Dude! (or Lady Dude!) I just beat X monster in Dark Souls! This phrase became part of the gaming vernacular this year. Most surprisingly though, part of ours here at Boss Barrel. Dark Souls follows up Demon Souls by stripping away some of the super crazy systems in favor of middling crazy systems. Souls, humanity, Gaping Dragons, Drake Swords, giant crows, covenants might appear to originate from a D&D random word generator but in fact are hotly discussed topics among the Dark Souls players. Dark Souls is a highly addicting action RPG that, almost like a precision platformer, baits the player further down its rabbit hole by rewarding the player for patience and accuracy instead of time spent grinding. Dark Souls is a shocking surprise as it is much more playable than its predecessor and that when combined with the challenges and ambiguities it offers it is a top notch experience.
This sort of wins by default. Mortal Kombat is one of those franchises that all players of games have indulged in at some point. The resetting of the timeline has tamed some the the craziness that turned so many players away. MK has also looked at other recent fighting games for influence. The new systems seem fresh but still retain that uniquely layered MK complexity. What stands out most in the new Mortal Kombat is the story mode. Weird to say but MK has set the bar for how cohesive story and gameplay can be integrated in a fighting game. The MK name has be recharged and hopefully will spark the trend of closer attention to story in future fighting games.
Just listen to any of the tracks from Bastion and its clear its more than just game music. The world of Bastion is defined by its audio. Every song can be enjoyed for solely the musical merit. The songs also tie into the narrative of Bastion. The music is powerful. It's moving and haunting and energizing. It's so much more than music from a video game. Not that being video game music is a base thing. The soundtrack of Bastion is the best.
[Editor's Note: On the audio debate, we decided on a tie between Saints Row and Bastion. I'm calling upon the power of the Highlander Rule. There can only be one winner and in this case it is Bastion.]
Dood! Sardines, cat guns, sprites, gigantic explosive penguins, and weird underworld drama. Disgaea 4 is a game for the fans, those costume crafting, ramen eating, otaku ass fans. Disgaea mostly makes no sense. Maybe it's lost in translation or maybe it's exactly nonsensical on purpose. Disgaea is just weird in a Disgaea way.
Gears 3 is the complete package. The additions to Horde Mode, expanded campaign co-op, and new Beast Mode make for the best way to play with friends. Gears is a big game with big men and big co-op. The bumping the multiplayer from 2 to 4 fits better in the world of big. Beast Mode is fun and makes for a little pallet cleanser from Horde Mode. The campaign is embroidered with all usual multiplayer stuff like mutators and cosmetic cheats. As if to cover all the bases there is even a high score chase mode. Gears of War 3 is how you do co-op in 2011.
Remember when that happened. Remember when a mysterious file was found in the Sony servers and the network was shut down for about a month. Jeck Tretton apologized. This was right at the time when Sony was pushing cool exclusive features for multiplatform games. Suddenly the weird DRM choices of certain companies came to light. Without being able to connect to the PSN serves a few purchased games were unplayable. The Plus service was just rolling out some practical reasons to subscribe. This was all lost due to the outage none of this could be enjoyed. The consumers were hurt, the developers were hurt, and Sony looks bad. Nothing good for anyone.