Game of the Month - February 2010

[Aristophan]

What's been your primary game this past month? It could be a recent title, a new discovery, or something from your backlog. It could be an old favorite or a new flame. What game defined February 2010?

With the Olympics brewing this month, the only game I was able to put serious time into was World of Warcraft. There were two world events that I wanted to complete, and I also worked on finishing up some questing and reputation grinds in Outland. Putting the achievement system in WoW was either a work of genius or evil or (probably) both. The system gives the impression of always progressing, even though your xp bar left the screen 8 months ago. I’m having fun with the system, but I look forward to some more variety next month.

[Xemu]

Bioshock 2. My coveted children-sleeping time was occupied with it far more than anything else. Brilliant return to Rapture, and the MP isn't half bad either.

Runners up: MAG, Mana Khemia, Mass Effect 2.

[Dufresne]

Mass Effect. The first one. Not that into it, really, so I'm poking away at it slowly instead of devouring it in marathon gaming sessions. Hence it taking me the entire month.

[kerzain]

PC Games: Eve, Demigod, League of Legends

Board Games: Revolution! (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/34887/revolution), Carcassonne, Dominion, Monopoly Deal.

[Drastic]

Mass Effect 2 for me. I was pretty sure when I bought it that I'd be having regret later, and was very pleasantly surprised to the tune of two playthroughs.

[Equis]

Bioshock 2.

It's been a long time since a game can cause me to restart it immediately after finishing it. I did this twice with Bioshock 2 for a total of 3 playthroughs.

Honourable Mention to Mass Effect 2 for spanning the Jan to Feb period.

[Vesper]

Been working on Mass Effect 2 all through February. Just about done (finished my last loyalty quest).

[ydejin]

Star Trek Online for me. /played is now at 3 days 23 hours.

[Brakara]

Easily Mass Effect 2 as I played it throughout the whole month.

[Sarkus]

I finished up Mass Effect 2 but have been messing around with various things at a low level since. Hearts of Iron 3, OOTP 8, and Crysis have all been played recently. I also spent some time on a Dragon Age replay attempt.

[McCrank]

Bioshock 2.

[WarrenM]

Bioshock 2. I only played it on the last day of the month and it still wins the month. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[TurinTur]

I did have a triple gotm. Bioshock 2, AvP, Stalker CoP, all of them very good in its own way.

[Chris Nahr]

Mass Effect 2 while I'm waiting for Bioshock 2 to get patched...

[ceolstan]

Late to the party, but I've been playing Dragon Age: Origins on the pc. I doubt I'll finish by the time Awakening comes out. I'm playing a human mage, but will want to do at least one more origin before playing Awakening.

I'm also continuing to complete, albeit at a snail's pace, some of the more grindy Guild Wars achievements.

[aganazer]

Din's Curse by a long shot. Its probably my favorite diablo-like since D2.

I also managed to find some time for Penumbra Overture, but it made me motion sick. Stalker CoP started to take some time in the last few days as well.

Board Games: Tunderstone, Carcassonne, and Bang!

[KWhit]

ME2.5

[Matt Bowyer]

Dominions 3 and Lord of the Rings Online are standards now, so let's see what else.

Honestly, I think I've been playing Harvest Moon: Rune Factory 2 on the DS more than anything else. That is a surprisingly good game, even if I am stocking my barn with things called buffamoos and cluckadoodles.

[Sam Jones]

Ooooh. Tie between Bioshock 2 and Stalker: Call of Pripyat. Both superb.

[Gordon_Bleu]

Heavy Rain

Another great title for the PS3. One of those games that kept me playing until 4am. And my wife loved watching me play. Surprisingly intense moments for a game that's basically one long QTE.

[moss_icon]

Stalker - Call of Pripyat

[Chuck]

Fallout 3. The game finally clicked for me. Now I understand why people hated the ending: it ends!

[Adam Sensoy]

Definitely Mass Effect 2. Really fun game, might even play it again at some point.

[tempus67]

Infamous. Late to the party on this one - my nephew showed up with it and I feel in love with it. Really great job of creating a comic book hero, excellent platforming and open world stuff. Bit repetitive in some of the missions but this one surprised me - now I can't wait for a sequel.

[extarbags]

I played more Risen in the past three days than I've played any other game all month. Runners-up: Bayonetta, Symphony of the Night, Zelda II.

[Saxman_72]

Mass Effect 2 for me. I'm just finishing up my second playthrough.

[malkav11]

Everquest II of course.

Also... I suppose Mass Effect 2, although it did not blow me away and I wish they'd done a lot of things differently. Still, the most gaming hours this month and I did see it through, which is rare.

Add a side of Heavy Rain, which I've been playing a few scenes at a time. Mostly brilliant so far with a few niggling issues like the off-kilter voice acting and the annoyance that is motion control.

