Although this obviously indicates that I spend way too much time playing video games, I thought I would list here the ten games in which I earned the most points. I wouldn't exactly call this my top 10 game list, but it certainly indicates which games I've played a lot.
#1: Mass Effect - 1050 points - 46 or 46 achievements:
A fun RPG from Bioware - the folks that brought us the brilliant Knights of the Old Republic. I'm not a big RPG fan but the real-time, cover based, combat makes this one an exception. You play space soldier John (or Jane) Shepard out to save the galaxy from a new, alien, threat. The universe of the game is deep and populated by a variety of well defined species, several of which you have fighting with you in your rag-tag band. There's plenty of options for classes and abilities as you level up, but none of them are too overwhelming. These abilities are fairly well balanced giving no clear "best" way to play the game. You will also find an abundance of different weapons, armour and upgrades. The shear volume of these upgrades seems initially overwhelming until you realize that most of it is crap and will never be used - something that is a bit annoying. In fact, once you realize what the good weapons and armour are - allowing you to sell the rest making tons of cash - the game become incredibly easy as you and your squad mow down your less well equipped enemy. Even on the insane setting, the difficulty curve is a bit backwards with the first quarter of the game being the hardest, and the rest being a cake walk.
The story itself is reasonably compelling and well told with solid voice acting and character animation. Though skippable, the dialogue scenes can get a bit long. You do have some ability to steer the story in different directions through your actions, so be careful what you skip. Overall, a solid, fun, game that should get me picking up Mass Effect 2.
#2: Fable 2 - 1020 points - 49 of 66 achievements:
Another light RPG (it's just so easy to get achievement points in these things). The thing I like the most about Fable 2 is it doesn't take itself seriously at all. There's some story about some guy building some big evil tower for some reason - but who cares? This is a great big world for you to run around and be an idiot it. Impress the townsfolk by dressing like an chicken and farting, or perhaps become a demon dominatrix with a harem of spouses (either gender works) and spend your time scaring little children. It's all up to you. If you're looking for something with balanced, tactical, gameplay, then look elsewhere. The game provides you with so many potions and resurrection phials, and the weapons and abilities are so over the top, that the thing is ridiculously easy. So much so that after three play throughs, I've yet to die once. I recall giving up on the first Fable because the combat mechanics were so cumbersome, but this "fix" really seems to over compensate as there is no challenge to this game at all. I also don't like how you seem to warp from one area to another. For me this removes any feeling of immersion in a world. This left me caring little for the story and even less for the characters (other than my dog, of course).
But perhaps I'm nick-picking. It's hard to dis a game that gives you achievements for getting people drunk and sleeping with multiple partners.
#3: Assassin's Creed - 1000 points - 44 of 44 achievements:
Receiving mixed reviews, I can certainly see how this game is not for everyone, but I loved it. It's not perfect. The unskippable dialogue scenes can be insufferably long, but I actually found the story engrossing. You play Desmond, a citizen of the near future who is prisoner of an unknown group. They place Desmond into a device that allows the user to search through his genetic memories to the time of the Crusades where an ancestor of Desmond's was an assassin in the Holy Land. The concept works amazingly well with two parallel, but somehow connected, story threads - one in the past and one in the future.The game itself is gorgeous, with the ancient cities of Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus being stunningly realized and populated. The character animation and mechanics of moving around is so well done that simply stalking the streets and scaling buildings is a delight. The quests that you are sent on do get a bit repetitive, but I was more than willing to put up with that and will be there to pick up Assassin's Creed 2 when it comes out.
#4: Dead Rising - 980 points - 49 of 50 achievements:
My relationship with this game is definitely a love/hate one. It's like that girl friend that you know is no good for you but you can't help thinking about her. On the one hand I love the open game play and the simple concept - survive 72 hours in a zombie invested mall. The clock is always ticking in the game (5 minutes of real time is 1 hour of game time) and what you do during that time is up to you. You can rescue other survivors, investigate the origins of the zombie outbreak, practice your photography, or simply run amok. The thing is, with time always pressing, there is no way to do it all. You have to decide how you play the game. Capcom also made the great decision to provide a huge variety of weapons laying around. Almost everything that can be picked up can be used as a weapon, from machine guns to two-by-fours, from chainsaws to mannequins. That element of the game is a blast.But then there's the bad. The AI of the other survivors is atrocious, often hysterically so, as it's not unusual to find them stuck in a running animation against a wall or each other with the only way of dislodging them is to rough them up a bit. The voice overs during gameplay are equally bad. Only two voice are used for every, non story, character - one male, one female - and they cycle through the same half dozen or so phrases. My kids and I have a running joke of yelling "Fraaank!", or "this can't be happening" because of this game. The unbelievably bad voice-overs are in stark contrast to the largely solid voice work and animations in the cut scenes. It almost seems like the two were made by different companies. The bosses are similarly more annoying than challenging, as are the final legs of the game. The game also has a crazy difficulty curve as you struggle to learn that many of the weapons are largely useless with no logical reason why (hitting someone with a mannequin does more damage then shooting them). Then, once you've found the right weapons (baseball bats and mini-chainsaws) they rest of the game is insanely easy.
