2010 is just a stone's toss away from being over, so I figured it's about time for our annual 'Best Of' video game awards.  Like every year before it (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), there's no set category, but I'm again going with a top-five model, along with a honorable mentions listing.  As always, feel free to add in your own categories as you see fit, but just to get things started:

-TOP GAMES OF 2010

-BEST GAMES YOU'VE PLAYED THIS YEAR RELEASED BEFORE 2010

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I haven't even begun to think about my own choices, so it'll be a little while more before I have own entries punched up.  In any case, have at it!

Unfortunately, I didn't play that many games this year, but what I did play, best to worst:

1: Red Dead Redemption - Excellent, absorbing, compelling. My top game of the year.
2: Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Just pure fun. Played it until I could play no more.
3: Mass Effect 2 - Uses the usual BioWare template but what works works VERY well.
4: Donkey Kong Country Returns - Haven't beaten it yet but it's pretty good... just not great.
5: Enslaved - Got about 3/4s of the way through before I got bored.
6: Final Fantasy XIII - Disappointing. The music is the only thing that saves this badly written, poorly conceived mess.

1. Super Metroid
2. Tomb Raider
3. Syphon Filter
4. Mega Man X

I like it when a year has a game that is so clearly superior to everything else released that year that there is absolutely no contest and picking a winner is easy.  This is one of those years and the winner is clearly Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii).  Like the 2007 original, Galaxy 2 is a near perfect video game.  It has gameplay in spades, it's immensely fun, and it has a super smooth learning curve (if not quite as smooth as the one in the original Galaxy).  Yoshi was a great addition to the game with Nintendo Tokyo coming up with a great feel for him, something that I was very worried about after how awful Yoshi felt in Sunshine.

2010 Game of the Year Runners-Up:
-Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)
-Cave Story (Wii/DSi)
-Metroid: Other M (Wii)

2010 Games I Wish I Had the Time or the Hardware to Play to See if I Should Have Nominated Them:
-Ys Seven (PSP)
-Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP)
-Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DSi)

Best Game I Finished in 2010 That Came Out Before 2010:
-Shadow Complex (360, 2009)

Most Disappointing Games of 2010:
-No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Wii) [lacked the love that went into the first one; still a very good game though]
-Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP) [insane single-player difficulty]
-Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (360) [cheap cash in]
-Vanquish (360/PS3) [Mikami can do better than this]
-Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii) [didn't live up to the original and way overpriced at $50]

Most Anticipated Games of 2011:
-Ghost Trick (DS)
-Okamiden (DS)
-The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
-Team Ico Collection (PS3)
-The Last Guardian (PS3)
-Portal 2 (PS3)
-Journey (PS3)

Also, I realized that I never published any awards for 2009, so here's a quickie version:

Game of the Year 2009:
-Street Fighter IV (PS3)

SF4 made the entire fighting genre relevant again, it made it accessible, and it made it work online.  2010's SUPER made things even better, but SF4 was a marvelous reinvention of the franchise and a spectacular return to form.

Runners-up: Shadow Complex (360), Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3/360), Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (Wii), Flower (PS3)

2009 Games I Wish I Had the Time to Play to See if I Should Have Nominated Them:
-Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)

Most Disappointing Games of 2009:
-The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS) [too much busy work for little gain; very boring game with great music]
-Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (Wii) [this is not the sequel you're looking for]
-Rhythm Heaven (DS) [I loved the GBA one, but the cranked up difficulty ruined this; how were casuals supposed to enjoy it?]
-Resident Evil 5 (PS3/360) [a good action movie, but a lousy video game]

I was going to call this post "XLord Tag Teams 2009 and 10" to recall my former annual "XLord Does [Year]" Posts, but I thought better of it (that, and I don't really have enough content to justify a separate post).

Gears of War 2 is the only game that I recall having finished this year.  I found the cover-based gameplay to be tedious but continued playing for the sake of my co-op partner's entertainment.

I'll probably dive into this a little more after the holiday this weekend; thanks to a certain loose-lipped relative I know I can look forward to a copy of DKC Returns, which might mix things up a tad if it's as good as advertised.

One thing I can get to now is the Best Music category, since I've had a playlist at the ready for a while. So, selecting only one piece from each soundtrack, and in alphabetical order...

My Favorite Tracks of 2010
Against the Pressure - Megaman 10 (Image Album)
Alexandrite - Blazblue Continuum Shift
Battle for the Umbra Throne - Bayonetta
Burning Halloween Town - DeathSmiles
Dark Beasts as Black as the Night - Ys: Oath in Felghana
Dee Jay - Super Street Fighter IV
Digga-Leg Battle - Super Mario Galaxy 2
Heaven's Devils - Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Intercepting the Great Gong - Monster Hunter Tri
Main Theme - MGS Peace Walker
She's Got Moves - Shantae: Risky's Revenge
Shoegazer Watched the Stars - No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
Subboss Theme - Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game
System Menu - Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
Those Who Bear Their Name - Xenoblade
Tropical Resort Act 1 - Sonic Colors
Tyrell Badd ~ The Truth Isn't Sweet - Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations
Vacant Interference - Ys 7
Vagabundos - Lost Planet 2
White Valkyrja - Arcana Heart 3

We got spoiled this year, I think.