[Eric P]

Stalker CoP

it has inspired me to go back and actually play through STALKER again (though this time with the Stalker Complete mod)

[Fugitive]

I spent most of my time in WoW, but that was just trying to get a previously-retired character caught up, so it felt like a lot of been-there-done-that. I didn't play too much else though, but for the amount of fun actually had, it probably goes to VVVVVV. Even if I never did get Veni, Vidi, Vici...

[intruder]

WoW as always.

Still "The Saboteur" (33 hours play time).
96% story done and 64% free play.
There is hope I will play something else in March. :)

[Tim James]

I spent 70 hours on Call of Pripyat and ME2, then took a break. Pretty simple month for a change.

This month I'll be continuing my newish game extravaganza: three console ports, Dawn of War II, and Wings of Prey. Hopefully I can polish them off in March and get back to the backlog.

[Dean]

I'm pretty evenly divided-- spent the first week or so on NWN2, then Bioshock 2 came out and I played that but didn't get very far (still in Ryan's amusements), then Heavy Rain came out and I've probably put 5-6 hours into that (does that make me almost done?)

So nothing took over, probably because I was also playing a lot of student-made projects because they're coming due. So I've also got some time in a NWN2 mod, a Warcraft III AI project, and a web-based ARG.

It's nice having minions to make games for you.

[Rock8man]

Bioshock 2. Absolutely loving it so far. (I'm only 20 hours in though).


Fallout 3. The game finally clicked for me. Now I understand why people hated the ending: it ends!

Heheh, yeah, that's funny how Fallout 3 is one of those games that has to click. My first time through it I only got about halfway and it never really clicked. But on my GOTY edition playthrough, things clicked really early on, and I just had such a wonderful experience. Fallout 3 was amazing. I was kind of annoyed at Qt3 for selecting it not only as their PC GOTY in 2008, but also as their console GOTY by one vote in 2008 (over Rock Band 2). But I'm okay with that decision now. The hive mind was right. I was wrong.

[Moggraider]

Heavy Rain easily wins game of the month for me. Bioshock 2 was underwhelming. Mass Effect 2 came out in January.

Heavy Rain was awesome, and I hope more developers take up interactive drama. I can't wait four years between titles forever :).

[Athryn]

For me, Star Trek Online.

[distauma]

Bioshock 2 was so good. It fixed nearly every issue I had with the original.

At the end I was spitting out lightning like the Emperor in Star Wars, with bots and Big Daddies fighting by my side all while using my drill gun to life steal from my enemies as I drilled them to death.

It might be the most badass I ever felt in a video game ever. The only complaint was it made the end game way too easy.

[delirium]

Mass Effect. The first one. Not that into it, really, so I'm poking away at it slowly instead of devouring it in marathon gaming sessions. Hence it taking me the entire month.


Me too. I was really into it for the first half of the game, though. I found the combat system to be fun, and at the early stages, the scope of the game and storyline seemed like it was going massive. I was disappointed to find out how straight to the point the story was, and how short the game actually was. I ended up returning my used copy to Gamestop before I was able to finish it, after I found out that they ripped me off and charged me $5 more for a used copy than what I could have bought a new copy for.

I'd like to give ME2 a shake sometime, but since I didn't finish the first one, that might never happen.

[Hanacker]

Other than an hour on Freedom Force and an hour on the Bayonetta demo, I think I spent the entirety of February playing Europa Universalis 3.

[ColonelT]

I quit games for the bulk of February, but before quitting I was all about Mass Effect 2: Return of Mass Effect. The finale was actually my least favorite part.

[talsworthy]

League of Legends - must have hit 100 hours since I started playing it a month ago.

[alexlitel]

Chime was by far the best thing I've played this month.

[Shimarenda]

My discovery this past month was Fitbrains.com (http://www.fitbrains.com).

I played a lot of World of Warcraft this past month with two holidays and trying to improve my gear. We finally downed Saurfang in 25-man. I finally hit Exalted with my home faction, too; there are disadvantages with playing since February 2005 when rep awards decayed with levels gained.

I also played Oblivion a fair bit. Now over 315 hours played.

[Marcin]

Star Trek Online until the 6th. Then, new dad game. :)

Now that I can play occasionally again, Way of the Samurai 3. It's such a ... uniquely strange game.

[Desslock]

I spent about 40 hours with Dragon Age: Awakening. I also played through Uncharted 2, which took about 15 hours. So pretty big gaming month.

[Quitch]

Mass Effect 2, I've finished it twice this month pausing only in-between to finish Mass Effect again.

Waiting for the third one is going to be soooo hard.

[jfletch]

Tie between Skate 2 & Burnout Paradise. BP finally clicked with me, and Skate 2 is my favorite skateboarding game ever (I never really got into TH).