THE GOOD:
Saints Row 3
I kind of thought the GTA style stuff would be dying down. I know the more recent entries have been well praised, but I kept thinking it was only a matter of time. Then I saw saints row 3, and thought it had some potential. GTA with stronger focus on humor and gang warfare. Sounded fun. Fun is an understatement when the game struck me like an asteroid crash of entertainment once I had rented it. I begged my mom, if under bad circumstances there was only one thing she could get me for Christmas, make it saints row 3. Afterall, I had been playing it for hours of almost non-stop fits of laughter and joy. This game was just fantastic. I enjoyed the hilarious voice dialogue, the driving, the missions were always exciting and cartoony, and of course it was built over an already long successful sandbox formula that I thought would eventually go stale. I stopped thinking that about GTA style games after saints row. It seems they do still have a long life span as long as you have a good direction with it.
Skyrim
Skyrim caught every RPG fan's dreams. Skyrim was a part of the super famous elder scrolls series, which I was about to buy for the awesome idea of fighting a dragon in first person sword combat... when I found out the series never had dragons. Luck hit, and it turned out Skyrim's main hype was dragons. I started looking forward to it to, but I thought it would only go down as a rent only game. I just wasn't that much into RPGs, and I started doubting Skrim would change my mind. Again, renting the game first showed me beauty beyond expectations. While the combat wasn't perfect, it was far more entertaining than other RPGs. The level up system was very interesting and rewarding with a sense of using your powers to build them up. The best thing that sold me though, was the world. Once I got off the tutorial mission, I got lost before I completed the first real task. I walked out into a lake, caught fish, climbed mountains, fought wolves, found ancient artifacts, cleared a cave, and then died at the hands of a master vampire after I cleared out most of his tower. Restarted at the bottom of the tower, left it, and THEN I found out how to use the map to get to my first mission. I was actually really close, just had to pass a river and I was there at the local village. I turned back, and got lost on purpose all over again because being lost was never so much damn fun. I had to own the game after that, and while I don't go losing myself as much I am always amazed at what new features, weapons, or story twists pop up. There is a lot to do in skyrim, enough that somebody who plays it like 5 hours a day could get by on the game for almost the entire console generation. Skyrim deserves far more hype than it could possibly get.
Bulletstorm
One of my most anticipated FPS games... how did it fall to the background? I actually went for months without it, after I was so excited for it. It was supposed to be a blast from the past, and show mainstream shooters why they can't be as good as the older shooters. Yet I just passed it by, possibly even buying a more popular shooter instead. I can't remember clearly. I got it on 2011's Easter though, and it was far better than I thought it would be even when I was hyped. I believed the reviews when they said "bad story" and "bad dialogue" or "a lacking multiplayer". Well once I bought the game, I found out they were not only dead wrong in my eyes, but they had to be playing the wrong game. Bulletstorm did stuff I didn't expect it to, like giving me a tiny but lovable cast, an awesome tropical planet that is one big wrecked tourist attraction, and scripted events that I surprisingly didn't hate. Oh, and I will never forget the disco scene, that alone is worth plenty of my money. The gameplay that I expected to be great, was better. There was an echo mode that added more replay than I thought would exist. The multiplayer is a survivor that's just as much fun to play as the rest of the game, just as long as you don't get bored of your surroundings. The story was not only better than the reviews said, but I was having trouble imagining almost any other shooter competing with it story wise. There were moments when I had some wishes, like for an older health system, or less frustrating challenges, but the game as a whole was so much fun that its biggest sin was having an ending.
Warhammer space marines
I haven't played this in a while, and technically I stopped at like the very last level. Still this game has shocked me, and I just love it. Warhammer is a series I never cared about, because honestly it never got into my path of games. Now it did, so I tried out this 3rd person shooter as it looked interesting. What I didn't expect was a cross of gothic and steampunk art styles, the overall fun gameplay, a decent story with an good twist, a fun multiplayer and survival, and again.... the fun of the whole thing. This game was just a lot better than I could have hoped for, and I can't explain why. I should hate it for the repetitive fighting that feel like a lesser GOW with some shooting tacked on, but it's actually great. I should hate how the characters are so boring, but I actually found their military morals to be rather weird and interesting at the same time. Much like bulletstorm, it gets a lot of unexpected old school things right, and throws in a lot of surprises to keep me enjoying the game. Like the cheesy enemies, amazing yet weird weapons, and a gameplay system that just seems to magically work. It also throws me into a new game universe that I probably should have been more involved in long ago.
