Jon Shafer, lead designer of the critically acclaimed Civilization V, left Firaxis a couple weeks back, reportedly resigning following the launch of Civilization V. News has now surfaced that he has been hired by Stardock, creator of Galactic Civilizations and Elemental: War of Magic. READ MORE

Firemint, creators of the popular Flight Control and Real Racing games on the iPhone, announced today that they had acquired fellow independent developer Infinite Interactive, creators of the Puzzle Quest series of games. READ MORE

One of Snackbar Games’ traditions is to have staffers pick their top ten games of the year. We’re so all over the map in our tastes that our lists are never similar. Today, we have writer and new dad Justin Last. This year’s list isn’t so baby-safe.

10. Heavy Rain (PS3). Heavy Rain is not without its warts, but it kept me engrossed from start to finish in the story of the Origami Killer. Quantic Dream handily proved that interactive fiction can work and that story can take precedence over gameplay. It’s something that everybody should play and the branching paths increase the replay value tremendously.

9. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC). I love building bases and then slowly marching siege tanks across the map to wipe out my opponent. SC2 doesn’t really allow for that, and it’s better for it. Each campaign mission has a theme, and it forces you to play in new and interesting ways. I learned how to properly (for single-player) micromanage caster units, saw the usefulness of the firebat, and helped keep the galaxy safe. What more could a person want?

8. Alien Swarm (PC). Alien Swarm hits a bunch of right notes for me – it is free, it is cooperative, and there are tons of aliens to kill. With four classes and two characters for each class each trip through the Jacob’s Rest campaign will be unique, fun, and tense – especially when you realize that nobody brought a hand welder with them. READ MORE

One of Snackbar Games’ traditions is to have staffers pick their top ten games of the year. We’re so all over the map in our tastes that our lists are never similar. Today, we have staff writer Gerry Pagan. He picked a PSP game as his favorite of the year. This makes him special.

This was an interesting year for games, with a huge variety of genres getting some good representation. There’s many more games released this year that I wish I could have played, whether for monetary or hardware reasons. Some of the games I did play, however, were good enough to place in my list of favorite games of all time. Here are my choices for best games of 2010.

10. Final Fantasy XIII (PS3/360): There’s not much to be said about this game that hasn’t been said already, whether it’s praising the game’s gorgeous visuals and atmosphere or criticizing its lack of towns and hallway-like dungeon design. However, the game gets major props from me for being able to completely turn around my opinion of nearly the entire cast, from disdain and hatred to making most of them my favorite new characters of 2010. Plus I had fun with it, and that’s what really counts in the end, right?

9. BlazBlue Continuum Shift (PS3/360). Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely loved BlazBlue Calamity Trigger, the precursor to this game. So it’s not much of a surprise to see the sequel rank as one of my favorite games of the year. It probably would have ranked much higher if Arcsys had decided to ditch studio GONZO, which just about ruined the story cutscenes in the game with abysmal art. Here’s to hoping the next game does everything better.

8. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3). Andrew would probably argue that this game has no merit being on any top ten, but I disagree! 3D Dot was one of the games I looked forward to the most, and its retro-styled dungeon design, feel and gameplay topped with well-done references to games from past generations won me over. READ MORE