Filly's Year-End Awards, 2011

2011, claimed by many to be one of the best years in gaming history, came and went.  Time to share my absolute favorites of last year!

Filly's Psycho Summer - Alice 2 Edition

While seemingly every other gamer this side of the internet is enjoying their L.A. Noire, inFamous 2, and Ocarina of Time 3D, I've been taking a walk on the wilder side of things when it comes to gaming.  This Summer is packed with quirky titles, from the creepy to the ethereal to the delightfully weird.  By my own measured diagnosis, they simply aren't getting the attention they deserve, so I've taken it upon myself to share my thoughts on each game as I play through it.

Up first, fittingly, is a game that fully embraces its twisted tendencies—Alice: Madness Returns.

My 8 Must-Play Games of This Summer

I read an interesting feature in a January 2011 issue of OXM questioning why we don't see more quality games release in Summer, or Q3.  Indeed, they made some good points:  the kids are out of school; more free time equals time for seasonal jobs.  I don't know about you, but as a full-time college student, I'm lucky to even get to pick up a controller on the weekends, meaning the time to dig into my appalling backlog of shoulda-coulda-woulda-but-didn't-play games is Summertime.  Despite these facts, publishers avoid those hot months like the Plague.  The majority of quality new releases tend to grace us in the Spring or otherwise, right around the Holiday crunch.

Yet, that doesn't seem to be the case this year.  It's possible that studios are finally seeing the untapped potential of Summer months, but the more likely explanation is that 2011 is simply so jam-packed with promising software--from the conventional to the strange, sequels (and "threequels") to new IPs, East to West, there simply aren't enough months in the year to ease the inevitable blows to our wallet.  In fact, some of my most anticipated releases this year will be dropping in the Summer--thank goodness!

That said, I wanted to examine my most anticipated releases between May 10 and mid-August (these mark the duration of my Summer).  Without further ado, they are...