JobyDrone's Ten Best Games of 2010

[KingIsaacLinksr]

This thread is funny. Chris loves Xbox like I love Apple. :)

Preach on brother! I could agree to that. More like I don't like Sony and went with the lesser of two evils, but yeah I do like my xbox ... there's now 5 of them in the house. I'd get a iPAD before I got a PS3.

I'm actually curious why you hate Sony so much, (I don't like em much either, but to me they're equal to Microsoft in terms of evilness) but tbh, don't want to drag this thread down any farther than it already has.  Just me posting here depreciates the value of threads ;).  

King

[X]

This thread is funny. Chris loves Xbox like I love Apple. :)

Preach on brother! I could agree to that. More like I don't like Sony and went with the lesser of two evils, but yeah I do like my xbox ... there's now 5 of them in the house. I'd get a iPAD before I got a PS3.

I'm actually curious why you hate Sony so much, (I don't like em much either, but to me they're equal to Microsoft in terms of evilness) but tbh, don't want to drag this thread down any farther than it already has.  Just me posting here depreciates the value of threads ;).  

King

Sony has some very bad business practices that they tend to use. They pretty much rigged the format war between bluray and HDDVD by using their movie house to make it exclusive to their proprietary format. When the XBOX was released, Sony released specs for the PS3 a few days earlier that had a lot of things that ended up not happening. Sony has a habit of making big promises and failing to deliver.

While making a profit off their owning bluray with each sale, they made profit off of the licensing of the tech and then used the PS3 to undercut the the other manufacturers. All in all, it was a very shady move. PS3 promised backwards compat, then only included it on certain devices.

I have more respect for Apple than I do Sony because Apple hasn't outright lied about things and used pressure tactics to get they way. Apple presented a good product and people wanted it. The have never lied about their specs. Sony gives you smoke and mirrors to delay you in buying something else and then fails to deliver on their promises when they do get around to releasing something.

As much as people like to attack microsoft, they are pretty honest about their tech products.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Hmm, some interesting points X.  I knew something went down to make Blue-Ray the ruler no matter what, had no idea Sony was behind it, I figured it was Warner Brothers or someone similar.  I guess I always figured something shady had gone down, since the race had been so close for a long time and then suddenly it was declared the winner.  So do you buy Blue-Rays?  I'm just curious.  

I always did wonder what happened to the compatibility of the PS3.  It was there, then gone, then there then gone again.  (Or at least it seemed like it.)  The last product I bought was a Sony CD Walkman years ago.  Err, oops, that blue-ray player I have is Sony, but otherwise, I don't tend to buy from Sony because their products are unattractive due to higher cost.  Apple may be pricier but I have the assurance that their software and hardware will work.  Sony doesn't have this.  

Microsoft...well, I think I blamethe hardware designers more than the software, but long rant short, their products tend to be bloated and I strongly dislike genuine-check.  Only because it tends to fail and call legitimate software bad. Oh the headaches.  And the viruses and all that crud.  Admittedly, if Apple and MS switched places, we'd probably be dealing with the same issues, just with prettier machines :P.  So I can't entirely blame MS for that.  And Windows 7
 was a success as I've had very few issues with the OS this time around. 

King

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Also I should have said this before, while I did say that the graphics are better on the PS3, what I really should have added after that is that gameplay should be equal on either platform.  I blame my visual-minded self for putting PS3 on a higher platform than Xbox.  My bad.  Guess that Fanboy comment put me off as I prefer to be called a fanboy if I actually have the product and love it.  But since I don't have much Sony stuff and certainly not a PS3, well, yeah.  Call me a fanboy when I really am darnit!    ;)

King

[Jobydrone]

A couple comments then I'm going to bed...

The benefits of carrying over a character from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 are cool but not worth slogging through the first game for at this point, particularly if you don't have a ton of time for gaming. I'd suggest reading the comic or the Wikipedia entry.

There are exclusive games for Wii, PS3, and Xbox that I want to play which is why I own all three. I have no brand loyalty other than a slight preference for the PS3 because it's quieter than the Xbox and the version I have has a bigger hard drive.

Piracy is wrong, and while the big game companies have not figured out how to stop people from stealing their products, I believe they have the right to do whatever they can to stop it. The actual legality of the situation is that when you buy a game you are buying a license to play it, you don't actually own any part of the data. That being said companies like Ubisoft wouldn't be in business if all they did was anger their customers. They would not allow their games to be rendered unplayable because of their servers failing or closing up shop or whatever. They patched the DRM issues with Assassins Creed 2 within a week of the problems being reported.

Finally, I love the conversation, but just to bring this a bit back on topic could all the people that have posted here just leave a quick note listing your favorite games of 2010 and what made them great?