EDIT: Stupid spelling error.

-TOP GAMES OF 2010
* No More Heroes 2: self-consciously absurd and fun. The retro minigames were a hoot, too.
* Final Fantasy CC: The Crystal Bearers: Practically a 2010 game. A good Final Fantasy adventure without the random battles. What would have happened if they had made this into a traditional RPG?
* Just Dance & Just Dance 2: I was really surprised by these. It's fun!
* Dragon Quest IX: a marvellous adventure, and the class system is great.
* Sin & Punishment 2: it's a rush when you go through it the first few times, but not as well suited to repeated playthroughs as I thought it would be.
* WarioWare: DIY: at first it seemed kind of crummy and simple. "This is the new WarioWare?" But then the downloadable games started coming in, and people kept making games ranging from mediocre to brilliant (like the Megaman tribute minigames), and DIY showed that it doesn't have to be as complicated or use as many features as WarioWare Smooth Moves or Touched to be fun.
* Tomena Sanner: a simple idea, it all hinges on the execution and presentation, and those aspects are really brought home here. Japanese quirkiness at its best.

-BEST GAMES YOU'VE PLAYED THIS YEAR RELEASED BEFORE 2010
* Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: Why can't they make another one like this? It's a fantastic game on all accounts: writing, pacing, gameplay, presentation, the UI, the little touches here and there that make it great. Some of the things the characters discuss in this game make them seem much more adult than many of the other RPGs out there, even including the original FF12.
* Super Stardust HD: admittedly, I haven't played many HD games this year due to lack of time and interest, but the ones I played like FF13 and Sparkster HD were mostly huge disappointments, or meh fare like Darksiders. That leaves Super Stardust, the best HD game of the year for me.
* A Boy and His Blob: it's a beautiful, captivating adventure, a great puzzle platformer, and proof that there's still room to develop and innovate 2D games.

I haven't played all too many new games this year.
Out of the handful I did play (old and new) the only one that I really grew attached to was Nier.

So for 2010, as far as both games and soundtracks go,
NIER!

TOP FIVE GAMES OF 2010:

5) BioShock 2 (360) - While it's impossible to recreate that same feeling of giddiness one gets from experiencing Rapture for the first time, 2K Marin has done a respectable job at crafting a worthy followup to the series.  The aquatic dystopia is lavishly gorgeous with decrepit new avenues and locales to explore.  Searching out the audio diaries and weapon upgrades, as well as completing the metagame side quests, again gives a "do everything" incentive.  Multiplayer is a throwaway, but Miranda's Den is a terrific addendum to the main single player campaign.  And despite skewered difficulty with balancing issues and a weaker story and cast of characters, the game is a highly captivating and unsettling experience.  Save for its predecessor, nothing I've played comes close to matching BioShock 2's high level of immersion.

4) Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP) - If there was any title that made me feel alive as a gamer again, it's undoubtedly The Oath in Felghana.  A celebrated example of an average game drastically remade for the better, this retelling of "Wanderers from Ys" is the zenith of the action-RPG genre.  Tight gameplay accompanies a briskly paced and supremely challenging adventure that will test your skills to the absolute limits.  Toss in an awesome New Game+ system, as well as the inclusion of two additional in-game OSTs on top of a magnificently arranged score, and you've got one of Falcom's most polished and satisfying pieces of software to date.

3) Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS) - Though Edgey doesn't quite compare to Phoenix on his best days, he still manages to outdo young upstarts like Apollo with ease.  Despite moving the setting away from the courtroom, the new form of investigations and cross examination adheres surprisingly close to the series foundation - with an even meatier emphasis on the latter.  The sense of fun and humor from the first three Ace Attorney games returns, providing a fine stopgap between Trials and Tribulations and the dismally toned Apollo Justice.  Strong and overarching, the narrative propels across all fives cases in successive fashion, culminating into one doozy of a final episode.  Yamada and Iwadare also steer the music back on course, gracing us with some of the most melodically pleasing character themes the series has seen yet.

2) Sigma (iPhone) - An iPhone title manages to earn a spot in my top five.  Will wonders never cease?  Quite possibly the best match-3 puzzler I've played in the history of match-3 puzzlers, Sigma's fast, intuitive gameplay is perfect in short bursts and for long play sessions alike.  The ability to continually stack beyond three adds a wide depth of strategy, and local multiplayer is a competitive blast.  "Addicting as crack" is about as clichéd a phrase as they come, but oh how it applies here; if a game's quality is measured by the number of hours sunk into it, then Sigma deserves to be near the very top.  Not only my sleeper hit of the year, but also my best value one.  I bought the game for $.99 when it first came out, and it's still the greatest buck I ever spent.

