Gaming in the UK: 2011 Favorites

(I wanted to include a review of Uncharted 3 since it is one of the bigger games to come out this year so I enlisted the help of my British friend, Victor, to share his thoughts on the game.  He went the extra mile by giving his take on three of his favorite games so far.  I plan on sharing my thoughts on the two I have played in a separate post later on.  As Victor doesn’t believe in having much of an online presence (or any it seems) I’ll periodically throw some other stuff up here from him to give another perspective from across the pond, so to speak.  Outside the parenthesis is all him.)

Sequelitis. It seem like every game developer and their grandmother are catching this bug and though I hate how game companies fall back with rehashing their games, blatantly ignoring the problems of their games and not adding anything new and fresh, I have to admit that sometimes it works.

Uncharted 3 comes to mind and though I haven’t played much of the multiplayer component, the single player alone is more than worth the $60 price tag. It reminds me a lot of how yet the Zelda games do little to innovate; they polish the hell out of their games, throw in some new ideas, and keep the franchise running strong. Uncharted joins the tradition, not adding much in the 3rd edition to the series, but making the game as solid as its award winning prequels. Simply put, the shooting mechanics are tight as always, the parkour aspect is fluid and makes a lot of sense compared to others games, and the characters and story are as strong as usual. Even more with brilliant performances by Nolan North as the protagonist, Nathan Drake, and Richard McGonagle as Victor Sullivan, Drake’s mentor and guardian, as well as many, many others. There might not be as many new awe-aspiring set piece moments like in Uncharted 2 that added, but there are still plenty of thrills rivaling the earlier edition to the series. What more can I say? The Uncharted series is the pinnacle of interactive storytelling for video games and with solid game play and an all-star roster of actors lending their voices to iconic characters; you owe it to yourself as a gamer to GET-THIS-GAME!

Skyrim… I can gush over this game like my American friend Matthew, but I’m not. He gave the game it’s praised and I concur with him completely. With that said, I do wish to highlight what Skyrim so… awesome for me. First and foremost, the combat. It’s not as hack-and-slash as I thought it would be, one of the reason Oblivion didn’t stay in my game collection. If anything, it has depth surpassing other games in this genre. For example, combat can be as strategic or hack and slash if you want, but it rewards the player tenfold by playing smart. Learning what armor is best for your play style, what weapons to get, their properties and learning how to best utilize them, as well what perks to get to make you a juggernaut. Hell, it actually makes the game arguably easier and most importantly, fun. This freedom and depth is what draws me in the most. But that’s just one highlight out of many noteworthy ones. Cooking, for example (yes, laugh, get it out of your system) is fun and surprisingly addictive. It’s also beneficial by bestowing the player character with special skills, like increase stamina, increased armor rating/defense, etc. And then there’s armor smithing, alchemy, undead conjuring… too much depth. Yeah, best if I stop there.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This might be blasphemy to fans of the 1st game which is arguably one of the best games of all-time, but I enjoyed this game far, far more. Haven’t played the first 2 games, Deus Ex and Deus Ex Invisible War, I went into playing this game think it won’t live up to the hype. Not only does it live up to the hype, but it renewed my faith in SquareEnix which has gone downhill as of lately. Though the game was developed by Eidos… produced by Square… so yeah.

(Edit:  I apparently posted this prematurely.  He has more to say about Deus Ex and now that he’s an author on the blog, he will do so in a later post.  We share affection for Skyrim and Deus Ex.  Both games are definitely worth buying though Skyrim will require a HUGE time investment since you will find yourself sucked in whether you like it or not.  More gaming talk to come later on!)