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Well, after having such a fun conversation here, I might as well add my two cents.  

1.  Mass Effect 2.  This game is just awesome and has been the most fun I've ever had with an RPG.  It is rich, deep and with a great storyline and balanced gameplay and classes, there is nothing you cannot love.  Plus, plenty of eye candy ;).  

2.  Ai War: Fleet Command + Expansions.  A strategy game developed by indie developer ArcenGames, they recently overhauled their game from the ground up with better video, sound and gameplay while keeping to their core, which is a strategy game VS an incredibly intelligent and difficult AI in space.  Lots of spaceships duking it out in a very well done strategy game.  They even have a micro-expansion devoted to charity.  Heavily recommend this one, its cheap, no DRM and the developers listen to their fans.  It is on Steam and arcengames.com    

3.  Tidalis, also developed by Arcen Games is definitely my favorite Puzzle game.  And I do not like the puzzle genre much at all.  Its a rich game that really challenges a genre that is oversaturated right now.  

4.  Angry Birds.  iPhone, Droid and more.  Do I really need to say more, its Angry Birds killing fat pigs in a action-physics game.  

5.  Starcraft 2.  I'll give Blizzard kudos, Starcraft 2 is a lot of fun and a great sequel to the original. 

X.  We Rule. iPhone.  Anyone who has read my blog knows I'm currently at odds with this developer atm, but I still have to say it is one of my favorite games for iOS and I might return to this title in the future, but in a lot less supporting manner.  Its like Farmville but set in the medieval times.  

And that's it, not 10 titles because I was busy this year and not a lot of titles grabbed my attention.  And those that I did grab just weren't as good as they could have been.  All in all though, a good year for gaming. 

King

[Jobydrone]

Ha ha, thanks Tim, you're awesome!

[Rico]

I played mainly WOW in 2010.  "Star Trek: Online" didn't really grab me, but I want to give it another go this year.  Oh, and I played a little "Uncharted 2" which is a cool game.  Hope to do more in 2011.

[X]

I have a very odd list of top games for 2010. I have a range of games that I play, but I think it says more about the games that I keep coming back to.

In no real order:

Call of Duty: Black Ops: As much as I didn't want to get this game, I have several days worth of play time invested into it, but I've yet to start the campaign. It's a great game for league play and has better balance than MW2 in that aspect.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Now this is a tricky one. I've only played this game a handful of times, but I've put a lot of money into the DLC. I'm still not sure why I did that, but I think the fact that you can buy the unlocks without having to play for hours sold me. I also like the new DLC Vietnam expansion they have. For a game that I've next to rarely played, they got a lot of my money, so I'd say they were successful.

Starcraft 2: I haven't bought a real PC game that wasn't a MMORPG in something like 20 years. When my brother in law gave me the guest pass, I was paying for the digital download before it expired.

Hydro Thunder: Hurricane: This revamp of the old arcade and Dreamcast game had me buying it only second after my first multiplayer race in the trial version.

Risk Factions: Another XBOX arcade game, this game brought me back to being at IHOP for 16 hours playing risk with friends over a pot of endless coffee. The new features of the game brought some freshness to it without taking away from the simple fun that was the board game.

Rock Band 3: If there was ever a family game, I think this is it. With the vast collection of songs and the new pro mode, I think it might be just the thing that the doctor ordered. It has made me want to go back and relearn all of the instruments that I played in school and tossed aside as I grew older because I couldn't see a career playing half a dozen brass instruments. It's also a game where you can teach the kids to enjoy a good song outside of the things that they listen to today.

Plants vs Zombies: I actually don't play this game, but my wife and daughter do. I have it on two computers and two xboxes. It's been able to give me hours of peace and quiet. To me, that's a good game. The credit song isn't half bad either.

Red Dead: Great game. I think I need to get back to it and finish at some point.

[Rico]

Crap - I need to play Starcraft 2 soon too!  So many great games - so little time!

[QuadShot]

This thread is funny. Chris loves Xbox like I love Apple. :)

BUT...he's unwilling to allow others their views. He gets angry when someone believes other than the way he does...Hmmph.

[QuadShot]

This thread is funny. Chris loves Xbox like I love Apple. :)

Preach on brother! I could agree to that. More like I don't like Sony and went with the lesser of two evils, but yeah I do like my xbox ... there's now 5 of them in the house. I'd get a iPAD before I got a PS3.

Wow...the lesser of two evils. Hmm. I'm thinking greedy Bill Gates and Microsoft is the NOT the lesser of those two evils. Never saw the PS3 suffer from CONSTANT system crashes or the "Red Ring Of Gates"...er, I mean the "Red Ring Of Death". Dude, you get so uptight when someone comes out here and makes any sort of statement, yet you ALWAYS make statements of preferance. It's a free world dude. If I want to post on a forum that PS3 is WAY better than XBox, why in the world would I need to provide references to you to support my statement? It's MY OPINION (or, Kings in this case). Chill brother...

