Games this generation which really impressed you

[CMoon]

http://blog.system11.org/?p=536

Part 3 done! Also fixed part 2, Metro 2033 was supposed to be in that post.

As suggested above in others' posts, this list needs the souls games.

Haven't played them, after Skyrim I really wasn't that interested in another fantasy/medieval period RPG. Everything here is something I bought and played extensively, in fact I think Tomb Raider is the only one I didn't finish.

Not trying to keep after you, but Dark Souls is more like Symphony of the Night than Skyrim.

[Bananamatic]

"it's like skyrim with gameplay"

[CStarFlare]

http://blog.system11.org/?p=549

And with that - my list of 20 is finished.

I thought I was the only person who really loved TR: Anniversary. Glad to see it show up on your list.

Dead Rising 1/2 probably tops my list of new IP this gen. I'm not sure which to pick out as my favorite - 2 is better in just about every way, but the original is a great game in its own right, and was a better challenge.

Oblivion has probably claimed over 250 hours of my life at this point. I was bored with Skyrim after 70 (which is a totally respectable length), but I keep coming back to Oblivion. Getting the PC version and setting up OOO made things even better.

Child of Eden was more enjoyable than Rez to me. Visually it's a little overdone, but I like the rhythm element to scoring that wasn't there in Rez. It also inspired me to spend a little more time with Rez, which is always very nice.

[drauch]

I'm a big fan of TR: Anniversary as well. Big love letter to the fans in my opinion. What I've always wanted.

Oblivion, Skyrim, Dark Souls, Demons Souls. All those games are pure fantasy bliss. Any snarky comments to either is coming from someone who doesn't love a fun ARPG. I've talked to CMoon about this plenty myself, but I really respect the Souls series probably more than anything this generation. I haven't given them the time I'd really like to, because let's face it: they are VERY time consuming games,but they are very unique and very hard, which is why I appreciate them, especially in a generation where so many games hold your hand and stray from such a dark setting.

Love S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as well. Shame there probably won't be another.

Biggest game for me is easily Half-Life 2 and its expansions. Patiently waiting, and will continue to.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Didn't play it, but MadWorld looked mighty impressive on trailers. Not really next-gen way, but I was impressed.
Have this gen seen at least one game that practically couldn't have happened on previous gen consoles? Mind you, the first Xbox got a Far Cry port and if you ask me, the 2004 Transformers on PS2 didn't look much worse.

[DJ Incompetent]

Pinball Arcade - The single solution to mobile gaming. STGs need to copy this formula.
Rez HD - The pinnacle of exploring your home theater audio.
Child of Eden - The pinnacle of exploring your home theater visuals.
Nier (Hard Mode) - With the correct mindset and discipline, this is the most satisfying 3rd person adventure available.
Earth Defense Force 2017 - The most holy shit moments in a videogame.
Left 4 Dead 2 - Revolutionary and refined team FPS combat.
Soundodger+ - The best sound choreography to bullet patterns available.
Super Meat Boy - The successor to Super Mario Bros.
Team Fortress 2 - Satisfying FPS with cultural impact.
Christian Whitehead's Sonic CD - This is how you update a classic.
No More Heroes 1&2 - The pinnacle of straight-bangin' 3rd person stage 'n levels combat.
Bioshock Infinite - A bizarre and gripping story.
Sin & Punishment 2 - Angles! Perspectives! Controls!
House/Typing of the Dead: Overkill - The best zombie property out there.
Bleed - The innovative run'n'gun. A wonderful survival challenge.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 - As satisfying to watch in competitions as it is to play.
Hard Corps: Uprising - The best of traditional run'n'gun
Super Smash Bros Brawl - The best Kirby game. The sum of 15 years of culture.
Megaman 9&10/Mighty No. 9 - Culturally necessary obstacle courses.
Portal 1&2 - Puzzles! Wit!
Symphony - The fascination of what hot mess my music will generate.
Pinball FX2 - The infinity of content. Skyrim defeated!
Wii Sports Resort - The most successful party game and a technical marvel for its time.
Super Hexagon - Perfection of the fastest credit.
Geometry Wars 2 - Revolution of leaderboards.

[Skykid]

Sin & Punishment 2 was glorious.

Hard Corps: Uprising - The best of traditional run'n'gun

I must have played a different game, srsly.

[Ed Oscuro]

Red Dead Redemption impressed me for being incredibly overrated considering what it is. Don't have very many other data points to compare it to, unfortunately. Definitely not about to rush out and buy more Rock* titles though.

