My favorite stuff of 2011 - Part II

2011 Game #20 - Okamiden


I went into Okamiden with a healthy amount of skepticism. The PS2 masterpiece from five years prior left a pedigree that I wasn't sure this new pup would live up to, and while I was unsurprisingly underwhelmed with the first few minutes of Okamiden, I eventually came to accept its identity. Okamiden is the Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks to Okami's Twilight Princess. It takes a big, epic idea that deserves to be presented with all the glory of every bit of processing power current generation hardware can spew forth, and unleashes it in an environment that's several generations behind. The fact that Okamiden still comes out on top as a great game is a testament to Okami's greatness, but even at best, Okamiden will do little more than make you want to play the original again.

2011 Game #19 - Kirby: Mass Attack


2011 was a surprisingly good year for the DS considering that it's all but scuttled and had new hardware from its own manufacturer to compete with. After a brief but charming interlude with Epic Yarn, Kirby: Mass Attack takes the series back to Super Star levels of playability and awesomeness. While Return to Dreamland was a fun romp in its own right, Mass Attack is definitely the game that deserves to be on the list.

2011 Film #8 - Terri


Terri is a hard film to describe. If I were to say it was about anything in particular, I'd say it's about the malaise of being a socially awkward teenager. Terri, played to perfection by Jacob Wysocki, comes to school every day in pajamas and generally doesn't seem to care about anything. This leads him to a series of one-on-one conferences with his his principal, Mr. Fitzgerald (played by the always wonderful John C. Reilly). After making friends with a pair of kindred outcasts, Terri begins to evolve in surprising ways. It's a beautiful, heartfelt film that just about anyone can relate to.

2011 Game #18 - Assassin's Creed: Revelations


Revelations is a very polarizing experience. On one end, its story and mechanics build on everything the other games have introduced to create what is, for all intents and purposes, the best Assassin's Creed game yet. However, that experience is nearly ruined single-handedly by the God-awful tower defense sequences. A lot of your time in Revelations will be spent making sure you never have to do one of those again. Not very fun, and not very well-thought. Still, they managed to wrap up both Ezio and Altair's stories in a pretty satisfying conclusion.

2011 Game #17 - Xenoblade Chronicles


While occasionally giving me nightmarish flashbacks to Final Fantasy XII, Xenoblade manages to overcome some of those unfortunate similarities and provides what is undoubtedly one of the best JRPGs of this generation, and definitely one of the best Wii games out there. Now, let's get cracking on Last Story and Pandora Tower.

2011 Show #4 - Star Driver


Star Driver was the only anime I really enjoyed throughout its run this year. It's a really strange show, parts taken woefully from the rancid womb of Utena, and parts of it taken from the seed of Gurren Lagann's mile-wide gonads. What you get is a show that is frightfully inconsistent, but whose great moments are on par with the best anime you've ever seen.

2011 Film #7 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2


Snape? SNAPE?! SNAAAAAAAAPE!!

2011 Game #16 - LittleBigPlanet 2


Some of you may recall that LBP was my favorite game of '08. But alas, Media Molecule really botched this one. That's not to say LBP2 isn't a great game. It certainly is. But they just tried to do too much, cramming it so full of ideas and gimmicks run a muck that they lost sight of what made the first game good: simple, well-designed platforming. The game is also bogged down by excessive levels of conversation and cutscenes. I never thought I'd get tired of hearing John Cleese. Seriously, all I wanted was a new set of levels. SHUT THE FUCK UP, BASIL!