1) Super Street Fighter IV (PS3) - What a difference a year makes.  Solid fighter that it was, recall that the original SFIV didn't even register as my top five in 2009.  Capcom went back to the drawing boards, corrected many wrongs, and added a tremendous variety of improvements and features.  With the addition of ten new characters, an expansive new story mode, character tweaks across the board, an overhaul to the online structure, generously acquired unlockables, and arranged musical themes for each and every character, there's no comparison: Super IV is a phenomenally superior package, a well-oiled machine that at last is firing on all cylinders.  All of this has helped me to finally warm up to IV's fighting engine, and the game has even supplanted SSFII HD Remix as my new all-time favorite Street Fighter.  To echo what I've once said about my former fave: "Playing the game with such a readily available online community brings me back to the good ol' arcade days, where I've been getting a beating just as much as I've been giving it.  There are fewer joyful video game moments than finishing off your opponent with a glorious combo after a particularly intense match, but it's the experience you gain when fighting against others that's the true draw.  Observing your opponent's patterns and getting to know the ticks and deeper nuances of the characters makes playing live both enjoyable and a learning experience." 

Once again, if a game's quality is measured by the time spent on it, then Super Street Fighter IV wins by a landslide.  To date, my in-game clock shows that I've invested 220 hours since its late April arrival.  Nary a day's passed that I haven't fired up this bad boy means that it's gotta be doing something right, and so, with a mighty Metsu Shoryuken, the game dragon punches its way to my 2010 Game of the Year.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS:

My honorable mentions are really going to be more of a quick and dirty overview of the rest of the games I've played this year - the majority of which, sadly, I've yet to even finish.

Due to sporadic operations that continue to plague my Wii system, I've only been able to play a moderate sprinkling of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns.  They're both excellent games, but I really wish I could just sit down and complete them without my Wiimotes losing their sync every twenty damned minutes.

I'd gotten to the Segram Fire Shrine in Ys Seven before putting it down, but the swift, enjoyable combat and pumping Falcom music score is calling me back.  It's going to be weird not being able to jump again after The Oath in Felghana.

While Mega Man 10 failed to match the all-around excellence of Mega Man 9, that doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile title.  The varying difficulty levels provides something for everyone, from the scrubs who'll have a fighting chance on the insultingly breezy Easy mode, to the maddening mayhem that awaits for those masochistic enough to take on Hard.  The background borders on the PS3 version are a horrible distraction, though.  Polluted Pump and Desert Commando forever!
 
Owning all four titles under one roof in the Mega Man Zero Collection is a nifty prospect, but I'd be lying if I said I replayed through any one of them.  I've neither the time nor the energy, but if I find either, I just might bite the bullet, call myself Sister Scrub, and plow through them on the newly included Easy mode.

I was pleased as punch that we were able to receive a localized release of Deathsmiles.  But while it was literal blast the first time through, I've had very little incentive to go back and complete the game with any other character.  That's not so much a slur against the game itself, but perhaps an indication that I'm finally growing out of my deeply rooted shmup phase.  The bullet hell one, anyway. 

The likes of After Burner Climax and NBA Jam show just how slick old-school arcade classics can look with a new coat of paint.  At the same time, they also reveal how limited their gameplay really is.  Extended replay value is in short supply, a costly price for the sake of nostalgia.

Bayonetta versus God of War III...... the former's style, gameplay, sly Sega classic game throwbacks and batshit insane story managed to hook me in more than anything the angry Spartan attempted to do.  Plus, Jeanne just may end up being my favorite new character of the year.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a significant improvement over Portable Ops.  Though aiming is a pain in the ass, and the bosses are a monumental nightmare, I loved the MGS3 school of stealth, and there's an embarrassment of gameplay riches to be found with the Extra Ops and unlockable items and weapons.  A worthy entry in the Metal Gear storyline, too.

The astronomical level of things to do in Dragon Quest IX is both at once daunting and admirable.  As such, I've barely made a dent in it, though given its leisurely pace, I reckon it'll be a game I'll be willing to chip away at for a year or two to come.

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BEST GAMES YOU'VE PLAYED THIS YEAR RELEASED BEFORE 2010:

I played exactly seven games this year, all ending with a consecutively labeled sequel number, and beginning with "Mega Man".  That marathon run I did over the summer was an enjoyable experience, providing bouts of frustration, fond recollection, and a renewed appreciation for all seven games.  If time permits, I'd love to do a similar run for the "X" series next year.

Lots of great games this year, so let's bring in a whole bunch of (random) categories!

As always, I tend to stick with the release dates for the version I played meaning the JP version in most cases, since that's where I live, so keep that in mind if you want DQIX or Bayonetta to be Game of the Year.

- Best XBox 360 Game:
Mass Effect 2 - I don't care much for BioWare's haughty attitude towards the genre of RPGs, but there's no denying that ME2 is a great game. A rich cast of interesting characters, some great and hilarious dialogues, a solid (if slightly dry) combat system, some great set-pieces and impressive environments and a generally much more balanced and fun campaign than the prequel make this one of this year's most memorable experiences.

