Video Games 2011: From Best to Worst

A spectacular achievement in game design. The classic Zelda formula is given enough twists to remain fresh and invigorating. The polarizing motion controls work very well for the most part--the sword battles are exhilarating, aiming weapons easy, but they are taken a bit too far with the swimming and movement related stuff.

Beautiful, whimsical, and endlessly inventive. The best non-Nintendo 2D platformer of this generation.

Complex and never boring, somehow Portal 2 manages to make an entire game out of creating simple portals. The challenge level is nearly perfect; hard yet never bash your head against the wall hard, and always making you feel like a genius.

Some kind of crazy cross between a true 3D platformer and 2D, and just as fun as both. Levels are the perfect length and the game controls solidly, with some effective use of 3D to boot.

A kind of crazy attempt at injecting some new juice into the Pokemon universe. It maintains the core gameplay mechanics of the others while adding only NEW Pokemon, which are hit or miss (like any other game in the series) but the story is interesting and replaces the doldrums of the Team Rocket universe with a more interesting and complex organization of baddies.

The classic Kart gameplay is alive and as good as ever here. Finally Mario Kart gets the online play it deserves. The 3D isn't really the point here, and I do wish the water and gliding segments had been longer or at least had a bigger impact on gameplay.

The Aliens to the original's Alien--meaning more action than horror. In this case it doesn't work as well because, unlike the movie, the game plays the same as the first--the controls are still surival horror esque and not meant for the kind of action this game throws at you.

An on-rails shooter that feels like a drug trip and plays like Star Fox meets a music-rhythm game. The final level isn't satisfying enough, and the music not quite as good as Rez but still this is a singular experience that's absolutely entrancing.

Yes there is more of everything but the single player campaign isn't quite as satisfying at the second (although still loads better than the first). The emotional existensialism has been well discussed, and while I applaud them for trying, it doesn't quite come together as it should. And most of the set pieces are good, but the final boss battle is lacking in excitement.

A fun update of the classic 2D fighting game. The only real problem is that the new special moves get repetitive after a while (there's only one per character and they take forever--like a summon in a JRPG.)

Zombies go where they haven't before...that is an open world populated by endless streams of them. It's from a small studio so it is a bit buggy and lacks a certain level of polish, but that's minor compared to the bigger problems which are that the combat gets boring after a while and the story/missions aren't too exciting. Like most open-world games, the reason to play is that there is so much freedom, but that's not always a good thing.

Perfectly alright

More of the same!