I’m going to start a new character, since my current character is level 51, and the game is no longer much of a challenge. This time I plan to focus on the skills I neglected with my first character: pickpocketing, heavy armor, and blacksmithing. I’d like to try out 2-handed weapons as well, but there’s a perk that enables slow motion when you block with a shield, and I’d really like to try that one.

So tonight, in my hour or so of free time, I get to hunt for some new mods to install in prep for my new character. Looking forward to it.

So Capcom just confirmed Resident Evil 6, due to come out on November 20. Great! I’ve played each of the numbered Resident Evil games to completion and loved them all, even if I’ve found all the even-numbered games to be superior. I’m hoping that RE6 is also awesome.

Not that it matters, but here’s a quick no-BS bullet point list of what I want when I play a Resident Evil game.

• BOWs. That means moaning, flesh-eating zombies rather than Ganados.
• I don’t want to be able to run while I shoot, but I want the down-and-button quick-turn. Resident Evil is not run-and-gun. It’s stop-and-pop.
• Jump scares. Lots of jump scares. Some people don’t like them. I am not some people.
• No mandatory suicidal AI companion. Shiva drove me insane.
• Set up the unspoken rules, and then break them. Kind of like Resident Evil 2 did when the T-103 zombie came through the wall and then pursued you from room to room.
• More zombies.

And that’s it.

At this point, I’m sick of writing about 2011 games, and I’m sure you’re sick of reading about them, so I’ll wrap it all up. I did a best of 2010 post last year, and now here’s this year’s best of 2011 post.

In my number five position is Bastion. The game had stellar music, some very nice retro gameplay with a great mechanic for adjusting difficulty, and a compelling story. If you’ve not played Bastion, jump on it.

Number four is Portal 2, which if you’d have asked me earlier in 2011, I’d have sworn would be in my number one slot come year end. That speaks to the awesomesauce that was the 2011 video game release schedule. Portal 2 was damn funny and had some excellent puzzles. I plan to go back to it when my Skyrim frenzy cools, both to finish my second playthrough and to finish the co-op levels.

The third slot is claimed by an unexpected gem: Atom Zombie Smasher. I love this game, and I go back to it frequently when I’ve got fifteen minutes to kill. It’s not quite tower defense, not quite real time strategy, and not quite a board game. But it is fantastic.

Number two? Skyrim. Big surprise. Not much more to say here - I’m sure I’ll fill up many other posts with Skyrim blabber.

And my favorite game of the year? Batman: Arkham City. The context-sensitive combat, the open world navigation, and by Grabthar’s hammer, the characters! Epic voice acting, well-written story, incredibly fun set pieces, and one of the best endings of any video game I’ve played make Arkham City my personal game of the year.

Here’s a summary of how I rated all the games throughout my posts

Atom Zombie Smasher (A)
A Boy and His Blob (B-)
Batman: Arkham Asylum  (A)
Bastion (B+)
Batman: Arkham City (A)
Beyond Good and Evil HD (B+)
Dead Nation  (C)
Dead Space 2  (B)
Dungeon Siege 3  (C+)
Dungeons & Dragons Tactics (B)
Fallout: New Vegas  (C)
Limbo   (B)
Mass Effect 2   (B)
Metal Gear Solid 1  (C-)
Metal Gear Solid 4  (C-)
Metro 2033   (C-)
Metroid Prime   (C-)
Osmos    (B)
PB Winterbottom  (B)
Peggle Android  (B)
Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe (A)
Plants vs Zombies Android (B+)
Portal 2  (A)
RE: Darkside Chronicles(C)
Sacred 2  (D)
Shadow of the Colossus HD (B)
Skyrim   (A)
Starcraft 2   (B)
Steel Storm   (B-)
Super Mario Galaxy 2  (B)
Wind Waker   (A-)
Zuma’s Revenge  (A-)

Many people have written off their Wii as a dead console. Probably most of the people who haven’t are the ones playing Skyward Sword or the ones still stuck on Wii Sports. At our house, the Wii game that sees the most play is Super Mario Galaxy 2. From the beginning, I’ve played the whole game through with my four-year-old daughter. She controls the player 2 star, and she’s actually a huge help. She can hold monsters still to let me past certain places, shoot star bits out at enemies, and collect 1-Ups and coins that I can’t reach. Having that extra heart during a boss battle makes a big difference. And the bonding is great. Every time we hear the music that goes along with “You got a star!”, we hug or high five. Mario Galaxy 2 is great. A-.

