By Joshua Cornelius

Continued from Part 1!

Opinion on current topics of interest isn’t exactly our bag here at TFL.  If you’ve found your way to this site, it’s likely that you’re an obsessive film fanatic (like we are) or Google Images sent you here for a picture of The Warriors or Natalie Portman.  Whatevs.  We’re cool with it.  However you found your way here, we’re happy to have you.  Now bear with us as we recount our favorite and not so favorite things of 2011.  We’ll be back to discussing and dissecting classic cinema in a hot minute.

Also, since TFL isn’t a topical media site, we aren’t afforded the influx of swag that every other media site is.  We aren’t sent reviewers copies of DVD’s, music or games and we don’t have anyone pushing us to promote their products.  These are just our opinions, culled from a year of media exposure.  If your own favorite music, game or movie doesn’t make this list, it’s probably just because we didn’t see it.

The Second Best Games of 2011: Skyrim & L.A. Noire

Yeah, we’re not doing the traditional “best out of three” round-up of games, or even a top 10.  Who has time to play that many video games?  Reviewers, that’s who, and their jobs are to play video games that they got for free and then review them.  Sometimes they get extra money for writing favorable reviews, which is pretty shitty.  Our top two games are just the favorites we had over the last year, of the ones we bought with our own money and played.  While that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement of our expertise, my own take is that a game must trudge through a lot of bullshit to make it to your average serious to casual level gamer and incite them to plunk down their hard earned money for a copy.  These games marketed themselves as the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then pulled the major stunt of actually living up to the hype.

As such, we’re not blowing anyones socks off by picking two fairly large releases for this honor.  L.A. Noire is Alexandra’s pick for runner-up for 2011, and I think it’s pretty obvious to see why.  She was compelled by the pitch perfect world of noir the developers had created.  It makes us wish filmmakers were still invested in noir as a style of filmmaking!  Rockstar’s sandbox detective drama was a massive success with critics, but reception amongst my own circle of friends was somewhat tepid.  It seems Noire just didn’t have enough of whatever familiarity keeps people coming back to franchises like Call of Duty.  It’s a shame really, because Noire combines familiar elements from a myriad of games in a way that seemed so fresh and exciting to both of us.  Nothing was really all that new, but it was stacked and play-tested and tuned in a way that the game played elegantly.  The best synopsis I’ve read describes the game as a collection of short detective stories, each playable in roughly an hour.  This compact and rewarding element of gameplay kept me coming back to Noire again and again.  The only real shame of the burgeoning franchise is that series originators Team Bondi have since collapsed, and there seems to be no further downloadable cases.  This is a major miss in my book, as I would have gladly purchased case after case for months or even years after the games release.  Here’s to hoping the franchise continues, with an eye on further expansion.

My own pick for runner-up has to be Skyrim.  Sure, as of this writing the game has been out less than a month and has washed up in a deluge of other holiday titles aimed at bilking parents of their hard-earned money.  What makes Skyrim something more than an RPG is the immense completeness of the experience it has to offer.  As of this writing, volumes of literature are being created around the many complexities of gameplay on display.  For me Skyrim offers the experience I’d always wanted from an online RPG in that it is so rich and deep that the game will have a life that will outlast even the current console cycle.  The only reason Skyrim is my runner up is simply because the game is at its core, another traditional RPG.  One that’s been tuned to perfection by master craftsmen, but traditional, with a built in audience that expects nothing less.

Game of the Year 2011: L.A. Noire and Portal 2

L.A. Noire is my pick for GOTY.  For all the reasons above, these reasons and for the fact that Noire feels like the first original title from a major publisher in a decade.  Rockstar took a chance and built a game on relatively little demand.  Sure, retro is in, with the success of decidedly retro themed television shows like Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire.  Regardless, no one expected Rockstar to (yet again) pour a ton of time, consideration, love and quality into a title not built on an existing franchise.  Sure, they might be one of the few publishers out there with the capital to gamble on their own original content, but this game could have easily been Grand Theft Auto with a facelift.  While I love that Rockstar continues to innovate and push the envelope, I need a sequel to this game.  It’s as simple as that.

Alexandra’s pick for GOTY is none other than the hotly anticipated Portal 2.  This being her first Portal game, she was drawn to the in-game style of storytelling, made famous by Half-Life publishers Valve.  I don’t think anyone could disagree.  The game is a masterful consolidation of first-person shooter and puzzler, with a story that compels you to unravel is secrets.  The ancillary style of storytelling is incorporated so deftly, so charmingly, that you can’t help but become engaged.  Relatively few major releases have done as much good as the Portal games have without devolving into familiar gameplay mechanics or tweaking the ambience and color palette for cheap thrills and chills.  Portal 2 engages your mind in a way few games ever have.  Each puzzle you complete will leave you feeling like a master of physics.  The sense of reward is so tangible and indefinable that it is almost entirely unique amongst all games.  There simply is nothing to compare to Portal, and any year we get a title like it is a good year.

The best games of 2011 we didn’t play:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Batman: Arkham City and Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7

Look, it’s been a busy year.  Game publishers have done us no favors by releasing a glut of amazing sequels to existing games right before the holidays.  I may be waist deep in the world of Skyrim, but that doesn’t mean I won’t eventually surface to play all three of these titles.  With any luck, Santa will put them under the tree this year and we’ll continue to have a happy winter of gaming ahead!