Runner up: NieR: Criticized for being generic and sub-par, I found it unusual (I mean, a Bullet Hell Action RPG!? Seriously!?), mesmerizing and beautiful. The wonderful soundtrack sets a great mood, there's a wonderful cast of colorful characters (using equally colorful language in one case), and there are lots of cute hommages to other game series and genres.
The story counts as one of the most touching I've witnessed this year, and the extra endings are definitely worth a watch to see what kind of twist they give to the game world and its narrative. A sequel would be highly appreciated.

- Best PS3 Game:
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - To be honest, I haven't played that many of this year's PS3 games, and I haven't even gotten round to GT5 yet, so the list of candidates isn't very long. God of War 3 somehow did not leave a long-lasting impression on me, which I suspect has something to do with how the game pretty much collapses after blowing its entire load in the opening sequence.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood shows that Ubisoft is getting better and better at this franchise with each new installment.
It's a huge improvement even over ACII which was already a great game. On top of everything else, the game introduces a quite unique and very enjoyable Multiplayer component, that actually favors cleverness and sneakiness over the frantic shooting found in 99% of all other online games. I'm greatly looking forward to where the series goes next.

Runner up: Heavy Rain: I haven't even finished Heavy Rain yet, but it's already much better than I had expected. I'm not the biggest fan of QTEs, and I still think it's the cheapest and laziest way of making a "game", but the controls are generally clever (with the exception of the extremely awkward movement mechanics) and Heavy Rain more than makes up for it with its music, story, atmosphere and characters.
It may not be the direction I want videogames to go in, but it's nice to see a game that offers a solid, clever and thrilling movie-like experience.

- Best Wii Game:
Xenoblade - Because this:  http://www.soundtrackcentral.com/forums … hp?id=5888

Runner up: Nothing. Not even Super Mario Galaxy 2. That's how f*cking AWESOME Xenoblade is.

- Best PSP Game:
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - It was either this or Persona 3 Portable, but P3P is a 2009 game over here, so I'll use that to make the choice easier for myself. I simply cannot get enough of the KH series, and BbS delivers in spades. Contrary to the DS games, this entry actually expands on the story and mythology of the series in a significant way. It is, for all intents and purposes, a proper new entry, that is more than enough to keep fans busy until KH3 arrives (which is probably still going to take a couple of years). Shimomura has done a terrific job again, and there's plenty of wonderful new music to be heard. The 3 protagonists all handle differently, have a different story and there's a bunch of stuff to do for completists as well.

Runner up: Last Ranker, A bare-bones RPG with very little in terms of side/subquest, but the likeable cast and amazing soundtrack managed to make this game leave a deeper impression than the sum of its parts.

- Best DS Game:
Kingdom Hearts: Re: Encoded - Fanboy alert! Actually, I'm having a hard time choosing between this and the excellent Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, but I'm choosing KH mostly because of better replay value. I'll readily admit I'm getting about sick of seeing the same stages and hearing the same music over and over and over, but at least they had the foresight to make every stage play differently this time. Every world has it's own system/gimmick this time round to keep things interesting, the Status Matrix is a vastly improved way of customizing your character over what 358/2 days did, and the Trophies that were introduced in Birth by Sleep also make their return for completionists and achievement whores.

Runner up: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - I can't help but wonder why it took Camelot 7 years to make a sequel that is pretty much exactly the same as the previous 2 games. Fortunately, the series' tried and tested gameplay is far from stale (although I don't quite understand why battles are still text-based when everything is plainly visible), and the puzzles are still some of the best you'll find in the genre.
Runner up 2: Ghost Trick - The game is fairly easy for a point-'n'-click adventure, largely due to its linearity, and it feels as if the true potential of the system is never really reached, but what it lacks in depth of gameplay, it more than makes up for in depth of story, with a wonderful cast of interesting characters, a great sense of humor and a touching narrative that will probably haunt you until long after you've put the game down.

- Best Downloadable Game:
Mega Man 10 - All right, I have to be honest and say that I hardly downloaded anything at all this year (at least, nothing new) so it's hardly representative of everything that's out there, but I still had a great time with it.

- Best Game No One Played:
Deadly Premonition - I'm starting to think that if IGN US gives something a really low score (their UK counterpart had more sense, fortunately), it automatically means the game is brilliant and probably too hard for most people to understand. Deadly Premonition is a wonderful hommage to cult movies and TV shows from the 70s/80s, and contains so many cute references that it doesn't actually surprise me that a lot of people don't get it. It's obviously aimed at gamers of my generation (around 30 and up) and moreover it's aimed at gamers of my generation that actually have taste and a sense of humor. It's one of the single most emotionally engaging games I've played this year, and that's saying something. There's many things to fault it on, but if you do, you're only missing the point.

- Overall Game of the Year:
Xenoblade - Yeah, no surprise here. The game was released on June 10th, and now, over half a year later, I'm still playing it.
It is, to me at least, one of the best games ever created. At a time when I had started wondering if there were going to be any truly worthwhile JRPGs in this generation, Xenoblade comes in and slaps me in the face, HARD. A gigantic adventure with huge, sprawling environments, hundreds of quests and unique pieces of equipment, hordes of monsters, secret areas, gorgeous environment design, this game HAS. IT. ALL.
Is it perfect? No. It screams for a Bestiary, it also screams quite literally in the form of the oft-times-annoying main character (the character quotes after every single battle can quickly become annoying as well), and it can be a pain to find the people who gave you a quest before (what with every NPC having its own unique daily cycle), but these are minor blemishes on an otherwise amazing piece of work. I can only hope the game will be localized and do well enough on both sides of the planet so that we'll get a sequel in the future. And let's be fair here, if Xenosaga can get 2 sequels, why not a game that's actually truly fantastic!?

