PixlBit

Here's my "waiting for a car repair" blog about the 2011 games that I played relatively close to release date in order of Metacritic rating for that year. Also, I'm just noting the system I played the game on, not all available systems. 

#5 - Minecraft (XBLA) - I distinctly remember trying this game in the Spring of 2012 when it hit XBLA. I was dubious because I thought the graphics were terrible. How can this game be good like everyone was saying since the alpha in 2009? Well it wasn't long into the demo when I realized what the fuss was all about. You can do anything you want! Oh yeah, you can dig and dig, and build and build, and. . . fight off skeletons and creepers? What the heck is a creeper anyway? All I know is I now have a immediate jump reaction to the sound of a fuse lighting up. 

MK and I both got into Minecraft in a deep way. We mostly played Survival mode in co-op and solo, sometimes both (ie. we would visit each other's worlds regularly). I was crazy for maps and constructing villages and he was into building huge warehouse sized buildings and massive excavations deep underground. We took on the End Dragon together and beat it and explored the Outer End for End Cities. We also got all the achievements up until fairly recently when we kind of stopped going for them. It's easily a thousand plus hours game for both of us and I hope to revisit it soon on Xbox 360 (I think it's actually next up after Defense Grid, actually). 

#11 - Gears of War 3 (X360) - Now, it might have been 2012 that we played it, I can't remember, but I do remember it was a holiday season (November) that we discovered the series with this game and played it for like three months straight into the next year. Horde Mode in co-op was probably responsible for that. From there we worked back through the previous two games we had missed. That you could play all the campaigns in co-op made all of them fun for me. 

#31 - Rayman Origins (X360) - As usual, a great art style, some humor and good music can pull me into any game even a platformer. This and Legends that came after were always fun for me to replay even if I didn't ever get to the end of either of them. They're just so full of joy, I can't resist them. 

#36 - Bastion (XBLA) - It really became about equal the digital games to physical I played around this time. This was celebrated for it's narrator that would adapt to what you did in the game. A novel gimmick, but I was more into the hack 'n slash gameplay. It's a challenging game though. I still haven't beaten it. 

#55 - Killzone 3 (PS3) - Here's where I realized that Killzone really wasn't for me, even though I liked the series a lot. It's cover-based mechanics made it a little more tactical than I liked, but I still followed Guerilla Games into Killzone: Shadowfall and then into the Horizon series, which I adore. 

#56 - Stacking (XBLA) - I've always been a DoubleFine fan and would try anything they put out like Costume Quest in 2010. They always do something novel and creative. What a great game mechanic nesting dolls provide in Stacking. There's even some smart commentary on workers rights in the 19th century going on here. Smart, funny and novel is like my perfect recipe for a game. 

#58 - Bulletstorm (X360) - I've been following People Can Fly since Painkiller in 2004. They really haven't made a bad game imo. This is inspired by Gears, even coproduced by Cliffy B, but with a new game mechanic in the leash arm band. This lets you toss enemies around and chuck them into environmental dangers. There's a scoring system and seperate challenge levels you play purely for score. Every last bit of writing by comic creator Rick Remender is hilariously crude but also complelling. I've read his Fear Agent and Black Science comics and played this game and the first Dead Space, which he cowrote with Antony Johnson (Wasteland comic) and Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan comic). It's always fun to revisit this game. 

#85 - Okamiden (DS) - I'm a fan of 2005's Okami by Clover Games (now called Platinum Games) and so was stoked to see this come out and got it day-one. I liked it a lot but never finished it. 

#89 - Torchlight (XBLA) - So an action role-playing game in the style of Gauntlet or Diablo for download on Xbox? Oh yeah! This was out for PC in '09 but it came to Xbox this year. Made by Runic Games which combined creators of the game Fate and Diablo 1-2. What a team! I just discovered Fate: Reawakened is available to consoles right now. Wishlisted!

#95 - Rage (X360) - I always have to keep up with what ID is doing: John Carmack and his IdTech 5 in this his last supervised ID game. This game features a boomerang weapon that is really fun to toss around. It's a very good game that, for some reason, I've never finished. 

#186 - Warhammer 40K: Space Marine (X360) - Remember demos? I used to play a lot of them and discovered this action game knowing next to nothing about Warhammer. Who knew that a sequel would come out over a decade later. I've since learned a lot about Warhammer from a coworker and would love to play the minatures game some time, but it's an expensive hobby. I wish I still had this physical 360 game (there's a remaster available now though) but it's become scarce and pricey since the sequel came out. 

#239 - Serious Sam B.F.E. (X360) - MK and I have been playing Serious Sam games since 2001. Co-op run-and-gun gameplay was one of our favorites. This is just simply that with hoards of enemies on screen. 

#317 - Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (X360) - It's possible this was our first EDF game. It was a western developed version and a little different from the main series which we got into majorly with 2013's EDF 2025 and then backtracked to 2006's EDF 2017. It's a bit like a third-person view Serioius Sam: co-op play, hoards of enemies, lots of weapons and run-and-gun to your heart's content. Although, Insect Armadeggon was good, it's the Japanese developed games that are the best. 

#395 - Lord of the Rings: War in the North (X360) - This didn't get the best reviews, but it was super fun in co-op. It was by Snowblind who did Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. Enough said, I was in. This is a third-person action RPG MK and I played to the very end. We even went for complete achievements and got them. 

#450 - Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls (PSN) - My PS3 playing was diminishing and especially with digital games, but this one brought me back because I'm a lifetime fan of the Wizardry series. Of course, this is a slightly different series from the SirTech games of the 80s and 90s. The Japanese really loved Wizardry and made their own series and only a few have come over to the west. So I was into this, but it's hard and unforgiving. I'll keep diving in though and getting killed. 

#483 - Bodycount (X360) - I was so excited for this FPS. It's a spiritual successor to 2005's Black. It features destructible environments. It was just okay though. It has great gunplay and smashing through walls was fun but it didn't last in my memory the way Black did. 

#507 - Duke Nukem Forever (X360) - Well, Gearbox did us a solid and released what was left over after the last Duke Nukem game many years ago. It was kind of terrible, but it was something to get you hopping for a true Duke Nukem game in the future. Looks like only the addition of Duke in Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is all we're getting. 

There were several other games I played much later like the first Skylanders game and Kinect's Disneyland Adventures that I enjoyed but these were the ones of the time.