Curiously, these deficiencies somehow add up to something fun, like a b-grade horror movie that has no right to be as entertaining as it is. If I believed that this was intentional on the part of Capcom, then I would have high hopes for Dead Rising 2, but I suspect the strange convergence was more a fortunate accident. After all, the best b-movies are the once where the director thought he was making art.
#5: Left 4 Dead - 765 points - 41 of 50 achievements:
Ah, another zombie game, but this is certainly a different animal than Dead Rising. While Dead Rising charmed me with it's quirky annoyances, Left 4 Dead is polished and perfectly balanced. Left 4 Dead is an on-line co-op game where you play one of four survivors stranded in the zombie apocalypse. You have one purpose, to get you and your friends to the rescue vehicle waiting at the end of one of four playable campaigns. Against you is wave upon wave of fast moving zombies that want nothing more than to bring you down. Oh, and did I mention, you get to play as the zombies too. By creating special zombies (or infected, as the game likes to call them) that have the ability to instantly ensnare survivors, the game forces the players to work together and cover each other's back. The loan wolf is easy pickings here. More over, the items and enemies spawn differently each time, which is controlled by what Valve calls the "AI Director". The game actually monitors how the players are doing. Is your team really hurting? Well, maybe the director will through a med-pack your way (then again, perhaps not). Are you guys doing really well? An extra horde or two should slow you down. The variability extends right down to AI dialogue and individualized music soundtracks for each player. The amazing thing is that the game still feels polished and scripted each time you play.
If Valve is known for anything, it's for play testing the hell out of their games, and it shows. The weapons are incredible balanced with no weapon outshining the others. This extends to the four playable infected types. Despite their various abilities, forcing you to play them very differently, none is better to play than the others. In fact, their abilities complement each other well and players that play the infected like a team can devastate their opponents.
This game will likely climb this list a bit still, as I have more achievements to get. Fast paced and incredibly fun, Left 4 Dead is easily my favourite game I'm currently playing.
#6: The Orange Box - 760 points - 79 of 99 achievements:
The Orange Box is clearly one of the best values you'll ever get out of a video game. When Valve released Episode 2 of Half Life 2 it not only packaged it with re-releases of Half Life 2 and Half Life 2 Episode 1 (yes, the titles are confusing), it also included two brand new games: Team Fortress 2 and, the star of the show, Portal. Portal alone is worth the price of the package, but let's start with the Half Life games.If you are at all a shooter fan, but somehow have not played Half Life game, then the Orange Box is a must. Brilliantly paced, Half Life sets the standard for story telling through this medium. The story is not told through fun stopping cut scenes, but through live interactions with the environment and characters. These characters are wonderfully realized and voice acted. In fact, the character of Alyx, who accompanies you through much of the games, is, in my opinion, the best realized AI character out there. As great as the story telling is, it never gets in the way of the fun. The strider battle at the end of episode 2 is particularly intense and a blast.
Then there's Portal, the shooter unlike any you have ever played. Describing Portal just doesn't work. You have to play it. At first it may seem a bit confusing, but the game eases you into the central concept gently before you are pushed into a world of clever puzzles, and the driest wit you will find anywhere. It is often laugh out loud funny, though to say this is some kind of comedy game is dead wrong. Portal is easily one of my favourite games of all time and I quickly downloaded the expanded version, Portal - Still Alive, from XBox Live.Finally there's Team Fortress 2, a co-op, on-line combat game. This game certainly has its fans but I really don't have much to say on it as I've never played it. I didn't think I would like the on-line gaming, but given the fun I've been having with Left 4 Dead, perhaps I should reconsider that.
#7: Crackdown - 730 points - 33 of 50 achievements:
The premise of Crackdown is a simple one. You're a genetically alter supercop in a city overrun by gangs. Your job is to clean them up in the best way you see fit, and if a few civilians get in the way, well that's the price of justice, Right? As you level up through the game your power reach superhuman proportions with you eventually leaping across rooftops and picking up and throwing cars at your enemies. Your weapons scale up to the point where you can snipe people you can't even see and rain pyrotechnic carnage upon anyone unfortunate enough to be in your way. That said, it's not like the game's a cake walk as the enemies are numerous and powerful enough to keep you challenged. The city you play in is huge with everything open to you right from the beginning. You can literally drive right up to the final boss' digs and take him on at the beginning if you like, though good luck with that! The game has no load screens. All elements are loaded on the fly as you approach an area. It works incredibly well, making the game non-stop action and difficult to put down. The game play is completely over the top but is varied enough for it not to get dull. Great mindless fun!