Ahhhh...Something I've learned firsthand is while online play is an obvious step forward, I have trouble using it to supplant the long-dead arcade experience. Even online MvC 2, I only occasionally dabble in and that is nearly perfect with a good connection. SSFIV online though, is far from perfect and is like playing underwater most of the time (especially if you're trying to time links, which I suck at doing even offline). Offline, I give SFIV a ton of credit for being relatively balanced for a serious fighter, but I haven't warmed up to the fighting engine at all (FADC is basically Roman Cancel, but more limited) and sometimes it is just painful to watch/play certain match-ups. My friends are more into it than I am and I play it, but I don't even hide that I'm just playing it because it's popular now and a good 2D fighter is better than most of the crap out now. I did switch to El Fuerte to at least make things semi-exciting.

My favorite game of 2010 has simply been the waiting game on a sequel I've waited nearly 10 years for: Marvel vs Capcom 3. Who is in? Who is out? Who are the remaining characters? Who is DLC? Will the new controls ruin the game? How much broken shit can they find in the releases put out? It is much more fun than it sounds. I'm prepared to make this either one of the biggest and best games ever or one of the hugest busts ever.

The only other 2010 game I played that was "recent" was Sakura Wars and it fell victim to my lack of time/interest in RPG's. Sitting on the shelf, waiting to be played again...waiting...waiting...waiting... I will probably try Red Dead Redemption when it goes Greatest Hits. Dunno if I'd have the patience for Super Meat Boy. Continuum Shift looked like more of Guilty Gear-lite, which doesn't spark much interest despite balance fixes (sorry, I HATE the character designs in this one and the control setup annoys me) Held off on Megaman 10 for one reason: Xbox D-pad is not meant for those type of games and my time spent on the nearest Wii was spent on Dracula X. Speaking of which...

Before 2010...

Dracula f---ing X!!!! This is how to do a Castlevania game. Terrible controls, short levels, can be a bitch in some places...none of it matters. The game is FUN, replayable and the atmosphere (and music) it has is perfect (although Maria feels out of place to me). I loved the ghost ship area. I picked this up with the intent of seeing if it was worth the years of hype and it ended up reminding me how good videogames used to be. Wow...and Igarashi wanted to get away from this type of game!? The man needs to get his freakin head checked.

Vampire Savior is an untapped CPS2 gem I've been playing around with and I'm hoping for a Live release at some point. The classic X-Men beat 'em up was just released on Live and I had spent mucho emulator time with that one earlier this year. And had a couple nights with both R-Type III and Axelay, both really good SNES shooters I hadn't paid much attention to in the past.

What he said.

My picks:

-TOP GAMES OF 2010-

1. Sonic Colors (Wii)
2. Deadly Premonition (360)
3. Heavy Rain
4. Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
5. Splatterhouse (PS3)
6. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 -Episode I- (PS3)
7. Mega Man 10 (Wii)
8. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

-BEST GAMES I'VE PLAYED THIS YEAR RELEASED BEFORE 2010-

1. Resident Evil Code Veronica X (PS2)
2. Shenmue
3. Disaster Report
4. Yakuza
5. Burning Rangers

No honorable mentions here.  Those 13 were the only games I played and finished for the whole year.  Still need to play No More Heroes 2, Alan Wake, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Valkyria 2.  Hmm, lots of 2s in there!

2011 Edit: Added "Splatterhouse" to the list. Just finished it tonight, most fun I've had with a video game in a long time.

One of these years I'm going to be right on top of things and post a list so timely it'll make your head spin. But that year is not this year. Again.

A quick note about my Top 10 Games lists - I'm not ranking them this time. While I played a wide spate of stuff this year, my completion total was flat-out abysmal. I can't say with any certainty that Game X is quantatively better than Game Y if I haven't gotten far enough in either, right? I did limit myself to listing games I'd at least played for more than a few hours, though (apologies to both Ys games and Birth by Sleep, to name a few exclusions). Anyway, onward.

Top 10 Games I Played From 2010 - I thought my list would be reasonably unique, and then this guy goes and steals a significant portion of my thunder. Whatever.

