Games
1. Portal 2 (15)
2. At a Distance (10)
3. Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (10)
4. Flee Buster (5)
5. Hokra (5)
6. Piourette (3)
Comments
Valve’s Portal 2 is probably on everybody’s list. It’s a great second effort. Maybe not Godfather II great, but pretty good. It’s not worth really discussing why it’s great because everyone’s already done a pretty solid job of it.
If Portal 2 is as wacky as AAA titles can get, then Terry Cavanagh’s At A Distance is, in a perfect world, a game that compells people to really deeply think about collaborative experiences… but instead we have the world where Avatar is a cult classic.
Speaking of cult classics, Superbrothers’ Sword and Sworcery will gone down in history as the best music video game ever created. I can see Frank Frazetta and Ted Nugent just wylin the fuck out on Mingi Taw somewhere off in the distance.
Every year, I lurk and stalk the Ludum Dare collective and all their wacky games. These games rarely remain in my mind for long, but I support the intense creativity and excitement around their genesis. Chevy Ray’s Flee Buster is one game that I played nonstop, obsessing over and I have no idea why. It’s worth mentioning for that alone.
Kudos to Increpare for this year’s best not book video game that pissed off gamers. It’s sad, hilarious, pretentious and also pretty. I don’t really care if it’s not a game or a book or whatever, it’s at least interesting. And besides, dude is one of the most innovative game designers on the scene, he deserves a mulligan or at least some benefit of doubt.
This was also an important year for eSports. Not the lame competitions for over inflated versions of Counterstrike or Starcraft. Those were fine and good. But Ramiro Corbetta’s Hokra was so much better, and promises a more pure version of what eSports can do. On the other side of that coin, Die Gute Fabrik’s Johann Sebastian Joust showed us what the Move was really meant for, and why the term “videogames” is pretty meaningless. Hats off to them.
Back to High Scores 2011