Quote Originally Posted by Flying Arrow View Post
I also really wish objective compasses, mini-maps, and other baby-easy tit like this would just go away. I used to get annoyed when I was a kid and I'd be playing Zelda and a friend would say 'oh this room? press that block onto that switch' and spoil the puzzle for me. Now it's the games themselves that do that.
That is absolutely true. It's one of many terrible gameplay diseases that have spread across pretty much every modern game. As a result we get games lacking mentally challenging gameplay, which used to be videogames' biggest (and only) USP. Now, most developers have traded challenge and interactivity for mostly fireworks and holding hands.

As for my top 10 games of 2011, I'm a little short on nominees since I only bought two:

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. This takes the prize for being really polished, balanced, has a ton of content, replay value and challenges in both off- and online modes. As a downside the campaign story and mission flow were an absolute rip-off from a game that was far worse to begin with; HAWX 2. AC:AH does it better, but it's campaign remains just barely skin-deep.

Little Big Planet 2. It was fun, but not twice the fun LBP1 was.

I still want to check out Deus Ex, Dark Souls and Stacking, they all sound very promising. Saints Row the Third is not exactly my type of game at first glance, but from what I've heard this game actually emphasizes fun, which is a rarity since this ingredient seemingly vaporized in most games.