3D Dot Game Heroes - Doesn't have Big Important Moments like some other games, but nothing else I played made me feel eight years old all over again to the extent this game did. Bonus points for MM nods amongst all the RPG love.
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies - A slow starter, but quickly became a marathon game. It's not so much because it does anything new as it presents classic style with the speed of the 16-bit days and a surprisingly somber story behind those smiling faces.
Limbo - The simplicity-of-design indie titles seem to have perfected with genuinely unsettling atmosphere despite (or because of) the complete lack of character interaction and definition. There's some moments that'll stick with me, to be certain.
Megaman 10 - I got Mr. Perfect on PS3 finally! Doing the same for the XBLA version...that won't be fun. Anyway, this is a better entry than most are giving it credit for n retrospect, but I do hope that when Capcom calls upon Inti again it'll be for ZX3 instead of MM11.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - Holy crap, are these boss fights tough. I mean that in the best way. I'm also digging the story quite a bit, and it's the runaway winner for Unsettling Title Screen of the Year. I just wish I did a better job managing my R&D team.
Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations - A good mixing-up of the pacing in the series with copious amounts of Gumshoe to be had, and Lang, probably the franchise's best foil since Edgey himself. Good times. I just hope we get back to FORENSIC SCIENCE in the sequel.
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Not quite as good as the first, but damn good and full of funny moments all its own. Also, Jeane's weight-loss training is the Minigame of the Year said dramatically exclamation mark
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game - Haven't seen the comics or the movie, but the game is a treat. I haven't finished it yet, though, because I'm a stubborn mule who wanted to clear Supreme Master first. Also, the 3rd Stage Boss cheats.
Shantae: Risky's Revenge - There is some overlap contentwise between this and the original, and some of the idiosyncracies have been shaved off (the day/night cycle, hands-on dance control), but who cares? It has been far too long since we've had a Shantae game and a multilayered platformer a la Tomba, and now we can have both. You 3DS holdouts are in for a treat.
Sonic Colors - If I'm being candid, the level design in Unleashed (the PS3/360 version) was better. But this is still a lot of fun, the music's great and the dialogue is actually pretty amusing.

Top 10 Games I Played Not From 2010

Art Style: PiCTOBiTS - Best puzzle game I've played this past year. The way the music creeps in as you progress is ingenuous.
Batman: Arkham Asylum - Damned-near perfect mechanically, and the atmosphere is wonderfully stylish, even if I don't recognize every rogue this time around (stopped with the comics mid-90s).
Borderlands - I'm not going to even pretend this would have been any fun alone, but my sister and I had an absolute blast with co-op.
Etrian Odyssey - A playthrough that got interrupted by the sudden demise of my Lite (I know it'll play on my DSi, but it feels wrong somehow). It reminds me in some way of Shadowgate and the original Phantasy Star, and the casual way it will sometimes go about crushing your bones is often hilarious.
Mighty Flip Champs! - This one gives me the worst brain cramps, but I love it anyway.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - I agree with Chris Kohler's take - it's not quite as well-put together as the DS entry, but play it in a group and it hardly matters. Probably the most fun I had with Mario this year.
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! - The music isn't as catchy as EBA's but the gameplay is still there. The last part of the cheerleaders' Shanghai Honey level can go straight to hell, though.
Rockman 4 Minus Infinity - OK, technically this one isn't complete yet, but what's there is wild enough that it would've felt wrong not to mention it at all. It just updated in December, too, with real-time weapon-switching and a beyond-nutty Devil.
Rosenkreuz Stilette - Hacks notwithstanding, it's been so long since I played a new Classic-style MM game with sliding and charge shots that I'm willing to dabble in indie ripoff games to get my fix. Luckily this is a very solid one, with good and occasionally fantastic music.
'Splosion Man - Not crazy about the bosses so far, but the actual boom'n'zoom platforming is seriously fun. A game that makes you laugh even as you fail is always worth playing.

Biggest Disappointments, I-Love-Videogames Moments, and Things-I-Hated yet to come, as usual. Very very late, also as usual.

True Grit has gotten me into the spaghetti western spirit this holiday season, so I went ahead and picked up the 360 version as a gift to myself.  Looking forward to it!  Have you tried "Undead Nightmare"?  Worth checking out too?

I had planned on giving an episode or two a try -- but I'm thinking that holding off for the upcoming PSP compilation may be a better idea.  Hopefully they'll be able to smooth out the kinks to make The After Years a more appealing game.

I tried out Just Dance 2 at a holiday get-together.  It is surprisingly enjoyable, provided you've got a few people to play it with.  "The more the merrier" applies here, and I'm not sure it'd be nearly as much fun as a solo experience.

As a devout WarioWare fan, I'm stunned that I haven't yet picked up D.I.Y.  How's the learning curve as far as absorbing all those tutorials in order to create the micro games?  How does the whole thing work with the downloadables?  They're grabbed off of the Nintendo Channel, and then saved onto the game's cart itself?  Is there a limit as to many you can hold at one time?

I've yet to jump on the Mass Effect bandwagon, but would like to.  My question is, is it required to play the first one, or can one start right into the sequel?  Story ties aside, I've heard that a lot of what you do in ME1 can crucially affect what happens in ME2.

I'd expect nothing less from a Shu Takumi title.  I'm excited as hell for it.  How are the puzzles overall?  I'm usually a bear at Rube Goldberg-esque puzzles, and the lack of mobility to possess objects does seem a tad limiting from the offset.

