Coint & Plick 2010 #9: Picross 3D
84 points, 5 votes, 2 TOP GAME votes (includes votes from 2009)
JimD: Picross in 3D stops being a pen and paper logic puzzle and turns into a hammer and chisel logic puzzle! Chipping away at a big block until you’re left with a little 3D sculpture is just hugely satisfying. And the chewiness of the puzzles is just right too, they’re consistently challenging, sometimes infuriating, lots of fun. Even the time limits are perfectly judged (man, the number of times I’ve lost a star by being 5 seconds too slow…). So somehow this has ended up being my game of the year.
Forksclovetofu: As killer as apps get; easy to pick up and play and immediately engaging. Holds up phenomenally well; I’ve played it for two years running now!
abanana: My most played game of the year.
Nhex: I actually don’t like this nearly as much as the previous one – it’s not even in the same league IMO – and yet I’d find myself going back to this in little free moments, so it must be pretty good despite my natural distaste for it. (So much orange.)
Euler: only played it a little bit due to getting it only pretty recently & due to Pic Pic obsession when I want a puzzle game, but it’s fab & will be a regular puzzling mainstay in the near future.
Coint & Plick 2010 #13: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
61 points, 4 votes, 2 TOP GAME votes
DRAGON QUEST XI: WEAPONS OF MAP DISSEMINATION
Salsa Shark: I really had to drag myself kicking and screaming into the final battle of this game?-not because the final boss was incredibly difficult and fear-inspiring (if anything, I over-levelled)–but because I really didn’t want the game to end. And that was even after 80+ hours of gameplay, including various side quests, alchemy experiments, and re-classing just to postpone having to end my adventure.
One of the things I particularly liked about this game was the way some of the towns? stories were like scaled-down versions of Professor Layton plots (the story in Bloomingdale is a good example of this). And, like a Layton game, there aren’t really any ?evil? characters, just sympathetic, misguided beings who become consumed by their desires.
Also, I should probably admit that at least 5 of the points I awarded for this game were for the fact you can alchemise a slime costume, and that this slime costume is necessary in order to complete one of the side quests. Amazing.
Lamp: dragon quest ix is a well-made game. its the jrpg equivalent of a functional hollywood blockbuster & its not surprising that the game was immensely popular in japan or that nintendo was willing to take a gamble on its north american publication: it works. the story is bland but enjoyable, the world bright and soft, the game’s mechanic rewarding w/o ever overwhelming or frustrating the player. it lacks the imagination or dark undercurrents of the shin megami games or the joyful challenge of etrian odyssey but dq9 was never a chore, the multiplayer was well-integrated (if mostly unused), its a good game.
abanana: the series needs some streamlining (this game literally put me to
sleep several times) but the basics are still great.
DRAGON QUEST XI: WEAPONS OF MAP DISSEMINATION
Salsa Shark: I really had to drag myself kicking and screaming into the final battle of this game?-not because the final boss was incredibly difficult and fear-inspiring (if anything, I over-levelled)–but because I really didn’t want the game to end. And that was even after 80+ hours of gameplay, including various side quests, alchemy experiments, and re-classing just to postpone having to end my adventure.
One of the things I particularly liked about this game was the way some of the towns? stories were like scaled-down versions of Professor Layton plots (the story in Bloomingdale is a good example of this). And, like a Layton game, there aren’t really any ?evil? characters, just sympathetic, misguided beings who become consumed by their desires.
Also, I should probably admit that at least 5 of the points I awarded for this game were for the fact you can alchemise a slime costume, and that this slime costume is necessary in order to complete one of the side quests. Amazing.
Lamp: dragon quest ix is a well-made game. its the jrpg equivalent of a functional hollywood blockbuster & its not surprising that the game was immensely popular in japan or that nintendo was willing to take a gamble on its north american publication: it works. the story is bland but enjoyable, the world bright and soft, the game’s mechanic rewarding w/o ever overwhelming or frustrating the player. it lacks the imagination or dark undercurrents of the shin megami games or the joyful challenge of etrian odyssey but dq9 was never a chore, the multiplayer was well-integrated (if mostly unused), its a good game.
Coint & Plick 2010 #19a: Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
45 points, 2 votes, 1 TOP GAME vote
Lamp: smt: strange journey had the best and most interesting story of any game i played this year, even if it was poorly presented. the game has great atmosphere and a brooding, dangerous feel to the gameplay – it certainly makes every fight feel like something is at stake. but the game isn’t nearly expansive or, well, enjoyable enough to counterbalance what a complete fucking slog it becomes and how pointlessly it handicaps the player, over and over. the inorganic nature of the difficulty is really the one thing preventing this from being a truly great game.
Coint & Plick 2010 #31: Cave Story
33 points, 3 votes
if: Playing this at a few years remove meant playing an old classic pretending to be a far older classic, but the gameplay stands the test of time. The controls are fantastically tight and the 2D exploring and light platforming/shooting captures almost everything that made Super Metroid great without resorting to plagiarism. The choice of which weapons to upgrade and the way that they detiorate again as you lose health adds an enjoyable extra element of its own. It also helps that the whole thing is ridiculously charming, from the music to the setting to the pixel drawings of each character when they speak.
