Australian Gamer Presents - The Games You Should Have Played In 2011 But Didn't

Feature from Luke - Thursday, 29 December 2011 @ 6:48pm

It's the end of the year and while there have been some fantastic big blockbuster games in 2011, there have also been some smaller titles that may have not been given the attention they deserved. The Australian Gamer team shares their thoughts as to some of the top games you should have played this year, but you may have overlooked...but hey, there's always next year to check them out.

Orcs Must Die

Read the AustralianGamer Review

For more information (again) read my review, but the point is, this game is cheap and a whole bunch of fun. It's a Tower Defence game in which the player character is a third person shooter, and thus the most important "tower". The paths the creeps (mostly Orcs) come down can be set with traps, which pummel and chop their victims in pleasantly horrible ways. It's clever, funny, and just… fun. Look, it's fun. Why do I need to use more words to fill out an arbitrary amount of space? It will run pretty well on most computers, you can get it on steam… just go do it. Thank me later.

Sonic Generations

It’s taken decades for Sonic to completely crush all the goodwill from his initial foray into the 16-bit era, and for me personally Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was the final nail in the coffin. SEGA had managed to completely kill my love for the blue mascot in almost every conceivable way, and most everyone I know felt the same. I had little interest in Sonic Generations for these reasons, so imagine my surprise to find it to be not just a loving tribute to all things good about the Sonic series, but a solid return to form in almost every respect. Praying on the nostalgia sentiments while providing a new take on old levels, Sonic Generations manages to provide something I honestly didn’t think was possible anymore – a reason to love Sonic again.

Sequence

If I could describe this game it would be 'Scott Pilgrim mixed with Stepmania', and 'highly addictive'. A rhythm game mixed with a role-playing game, Sequence brings combat and music in a unique way that feels rewarding and combines it with an interesting (and fully voice-acted!) story. The art and style of the game is reminiscent of a comic book or a visual novel, and the music is wonderful and a pleasure to listen to, remaining fresh and catchy even after the twelfth time you've fought Audrey II just to get that rare item. It's a fun little game that will only set you back $4.99, and let me tell you, when you get 100% accuracy on a song – damn it feels good.

Critical Mass

Critical mass is the sweaty byproduct of a night of passion between a game of Tetris and a Rubik cube - In space! Made by a indie studio in South Australia, Critical Mass takes takes the colour matching block genre to the next dimension, the third dimension to be precise. The goal in Critical Mass is clearing the collection ofcolourful space blocks as quick as possible to get the most amount of points. Take too long and your collection of colourful space blocks reaches Critical Mass and explodes, it sounds simple enough, but its stupid complex fun when your in the thick of it rotating blocks and building combos to take out the high score. Did I mention its regularly on sale for around $1 and getting a OSX port in the very near future?

Alice: Madness Returns

Ok, so you probably have played Alice: Madness Returns. You probably even own it. But have you seen it through or picked it up again since release? Maybe you traded it in for one of the big budget shooters we’ve been treated to. Go back. Look again. You’ll thank yourself. This is a gorgeously demented game that’s presentation is absolutely without peer. Possibly nothing new as far as gameplay but every move and item stays committed to the theme and fixes the frustrations of the original. This game will no doubt live on in cosplayers everywhere, but should also be remembered as a great experience to play.

Shadows Of The Damned

From the creator of the Resident Evil series (Shinji Mikami) and the crazy man behind No More Heroes (Suda51), Shadows of the Damned is a game that unfortunately did not manage to sell very well even though it received positive reviews. Garcia “Fucking” Hotspur takes on the forces of evil along with Johnson his talking sidekick who can transform into a number of objects such as a gun and motorbike. This ridiculously fun game contains a twisted range of over the top elements and delivers a style of humour that Duke Nukem Forever just couldn’t pull off.

Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster

Read the AustralianGamer Review

I cannot go past my recently reviewed Once Upon a Monster. I know the review lacked a lot of content and description, but as I wrote: little needed to be said about what Doublefine had put together. Bright colours, familiar faces, a bit of physical activity equals a perfect balance for a Kinect Title

Bloodline Champions

This is a free MOBA style game I highly recommend checking out. Honestly, I'm a multiplayer fiend, and this would be in my top three if it weren't for one simple reason: the lag. There are no Oceanic servers, and thus it's almost unplayable at times. It's also very competitive, which means balance is generally good, but you often come up against insane players. Oh, and I have never seen ragers like the ones in this game. Yeesh.

Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP

I know it's really easy to cast aside iPhone games as just time fillers while you try nervously with having to make eye-contact from the guy sitting opposite you on the train, but this is one of the first times that I've played a game that I truly treated as more than just a time-filler. With it's adorable 8bit graphics and amazing soundtrack, enthralling game-play that truly used the iPhone to it's full potential, you just know that this game was made with such love and care that it's hard to not like this one. And at about $4, it's probably one of the best value games I've played all year.

Alice: Madness Returns

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the wonderment and marvels of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are best recognized by the mouthbreathing masses as a 1951 Disney film, or perhaps even worse, the deplorably bad 2010 Tim Burton film. Alice’s story is one of incredible darkness and fear, and is coincidentally my favourite book of all time. American McGee recognized this in 2000, creating American McGee’s Alice, and graced us with an incredible sequel, Alice: Madness Returns this year. Spoiling even an iota of the story is criminal, however, it’s loopy, trippy beats perfectly accentuate the incredible visuals and sound design. The dichotomy of the dark and twisted Wonderland against the dim and dank streets of London is a visual marvel, and the enemy and character design is unique in an insatiably endearing way. The gameplay is stupendous and is truly something everyone has to experience at least once. It was a fantastic journey to undertake and I only wish more people had done so as well.