Game of the Month - October 2011

Gears of War 3 and Forza 4 are really at the forefront of my playing time.

Xenoblade Chronicles, which is the best JRPG in years.

Batman: Arkham City, which is the best brawler since Batman: Arkham Asylum, but is not as good as its predecessor.

I actually feel like I played enough to contribute to one of these threads this month!Dark Souls has been my game. I got it a bit late and haven’t had tons of time with it but I fully intend on making time for this game.

Dragon Age: Origins - I’d finished it before, but after buying it on Steam it really got its hooks into me. I did most of it as a rogue but I found him a weak character, so I redid the game as an evil warrior. Now I’m almost done as a good mage. 200 hours and counting, with the Awakenings expansion and Dragon Age II in the wings.

Bulletstorm: Takes me back to an era when fps games were about fun, character and interesting mechanics, instead of about making the most generic, soulless, realistic modern day shooter possible. I miss being able to look at gameplay videos of 3 shooters and actually tell them apart without relying on the title screen.

Dragon Age: Origins. Played a borrowed copy last year but picked up my own copy about 3 weeks ago and have been playing it nearly every day since. The closest RPG to Baldur’s Gate 2 I’ve played so far and that’s a good thing.

Dragon Quest IX: Got this a few months ago, played it a bit and set it aside. Picked it up again last week and having a blast. Just wish combat was as difficult as in previous DQ games - it’s a bit on the easy side. But still a very enjoyable game.

Hmm… dragons… maybe my subconscious prepping me for Skyrim!!!

When I wasn’t playing space games for my site, my game was likely either Dirt 2, GRID or Split/Second.

I enjoyed Split/Second, but I also had some frustration with it – playing with the new cars I unlocked made the game a great deal harder. Sticking with the junker I got early on got me more victories.

Honestly I find I’m doing better in the 2nd car I ever got than in the unlocked ones as well. Weird.

Dead Island hands down. If it wasn’t for this being a splendid year for open-world explorers it’d be my GOTY - it just hits all of my weak spots for massive damage. (mostly) Open world, great combat model, collections, upgrades, and a pretty decent difficulty curve.

Really? You don’t say.

For real.

Arkham City

I’m surprised to see only one other mention thus far. Runner-up would be LOTRO: The Rise of Isengard. It’s not a bad expansion, though it could have used some more balancing. If you’re not a tank, you’re pretty screwed in places.

Space Pirates and Zombies.

Entered Chapter 4, received a hard back hand slap across the face by the metagame change. Good times. Wish more games would incorporate this kind of metagame change. Can’t wait to see what these two at Minmax create in the future.

-Tim

Pay Day: The Heist has kept me busy, it has that hook which keeps me replaying each map again and again.
Dungeon Defenders and Renegade Ops are close runners up for my game time this month too.

Dark. Souls.

Fallout: New Vegas DLC, which I haven’t gotten around to 'till now. Also need to work through a difficulty spike in Metro 2033, which has a lot of that.

Finally knuckled down and finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Got stuck when the action went from killing drug dealers in what appeared to be a warehouse to killing some other dudes in what appeared to be a warehouse. Warehouses, man. Powered through it, though, and things got fun again.

About half way through Darksiders, too. A fun one, that.

Dark Souls and Arkham, although as always Blood Bowl claims its pound of flesh every week.

Easily put in over fifty hours for Dark Souls, less than half that for Batman so far.

Both great games, but Dark Souls is easily the best of October for me.