My favorite games of 2011

by Darius Kazemi on December 20, 2011

in games,Games I Love

I was planning to do this anyway, but then Zack Hiwiller beat me to it and I got all jealous. Here’s a list of some of my favorite games that came out in 2011 (or at least the ones I thought of on my lunch break).

  • Murder Dog IV: Trial of the Murder Dog. I wrote at Paste Magazine about why I like it.
  • Crime Zone. Another game by the creator of Murder Dog, this is primarily an exploration of the psychogeography of a member of a police squad that enforces the will of a totalitarian state. For real.
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It doesn’t innovate over the original Deus Ex. It’s pretty much the same game except not quite as good. I am completely okay with that because I’m a shameless DX fan.
  • Skyrim. This took me by surprise. I found Oblivion really boring, but I very much liked Fallout 3. I typically hate fantasy genre stuff. But I’ve logged about 40-50 hours in Skyrim, and keep coming back to it.
  • Vertex Dispenser. I wrote about this game as well. (It’s 50% off right now at Steam!)
  • Frozen Synapse. It’s the squad based battle planning stuff I love from Jagged Alliance 2. Runs like a dream under Wine on Linux, too. I had fun with this.
  • Soul Brother. Hands-down my favorite browser-based game of the year. Incredible soundtrack.

Unfortunately, most of the other games I enjoyed this year technically have not been released yet so I can’t talk about them here. Oh the trials of being an IGF judge and Indiecade-attending-person.

The unreleased game that stands out the most in my mind is Johann Sebastian Joust, which I played with my coworkers at our holiday party last weekend. Here’s a video of a test run:

Playing Joust at Bocoup from maryrosecook on Vimeo.

I spent $200 on four PS Move controllers to play this (I don’t own a PS3) and IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

{ 3 comments }

Zack Hiwiller December 20, 2011 at 1:55 pm

Totally forgot about Murder Dog IV. Amending my list. I’d love to play JOUST, but I know of no one with Move controllers. :(

James December 21, 2011 at 2:40 am

Don’t even need Wine. As of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle, there’s a native Linux version, too.

Darius Kazemi December 21, 2011 at 10:06 am

Great to know, thanks!

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