Game of the Month - July 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 July 2010?

I hate instant death in games. My game of the month is the God of War Collection. I played through the first one on the PS2, but I never played the second, and I wanted to play through both of them before playing GOW III. There is a wonderful trophy for God of War I called “Getting My Ass Kicked,” which you get after dying enough times to be offered easy mode. I was quite happy when I got that trophy, because the gorgons were kicking my ass with their stoning ability (instant death). I cheerfully accepted easy mode and enjoyed the rest of the game. When it came time to play through GOW II, I selected easy mode, and had a great time. I even managed to platinum the game when I completed the Challenge of the Titans. So I decided to go back to GOW I to do the Challenge of the Gods, which turns out to be much tougher. No saves, tougher levels, and finally I reached the end, it seems for me, at level 8. Gorgons - lots and lots of gorgons with the instant death. After playing for over an hour, dying again and again, I’m now contemplating whether to turn off the PS3 and abandon the game altogether.

Ok, this came out as very negative. I really did enjoy the God of War Collection, and I’m glad Sony is bringing out Sly in another collection. God of War is like a big budget B-Movie, which seems a perfect fit for the summer.

Fucking gorgons.

[kerzain]

Dead Space was on the verge of being my most played game this month, with Assassin's Creed II coming in a close second, but then I re-installed Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and ended up playing that far, far more than I expected to this month.

I played through the Human campaign in order to re-learn how to play them (I haven't touched the game for several years, and I always liked that race more than the others), and I am in the process of honing my skirmish skills now. I also got my wife back into the game (she played through the whole campaign about six years ago, but hasn't played since) and now we're re-learning to play while we play skirmish matches etc. She's a fan of the Undead and Night Elf armies, and will probably stick with Night Elves. Although I still suck, I am doing much better than my last go through on skirmishes. Once I feel comfortable, I might take my skills to battle net, to humble myself.

I also have the frozen throne expansion, but won't play it till I beat the other campaigns.

Also played about a dozen games of Demigod against my wife.

[merryprankster]

I did finally finish off Dragon Age, but that was more of a weekend fling. Game of the month for me is easily Monster Hunter: Tri. For some reason I can't stop playing that game, even though I'm well past the curve of new gear and quests. For some reason I find it relaxing and fun to hop in and kill some dino's.

[Marcin]

Minecraft.

By far. :)

Edit: ok, ok, World of Tanks gets an honorable mention.

[Joe M.]

League of Legends with some LOTRO on the side.

[vyshka]

A toss up between minecraft and world of tanks.

[moss_icon]

bioshock. would have been just cause 2, but i got distracted.

[ThornFalconeye]

Minecraft, LoL and Eve online. :) caves are too fun to explore.

[XenoCrash]

Bioshock 2 followed by finishing Bioshock. I only ever got a few hours into Bioshock before getting distracted by other things. Got Bioshock 2 from the Steam summer sale since it sounded like it fixed the main issue (combat) that I had with the original Bioshock. After finishing Bioshock 2 I was still hungry for more Rapture, so I went back to the original. Even though I'd had most of the story spoiled, Bioshock was still engaging throughout (though it does lose some steam after the BIG REVEAL) and Bioshock 2 "trained" me on how to interact with Rapture and its inhabitants in fun and interesting ways.

Also played through Transformers: War for Cybertron. It had plenty of fun action with lots of Transformering, which, as it turns out, is a formula for a pretty good game.

[Taranis]

World of Tanks has consumed all my free time.

[Rock8man]

Limbo was definitely my game of the month. It was sublime. Viewing it only as a platformer for a second, it was everything that I hoped LittleBigPlanet would be. It was actually fun! But of course, once you add the aesthetics, the wonderfully brilliant puzzles that bring just the right amount of challenge, and you have a brilliant action-adventure game that's a blast to play from beginning to end.

[ydejin]

World of Tanks

[Jason Lutes]

Two weeks of un-wired vacation made it pretty hard to squeeze in much game time. I think the game I played the most was King Arthur: The Saxons expansion (better than the base game but disappointingly unpolished). Second place was probably PG Forever.

[malkav11]

If Starcraft II had released a little earlier in the month it'd probably be my game of July. But it didn't, so while it's consumed the majority of my free time in the last few days, it's too late for it to dominate the month.

I finally finished Alan Wake, just in time to ignore the DLC due to being utterly tired of the game and only renting it anyhow. It was a great ride, just too long for its own good.

Having finished Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, my initial plan was to take a while off from Stalker games to avoid burning out. This didn't last long, and I plunged straight into Stalker: Clear Sky, which presents some notable improvements to gameplay and graphics, but whose faction wars system is both notably unbaked and a bit frustrating in the way that it will cheerfully complete quest objectives without your presence.

I alternated that with The Precursors, a sprawling, very Russian SF FPS/RPG that must be obtained from Russia itself and patched with a rather rough fan translation due to its lack of international release. Still, it's a neat game and worth the trouble, imho. Sad that it's unlikely to make it to our shores officially.