Before I started my father-daughter replay of Twilight Princess, I used the Wii to play through Wind Waker for the first time. Despite the fact that it’s an older game, I really enjoyed it. And while I found the wide-open ocean somewhat monotonous, the stealth bits and context-sensitive combat music were very well done. All-in-all, I may prefer Twilight Princess, but Wind Waker was a stellar game, and it gets an A-.

I really enjoyed the original Zuma. I played a ton of the free online version before buying the Playstation 3 version. When I heard of Zuma’s Revenge, I jumped all over it. I’ve played it a ton, as has my wife. And while she’s much better at the game than am I, we both finished and enjoyed the game. They added a number of really fun mechanics. There are levels in which you slide rather than spin, and levels in which you have the ability to switch between two locations. There are also bosses every ten levels or so. It’s one of my favorite casual titles, and as such gets the same A- that Mario Galaxy 2 and Wind Waker got.

That said, I’m a gamer, and I’ve got the gaming tree to prove it. But whereas I started video gaming around age eight, my daughter has been exposed to video games for the bulk of her life. From her iXL to her Diego game on the Wii to the iPad games she plays, she’s never really known life without video games, as they’re easily as prevalent a form of entertainment as television in our household. (not at issue for this article, but all are secondary to good old books)

When I get home from work in the evenings, I generally have about an hour to spend with my four-year-old daughter before it’s time for dinner and then bedtime. Sometimes, we’ll play her favorite board game and sometimes we play with her Thomas the Train set, but I think her favorite thing to do with daddy is to play video games.

One that we’ve had an absolute ton of fun with is Super Mario Galaxy 2. We played a little bit of the first game in the series together, but I’d already finished the game when she was very young, and didn’t have it in me to start over. Mario Galaxy 2, however, I’ve never played without her. We’re nearly finished with the game, and she’s gotten very good at using the player 2 star to hold enemies still, collect 1-ups and coins, and throw star bits at enemies. She’s only 4, but having her play with me legitimately makes the game a lot easier.

For parents with older kids, reversing the roles might be fun. If your kid can handle those crazy jumps and accurately pilot Mario through a level, let him! Take over the player 2 star yourself and do what you can to help him stay alive.

Mario Galaxy 2 is a fabulous game for parents and kids to play together, but although we’ve loved it, it’s not my daughter’s favorite. Her favorite is Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’m not sure how this came to be, but she’d rather watch my second playthrough of the game than do nearly anything else. When there are areas devoid of enemies, she likes to run around, often as wolf-Link, digging up coins. Elsewise, she loves to watch me navigate dungeons and talk to NPCs

With the exception of the top few items on the list, I’ll likely wait for the enthusiast blogs to weigh in before I make any purchases, but there’s some good stuff here, including a couple games in which I hadn’t been interested until I did a little checking around.

1-The Last Guardian
Top on the list is a game that I’ve been looking forward to for years. It’s true that I have yet to play through the copy of Ico sitting next to my PS3, but I plan to. Everything I’ve heard about The Last Guardian has made me want to play it even more. The game has been slated to come out in 2012, but whether that’s February or December is anyone’s guess.

2-Thi4f
Yeah, the name is weird as hell. I imagine they’ll give it a colon and a tag line at some point soon. There’s nothing specific to indicate that the game will be coming out in 2012, but I’m hopeful.

3-Amy
The release date on this game has been pushed more than I was in second-grade. It’s a 2012 release now, and I plan to download it on release day. It’s been a while since I played a proper survival horror game, and Amy looks to be a good one. The latest rumor says that Amy will be released next week, so Amy is likely the first chronological release on this list.

4-Dishonored
Slated to come out in the second quarter of the year, Dishonored is a first-person stealth game. That immediately grabbed my attention. When I saw that the people working on the game are the same folks who did Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Thief: Deadly Shadows, I got even more interested. I’ll be keeping my eye on this one.

5-Quantum Conundrum
Quantum Conundrum is a downloadable game for XBLA and PSN, and it should be out early this year. Like Narbacular Drop and Tag: The Power of Paint before it, Quantum Conundrum sounds like exactly the kind of game that Valve would snatch up for use in Portal 3. But this time, instead of portals or spray-on gel, the gimmick is switching between four dimensions that overlap in space. I can see this creating a lot of interesting scenarios for puzzles similar to the ones in Portal.