I do agree that Super IV takes a tremendous hit in playability when it comes to lag, unless the connections are absolutely perfect.  I tolerate nothing less, which is why I tend to stay away from random Endless Matches or big lobby-filled bouts.  I'm usually a one-on-one Ranked Match player anyway, and I find that those type of players are serious about playing on good connections.

Eh?  You're usually one of the most timely posters when it comes to the year-end polls.  All four years prior have seen you respond just days after the thread goes up.

Oh ho, Shanghai Honey's finale claims yet another victim.  >:)  I do that part with my eyes closed now, but man, did it take me forever to nail the pattern.  You gonna give Ouendan 2 a go?

Choices you made in ME1 carry over to ME2, but most of the time they do not amount to more than background information and some slight altercations in dialogue. The version I played of ME2 wasn't compatible with my ME1 game save, so I had to start from scratch, but I seem to recall the game asking you some simple questions in that case.

I hear the upcoming PS3 version is going to have an interactive comic of sorts that summarizes the ME1 story whilst allowing you to make the most significant choices, so you might want to wait for that one.

That's exactly the thing. At most times there are so few options available to you that figuring out what to do is quite simple. There are a couple of tricky ones here and there, especially towards the end, but nothing that will keep you stuck for long.

From the impression I have of you at least, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it, Angie

No foolin'? I always feel late to these things.

Yeah, I actually picked up both at the same time but didn't play either until Nintendo broke my heart by not announcing EBA2 again. I can hope for better news this May, but if not OTO2 will be there to fill the void.

Unfinished business time. Anyone care anymore? Probably not, but I've got a head of steam to push through.

Top Disappointments of 2010
1. Metroid: Other M - I'll leave the story and characterization argument well alone; I'd scarcely cared about either in the series before they decided to make it an issue. Less forgiveable is they way it actually plays. The auto-aim is flimsy, the jumping frustratingly imprecise, the dodging mechanic obnoxious (half the time I pulled off a successful dodge I would wind up flopping two or three more times, nullifying the tactical advantage at best, and stupidly barreling into another enemy at the worst times - Bayonetta handled this mechanic much better), and someone needs to be kicked for the FPS-on-the-fly missile idea - most of the time it didn't even respond to my handling switch, resulting in cheap hits everywhere. Having the worst controls of the year pretty much sewed up the top spot on this list.
2. Megaman Zero Collection - Oh hey, speaking of control flubs, what's the damned point of bringing a series to a system with more buttons if you won't let the player configure the controls to use those buttons? Anyone who bought this to supplant their GBA copies got a rude awakening here, including an extra, pointless dollop of censorship to the scripts. Probably the laziest series repackaging since Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, and in many of the same ways.
3. Picross 3D - Tetris : Tetris 2 :: Picross DS : Picross 3D. In other words, a sequel in name only that completely misses what made the original so straightforward and entertaining. The music is awful, the duck-cube mascot is stupid, and the time restrictions on later levels are so strict they practically encourage you to abuse the quicksave.
4. Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals - If you're going to completely reinvent a classic game from the ground up with a different playstyle and new personalities, you'd better know what you're doing. But the changes they make range from sloppy to straight-up heretical - when you include an option to change the ending, the linchpin of the whole series, you give the impression you don't give a dried fig about said series.
5. Wii Party - I love Mario Party games. I'm sick to the teeth of Nintendo pushing Miis in my face. So a Mario Party game where Mario gets sacked in favor of these inescapable mannequin-blobs was probably bound to tick me off. The really disgusting part is that Nintendo is shoehorning these shopworn avatars into the 3DS next. Guh.

Top I-Love-Videogames Moments of 2010
1. Megaman 10 - Storming the Gates - The setup is perfect. You kick off the castle stages expecting to hear a typically glorious piece of Wily music, but the first impression is...lacking. It's raining, and the music is a little dull. You come to a gate - boss already? - and then (spoilering in case someone somewhere still hasn't seen this) you see the ghosts of past RMs from 1-3 on a projector while their drones tag team you. Dispatch them, and the sort of music you've been waiting for kicks in, as you burst forward into the stage proper with branching paths (YES!) and then another batch of RM spectres, from 4-6. Given the 8-bit tunnel vision of late, that's the end, right? Nope, more to traverse with more branching paths, culminating in RM ghosts hailing from 7-9. Better still, their weaknesses are reasonably similar in style or appearance to the weaknesses they had in their respective games. Amazing.
Not everything in MM10 worked, but Wily Stage 1 has nothing to apologize for. It stands toe-to-toe with Shademan's stage as the best in the series.
2. Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations - Yatagarasu's Secret - And rather than further bathe this post in white, let's leave it at that. The confrontation, meltdown, and reveals of this scene were all up to the series' high standards. It's a pity the game lasted for two less-satisfying hours after that point, but that doesn't take away from that scene.
3. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - The Volka Spaceman - What is it about hallucinating cosmonauts that make for such memorable battle sequences? My favorite part of NMH2 (which din't deal with vacuuming bugs or stretching cats) stole all the highlights - wildest fight, coolest adversary, best battle theme. Even the tasteful,understated resolution hit just the right note.
4. Puzzle Agent: Nelson Tethers - Cortex Interruptus - I don't jump often in games, but I encountered this moment (hefty spoiler, naturally, and pardon the LPer's voice in the vid) in the dark at 2AM, jumped at least a good two inches...and immediately felt like an idiot afterward. Because it's completely ridiculous. And that's perfect.
5. Sands of Destruction - Kick Ass and Have Some Marmalade - SoD is an odd game in a lot of ways, including the plot driven by the aim to destroy the world. But one of the party members you can recruit outpaces the rest of the crazy. A ruthless bounty hunter named Taupy, whose voice must be heard in tandem with his appearance for the full effect (forgive the crappy video quality, it was the only YT vid of the moment I could find). I don't care if they were shooting for irony or not, I had a good laugh.
Pre-2010 BONUS. Rhythm Heaven - Tap to Shut Your Yap - I never do so right away. Those faces are priceless. (I'm bad at the game, by the way)