[QuadShot]

This thread is funny. Chris loves Xbox like I love Apple. :)

Preach on brother! I could agree to that. More like I don't like Sony and went with the lesser of two evils, but yeah I do like my xbox ... there's now 5 of them in the house. I'd get a iPAD before I got a PS3.

I'm actually curious why you hate Sony so much, (I don't like em much either, but to me they're equal to Microsoft in terms of evilness) but tbh, don't want to drag this thread down any farther than it already has.  Just me posting here depreciates the value of threads ;). 

King

No kidding. I mean, X goes on to defend a companies right to make tons of money, yet slams Sony for doing exactly that...hmm. Double standards perhaps?

[QuadShot]

This thread is funny. Chris loves Xbox like I love Apple. :)

Preach on brother! I could agree to that. More like I don't like Sony and went with the lesser of two evils, but yeah I do like my xbox ... there's now 5 of them in the house. I'd get a iPAD before I got a PS3.

I'm actually curious why you hate Sony so much, (I don't like em much either, but to me they're equal to Microsoft in terms of evilness) but tbh, don't want to drag this thread down any farther than it already has.  Just me posting here depreciates the value of threads ;). 

King

Sony has some very bad business practices that they tend to use. They pretty much rigged the format war between bluray and HDDVD by using their movie house to make it exclusive to their proprietary format. When the XBOX was released, Sony released specs for the PS3 a few days earlier that had a lot of things that ended up not happening. Sony has a habit of making big promises and failing to deliver.

While making a profit off their owning bluray with each sale, they made profit off of the licensing of the tech and then used the PS3 to undercut the the other manufacturers. All in all, it was a very shady move. PS3 promised backwards compat, then only included it on certain devices.

I have more respect for Apple than I do Sony because Apple hasn't outright lied about things and used pressure tactics to get they way. Apple presented a good product and people wanted it. The have never lied about their specs. Sony gives you smoke and mirrors to delay you in buying something else and then fails to deliver on their promises when they do get around to releasing something.

As much as people like to attack microsoft, they are pretty honest about their tech products.

So X, why is what Sony does make them "shady" and " has some very bad business practices that they tend to use", when for years Microsoft has cornered the market in software/computers and such? Huh? If you're going to slam Sony, you need to slam EVERYONE for doing the same thing. And oh...thought you said it was ok to make money? :)

[Jobydrone]

I have a very odd list of top games for 2010. I have a range of games that I play, but I think it says more about the games that I keep coming back to.

In no real order:

Call of Duty: Black Ops: As much as I didn't want to get this game, I have several days worth of play time invested into it, but I've yet to start the campaign. It's a great game for league play and has better balance than MW2 in that aspect.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Now this is a tricky one. I've only played this game a handful of times, but I've put a lot of money into the DLC. I'm still not sure why I did that, but I think the fact that you can buy the unlocks without having to play for hours sold me. I also like the new DLC Vietnam expansion they have. For a game that I've next to rarely played, they got a lot of my money, so I'd say they were successful.

Starcraft 2: I haven't bought a real PC game that wasn't a MMORPG in something like 20 years. When my brother in law gave me the guest pass, I was paying for the digital download before it expired.

Hydro Thunder: Hurricane: This revamp of the old arcade and Dreamcast game had me buying it only second after my first multiplayer race in the trial version.

Risk Factions: Another XBOX arcade game, this game brought me back to being at IHOP for 16 hours playing risk with friends over a pot of endless coffee. The new features of the game brought some freshness to it without taking away from the simple fun that was the board game.

Rock Band 3: If there was ever a family game, I think this is it. With the vast collection of songs and the new pro mode, I think it might be just the thing that the doctor ordered. It has made me want to go back and relearn all of the instruments that I played in school and tossed aside as I grew older because I couldn't see a career playing half a dozen brass instruments. It's also a game where you can teach the kids to enjoy a good song outside of the things that they listen to today.

Plants vs Zombies: I actually don't play this game, but my wife and daughter do. I have it on two computers and two xboxes. It's been able to give me hours of peace and quiet. To me, that's a good game. The credit song isn't half bad either.

Red Dead: Great game. I think I need to get back to it and finish at some point.

Great list!  I really want to play Starcraft 2 as well, but I have zero experience with that series, and my RTS or TBS experience is limited to a few games of Civilization and Panzer General for the 3DO.  I'm planning on checking out Risk as well, I've heard that is one of the best new downloadable games on the Xbox.  You should try Pvs.Z, normally I hate the whole tower defense type of game but the humor and addictive quality of that game won me over.