Though I've reviewed every game on this list, and you can certainly read the original reviews, I thought I would take another look at the games that rose above the cruft this year. Here it is: my top ten video game picks for the year 2010.
10. No More Heroes 2
Like many of Suda 51's games, NMH2 is thoroughly ridiculous – it's filled with over-the-top violence, a foul-mouthed, douchey protagonist, and, at times, mindless, button-mashing action. This would perhaps make it seem like the legions of games that get released every year that are exactly like this. But it's not so with NMH2.
In what is perhaps the biggest "fuck you" to the player in video gaming history, NMH2 is designed to mock and at time humiliate the player who finds this kind of stuff titillating. Whether it's through the game's clever use of metanarrative, or its delightfully inane plot, or, you know, the fact that you have to masturbate to recharge your batteries (how's that for some pointed commentary!), NMH2 is filled to the brim with macho-player-baiting. The only reason why the game doesn't score higher is that, besides a few new wrinkles, a lot of this was done in No More Heroes. It doesn't make this game shine much less brilliantly, though.
9. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
There's no denying that Level-5 have a formula firmly in place with their Layton games – it's still a clever mixture of brainteasers, puzzle solving, and sleuthing – but that doesn't mean that the atmosphere and, more importantly, the storytelling have been sacrificed. Not in the least. Because if Unwound Future is anything, it's a character and plot delivery device, and at that, it succeeds more beautifully (and touchingly) than any other game released this year. Sure, the puzzles can sometimes be a little arbitrary, but Level-5 is still providing far more context than their competitors, and those puzzles are some of the best in video games.
Bonus: Hershel Layton is a dapper motherfucker.
8. Vanquish
Though I'm hardly a fan of shooting, or guns, or anything having to do with guns (seriously, I hate guns so much), credit has to be given where credit's due. Shinji Mikami, of Resident Evil and, more pertinently to this game, God Hand fame, has crafted the most balls-out ridiculous shooting game ever, and the results are glorious. Vanquish puts most action games to shame by being so over-the-top, hilarious, and flat-out awesome, while bringing action gaming back to its skill-based roots. You wouldn't think that a Contra throwback would make for a great game, but Vanquish proves that the key to making a great action romp is to take inspiration from the year 1994, not from movies and not from anywhere else.
7. Bit.Trip Runner/Bit.Trip Fate
This is a little bit of cheating – besides being from the same series, these two games have almost nothing to do with each other gameplay-wise. But what they both share is a love of video games and a need, percolating under the surface, to make sense and systemize the tropes of gaming's past. Sure, the developers see this as a metaphor for the human journey (and I'd contend that the journey of art is the human journey), but for the appreciator of gaming's past and future, the Bit.Trip games are where it's at. Oh, and they're so much fun to play, too.
6. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon
There are so many instances where game developers have this amazing idea, but have no idea how to execute it without relying on video game tropes and inconsistent design. Fragile Dreams might not be the most fun game you'll ever play, but it understands that if you have a concept, you have to take it to its logical extremes, and that's exactly what it does. This is a game about a surreal post-apocalypse starring a fifteen-year-old boy, and the game will never, ever let you forget that that's exactly who you're going to play as. Terrible or art? I'm not too sure, but I know that Fragile Dreams is one of the most dazzlingly compelling games of the year, underscored by its terrific art style and moody atmosphere.
Open world done right – New Vegas makes your decisions matter. It's spectacularly well-written, and even though its mechanics sometimes show through the cracks of its aging, nearly broken Gamebryo engine, it's still a horrifically huge, important, and amazing game. Nevermind that Fallout 3 treks a lot of the same ground – New Vegas is a world all its own, and it's definitely worth exploring.
4. Donkey Kong Country Returns
DKCR succeeds in many of the same ways as Bit.Trip Runner does, but does so while resurrecting a long-dormant franchise, making said franchise all of a sudden super-important, and marrying it to some of the most spectacular aesthetics I've ever seen. This is a game that ties you to your controller, compelling you in subtle and not so subtle ways, making for not only one of the best games of the year, but a game that ties up and locks away the 2.5D platformer genre forever.
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3. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
Sin and Punishment 2 is the game no one expected to see; yet here it is, and it's the best action game of the year. Much in the same way that Vanquish pushes it to the limit all the time, S&P2 is a perfect (yes, perfect) distillation of every action gaming trope, tied to a hugely bizarre, surreal landscape, where you might fight a robot at one minute and a giant chicken at another. Most games that try to be "serious" fail pretty spectacularly, given that few people know how to write for a video game. S&P2 never falls into that trap. It knows what it is and it executes in ways I couldn't have even imagined.
2. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
I love this game so, so much, and you'd think it would be terrible. Nameless, faceless protagonists in a "repetitive" story. But that story is the game's greatest strength – every vignette is gloriously well-written and at times, heartbreaking, while maintaining the DQ verbal wit that players have come to know and love. Add in the fact that it's one of the most beautiful and whimsical games I've ever played, as well as one of the most daring, while being incredibly well-suited to the DS, and you have a JRPG that can rank right up there with Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasies as one of the best.
And my personal GOTY is…
This game. THIS GAME. Easily the very best Mario game ever (and that's saying something). A game that is at once joyous and mysterious, majestic and uplifting, challenging and downright awesome. No other game has ever put the player in the position of exploring the furthest reaches of the human mind, but that's exactly what SMG2 does. Not content to have Mario go from left to right, now you're jutting up against the very edges of the platformer genre entirely, a genre that SMG2 both perfects and obliterates at the same time. It might seem like just "more" Super Mario Galaxy, but that would be doing the myriad improvements and just flat out inventiveness of this game a grave injustice. No other game this year is as polished, daring, or amazing as Super Mario Galaxy 2.
Sound off in the comments! Was I out to lunch? What's your personal favourite game this year?
(Ed note: I haven't played Mass Effect 2 yet, but it's happening. Soon. Watch for a review.)