THE DISAPPOINTING
Brink
I just have to start this part of the list off with brink. Brink is an odd game that is so amazing, and so sad at the same time. For every cool game that brings back old mechanics like bulletstorm, there are 3 that are put in the hands of incompetent developers who only make the older games and mechanics look bad. This would be one of them. Brink brought in a great combat system, great innovation, fun classes, great maps, a nice art style, and then... nothing else. There are 8 maps, and 3 challenges. Have fun. It'll keep you enjoying the game for 3 whole days if you know how to drag it out. Seriously, who even gave this the green light to go into stores as a completed game? Is this some kind of "test"? If so, they also failed the online department where the game shipped with terribly broken online where everybody lagged as though their internet was choking on its last breath. The game has more unlockables and customization that you can literally spend more time there than you can in the 8 maps. Bottom line is that this game had such an awesome score from a view point, and playing point, but if you wanted a full game... sorry. Modes don't exist, maps are limited, and the online shipped with an "under maintenance" error.
Battlefield 3
Right so I was thinking about putting this up here for the maps and lack of bullet drop as both of those are let downs, but then I realized that it was worse: The entire single player. WTF is up with the single player dice? You took bad story elements from cliche shooters, outright stole CODs formula as well as overdoing parts of it to an almost unplayable point, tack on quick time events, and then don't make sense of it in the end. By don't makes sense, I mean the entire campaign story and gameplay. It's just 2 hours (counting gameplay only) of running around doing more dramatic fighting in places and with people that you have no clue about because the game simply doesn't give you anything. At least in other games it makes it clear that russians have terrorists, or was put in a decent timeline for it to make sense. Here they are just thrown in in addition to a middle eastern terror group that we're not sure is even a terror group. We're just told that, they talk like they have motives, and then we battle russians who are doing.... stuff. WTF!? This is what people were waiting all year for? This is what was marketed to battle the current sales king? By doing what, stealing from it and making it worse? Again, even the multiplayer isn't as good as the hype wanted us to think, with bland maps that just discourage gameplay. What no rural woodlands, or snowy landscapes? No major places that strike us on an epic scale? Just a bunch of boring urban areas with the addition of a park/train area, and an island map? The maps just suck for some reason, and I can't get into this game as much as I want to. On top of that, the hyped engine is actually worse on a destruction level. It just chips chunks of a building away, basic things explode, and almost nothing changes. You can't even wreck but one or two buildings, everything else just gets damaged until you have a bone-like structure, which actually feels like it makes the game worse as the building becomes completely useless to anyone. The multiplayer is still great in general, but the maps just discourage me so much and the campaign is just a joke. There was a fun level in the campaign somewhere, but apart from that it's only good for trophy padding.
Duke Nukem Forever
Much like Brink, this should have been a shooter that helped give balance to all the flooding of the self-destructing military FPS sub-genre. Also like brink, it failed and had the opposite effect of making those games look bad because devs (not gearbox, probably one of the other many devs that took hold of it) chose to ship it in a condition that was blatantly made to fail in the eyes of review scores and to the majority of gamers. It isn't a blast from the past, the king returning, or even fun for its insane weapons. Nope, instead it chooses to ditch its old ideas for new ones that absolutely betray the series. Such as the typical 2 slot weapon system.... on duke nukem..... yeah that's like removing Mario's jump ability. The health system also degraded, and even if you wanted regen health it was a broken system of regen health. Bosses can squash you almost effortlessly, the health takes almost 15 second to start a regen , and it literally contradicts a part of the story. There are also outdated physic puzzles for some reason. It's like this game just shipped to remind us that duke is dead, and someone out there is laughing about it while giving us half-life's puzzles. The only redeeming qualities is the aliens, some of the set pieces and battles were surprisingly fun, and the nostalgic level design was great. It's not a completely trash grade game, but it's just bad.
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