6-I Am Alive
Another game that’s been delayed quite a bit, I Am Alive is supposed to come out in Q1 this year. The description and environment makes me think of Enslaved without the sci-fi. Post-apocalypse, everyone’s just trying to survive. Some dude has to get from A to B, across the destroyed cityscape.

7-Borderlands 2
Although I had a lot of complaints, I did really enjoy Borderlands. I doubt they’ll have the same ideas for the sequel as I’d once suggested, but I’m hoping for a wealth of improvements. With any luck, that will include a better interface on the PC. It will likely be released in 2012, but there are no guarantees.

8-Monaco
It’s possible that you’ve never heard of a little indie game called Monaco. If not, let me clue you in, because the game sounds like a multiplayer Team Fortress 2 meets Pac Man. Monaco is a top-down 4-player stealth action game wherein players are executing a heist. Each player’s thief has a different role. Maybe yours can pick locks, demolish walls, foil security cameras, or see through walls with infrared. There are gameplay videos on YouTube, and they look awesome. They’ve been planning to release Monaco for a long time, so with any luck we’ll see it very soon.

9-Far Cry 3
After an agonizing first playthrough, I decided that I loved the first Far Cry. The second was somewhat less to my liking, but still fun. The weird thing is that the first few games seemed to have little in common other than the name. No recurring characters, themes, or plots. The game will have the same sandbox feel as Far Cry 2, but add experience-based leveling. They’re adding stealth gameplay as well, which is something I love. We should see Far Cry 3 sometime in 2012.

10-Mass Effect 3
The Mass Effect series is something that everyone seems to love, and yet I’ve never felt nearly as strong about it. The ending of Mass Effect 2 was indeed very good, but overall I can’t help feeling a certain ambivalence for the series. Rather than grabbing it as soon as it comes out on March 6th, I may wait for the price to drop.

11-Journey
Journey is something of a mystery to me, and yet I’m still intrigued. You’re a little pup tent looking thing, travelling through the wilderness towards a mountain. What do you do on those travels? Not sure. Is it fun? No idea. But you can meet other players randomly, since as I understand it, there’s no way to play offline. You can’t communicate with them other than by wordless shouts, but they’re there. What can you do together? I can’t say. Hopefully more info arises before the springtime release, as I’m strangely intrigued.

12-SpyParty
SpyParty is a reverse Turing test in the same vein as the multiplayer mode of Assassins Creed, in which you need to convince other live players that you’re a computer-controlled character. One player is a sniper in the bushes outside a dinner party, and he’s got a single bullet. The other is a spy attending the dinner party who has to steal a single item. You can see where this is going. I watched people playing SpyParty in early 2011 at PAX East, and I’m intrigued.

13-Starcraft 2: The Heart of the Swarm
As underwhelmed as I was at Starcraft 2, the Zerg are my favorite. So I’ll probably pick up the Zerg expansion. As long as I can burrow a huge swarm of zerglings beneath a group of unsuspecting space marines, I’ll be happy. The look on their faces when you pop up in their midst is priceless. Nobody seems to know when the expansion will come out, but 2012 seems reasonable.

14-Prototype 2
Prototype and Infamous are similar in a lot of ways, but I have to say that I prefer Prototype. Why? It’s probably because I like the gliding better in Prototype than in Infamous, and I prefer running up walls to clowly climbing them. It’s not at all because I like leaping from 10 story buildings to elbow drop a tank and then eat the guys who jump out of it before it explodes. Not at all. April 24th. Prototype 2.

15-Diablo 3
Diablo is the king of isometric action RPGs. I’ve played Torchlight, Heroes of Norrath, Sacred 2, all the Dungeon Sieges, and a bunch of others I can’t remember right now. Mostly I play them multiplayer with my wife. But everyone likes Diablo the best. If I recall correctly, there’s a huge DRM issue here that might dissuade me from buying the game at all, but if they do away with it I’ll likely get a copy eventually.

16-Mechwarrior Online
You know what I love about the Mechwarrior games? I love that they’re relatively slow-paced. I love it when my mech is marching STOMP STOMP STOMP through the mountains and I get a missile lock warning and I know that I’ve got about seven seconds before the LRMs hit. Even more, I love to customize my mech. I love deciding that I can remove two heat sinks in the left arm so that I can move the autocannon ammo there, making room for short range missiles in the torso. I love to spend a half hour figuring out exactly the right way to customize my mech. It’s fun.