Top Things-I-Hated in 2010
1. Endings - Not specifically games that fizzled in their closing moments, but a lot of good game-related things shriveled up and died this past year. The Retronauts podcast, Game Crazy, Inafune's tenure at Capcom. And 2011 isn't off to a great start, either, as my favorite Youtube playthrougher is lapsing into semi-retirement.
2. Fixing What Wasn't Broken - Speaking of Inafune, two projects he set into motion in his last months came off kind of sour: the Devil May Cry reboot with a lame, strung-out, Devil-Trigger-less Dante, and Megaman Universe and its hideous designs, which it seems confirmed that is what we're getting in lieu of Powered Up 2. Sigh
3. Stars-to-Second Bananas - Back when I played Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, I was always Diddy, often suiciding Donkey just to get his stupid mug off the screen. So you can imagine my disappointment when I found DKC Returns wouldn't let me use Diddy directly unless I was in multiplayer. It's like finding someone already licked all the frosting of your birthday cake. Or finding your favorite secondary character sqeezed out by a hyperactive twit. Yes, I'm still bitter.
4. Yoshi - He sucks. Nearly every moment he's in Super Mario Galaxy 2 he makes the game terrible. The nicest thing I can say is that he's not Fluzzard. And the nicest thing I can say about Fluzzard is that he's not Mr. "Maybe-You-Should-Quit" Lubby. Oh, and then there's the last galaxy and its stupid grinding requirement. Damn it, so much of that game made me angry.
5. Embarassment - Thank you Bayonetta and games like you, for making it more and more awkward to share games with my family because of your favorite brand of pandering. And I don't mean thank you.
BONUS. Last Winter - Personally, anyway. The first few months of 2010 were pockmarked with all kinds of catastrophes, including my dad catching four heart attacks in a single day (he's fine now), my mom being hospitalized for eight weeks with breathing issues, my youngest cat getting lost temporarily during a nasty blizzard, flirtation with bankruptcy because I got double-charged on an automatic bill payment, and so on. 2010 in general was pretty bad personally (excepting my sister's fourth and final child, a cute little button named Eleanor), but winter seemed especially harsh.

And that's officially a wrap on my end.

Can you elaborate on the censorship? Quite honestly, I can't remember anything that would be censored but then these were in one ear out the other for me. And yes, I'd take the original NES carts over Ninja Gaiden Trilogy. The only thing the trilogy really offers is the reduced damage factor in III, but III isn't very good to begin with. It's very ironic how these games got censored the second time around and not the first... thank god they were untouched that first time.

Undead Redemption has its moments but after having played the main game to death, it's pretty much more of the same. I honestly didn't finish it.

You can jump right into it. You'll be missing some story information but as I recall, the game fills you in. The choices you make in ME1 don't affect ME2 as much as you'd think.

Well, the MMZ games got censored even the first time around - every time you finished an enemy off with a slice in the Japanese versions, you had a burst of blood to go with it...even though they're still ostensibly robots at this point. Whatever.
But the extra bit of censorship I was referring to was the attempted whitewashing of references to death. This page lists a few instances, as well as an educated guess for why it happened. But again, you have sloppiness - Cactank still sentences you to death, and in his final throes Mantisk still says "I don't want to die!" It's like they carefully looked over Zero 1 & 2 and then skimmed the rest.

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I haven't read anything on the internet in a long time that has thrown up the "DOES NOT COMPUTE" flag anywhere near as much as this.  WHAT, McCall?  Forgotten Sands like... IS Sands of Time.  Only not quite as well put together but with a shinier coat of paint.  I liked the game, but... how could you hate Sands of Time and like it?

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I heard Vanquish was amazing.  The graphics alone from what I saw in the demo were pretty innovative.

I don't know what the general consensus is on Vanquish, but I stopped playing around Mission 3, because I just found it all tremendously boring and monotonous.
The graphics are nice, but there really isn't enough variation in the environments.

It did seem a little thrown together and outright chaotic at times.

Oh, lord. I absolutely loved the gameplay, but that goddamn story was probably the worst I've seen in a long time. Both Front Mission Evolved and Rogue Galaxy share the dubious distinction of being the only two games I've ever played that made me ragequit them completely on account of their terrible story.