Somewhere along the line, you forgot who were you. You threw old-school and new-school elements together that didn't mix and your jokes... well MOST of them fell flat. Not to mention the incredibly disturbing scene where women were essentially raped in the mouth and impregnated by aliens. It works in the movie Alien because it's a horror movie and the alien attacks members of both sexes. When the situation is pointed to as a joke it's just terrible. Yes, I did defend the game to an extent in an earlier article, but the main argument was that it wasn't as terrible as some where saying it was. It still wasn't great and it definitely didn't live up to Duke Nukem 3D. Of course, what game in the series since then has? Duke, I am disappoint. 

SPECIAL MENTION: RAYMAN ORIGINS

My face while playing Rayman: Origins

 This game needs some love. ALL OF YOUR LOVE! It was released at a terrible time, and it has sold like crap because of it. It deserves more than that, though. Way more than that. This, my friends, is the best 2-D platformer since Super Nintendo era Mario games. It's smooth, it has tight controls and physics, and gets insanely hard. It doesn't coddle you and you'll love every minute of it. Plus, it's gorgeously animated with beautifully hand drawn art and the level design is phenomenal. These factors make it special because it's a labor of love. It's a perfect throwback to an era of gaming I miss and for that, it deserves my special mention.