The Boar’s Games of the Year

Although we haven’t decided on an absolute Game of the Year, a few of the writers for the Games section have each chosen a game that they feel is worthy to be on your Christmas list this year…

### Jordan Erica Webber: **The Sims 3**

When most people think ‘Game of the Year’, they think of high-action shoot-‘em-ups like _Call of Duty_ or _Halo_, but my interpretation of the title leads me down a slightly different path. Games are not just for gamers, after all, which was proven when 1.4 million people – children, adults, businessmen, housewives, people who don’t even own Playstations or Xboxes – bought a copy of _Sims 3_ in its first week of release.

When _The Sims_ was released back in 2000, it was the representation of an innovation that really can’t be beaten, and EA have gone on to ambitiously take that innovation remarkably further with each sequel. Nowadays, Sims don’t just eat, pee, work and sleep. They walk/drive/cycle into town to buy groceries, buy cookery books from the bookshop and learn different recipes, eat at their local restaurant or simply buy the place out for a profit. They meet their best friend at school, go to their house for sleepovers, grow up with them and get married and have babies. They become surgeons or super villains or rock stars recognised by everyone in the neighbourhood.

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A lot of “hardcore gamers” frown upon the _The Sims_ series because it’s “too much like real life”, but those army-based warfare games are supposed to be all about realism – realistic storyline, realistic combat, realistic blood splatters – so why not _The Sims 3_ too? With new expansions to the game coming out like _The Sims 3 World Adventures_, which allows your Sims to go to France, Egypt, or the Far East, or the free ‘Create a World’ tool, which lets you design your Sims’ world right down to the ground they walk on, there really seems to be no limit to what the game can do, and that – as far as I’m concerned – can only be a good thing.

### James Davies: **Team Fortress 2**

Dozens of kids this Christmas morning are going to skip downstairs with barely contained merriment, to find a pile of lovingly wrapped presents under the tree. One ofw these presents will be rectangular, and to them, glow with a holy light. Drawn hypnotically in, the child will hold this present close, savouring they excitement as they peel of the thin layers of glossy, colourful paper. Their eyes widen, their parents, holding each other gasp in anticipation. The paper is thrown off, revealing… _Hasbro Family Game Night 2_. The child breaks down mentally and never truly recovers, leading to his parents’ eventual divorce, and probable deaths. A truly sad story.

Events like this can be avoided by instead getting your children, friends, (even your enemies) _Team Fortress 2_ for Christmas. It may not have been new this year, but by god it is better than chocolate bacon. Violent, imaginative, and most importantly, hilarious, _TF2_ will ensure you spend Christmas where you belong – on the internet, screaming obscenities at strangers you will never, ever meet. Red Team, Blue Team; who cares. Pick a class, wade into battle, frag some noobs. Constant online, free updates keep the game fresh and alive in a community of thousands of very angry people. Team up with strangers to fight other strangers in a cel-shaded cartoon world of blood and funsies, blowing them up, or more likely yourself, in an endless war populated by weapons so bizarre they would turn Wylie Coyote green with envy. You can throw a jar of your own urine over a man then have a friend stab him in the back while he’s blinded. Then pretend to be his corpse. It’s that good.

I vote _TF2_ best Game of the Year, and if you don’t agree, you cannot call yourself a man.

### Adam Morrison: **Uncharted 2**

In a winter chock-full of amazing sequels, this one stands head and shoulders above the rest. It expands on every element of an already outstanding original and will surely be held up as the gold-standard for future console gaming. _Among Thieves_ combined so many gameplay mechanics so seamlessly, giving the game incredible variety and did so whilst churning out the best visuals on any consoles this year.

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The ways in which Naughty Dog have taken gaming conventions and breathed new life into them are nothing short of genius: _Among Thieves_ is so much more than the sum of its parts. Nothing that you find in the Uncharted series hasn’t been done somewhere else before; it’s the flair with which the game executes its various elements that leaves the package as a whole feeling so fresh and original. _Among Thieves_ was brave enough to throw away perfectly executed level types in order to maintain the purity of the experience. As a result, _Among Thieves_ threw unprecedented levels of variety at you: one minute you could be steering Drake through a tense stealth section, the next you’d be hurtling along the game’s vehicle sections. While it might be criticised for a lack of freedom, the ghost-train ride that Naughty Dog have made is, for my money, the most fun to be had in any game on any console.

What _Among Thieves_ will really be remembered for is its presentation, though. From the music to the voice acting, the audio starts perfectly and never falls from that standard. As for the visuals; the set pieces, animations, textures, environments and character models are incredibly believable without losing their Hollywood-sheen. _Uncharted 2_ was pants-warmingly good and, regardless of what Santa brings this Christmas, I’ll be spending a lot of my vacation revisiting it.

### Will Brierley: **Shadow Complex**

Before the onslaught of titles released in the run-up to Christmas, way back in August, a little game called _Shadow Complex_ graced my 360 via download from the Xbox Live Arcade service. Not only was this game fantastic but it also solidified just how far download-only games have come in the last couple of years, progressing from the basic _Geometry Wars_ experience of 2007 to fully realised, multi-layered, story driven works of action-adventure art.

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With its precise gunplay and enjoyable platforming mechanics, _Shadow Complex_ very subtlety took multiple hours of my life away from me. Being able to see the next room but not having access to it because you lack a certain upgrade, just made me play it more and more until I’d done everything and collected every last health pack, weapon container and passkey. I put more time into this game than most of the £40 releases of the year, simply because it so enjoyable and addictive. And it was only ten English pounds.

Through use of the Unreal engine, courtesy of Epic Games, _Shadow Complex’s_ presentation was on par, if not better, than a lot of the games you’d have found in Gamestation this year and, although lacking some polish, it was enough to draw me into the game’s universe and backstory.
Without platforms like XBLA, _Shadow Complex_ would never have seen the light of day due to the huge production costs of making a full retail title in this modern age. I’d just like to thank Microsoft for having the courage to create such a platform in the first place, a considerable risk back in 2005; without it, I wouldn’t have my game of the year and my life just wouldn’t be the same.