L4D2 felt "off" to me, compared to the original - but then any amazingly quick cash-grab turnaround will tend to do that for your enthusiasm. Certainly this is highly tempered by the large amount of original content re-released for that new release, and the good amount of original content re-released overall.

[DJ Incompetent]

Hard Corps: Uprising - The best of traditional run'n'gun

I must have played a different game, srsly.

What was its competition this gen?

[Jonathan Ingram]

What was its competition this gen?

^ is a much better run`n`gun. And so is Metal Slug XX(but to a much lesser degree).

[DJ Incompetent]

Iiiii suppoooose.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I didn't think of it as any generation game, but since World of Goo got a Wii port, I guess it qualifies. The game doesn't cut any corners, doesn't say "look how retro I am". From the boxart through the graphics, music, game design - it demands to be taken seriously. I find this attitude as admirable as The Adventure of Little Ralph or the original BreakQuest in that respect.

[railslave]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPzCzPgupU

funny as hell...

[evil_ash_xero]

Contra Rebirth had some cheap ass graphics. If you're making a game that's supposed to look like an SNES game in the 2000s...and can't...well, take some more time with it.

[ZaKa-tokyobassist]

Hard Corps: Uprising - This game actually made me feel like a kid again. This was a great homage not only to Contra but the classics like Strider as well. Also to those complaining about difficulty, go buy Leviathan and STFU.
Sin & Punishment Star Successor - Favorite game on Wii hands down. Keep your Xenoboredom Chronicles.
King of Fighters XIII - This game feels good to play, has awesome visuals and one of the few fighting games to not be condescending with comeback mechanics and input leniency. Favorite contemporary fighter.
Deus Ex Human Revolution - Waited too long for a new entry and they really did a good job at maintaining the core pillars of Deus Ex. Has better player choice than Mass Effect 2/3 by a mile. Much needed stealth game as well.
No More Heroes - I don't know why but I absolutely love this game. The flaws are obvious but goddamn...something about it is charming.
Dark Souls - I'm sure somebody else here has already talked about this game.
Grand Theft Auto V - Just impressive to really step back and look how the series as grown to what it is. I was THERE when the first game was just a preview in magazines so its crazy to see it now. Not my favorite game by any stretch but I enjoy it.
Hitman: Blood Money - You can't say you like stealth games if you haven't played this. Brilliant game in everyway. It's by far the magnum opus of the series and ranks up there as one of the best stealth games available.

I was impressed by how people ate garbage like Ass Creed and CoD for almost 8 years straight.
Also DLC...let's not get into it shall we.

[iconoclast]

Also to those complaining about difficulty, go buy Leviathan and STFU.

wat

I haven't used Leviathan much, but he seems like the expert character to me because he trades survivability (since he only has 1 HP) for more tricks (slide, backflip, grenades). I think you mean Sayuri, although I wouldn't say she makes the game significantly easier. Just more forgiving because you don't lose your weapon when you take damage.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Safe to say at this point that Wii reminds me of Dreamcast - not all that many games I care to play, but this scarcity means I don't spend much time choosing one whenever Wii is hooked up. Feels liberating.

[BrianC]

Batman Arkham Asylum
Batman Arkham City
Super Mario Galaxy
Skyrim
Bayonetta
Trauma Center New Blood
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
Sonic Colors Wii
Pinball FX2
Rayman Origins
Hard Corps Uprising
Bionic Commando Rearmed
Spelunky HD
Mega Man 9

[Formless God]

Dark Souls' combat is closer to MH than Donte Must Cry. It isn't slow by any means, though. When the enemy attacks, you have a very short time to block or move the fuck out of the way. If it whiffs, you only have enough time to either counterattack, heal up or reposition. There isn't a lot going on, but it's very tight.

DS has actual stage design, lots of detours and branches to choose, and environments that can kill you. I can't remember the last time a game with 3D graphics did this. Sen's Fortress is heaven.

You won't ever take more than 4 hits and dying really fucks with you (oh, and there's ~curse~, that's some fun stuff), so you need to constantly stay on edge. If you make a mistake in this game, you'll most likely go "shit I really shouldn't have done that", whereas in many other games you'll just go "uhhh let's try that again."

