I somehow managed to survive the tremendous flood of games that happened to hit last holiday season. There were quite a few hits and very few misses in the collection of games I picked up during August through December 2009. Here are some of my thoughts on all of those games, in no particular order.Batman: Arkham Asylum - Absolutely one of the best superhero games I have ever played. Batman was exactly like you and I have always thought of him. Strong, mysterious, stealthy, skilled, and intelligent. All of these traits showed up through the gameplay and story with powerful combos, stealth kills, amazingly cool gadgets, and an interesting story that pitted you against some of Arkham's worst patients. The depth of the game was also surprising, with the entire compound to explore (as it becomes unlocked), the variety you find throughout the game helps to mix up what could have been a very repetitive game. There are puzzles hidden throughout the game by the Riddler, detective mode to help solve puzzles, platforming sections, large boss fights, fast paced action, and some great character actors. If you have ever liked Batman and wished for a good game with him as the center, this is the game to get.
Mini Ninjas - Surprising tough for a kiddie game, Mini Ninjas provided more variety than I was expecting. Missions can be completed by going in swords blazing or with sneak attacks, you can even complete some of the levels without even fighting any enemies if you know where the secret paths are. I wouldn't recommend it for your average gamer, but if you have a younger audience and need a game that is both suited for them yet challenging enough, Mini Ninjas is it. Surprisingly high quality for a budget title.
NHL 2010 - The best hockey game I have played to date! Make your own pro is both fun and easy to do. While the options of customization are a bit slim, leveling up your player a la RPG is a great way to keep you playing over and over again. The various difficulty levels also provide a great experience for those new to the sport to the pro that plays in the big league. Online play is also very fun and works well. Just how Skate changed how we view skateboarding games, NHL 2010's new controls have changed the way I view hockey games. Using the right analog stick to control the player's stick is amazingly intuitive and brings the gamer that much closer to the action. Instead of a tap of the "X" button to pass to another player, now you just swish your analog stick in the direction you want to pass and off the puck goes. Definitely a great buy for me and I'm glad I switched from NHL 2k10.
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition - This game wasn't actually on my list of pickups and granted the original was released in 2008. But a friend of mine gave me the GotY as a Christmas present and I have to say that I'm now hooked. I loved Oblivion to death and have played the game numerous times (never beating it though) so when I heard that Bethesda was going to make Fallout 3 I was extremely excited. As I started to hear more of the game, the post-apocalyptic setting turned me off from the game and I never thought about it again. Even with all the rave reviews and recommendations, I still didn't have any desire to play it. Then one day I get the game in the mail and the rest is history. Running through the wastes of Washington D.C. was a bit depressing at first. Seeing a place that is so beautiful and the fact that I haven't seen it in real life made it a very awkward feeling seeing it as a crumbling ruin.
Just like Oblivion, the sort of tutorial level is closed off from the world and set in a controlled environment. Yet once that level is completed, you are unleashed onto the world and allowed to do whatever you want and to go wherever you want. Stepping out of Vault 101 for the first time was a mixture of awe and shock. Seeing the vastness of the wastes expanding out for hundreds of miles before you made you feel small and insignificant. Seeing the skeleton of a once thriving suburb put the entire world's and your existence into perspective. This was about survival . . . not the world's survival but more importantly your own survival. Unlike the sugar coated "you're the hero of the world" outlook in Oblivion, Fallout 3 didn't tell you to save the world, Fallout 3 told you to do something much more personal . . . to save your father, the only family you have. Instantly, I found myself connected more to the story than I was to Oblivion's story. I wasn't going out into the world to save it, I was going out into the world to save someone I cared about.
That is why hands down I have to say Fallout 3 is truly the better game out of the two I have experienced from Bethesda. Spending many (and I mean many) hours in the wastes, I found myself becoming an experienced explorer, fighter, and scavenger. It's a dangerous world filled with mutated animals and people, radioactive waste, and scarce supplies. At first I was overwhelmed with the lack of protection and security that I was left with. After leaving the Vault, the only home I knew, I had nothing to my name but the clothes on my back and a BB Gun. Finding one of the few makeshift settlements was like hitting the jackpot in Vegas. I quickly found that the nuclear fallout left more than just radioactive waste, it left the remaining survivors skeptical and defensive. There were bandits and marauders that seemed to have lost their humanity, killing and stealing whatever they could. Those that lived in the settlements were not as depraved but were just as violent. Cross them and your life would be the cost to appease them.
I won't get into the actual story too much, all I can say that it had me captivated enough to actually beat the game, I feat that doesn't happen often. The game also makes you appreciate the little things. Like when I finally got a house, unlike in Oblivion where you just need some money, in the world of Fallout 3 such commodities must be earned. In a world where everything is dead, finding a small green patch of life was stunning and humbling. Seeing children having to result to slaying mutants opened my eyes to how fragile life was in the wastes. Witnessing firsthand the violence that a new form of racism brought helped me to appreciate those who were no longer seen as human. In a way the game forced me to become a hero along my journey to find my father. I could not let an innocent child get slaughtered by a bandit nor could I watch the violent discrimination of people who have been transformed by the wastes to continue.
Unlike other games that make you choose between good and evil, Fallout 3 subtly offers you situations, situations that are terribly familiar in our everyday lives and asks us to act or not act at all. I originally began the game with the mindset that I would be an "evil" character but I soon found the affect of the wastes could not let me. It was too real, too close for comfort . . . so I acted the way I feel and hope I would if met with those situations in real life. For me Fallout 3 transcended this invisible line that we all know exists within video games, the separation of what is real and what is illusion. I could not go against my real world morals and beliefs, even though this was a fictional world and a fictional character, there is something in the presentation of Fallout 3 that makes it so much more real than its simple description - a video game. It may sound cliche but Fallout 3 will always be placed with my highest echelon of games because it made me do something no other game has ever done - follow my heart.
