{"id":14371,"date":"2011-12-19T05:57:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T10:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=14371"},"modified":"2018-06-29T03:01:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T07:01:04","slug":"denouement-2011-games-i-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=14371","title":{"rendered":"D\u00e9nouement 2011: Games I Missed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the next few posts, I’m going to have a look back over 2011 and talk about a few games I liked. Think of this as an alternative to “Game of the Year”. I’m doing this because I don’t want to try to justify lifting one game over the others, which feels too much like assigning review scores. <\/p>\n

But first, I want to talk about a few games that I missed, overlooked, failed to review, forgot about, or neglected.<\/p>\n

splash_arkham_city.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Arkham City, Serious Sam 3, Saint’s Row the Third, and Rage<\/h3>\n

Wanted to play all of these. Got Skyrim instead.<\/p>\n

Next time, why don’t you idiots try releasing your games during the season of not Christmas<\/strong>? I have less money for buying videogames at the end of the year, and I have much less time for playing them.<\/p>\n

Okay, some of these were more “Halloween” than “Christmas”, but still. We need more summer games and less of a pile-up at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

I’m sure I’ll pick these games up on some bargain sale next summer.<\/p>\n

splash_frayed_knights.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Frayed Knights<\/h3>\n

I’ve been looking forward to Jay Barnson’s Frayed Knights<\/a> for a long time<\/a>. Then I got a copy. Then I got Skyrim. <\/p>\n

In the few hours I spent with the game I found it to be charming and wonderfully old-school. But Skyrim consumed my gaming hours, and so I haven’t played enough Frayed Knights to do it justice in a review. Maybe once the holidays are over we can go back and give this thing the attention it deserves. <\/p>\n

Sorry Frayed Knights. You’re fun, but you’re not Skyrim.<\/p>\n

splash_spaz.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Space Pirates and Zombies<\/h3>\n

Full disclosure: In my daydream fantasy world future, I design a space-adventure that harkens back to the old Starflight games. I’ve been working on this design in my head for years.<\/p>\n

Spaz is too much like my dream game for me to see it as anything else, and too different for me to accept it as a substitute. Rather than write some crazy review where I savaged the game for not being exactly what I wanted to build, I decided to keep my mouth shut about it.<\/p>\n

I will say I really disliked the leveling. Your most important upgrades were tied to story missions, which was something I really, desperately hated about Freelancer<\/a>. <\/p>\n

You might actually like this game if you’re not obsessed with an unrealistic dream project like I am. I don’t know. I can’t judge objectively. <\/p>\n

splash_bastion.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Bastion<\/h3>\n

I’d seen ads for this game, but I didn’t know anything about it. It came out this summer, but I never heard anything about it good or bad. Then a week ago a friend bought me a copy, and the next day people were talking about how it was their GOTY. So I have this to look forward to at some point. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the next few posts, I’m going to have a look back over 2011 and talk about a few games I liked. Think of this as an alternative to “Game of the Year”. I’m doing this because I don’t want to try to justify lifting one game over the others, which feels too much like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[613],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43126,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14371\/revisions\/43126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}