---

About Vanquish ... I'm not getting the hype here. Of course it's not in any way a bad game, but I don't get the "variety" praise. After I'm done stealthily sniping people while on a rail car and blowing a couple more Arguses I thought I'd seen everything. All the zako fights up to that point consists of sliding from cover to cover while picking things up in bullet time. That's the most "stylish" thing you could do already. Melee isn't at all useful outside of some slow bosses because you lose a) your shield b) your sanic skaters and you don't want that to happen in the middle of a crossfire.

Also, the upgrade mechanism is really oddly designed; if you are in the process of upgrading a weapon, that weapon is pretty much dead weight because it needs to be at full ammo for further upgrades, and upgrade kits are scarce.

[SGGG2]

A few off the top of my head:

Vanquish: I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said.

Resident Evil 6: The main scenarios are terrible, even if a few of the individual chapters stand out. However, once you get a handle on the controls and mechanics, Mercenaries is out of this world. A modern arcade game with a ton of technique and a high skill ceiling, easily one of the best third person action games ever made. Unfortunately, you have to beat all three scenarios to unlock it. RE6 is so bad it has to be experienced.

Saints Row 2: Buggy, unfinished, rough around the edges and arguably the most fun to be had with any GTA style game. The main character is an absolute psycho and the supporting characters and scenarios are hilarious. The territory disputes capture the mayhem of gang warfare like no other game.

Dead Rising: A game about consumption, voyerism, the absurdity of day to day life, playing with toys and bashing the head in of anyone who annoyies you. The sequels are half-baked at best, give this back to the Japanese dev team Capcom!

Tatsunoku Vs Capcom: It's like MVC3 but better, more charming and way more accessible.

[Ed Oscuro]

[Dead Rising] sequels are half-baked at best, give this back to the Japanese dev team Capcom!

Wow, that just blew my "Japan doesn't respect Amurrica" theory outta the water. Canadian developers? Alright, this one really was self-inflicted. Ow.
Maybe I oughta go play the original sometime...the second didn't grab me at all, but I did watch the first being played with some interest back around the time of release.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

About Vanquish ... I'm not getting the hype here. Of course it's not in any way a bad game, but I don't get the "variety" praise. After I'm done stealthily sniping people while on a rail car and blowing a couple more Arguses I thought I'd seen everything. All the zako fights up to that point consists of sliding from cover to cover while picking things up in bullet time.

It's as much about the slick execution as it is about the 'variety'. While it reuses enemies a lot, the changes to enemy placement have a large effect on how you go a about dealing with enemies. At first glance, Vanquish doesn't look like anything but a Gears of War with slowmo and dashing, but if you think that's all there is to it you're seriously mistaken. It really approaches the genre differently in terms of its combat pacing and the weapon variety gives you plenty of options (Disc Launcher has a lockon effect if you fire it over enemies or can be used at close range to multihit/cut off limbs, LFE lets you hit through walls or heavy knockdown a lot of enemies, Rocket Launcher doesn't damage you so you can fire it at the ground for a close range pseudomelee).

Melee isn't at all useful outside of some slow bosses because you lose a) your shield b) your sanic skaters and you don't want that to happen in the middle of a crossfire.

You are so wrong it isn't even funny. HMG/Anti Armour Pistol's melee is used as a means of quickly jumping and taking slowmo shots from afar. Boost kicking rips off tons of health when used on enemies and knocks back surviving enemies a huge distance, meaning it's easy to take cover after. Boost kicks are really the best for offensive melee as they chain to slowmo shots you can use to finish off a kicked enemy. It's really easy to setup boost kicks via a stun grenade, and several bosses are vulnerable to stun -> boost kick -> rocket/hmg.

Romanovs you can easily LFE for a knockdown, then quickly switch and charge up a Shotgun/Laser Cannon backhand, or just use the LFE's overhead -> shoot to knockdown again. The second time you fight the Unknown you can take off half its health with a charged backhand right at the start of the fight as it's forming. Melee has that forced cooldown because you can do some serious damage with it. It's not your primary means of offensive, but melee still is seriously useful when you use it properly (i.e. not when you're surrounded in the open and need to boost to escape).

Also, the upgrade mechanism is really oddly designed; if you are in the process of upgrading a weapon, that weapon is pretty much dead weight because it needs to be at full ammo for further upgrades, and upgrade kits are scarce.

