Man. We are straight up milking this 2011 thing, huh? You’d think that we had nothing better to talk about for 2012 with the way we’re going back to that well. Don’t worry, we realize that we can only get a little bit more mileage out of last year, and probably only another week or two at that. That being said, the following question is one that I legitimately want to ask you guys, because I like hearing what you say about games.

The title for this post is extremely self explanatory. I want to see a list of all the games you played in 2011. This will be cool for two reasons: 1) It gives us an idea of what kinds of stories to target/write and 2) you guys are pretty cool yourselves.

What follows is a list of games that I played in 2011:

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I really like the fact that every year Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson posts the top activity for the service so we can see which games got the most attention during the year. Call of Duty has held the top spot ever since 2007, but I don’t think the domination by that series has ever been this strong.

Activision’s much maligned but million selling series holds three of the top spots with Black Ops surprisingly taking first place over Modern Warfare 3 which falls in second. Halo: Reach is still holding strong in fourth place and is faring better than two of this year’s big multiplayer releases, Battlefield 3 and Gears of War 3, falling in the fifth and seventh spots, respectively. I’m kind of surprised that Gears of War is so low considering that this is the series that defined multiplayer on the Xbox this generation, but seeing Reach in fourth spot warms my heart, if only out of spite for all the complainers who said Reach would be dead in a year.

Some other surprises from the list would be that GTA IV is still charting as is Gears of War 2. I guess Xbox LIVE gamers know what they like, and that’s re-hashes of a game from 2007 and previous iterations of an improved product. Thoughts on 2011′s Xbox LIVE activity list? Surprised that Black Ops still holds first place? Anything that should be higher in your opinion? Go!

Source – Major Nelson

Kind of hard to believe that it’s the last stinking day of 2011. It’s a year that we all couldn’t wait to see at the end of 2010, particularly because we knew that there were tons of games and even more surprises waiting for us in the wings. We knew that it could stand to be one of the best years of gaming we’ve ever seen, and in hindsight, it truly might have been.

But in addition to the games, 2011 brought with it a variety of other gaming news items. We saw the announcement of the Nintendo WiiU and the 3DS. It also brought us word of the Playstation Vita, the calamitous PSN hack and the Modern Warfare 3 leak. More recently, it even brought us the dramatic Penny-Arcade/Ocean Marketing snafu. And finally, the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic and Duke Nukem Forever.

So, in a year full of twists, turns, announcements, debacles, wild successes and major fails, what would you rank as your favorite bit of news that you heard in 2011? It doesn’t have to be something we posted here on the ol’ Sushi, but if you love us that much, feel free to tell us. Go!

One thing we’re missing from gaming is a list of “commandments” for developers to follow when making games. We’ve kind of a reached a point where a lot of this kind of stuff is standardized but there are still little missteps that occur that makes you question the sanity of the person who insisted that this thing make it into their game.

The chaps over at Rock Paper Shotgun put together what they call The Complete Rules for Games a humorous look at some of the guidelines for making games. As RPS is a PC-oriented site some of the stuff includes some PC things that might seem obvious but are still overlooked by most developers. The cause of this is that a lot of PC titles are console ports, but still, there are some great points in here. The ability to skip opening cut-scenes is essential, but there are still games that insist on making you watch the opening video. Why?!

So, what do you think about the list? Any essential additions you want to make?

Source – Rock Paper Shotgun

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, fine ladies and gents of GamerSushi. Another year has come and gone, which brings us back to our annual tradition of posting all of our loot on Christmas Day. Like RPG adventurers, many of us have braved the dungeons of relatives’ homes, slayed the boss monsters of awkward family dinners and plumbed the depths of bow-topped expert chests in order to get our prizes, so I think it’s appropriate that everyone flaunts it.

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Every year there are many standout moments in gaming that redefine my hobby and help me appreciate it in new ways. Last year it was riding into Mexico to the tune of “Far Away” in Red Dead Redemption, managing my own guild of assassins in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood or riding down a river in a patrol boat with the Rolling Stones in the background in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

2011, being the landmark year that it was, was not deficient in great gaming moments and I’ve pared my memories down to six selections of moments that have helped shape this year for me. Come along as I try to sift through all the great games this year had to offer and try to nail down which small selections changed my perception of gaming in 2011.

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I’ve got plenty of gaming-related secrets. A few of them I’ve shared before, but some are so embarrassing that I dare not ever let them see the light of day. These include times that I spent hours going about a task the wrong way in an RPG, re-rolling characters and bumping certain games down to easier difficulties because there were no achievements associated with finishing it on Normal. Yup.

