MY TOP 10
1-Total War Shogun 2
When the first Shogun: Total War came out, its real-time battles made you feel like you were playing through the epic battle scenes from one of Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. Shogun 2 is like playing through a new, remastered edition of that game, complete with both the character dramas and the enormous battles. Merging beautiful graphics, scheming generals, improved multiplayer options, and deep strategic gameplay with countless small details that imbue it with historical flavor and drama, Shogun 2 is one of the most captivating strategy games ever made.
2-Angry Birds
3-SIMS 3
The Sims 3 doesn't mark the first time the PC-centric life simulation series has come to consoles, but it's the first time that the basic gameplay has remained relatively intact. In the console versions of The Sims and The Sims 2, the sandbox gameplay that made the PC games so successful took a backseat to achieving specific goals. The Sims 3 still rewards you for reaching specific milestones, but it gives you room to direct your digital playmates as you see fit. The franchise may celebrate the routines of everyday life, but as series fans know, directing a sim household can be great fun and causes the hours of your own mundane life to whiz past before you know it. The Sims 3 provides the same kind of addictive appeal, though a few elements that made the game so special on the PC were lost in transition. Long loading times, frequent pauses, and other flaws regularly interrupt the flow of gameplay, making this virtual town more like a bunch of small, low-population areas bolted together, rather than a thriving community. The resulting awkwardness makes this version inferior to its PC counterpart, but if you can exercise some patience, you'll find there's a lot to like about The Sims 3.
4-Call of duty:modern warfare
It took awhile, but Infinity Ward finally got the message that World War II is played out. With modern times and international affairs becoming more and more, shall we say, interesting in recent years, the 1940s just don't carry as much weight as they used to. Perhaps that's why Call of Duty 4 has a new subtitle, Modern Warfare. By bringing things into a fictionalized story that still seems fairly plausible, the developer has made a much heavier game. But COD 4 is more than just an updated setting. It's also an amazing multiplayer first-person shooter and a great but brief single-player campaign with the visual chops to make it a standout shooter in an era filled with seemingly dozens of standout shooters.
5-Flight Simulator X
Microsoft Flight Simulator X is an incredible piece of software, providing almost unbelievable capabilities for a consumer product. Unfortunately, on most systems at anything other than the lowest of the game's graphics settings, the simulation has significant performance issues. How much these issues hinder your enjoyment of the game will depend upon what kind of frame rates you need to enjoy a civilian flight sim.
1-Total War Shogun 2
When the first Shogun: Total War came out, its real-time battles made you feel like you were playing through the epic battle scenes from one of Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. Shogun 2 is like playing through a new, remastered edition of that game, complete with both the character dramas and the enormous battles. Merging beautiful graphics, scheming generals, improved multiplayer options, and deep strategic gameplay with countless small details that imbue it with historical flavor and drama, Shogun 2 is one of the most captivating strategy games ever made.
2-Angry Birds
Most casual news watchers are familiar with explosives that have names like "bunker busters" and "daisy cutters." However, in Rovio Mobile's popular game, Angry Birds, multicolored chickens can take on the properties of these same bombs when pushed to the limits by egg-stealing green pigs.
Explosive chickens, adorable as they are, would be pointless without big buildings to topple, and Angry Birds provides more than 200 of them, with more added all the time. You can thoroughly demolish anything from stone castles to glass houses as you punish those evil, egg-stealing pigs.
To play, you simply load up a chicken in your slingshot, pull back while setting your angle, and let go to start the destruction. Angry Birds' gameplay is incredibly easy to understand, and the visual payoff for blowing stuff up is consistently impressive. Blue chickens split up in midair for a spread effect; heavy bomb chickens explode and send structures flying; and egg-laying hens let you deliver a yolky payload directly below.
You always receive the chickens in a particular order, which diminishes some of the strategy. Even though some chickens can be used to set up chain reactions, like using a burrowing hen to soften up a building's stone exterior and then following up with a ticking explosive chicken to blast out the walls--you don't get to do this if you don't get the chickens in this order.
3-SIMS 3
The Sims 3 doesn't mark the first time the PC-centric life simulation series has come to consoles, but it's the first time that the basic gameplay has remained relatively intact. In the console versions of The Sims and The Sims 2, the sandbox gameplay that made the PC games so successful took a backseat to achieving specific goals. The Sims 3 still rewards you for reaching specific milestones, but it gives you room to direct your digital playmates as you see fit. The franchise may celebrate the routines of everyday life, but as series fans know, directing a sim household can be great fun and causes the hours of your own mundane life to whiz past before you know it. The Sims 3 provides the same kind of addictive appeal, though a few elements that made the game so special on the PC were lost in transition. Long loading times, frequent pauses, and other flaws regularly interrupt the flow of gameplay, making this virtual town more like a bunch of small, low-population areas bolted together, rather than a thriving community. The resulting awkwardness makes this version inferior to its PC counterpart, but if you can exercise some patience, you'll find there's a lot to like about The Sims 3.
4-Call of duty:modern warfare
It took awhile, but Infinity Ward finally got the message that World War II is played out. With modern times and international affairs becoming more and more, shall we say, interesting in recent years, the 1940s just don't carry as much weight as they used to. Perhaps that's why Call of Duty 4 has a new subtitle, Modern Warfare. By bringing things into a fictionalized story that still seems fairly plausible, the developer has made a much heavier game. But COD 4 is more than just an updated setting. It's also an amazing multiplayer first-person shooter and a great but brief single-player campaign with the visual chops to make it a standout shooter in an era filled with seemingly dozens of standout shooters.
