Looking Back: Games Of 2011
By DeltaGamer Staff | January 1, 2012 | Editorials | 4 comments | ShareAugust
So, as with all things, the summer ended…But the games didn’t end, they just kept on coming. That’s another reason why gaming is great – it’s always there when you want it. Like a reliable hound that never succumbs to old age and inevitably bad knees…
Rock Of Ages
Platform: PC, Xbox 360
Developer: ACE Team
Publisher: Atlus
Release Date (USA): August 31, 2011
Not to be confused with the musical of the same name, Rock Of Ages combines the joys of tower defense with a good ol’ rolling ball mechanic that takes you right back to Super Monkey Ball, with a few interesting twists along the way…
MIODRAG: And the prize for the best presentation in any game ever goes to Rock of Ages. Hooray! Seriously, it’s the glorious offspring of Monty Python and tower defense games. I have yet to see a more fabulously-presented title. Sadly, the actual gameplay wasn’t as amazing, being such that if a player were to take the lead, the loser would need quite a lot of luck to catch up. However, it’s worth getting just for the story mode and it’s one of those games where you just unwind, relax and flatten Spartans with your giant rolling rock.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Developer: Eidos Montreal
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date (USA): August 23, 2011
A new Deus Ex game happened in 2011. That’s something worth mentioning in itself. The other thing is…it wasn’t crap. Deus Ex: Human Revolution might not have been as good as the original but it provided gamers with an extensive single player campaign which, aside from the boss fights, provided the player with a great amount of situational flexibility and character augmentation. It was pretty darn successful too!
KYLE: I gotta admit, I rolled my eyes at the first Human Revolution gameplay trailer in all its golden glory. With Invisible War still leaving a nasty, tangy taste in my mouth all these years later, I had little hope that the franchise would be returning in earnest. But boy was I wrong: DXHR is absolutely fantastic. Aside from a few missteps, it brought roleplaying to a whole new level of interactivity, as the upgrade paths gave real and instant advantages rather than behind-the-scenes die roll boosts. Skill trees that complement gameplay and seriously satisfying stealth movement helped to eclipse the silly boss fights and sometimes comical storyline. The game’s a must-play for roleplayers and action junkies alike.
YANNICK: In my original review for Deus Ex: Human Revolution I compared the process of telling its story to the struggle of researching in an archive. There are a lot of mismatched, jangled pieces in the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. But I have rarely played a game that made it quite so captivating to put all these pieces back together.
I’m not sure if purists would call this game “open world,” but traipsing through its sullen gray and orange levels was more engaging than many open-world experiences. Exploration did not exist solely for its own sake, every nook and cranny in the game played its own part in telling the world’s larger story. At face value, this story does seem like any number of silly science fiction alternate-reality fantasies about how we’re all becoming cyborgs (or something like that). But perhaps it is by virtue of its own self-conscious hammy-ness in this regard that Deus Ex: Human Revolution doesn’t shy away from looking at human nature so nakedly and truthfully.
From Dust
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date (USA): August 17, 2011 (PC)
Designed by Eric Chahi, the creator of Out of This World (Another World) and Heart of Darkness, Ubisoft billed From Dust as a spiritual successor to Peter Molyneux’s Populous. The downloadable title put you in those choicest of shoes – God’s shoes and tasked you with guiding your tribe through a series of levels using your godly powers. It released on the Xbox at the end of July, but our experiences focused on the PC version which released in August…
YANNICK: From Dust feels more like a poem than a videogame. But either way, it is incredibly beautiful. A lot of god games are overwhelmingly complex for the variety of economic and ecological factors with which they confront the player. Perhaps From Dust is too “simple,” “primordial” or simply “boring” as some critics have suggested. But after spending time making and unmaking worlds in From Dust, I’m not sure if that’s really a bad thing. There are some frustrating moments in it (particularly if you had the bad luck of opting for the PC version, which Ubisoft handled terribly on almost every front), but the majority of the game is gorgeous, intriguing, and, though I’m not sure what it means quite yet to call a game this, meditative. It’s the first god game I played that, instead of focusing on my own triumphs and failures as the omnipotent player, actually made me think about God.
KYLE: I was pretty underwhelmed with From Dust’s PC release: obtrusive DRM, poor controls, and bad framerates marred my playthrough. But it still deserves recognition despite its buggy build as it marks the revival of truly compelling god games. Like Miodrag, I’m not really interested in the debate over whether games are art–but games can certainly be beautiful, and From Dust is a shining example of a game that offers a Zen-like experience without sacrificing real interactivity, without becoming little more than a clickable movie. It wasn’t perfect, but it ought to be lauded simply for its noble attempt to zig in an era of zag.
BF3 is a biggest disappointment..many bugs and crappy origin...I pre-ordered the game june 2011 and until now i cant play because the origin wont Download the b2k update.
Im looking forward to black ops 2
Great article! Thank you a lot for all this content.
Graet's from Israel.
ps: why I almost never see comments in the different posts? People are just shy or the site just have low visitor caunt? Cause it would seem strange as it looks like preaty much professional site and mostly "professional" and "low visit count" don't go hand in hand...
I think low visitor, but it only started out like june 2011...