Favorite Games of 2010

This year, I’ve decided to do things a little differently than my usual Best Of awards. Seeing as though I’m not a definitive authority on what the best games of the year are, I thought I’d just outright tell you about the games I personally enjoyed throughout 2010. Agree, disagree, leave comments about your own personal favorites, it’s all good. One thing is for certain though, 2010 was a fantastic year for gaming, and I had a great time. So, here are my personal favorite games of 2010.

LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 Review

Genre: LEGO ( I mean, it’s practically a genre at this point)

Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Developer: Traveler’s Tales

Price: $49.99 (USD)

I’m a huge fan of the Harry Potter books and films. I find the books well written with charming characters and a vividly portrayed world wrapped in a relatively traditional coming of age hero’s journey. The films are solid adaptations of the novels, and it’s been a kick seeing the three leads grow and evolve as actors and young adults. It’s impressive to see a series keep it’s core stars through 8 films.

Now, Harry Potter in video game form has been a rather mixed bag. The individual games based on the events of the films/books, have fallen flat more than immersed the player in the world of Harry Potter. Whether it’s creepy likenesses of the actors, and boring game play, video game Potter just isn’t as endearing and charming as the books and film. Thank God for LEGO.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World The Game Review

Genre: Sidescrolling Beat’em Up

Platform: PSN, XBLA

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal/ Ubisoft Chengdu

Price: $9.99 (USD)/ 800 MSPoints

It’s an unspoken rule… actually, it’s kind of a loudly spoken rule, that video games based on movies suck. There are exceptions to that rule, but the overwhelming majority of movie tie in games blow, or maybe it’s just the ones produced by Activision, but I digress.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World The Game is in an interesting position, however. It is not only based off of a movie, but it’s based off of a movie based off of a series of Graphic Novels by Brian Lee O’Malley. That’s like, a double chance for the game to well and truly bomb.

Fortunately, the developers at Ubisoft opted to take on a novel approach. And by novel, I mean literally rip the game play mechanics of an often overlooked NES classic: River City Ransom.

DC Universe Online Beta Impressions

I have to say I’ve never been that big of a DC Comics fan. Growing up, I certainly loved Superman and Batman, but I never really paid much attention to the bigger picture of the DC Universe. As I got older, I gravitated more towards the Marvel Universe and it’s seemingly more grounded world.

Even so, I have, at the least, had an interest in some of the individual characters in the DCU, if not the whole shebang. Green Lantern, The Flash, Zatana, the Bat family, Wonder Woman, were some of my favorites. With that said, I admit to being more than just a little intrigued when SOE revealed that they were working on an MMO that takes place in the DC Universe. Having played City of Heroes for years, and ultimately coming away wanting more from my super hero experience, I was interested in seeing how SOE tackled the genre in the MMO space.