#8: Gears of War 2 - 690 points - 44 of 66 achievements:
My three brothers are big into Gears and I've spent a respectable amount of time the past few months playing with them on-line, but I'm quickly growing bored of the thing. It's not like it's a bad game - far from it. Gears is a solid shooter. The cover based mechanics work very well, the graphics are great and, at times, stunning. The characters are memorable, with good voice work and entertaining dialogue, and there's a respectable variety in the multi-player. Although the story itself is pretty much nonsensical, there's enough variety in the campaign mode to keep you going. There's just not enough substance there to hold me for that long. I've played through the campaign three times, once in co-op, so I'm done with that. The tactics in the multi-player just seem like the same thing over and over, race for the power weapons and master the shotgun. We'll, that's not enough to keep me going indefinitely. Overall, though, it's still one of the better games to come out of last fall. I'll still be there to pick up Gears 3 when it comes out.#9: Far Cry 2 - 650 points - 33 of 48 achievements:
Far Cry 2 is an open world, first person, shooter in which you play a mercenary in an unnamed African country. Your mission is to kill the notorious arms dealer, the Jackel. Unfortunately, you muff up the job by nearly dying of malaria and the Jackel escapes not long after the opening credits are over. You then spend most of the rest of the game leasing your skills to whomever will pay and finding other mercenary buddies who are willing to lend you a hand on your various missions. There is some attempt at trying to weave these missions into the story of the Jackel, but it is a weak one. In fact, the Jackel plays a very small roll in most of what you spend your time doing. As far as the story goes, the thing's rather aimless.That said, the world you are put in is massive and beautifully realized. The environmental effects are the best I've ever scene. I've actually stopped what I've been doing to admire a sun set, or to watch a tree burn (eirily beautiful at night). In fact, the explosions and fire take on a life of their own. Shoot a propane tank and it doesn't just explode, it shoots a jet of fire out of the bullet whole, spinning crazily. The weather effects are also wonderful. The wind will pick up suddenly whipping the trees into a frenzy, cloud cover changes, storms roll in. It really is an accomplishment.
Although the quests can get repetative, and it's annoying that almost everyone shoots at you on sight, it's still a lot of fun. There's a large variety of weapons and you can arm yourself based upon your play style, quiet and stalking, or running in guns blazing. Although the story telling is rather scattered, I like the whole "heart of darkness" mood of the game. The various characters are well animated and the voice work is excellent. There's also multi-player (sadly no co-op which would have been awesome) and an amazingly powerful map editor if you are into that kind of thing (I'm not). Overall, the game is immersive and a lot of fun, though at times glitchy (something I'm not used to from Ubisoft Montreal). A particularly painful bug corrupts saved game files which can be very frustrating. The bug caught me a couple of times before I came up with a saving regime that worked around it. Maybe there's a patch now, but there wasn't one during the time I was playing.
#10 Halo 3 - 540 points - 13 of 79 achievements:
I was surprised this one is one made the list considering that I only earned 13 achievements, all of them during my two play throughs on campaign. They're almost all story achievements except for one sniping and one needler achievement that I wasn't even trying to get. Seems to me like a lot of points for just playing the basic game. Halo 3 is really my youngest son's, and I'm not a huge fan of it. I mean, it's fun and all (the vehicular mahem can be particularly enjoyable), but I found the story pretty tired by this point and the game play pretty standard. It's a solidly built game, but I get bored pretty easily. I can say my son and his on-line buddies make extensive use of the map forging abilities and have a lot of fun with it, it's just not my cup of tea.With a Bullet: Bioshock - 330 points - 27 of 51 achievements:
I thought I would include this one as it seems almost certain to make it's way well up this list. It's almost been two years since this game came out. I have been planning to pick it up for some time, but always found something else instead. When I saw it used a week ago, I couldn't pass it up. I'm still in the middle of my first play through, but I can tell I'll be coming back for more. Looking over the achievement list, this may be one where I'll be shooting to get them all.Bioshock plays like a combination of Half Life 2 and Resident Evil 4. The story telling is reminisent of Half Life, not relying on cut scenes but instead allowing the story to evolve as you explore your environment. The gameplay is like Resident Evil minus the annoying quick-time events, ridiculous boss fights, and laughable dialogue. What reminds me most of Resident Evil are the vending machines scattered throughout the game from which you buy ammo, health, upgrades, and the like. They, of course, make no sense, but the game covers that with a quirkly sense of humour that reminds me of the merchants from Resident Evil.
Enough with the game comparisions. Bioshock is set in 1960. Your a sole survivor from a plane crash who finds refuge in the massive, under water, city of Rapture, rendered in moldy, art deco, glory. You soon realize that things ain't quite right in Rapture as the citizens are, for the most part, genetically altered lunatics lead by the cities founder, Andrew Ryan, who wanted to build a capitalist utopia free from the annoyances of government regulation and morality. The game is varied and well paced. The weapons are interesting and fun to use, especially the genetic enhancing "plasmids" that allow you to gain all kinds of nifty powers like telekenicis and the ability to shoot wasps from your hands - what fun! The mood is dark and creepy, but not overpoweringly so. The developers never forget that, above all, video games are supposed to be fun.
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