If reports are to be believed, the new Mechwarrior game is due out in Q2, and will make light, medium, and assault mechs into an analog of character classes, making each useful in their own ways. You’ll also be able to play with a number of other people, which to me is both a pro and a con. I always loved the single-player campaigns in Mechwarrior, and I have no desire to go online and have my ass kicked by a thirteen-year-old. We’ll see how this one shapes up.

17-Prey 2
Prey 2 seems like it’s going to have close to nothing to do with the first game in the series. It’s the same thing that the Far Cry series did between its first two games: new game, same name. That’s fine with me, because although I finished the original Prey, I thought it kind of stunk. I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground on reviews for the game once it comes out this summer, although I may wait for it to hit the bargain bin.

18-Torchlight 2
I played Torchlight, but I was never able to get into it quite the way everyone else did. Still, the fact that it’s going to be multiplayer makes it a good candidate for me to play with my wife. To that end, I may end up buying it.

19-Bioshock Infinite
Like Mass Effect, Bioshock is a series that everyone seems to love. Well, everyone else loves it. Not me. I played both Bioshock games and was underwhelmed both times. I’ll probably do the same thing with Bioshock Infinite that I did with the other two games. I’ll play it a year or so after it’s released, picking it up for under $20.

20-Alan Wake (PC)
People with XBox 360s played Alan Wake a while ago, but PC gamers like myself have to wait for “early 2012″, when the PC version is supposed to come out. The gameplay videos I’ve seen don’t draw me, but I’ve heard friends rave about how much they loved the game, so I’ll likely try it out.

And that’s what I see coming in 2012. No idea if the Wii U will be out this year, but CES is next week, and we should learn a lot more about it then.

What is the story behind the overturned cabbage cart?

Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim. Yes, it’s nearly all I’ve been playing for the past few months, and I’ve put in a lot of time. I’ve written about the game so much at this point that I’m hesitant to include too much more, but I’m very much enjoying it, and it’s a strong contender for 2011 Game of the Year. Unsurprisingly, Skyrim gets an ‘A‘.

Starcraft 2 is a game that I’d been looking forward to for quite some time. The original had been my favorite RTS for a long time, and hearing that the sequel was nothing more than an updated version was good news to me. But after playing it for a while, I got Starcraft fatigue. For some reason, I just didn’t end up loving it.  It’s a good solid game, but I quit playing it after I failed at the final mission for the fourth or fifth time. Maybe I’ll like the Zerg expansion better. Starcraft 2 gets a ‘B‘.

Part of a recent Humble Indie Bundle was a game called Steel Storm. It’s a very retro top-down “bullet hell” shooter, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s an age-old and incredibly simple formula, and as such there’s not a lot to say about the game. Shoot other spaceships, reach goals, and upgrade your weapons and shields. But it’s very well made, and I continually go back to the game when I’ve got only ten minutes to kill. Steel Storm gets a ‘B-‘.

Like so many other XBLA exclusives that eventually come to other platforms, I played Limbo much later than everyone else. I really enjoyed it though. Dark, disturbing, and pleasingly puzzly, Limbo is a perfect bite-sized downloadable game. I enjoyed it so much that I wrote all kinds of hints posts for it. Limbo gets a B.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles was largely about nostalgia for me. Resident Evil 2 was probably my favorite game on the original Playstation, exceeding even Symphony of the Night. The fact that Umbrella Chronicles retells that story within an on-rails shooter sounded awesome to me.

The reality is that while it was fun to re-experience the story, on-rails shooters never end up being as fun as I want them to be. And like Darkside Chronicles, it got extremely hard towards the end and I was unable to finish the game and see its ending. Too bad. Darkside Chronicles gets a C.

My wife and I have always enjoyed playing RPGs together. We’ve played Dungeon Siege, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Champions of Norrath, and we’re currently trying out Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. So back before we’d tried Dungeon Siege 3, we tried Sacred 2.

As it turned out, Sacred 2 wasn’t that great. The game mechanics were weird and hard to grasp, the leveling and combat weren’t satisfying, and in the end we just quit before we got very far. Sacred 2 gets a D.

Before the big holiday releases of 2011 started hitting, Shadow of the Colossus HD was one of my most looked forward to games. I’d loved playing the original, and I’ve always loved replaying good games. Now, I got to replay this one with trophies! It’s ridiculous to think I’d try to get all the lizards or fruits in the game, and I didn’t have much interest in time attack or hard mode, but I did very much enjoy the playthrough. The HD remake of Shadow of the Colossus gets a B. I plan to get to Ico HD sometime in early 2012.