Z S: played this on PC a couple of years ago, assuming it’s just as good on DS
Coint & Plick 2010 #39b: Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
25 points, 3 votes
Euler: En realidad I didn’t play many 2010 games this year but I happily played a lot of this on a bunch of transatlantic flights so it ends up near the top kinda by default. (If this were “best of what you played in 2010″ by contrast, the winners would be Pic Pic, Strategery & Civ Rev for iOS, and Assassin’s Creed, but you go with the year you have not, not the year you had at some previous date.) But Clash of Heroes was worth the time because leveling! new units! fast improvement! kinda puzzly! plot a helluva lot better than Puzzle Quest!
abanana: puzzle rpgs still struggle with plot. but the puzzles were innovative here.
Will M.: I can’t wait to try this out against other people whenever I end up buying the XBLA one.
Coint & Plick 2010 #44b: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
20 points, 3 votes
Salsa Shark: I think the balance of difficulty of puzzles has been a bit off in the last two prof Layton games; I found many of the ones in Diabolical Box quite challenging (and even somewhat repetitive, ie lots of slidey puzzles), but there weren’t too many puzzles in Unwound Future that I needed to shell out my hint coins for. I gave this 10 points because even despite the puzzles being less challenging than I may have liked and parts of the story seeming a bit familiar, I’m still a fan of the way the series never makes anyone purely evil, the cinematic cut scenes, and the minigames included in the main story (that ridiculous parrot minigame more than made up for many of the puzzles being on the easy side). I can always count on a Layton game to deliver 15-20h of good entertainment and my weekly wi-fi puzzle is an added bonus.
Craig G: This one might be getting a vote to make up the numbers as, although I enjoyed it, the series seems pretty tired now. It feels like I’m playing the same game with slightly different puzzles, only the puzzles, new as they are, are oddly familiar and therefore easy.
Coint & Plick 2010 #66a: Call of Duty: Black Ops
15 points, 2 votes
jim in glasgow: (May 19, 2010) Once bitten thrice shy; not even going to consider playing this.
(November 7, 2010) Think i might be poop socking it.
The public library has a moral authority; it should be about learning, not learning to kill.
Chrisv2010: Black Ops has toned down the sniping to the point that there are no more of those quick scoping shitheads. A sniper rifle needs to be used like a sniper rifle.
Polyphonic: I was blown away by how incomprehensible the cutscenes are.
Antexit: I feel like I get more or less the same sort of concentrated pleasure from the new pac-man game as from this game. the amount of playtime it would take to get up to 15x prestige you could probably work at mcdonald’s and save enough to buy gold-plated guns irl…
The inherent social media dangers of courting deranged teenagers
jjjusten: oh my god the single player on this (yeah yeah i know) is the dumbest shit i have ever seen… and i played just cause 2!
Coint & Plick 2010 #80c: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
10 points, 2 votes
Euler: My son is playing the heck out of it, so I voted for him.
Coint & Plick 2010 #84j: Super Scribblenauts
10 points, 1 vote
Salsa Shark: I found the first version of Scribblenauts to be a bit disappointing. Conjuring up random things and making various beasts/humans fight one another was entertaining enough, but the control system when actually trying to complete tasks was so frustrating that I didn’t get very far before shelving the game. Super Scribblenauts was a huge improvement; something as simple as moving Maxwell with the D-pad instead of the stylus actually turned the entire game around. Oh, and the addition of adjectives is pretty fun, too. When your lexicon is exhausted of adjectives and obscure nouns, you can always resort to good ol’ random fights to the death between depressed ninja velociraptors and posh metal Cthulhus or other descriptive monsters of your choice. Super wicked.
forksclovetofu: I honestly wish I wasn’t once bitten, twice shy about this game but I still feel a bit wary of trying what sounds like the game the first one should’ve been after struggling with the janky controls and ???? puzzles in 2009, especially given the mixed reviews. Plus at this point it just feels like 5th Cell should join forces with Media Molecule and make a Little Big Scribblenauts and get the job done right.
Coint & Plick 2010 #84d: Puzzle Quest II
10 points, 1 vote
Craig G: Somehow the ‘quest’ wrapper on this game turns it from just a simple Bejewelled vs. mode to a game that I can’t put down. I don’t understand why; I never know what the actual purpose of the overall quest is, as I never read any of the game text. I wander from place to place wherever the arrow tells me to, fightin’ stuff, levelling up and getting more spells. I know I’m basically just playing battle after battle, but I can’t stop myself from playing this game… just like its predecessors. My main gripe with this one, unlike Puzzle Quest and Puzzle Quest Galactrix, is the curve just seems too gentle; it never gets difficult.
Jenny: It’s great on the iPad and decent enough on the iPhone.
trdn89
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