5-Flight Simulator X
Microsoft Flight Simulator X is an incredible piece of software, providing almost unbelievable capabilities for a consumer product. Unfortunately, on most systems at anything other than the lowest of the game's graphics settings, the simulation has significant performance issues. How much these issues hinder your enjoyment of the game will depend upon what kind of frame rates you need to enjoy a civilian flight sim.
All of the features hardcore simmers have come to expect in the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise are here in spades, such as the entire world being modeled in exquisite detail; simulations of everything from ultralights to gliders to Cessnas to commercial airliners to helicopters; realism that makes the sim a great trainer for those seeking a real pilot's license; and more. But Flight Simulator X also adds significant features tailored to the player who would be bored to tears by simply flying from Akron to San Francisco in real time, most notably a series of goal-oriented missions (and an editor that will surely result in a huge number of add-on scenarios). These include well-done tutorials and many missions with compelling goals and surprising midflight twists. Some are lighthearted fun, such as playing the role of a stunt pilot (complete with announcer) trying to land on a moving bus or racing a jet-powered truck. Others are intense--for example, trying to fly a chopper to an exploding ocean oil rig and rescue stranded workers. Even simple missions have a compelling nature to them, particularly search and rescue scenarios where you may be seeking a capsized sail boat or a lost camper in snowy mountains. You collect rewards and souvenirs, which is a nice touch that adds an extra incentive to complete the tasks. Even hardcore simmers will find themselves sucked into these missions, wanting to find out just what's behind that clandestine mission flying into Area 51 or what is going to happen on your flight to pick up a famous movie star.
There are about 50 missions in the deluxe version of FSX and about 30 in the standard version. The deluxe version comes with 24 airplanes, versus 18 in the Standard version; more high-detail airports, 45 versus 40; more high-detail cities, 38 versus 28; the advanced Garmin G1000 glass cockpit; and the new tower controller module. This last feature lets you step into the control tower and take the role of the air traffic controller in multiplayer mode. While it probably won't keep you out of the cockpit for long, it is an interesting (and stressful) option. And for the record, if you're interested enough to purchase Flight Simulator X, you should go ahead and purchase the Deluxe version. All of the additional content makes it worth the added costs.
6-Sniper Ghost Warrior 2Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is a superior shooter when compared to its predecessor. Granted, that isn't saying much. Said predecessor suffered from terrible artificial intelligence, absurd bullet physics, and an overall level of difficulty on par with solving a Rubik's Cube while navigating white-water rapids blindfolded. This time around, however, developer City Interactive has addressed virtually all of the sore points that made the earlier game miss as often as it hit. This is an accomplished stealthy shooter, with smarter enemy AI, more-realistic sniper physics, and scaled-down difficulty that provide a challenging, not maddening, sniping experience. Only miscues like the spread-out save checkpoints and throwaway multiplayer keep it from achieving greatness.
7-Max Payne 3Max Payne's home has always been on the PC. The original 2001 gameand its sequel debuted on the PC, and though they received console versions--some of which captured the excellence of their PC counterparts and some of which didn't--it was on PC that he first made his mark. Times have changed for Max, and his latest outing hit consoles first and PC second, which may raise concerns about whether, this time around, it's the PC version that feels secondary and the console versions that feel definitive. As it turns out, such concerns are unfounded. Max Payne 3 is just as gorgeous and intense on PC as it is on consoles, and the pinpoint precision offered by a mouse makes the PC version the best way to enjoy this brutal and haunting shooter.
8-Hitman Absolution
Hitman: Absolution is an intense mix of serenity and obscenity, its foul-mouthed criminals and grubby henchmen adding a layer of thick grime to otherwise quaint small-town streets and warm desert sands. Returning antihero Agent 47 is a ruthless contrast to both the beauty of his surroundings and the foul crooks he butts heads with; he's a steadfast and well-dressed killer who finds pleasure in careful planning and clean kills. Once again, he dons his brightly buffed shoes and exercises a combination of stealthy maneuvering and brute force to end the lives of those most deserving of their demises. Not every method of murder is as satisfying as you'd want, but Absolution plays well and looks sumptuous.
9-Arkham City
Gotham City. This crime-infested metropolis has been famously imagined and reimagined in comic books, cartoons, and films. Now, we have a new vision of Gotham, and it stands not just as one of the most unforgettable incarnations ever of the city that Batman is devoted to protecting, but as one of the most richly detailed and exciting environments ever seen in a game. Building on 2009's outstanding Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City sets you free in the intoxicating neighborhood of North Gotham, now a sealed-off superprison for the city's worst criminals. As the Caped Crusader, you struggle to bring some semblance of order to the chaotic streets, foiling the plots of supervillains and protecting the victims of those who prey on the innocent. With its atmospheric setting, thrilling movement, immensely satisfying combat, and tremendous assortment of secrets to discover, side quests to complete, and other attractions, Arkham City is a fantastic adventure game.
10-Age of empires III
Six years have flown by since Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings became one of the definitive real-time strategy games on the market. Age of Kings typified this style of gaming in many respects, but it innovated and improved the style in many others, establishing the template for untold numbers of historic real-time strategy games to come. Coming off the successful spin-off that was Age of Mythology, Ensemble Studios is back with another installment in the series that put the developer's name on the map. Age of Empires III advances the series hundreds of years into the future, trading swordsmen and catapults for musketeers and cannons, while keeping the series' signature formula basically intact. What's more, the game features some gorgeous visuals and an interesting, inventive twist in its persistent "home city" system. So it's unfortunate that the actual meat-and-potatoes combat of Age of Empires III didn't turn out better, since what ought to be the most fun and exciting part of the game is actually the part that feels like it's seen the fewest improvements.
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