A few days before SCII hit, I for some reason decided to hit up Fallout 3 again, and spent several hours completing quests and exploring the massively up-rezzed D.C. outskirts thanks to my shiny new GTX 470. Still a hell of a game.

[LokeUtgaard]

I've been sucked into EVE Online again. Curse you, free re-activation offers!

Oh, and World of Tanks

[alexlitel]

Darwinia+

[Scourge]

That will be Alien Swarm. Played through it in a couple of hours, which is more than anything else this month.

[extarbags]

Muramasa: the Demon Blade. I pretty much got my fill of it (for now at least) just beating it as the chick, and I didn't even get to the secret tentacle rape level, but man, that game is awesome. I can't believe it apparently didn't have many/any fans here.

[Whosi]

Borderlands

The kids wanted to do a co-op, so I figured what the hell.
Lotro was a close second, again with the kids.

[Jazar]

Lots of games this month.

I've been enjoying the hell out of Dragon Age.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is the game that just keeps on giving. I'm really digging it.

Played through Limbo in one afternoon. Great game.

Played a little bit of Crackdown 2, 3D Dot Game Heroes, & Singularity. Didn't really enjoy these.

Beat Monkey Island 2 for the 100th time thanks to the special edition. I really liked the commentary but it's a shame there wasn't more.

Got through most of Alan Wake before I had enough.

Red Dead Redemption is at 98.7% and I don't think I'll complete it because the bounty missions are repetitive.

Played an hour of Metro 2033. It's OK I'll go back to this.

Dipped my toe into Starcraft 2. Beat the first 3 missions on hard and lost my first online ranking test.

[Marcin]

Muramasa: the Demon Blade. I pretty much got my fill of it (for now at least) just beating it as the chick, and I didn't even get to the secret tentacle rape level, but man, that game is awesome. I can't believe it apparently didn't have many/any fans here.

What's this then? Looks like a side scroller beat'em up?

Edit: Oh, Wii. That explains it. :/

[jfletch]

I didn't play many games this month (I had a move and all that entails, plus work) but I'd say my game of the month was Pixeljunk Shooter. Good control, great environmental puzzles, and a little more challenge than you'd think all add up to something quite sharp.

Other than that I played some more Magand Borderlands. I really hope in the near future some money frees up so I can try some new games.

[Omniscia]

It should have been Red Dead Redemption, but that fell victim to the same general trend most games I play do: I get pretty far in, near the end, and then somehow lose interest. Not because I'm bored, but because I move on to something else and then never bother going back because by then I've lost track of what's going on and how the controls work.

In this case, it wasn't another game that pushed it aside, but other media. I started catching up with Pushing Daisies on Netflix, and trying to work on my movie backlog.

I have played plenty of MAG, though.

[metta]

Football Manager 2010: I played it for hours on my desktop system (thank you Steam for the sale) and then bought the PSP version to take to the lake with me for a week.

[Strato]

A lot of Team Fortress 2, the next three weeks I'll be away in a small remote island at the top of Australia with crappy internet, so I felt inclined to get as much playtime in as I could.

Otherwise, oddly enough, the other most played game seems to be either FreeCell or Audiosurf with some Titan Quest thrown in for good measure. Hmmmm. I guess I'll have three weeks to fix that. I've got this new Imperial Julii campaign in its infancy stages to occupy my time in Rome: Total War.

[TheJare]

Finished Borderlands's Armory, Crawmerax and level 61.
Playing Limbo and Starcraft 2.
Resubbed to WoW on my old euro server.
Can't be arsed to continue with Final Fantasy 13.

[Jake Plane]

I am fairly confident I have the oldest game on this list:

Phantom Dust

Why oh why hasn't this been remade for the next generation consoles? In an age when pokemon remains highly popular and Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 prove you can blend traditionally turn-based genres with action, this game is crying out for an update.

Seriously, the premise of an open arena, and two combantants hurling superpowers at each other should be a constant not the exception in gaming

[krayzkrok]

Game of the month would be the combined Penumbra: Overture and Pernumbra: Black Plague, both of which I played to completion this month. Excellent and atmospheric.

Honourable mentions go to Just Cause 2 which I continued playing at the start of the month (still not finished), Red Faction: Guerrilla which is fun but I should have played this before JC2 because it feels constrained in comparison, Puzzle Dimension which is one of those rare puzzle games I really enjoyed, and of course UniWar.

I even played a little bit of Gratuitous Space Battles while traveling, because it was so compelling.

[Spooky]

Minecraft all the way

[Robert Sharp]

Avernum 6 has probably gotten the most playing time. What a fantastic game!

After that, in no particular order:

Singularity (underrated around here, and maybe everywhere. I feel like this game will quietly slip away, which is a shame)
Dragon Quest 9 (I LOVE jobs!)
Word of Warcraft