The game is balanced around upgrades not being necessary (they are disabled in the hardest difficulty). You'll get quite a few upgrade kits over the course of the game, and the full ammo thing basically motivates you to get used to using other weapons while you upgrade one specific one. In weapon-rich areas, it's easy to upgrade a weapon anyways. Want to upgrade your assault rifle with one on the ground but the one you have is low on ammo? Pick up a new weapon to replace your old assault rifle, pick up the brand new assault rifle to put you at max ammo, pick up your old assault rifle and get a 1/3 of an upgrade. It's really quite easy to upgrade even your 'main' gun when you do this. I can get either an HMG or Assault Rifle fully upgraded reliably by about right after the Jellyfish section and I pretty have all weapons easily upgraded before the end of the game. The only weapons that are tricky to upgrade are grenades, as you can pretty much only upgrade them via full ammo pickups, but even then the stun grenades work awesome as they are without needing upgrades.

Basically, there's way more upgrades than you seem to think there are, and you should think of them as a bonus, anyways. They don't exist on God Hard, and in the challenges, a lot of players save upgrades for the ammo refill (see: refilling the rocket launcher in speedruns).

[Formless God]

O-okay. I just learned that I could unlock God Hard right off the bat, so I'll give it a whirl again next time I un-dust my 360.

Want to upgrade your assault rifle with one on the ground but the one you have is low on ammo? Pick up a new weapon to replace your old assault rifle, pick up the brand new assault rifle to put you at max ammo, pick up your old assault rifle and get a 1/3 of an upgrade.

Huh, I never thought of it like that. That's neat.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

God Hard is extremely rough if you're not prepared. Compared to Normal vs Hard, it's a massive step up from Hard mode. You'll die in basically three hits from normal enemies, lots of stuff will kill you on contact (those Gorgies with sniper rifles can 1hko headshot you), your AR Mode time is noticeably reduced so you need to be more careful with prolonged boosting and slowmo, and your emergency AR Mode will only kick in for about 2 seconds on a full bar, so if you get dropped to critical health you will go into overheat almost immediately. Enemy encounters are also different, so you'll be meeting the game's harder enemies a lot sooner, and more often. These actually change the game on this difficulty a lot more than the no upgrades thing does.

[chempop]

Child of Eden and the Q3 (RezHD) were the only non-shmup purchases for me this gen.

I'm probably missing out, but modern games are too complex for me, either endless options/stats/inventory management or 8 buttons and 3 directional controls to get lost in.. just doesn't seem like it's for me anymore.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm probably missing out, but modern games are too complex for me, either endless options/stats/inventory management or 8 buttons and 3 directional controls to get lost in.. just doesn't seem like it's for me anymore.

Say what you will about Wii, but it brought back the simplicity in this regard. Just don't fall for the hype surrounding first party games and you're in for a treat.
At least try Kororinpa (split-screen is a blast).

[Jonst]

Child of Eden and the Q3 (RezHD) were the only non-shmup purchases for me this gen.

I'm probably missing out, but modern games are too complex for me, either endless options/stats/inventory management or 8 buttons and 3 directional controls to get lost in.. just doesn't seem like it's for me anymore.

agree with this...although i did enjoy bayonetta and vanquish...it was as mush as i could handle on the options/stats/inventory front,needing 15 fingers and to memorise which button does what.

[quash]

Off the top of my head:
Arcana Heart 3
Armored Core V/Verdict Day
Battle Fantasia
Bayonetta
Binary Domain
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Dark Souls
Dodonpachi: Saidaioujou
Espgaluda II
Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core +R
Gundam Extreme VS/FB
Hard Corps: Uprising
Metal Gear Solid 4
Metal Gear Rising
Metro 2033
Mushihimesama: Futari
Senko no Ronde DUO
Serious Sam 3
Strania: The Stella Machina
The House of The Dead 4
The King of Fighters XIII
Tribes: Ascend
Vanquish
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown
Yakuza 3-5

[ZaKa-tokyobassist]

Yakuza 4 was fantastic. Loved that game. The story & voice acting were top notch in that plus it had some good replayability. Saejima fighter trainer minigame was so crack sauce.

Armored Core V was by far the best AC to date aside from the fact that single player was an afterthought which was epic fail. How is Verdict Day? Any better?

[lilmanjs]

Knytt Underground
I've heard a few complaints that Knytt Underground's story is lacking and once somebody told me that the developer just must have gotten bored and not finished the story, but for me that is the game that stands out in this gen(if playing the PC version and not the horrible PS3 port that wasn't done by the developer) just because there's a realness to the story and interactions and also because there's just so much to explore and see even secret wise. I've not really played much this gen that I can recall being awesome and amazing. So for me Knytt Underground does it for me.