Mathurin47

2010 in Review

30 Jan 2011 @ 10:49 AM

Is it 2011 already? You won’t hear me complaining. Working retail, I’m used to having holiday burnout, but 2010 was something else. I was ready for New Years before Thanksgiving had even arrived. When I last wrote I was halfway through my last vacation. Since then, I’ve clocked in over 50 hours of overtime and spent a few weeks hauling pallets off the truck with with a hand jack after the store’s power jack died. It’s no wonder I’m ringing in the new year with a pleasant (i.e. painful) case of Bursitis. Things have nearly gotten back to normal, though I’m still feeling a little drained.

The monthly blog has expanded to cover the 3 months I missed, though it still needs some work and I just haven’t felt like writing it. I think I’m just going to skip it and start fresh with January. Perhaps I’ll post it at some point since it does have quite a few reviews, though I can’t guarantee if and when.

91 games were added to the collection last year which is pretty even with last year. A full 1/3 of those came from an Id collection Steam had on sale. Cost averaged $5.00 less per game and altogether I spend 19% less than 2009 despite some splurging on Collector Editions (Castlevania, Fallout, and Reach).

2010 (2009) [Total]

0	( 1 )	[ 60 ]
13	( 24 )	[ 110 ]
33	( 10 )	[ 75 ]
2	( 17 )	[229 ]
7	( 7 )	[ 22 ]
6	( 8 )	[ 57 ]
8	( 6 )	[ 38 ]
0	( 1 )	[ 80 ]
22	( 19 )	[100 ]
91	( 93 )	[1166 ]

Avg 2010 cost: 22.95

Publisher:
#1 Nintendo – 9
#2 Atlus – 6
#2 Microsoft – 6
#3 Sega – 4

Developer:
#1 id – 16
#2 Nintendo – 5
#3 Raven – 4

Genre
#1 FPS – 23
#2 RPG – 21
#3 ARPG – 11

20 (37) [224]

Breakdown by platform:
Console | Beaten | Played
360 – 8 of 13
Wii – 3 of 7
GCN – 3 of 4
DS – 2 of 7
PS3 – 1 of 3
PSP – 1 of 3
PC – 1 of 6
SNES – 1 of 1
PS2 – 0 of 1
XB – 0 of 1

20 beaten of 46 played. (43.5%)

Best of the Year

Multi

One of the most glitched games I’ve had the pleasure of playing, right down to one the three ending scripts I was able to run on this save being broken. Guess I’ll have to try the House ending again on my 2nd run when I support Caesar’s Legion. I even got stuck in a cave wall and plummeted to my demise when I ran out of floor. Glitches aside, I spent a good 100 hours with game and have no regrets in doing so.

Wii

On par or better in every regard to the first Mario Galaxy. Phenomenal soundtrack and mechanics. Challenges without feeling impossible. Definitely one of 2010′s best offerings.

Level 5 continues to do nice things with the Dragon Quest franchise. While it doesn’t stray far from the Dragon Quest formula, it does it very well.

PSP

Perhaps in part because I never got far into the original PS2 release (or start FES), and because I haven’t really played the other contenders (Ys Seven and Valkyria II) I name Persona 3 Portable my top PSP game for the year. Atlus tweaked a lot of things that bothered me about the game and I found this version far more playable than the console release.

Game of the Year

Another year, another Bioware game as my top pick. More streamlined as a third-person shooter than its predecessor, Mass Effect 2 aims to keep you from micro-managing in the menus and moving forward. The focus is less on the main story and more on the companions you travel with.