That said, I’ve noticed a number of things missing from Skyrim, and here are the mods I’d most like to see.

Darker Dungeons / Droppable torches
Oblivion had two mods that I loved. One was called darker dungeons, and did just what it said. By default, there are no areas in the game in which you need a torch, lantern, or light spell. You can walk around the deepest caves and still see just fine. The Darker Dungeons mod made it so that nighttime and dungeon environments were actually dark, requiring some light source.

The second was called Droppable Torches, and made it so that if you were holding a torch and drew a weapon, the torch would automatically drop to the ground and continue to provide light. Together, these two mods completely changed the experience of dungeon delving, much for the better.

Improved Alchemy
Alchemy has been one of my favorite parts of The Elder Scrolls games, but there are a few improvements I’d like to see made. Firstly, I think you should be able to name your potions. For example, when I combine Canis Root, Imp Stool, and Orange Dartwing to create my favorite poison, it damages the foe, paralyzes him, and also has a lingering damage effect. But the name is simply “Poison of Paralysis”. There has to be some way to better identify this amidst a list of dozens of potions that I’m carrying. Were I able to relabel the poison “Bloodboil” or even “Paralysis and Damage”, it would help a lot.

Another thing I think could make alchemy more interesting is delayed onset effects. Whether this was governed by ingredients and skill or manually chosen by the alchemist, I think it could add some interesting complexity. Imagine if when I create a paralysis/slow/damage poison, I could delay the onset of the slow effect until after the paralysis wears off. It would be much more useful. Similarly, imagine that when I use the more common Red Mountain Flower in a Damage Health poison, it takes 4 seconds before the damage takes place, but when I use the much rarer Troll Fat, it’s instantaneous. Seems like a cool twist.

Indirect fire weapons
Other than magic spells, bows are the only projectile weapon in the game. How cool would it be to allow alchemy to create molitov cocktails or acid flasks? I’m sure that the physics behind the indirect fire would be a bit tricky, but the engine has gravity built in, so it may not be too bad.

New Monsters
As much as I love fighting giants and sabrecats, I do sometimes miss Oblivion’s goblins, scamps, and minotaurs. How about a mod that would re-add those monsters?

New Mounts
I know that it’s possible to climb into the back of a carriage. How about making the thing mobile? How about allowing players to mount a tamed mammoth or sabrecat in the same way that you can mount a horse? Could be epic.

New Spells
Skyrim has some wonderful and creative spells. The rune traps and the wall spells are great in that they’re new and creative, and the clairvoyance spell is fantastic. What about a spell that duplicates the effect that occurs when you’re hit by a giant? Boom - and you go flying up in the air.

Whereas many of my installments in this series contain nothing but C- games, this chunk contains some good ones. First off, Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe. Along with Beyond Good & Evil, Pixeljunk Monsters is one of those games that anyone who reads this site often must get sick of me talking about. I love the game. This year, I bought a PSP, and Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe is nearly the only thing I’ve played on it. And you know what? It’s totally worth it. The game includes new towers, new monsters, and a whole new island. It’s essentially a third expansion pack that’s for the PSP only. As such, it’s one of my favorite games of 2011. It gets an A.

Next off, the Android version of Plants vs Zombies. I played the PC version of this game and got 100% of the Steam achievements, and then later went back to it to finish off new Steam Achievements that they’d added. And now I’ve got the mobile version on my phone. I hit some issues at first where the game would pause at odd intervals, but that was fixed by uninstalling all updates to Google Maps on my phone. Who needs GPS when there are zombies to fend off? There was a period of a month or so where I did without the Maps updates in order to play Plants vs Zomibes. The game is still great. B+.

Ahh, Portal 2. Definately one of my favorite games of the year. It’s become nearly forgotten amidst such fare as Skyrim and Arkham City, but I really do plan to go back and finish off that second run through the game some day. After all, I’m like 85% done and I still have achievements I want to get. The Smash TV and Overclocker achievements have me particularly intrigued, although I’ll probably never get most of the co-op achievements. I’ll just be happy if I can go back and run through the newest co-op levels.

The Portal and Half-Life series are Valve’s best and most valuable properties, and as such, I’ll buy (and probably love) every one they put out. Along with half of The Internet, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Half-Life 2, episode 3, but it’s looking more and more like we’ll never see that one. Half-Life 3 seems more likely. In any event, Portal 2 was a triumph. Again. A.