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, news editor Shawn Vermette shares some offbeat selections.
Honorable Mention: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (PC). Recettear is a little indie title that was localized from Japan earlier this year. Part dungeon crawler, part item shop sim, this game was all addictive. Neither the dungeon crawling nor the item shop management were particularly hard or deep, but the milestones in sales you need to hit to continue in the game make it challenging. In the end, though, this game is totally worth playing for any fan of Japanese games.
10. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS). While different from the other Ace Attorney games, it retained the series’ trademark outrageous cases and writing. If it had included some courtroom drama in addition to the field work, it would have ranked higher on my list, as the Ace Attorney games are some of my favorite DS games to date.
9. Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS). Yes, this was a remake. Yes, it didn’t have any new pokemon that would engender a new case of ‘gotta-catch-em-all’ fever. However, these were superb remakes of my favorite Pokemon games of the Game Boy/Game Boy Advance era and definitely reignited my passion for Pokemon 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 Unplugged guru Chris Ingersoll. As usual, he slips a few December titles from last year into his list, but we can’t blame him.
For me, 2010 was heavily front-loaded. Most of the titles I really enjoyed came out in the first quarter, including what was technically December 2009, but thanks to some time-sink DS titles I was never really without a “current” game. My Wii definitely didn’t see as much action as my DS — or the DSi XL I picked up in July — but that’s mostly due to my dislike of platformers; Super Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and Epic Mickey are sure to show up on the lists of the other Wii owners on staff, but not here. Having both Monster Hunter Tri and Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon fall flat for me didn’t help my Wii’s suffering either.
Here’s what really caught — and held — my attention these last twelve months:
Honorable Mentions: Metroid: Other M, Glory of Heracles, Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, and Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver are all worth owning but couldn’t make the final cut.
Victim of Circumstance: Mega Man 10 (WiiWare). When I wrote my first list, I had Mega Man 10 in my top 10. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn shipped on November 29th and pushed most of my picks down a space, knocking MM10 out of my official list. While MM10 wasn’t the polished awesome throwback that MM9 was, it still contained plenty of 8-bit difficulty in the classic Mega Man style. Whatever failings the robot master stages might have suffered, the first stage of Skull Castle made up for it by being one of the most epic ever.
10. Infinite Space (DS): This turn-based tactical sim was perhaps the most ambitious title I played this year. There are a ton of ships and modules and a galaxy-sprawling story line. It’s a little dry and wordy, and the actual action is a modified version of Rock/Paper/Scissors, but if you’re in to crazy levels of customization then Infinite Space should steal some time from you. READ MORE
The latest patch for Civilization V went live today, and boy is it a big one. Owners of the turn-based strategy game should be sure to check out the patch notes, shown after the break, for a full list of changes, as nearly everything in the game is touched on by at least one change. The biggest changes? The diplomacy system is being made much more transparent, and more strategic, and the tactical AI receives a long list of changes being made to improve its ability to compete with humans. READ MORE
The Humble Indie Bundle is back this holiday season with 5 new indie games that should appeal to fans of almost any type of game. The Humble Indie Bundle allows you to choose how much you wish to pay for 5 indie games. You can choose to pay as little as a single penny, if you so desire. However, you may want to consider paying more than that, since the proceeds also benefit the Child’s Play and Electronic Frontier Foundation charities. READ MORE
Entertainment Weekly broke the news today that the third chapter in Nathan Drake’s adventures, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, will be coming in 2011. This time, Drake and Sully will be searching for a lost city in the Rub’ al Khali Desert of the Arabian Peninsula. READ MORE