And while I won’t speak directly about some of those things, the guys over at Wiki Game Guides have put together a rather humorous (and sadly familiar) collection of the 10 Most Humbling Experiences that a gamer can go through. This list might make you laugh and cry all at once, because it includes getting “perfected” in a fighting game, being asked to switch to Bass in Rock Band and running into the first Goomba in Mario 1-1. Each of those may have happened to me at some point. In a past life. I don’t like to talk about it.

So what about you guys? How many of these things have you experienced? What are some of your biggest gaming shames?

Source – Wiki Game Guides

Oh man. As cliche as it is to make a post on Thanksgiving about how much food you’ve eaten, I can’t help but do just that. I feel like I’m at least partially absolved of this crime because I ran a 10K this morning, but even then, I know I’ll still have to beg your forgiveness just a little bit.

All that to say: Happy Thanksgiving, dudes. I know not all of you are from our fat states, but I want to wish you all a good one either way. Maybe it’s because I’m food drunk, but I do want to say that I’m thankful for this community and for all of you. Shucks and stuff.

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to the good stuff. Naturally, holidays means video games for many of us. As for me, I’ve been playing lots of Skyrim (of course), but now that the holidays are underway, I’ve been struck by the nostalgia bug, as I knew I would be. This means I’ve got a sudden and intense hankering to play not only Ico and Shadow of the Colossus HD, but also Halo: CE Anniversary and the MGS HD Collection. Christmas really can’t come soon enough.

So what about you guys? What are you playing this fine holiday weekend? Go!

Any day that I get to use alliteration in a post title is a swell day for me, and perhaps all of mankind. OK, probably not.

I’ve taken this brief break from my weekend of playing Skyrim until my thumbs fall off to point your attention to a hilarious post I saw over on Ranker. This humorous list chronicles the 13 Greatest Moments in Video Game Griefing History, and I think it’s worth every second you spend looking at it.

While griefing is a mostly vile and contemptible practice, I can’t help but laugh when griefers really get creative and think beyond the box of the typical racial and homophobic slurs. Case in point: the number one entry on the list, where a clever Spy in TF2 posted sprays of models in order to knife other players in the back when they stopped to oggle.

What are your favorite entries on the list? Have you ever seen some creative and hilarious griefing that you couldn’t help but admire? Go!

Source – Ranked

Good things come in three’s. Or is that celebrity deaths? Who knows, but what we do know is that November is full of threequels, lots and lots of them. A threequel, in case this is your first day alive, is the 3rd installment of a franchise. This month alone we are treated to Uncharted 3, Saint’s Row: The Third, Modern Warfare 3, Assassin’s Creed 2: Revelations (the third game in the Assassin’s Creed 2 trilogy and yes, it counts) and already in September and October we had Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3 and Resistance 3. Whew!

Our friends at Wired’s game blog GameLife have pulled together a list of the best threequels in gaming history. There are some great games on here, including some that you may not have heard of or may not have thought were “Part 3′s” in their respective series. I look forward to finally trying Metal Gear Solid 3 when I get the Metal Gear Solid HD collection for Xmas. Take a look at the list and tell us what they left off! 1, 2, 3, GO!

Source: Wired

Happy Halloween, Sushians!

Or I suppose it’ll be the day after Halloween by the time you read this, but that’s no reason to be any less festive, is it? Every year, we try to give some kind of feature towards the day of ghouls and goblins, and 2011 is no different. While in the past we may have covered a list of scariest games or done a Halloween Pop Quiz, this year I wanted to skew in a bit of a different direction.

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Somehow, these new editions of Pop Quiz keep sneaking up on us. It feels like it wasn’t so long ago that we were talking about the dog days of gaming summer, looking forward to the Fall like seagulls swarming around a family having a potato chip fight. I don’t really know what the deal is with that analogy, but I think it sort of works.

Anyway, it’s officially Fall now, and the releases are rolling in. We’ve had Gears of War 3, Dark Souls, the Battlefield 3 Beta and soon Arkham City, Skyrim, Uncharted 3 and then some. It’s an exciting time to be a gamer, and one that I’m sure will produce a number of thought provoking responses from you all, our lovely Sushi-ans. This pop quiz is full of questions about the games we’ve already seen, candy and peril. Tread carefully.

As always with our getting-to-know-you type games, feel free to answer with as much or as little as you like. Answer to the best of your ability. Go!

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While it can be maddening to wait for word on an anticipated game release, it’s probably a good thing that more developers don’t tip their hands too early. Very often in creative processes, the seeds of an original idea morph into something that the creators don’t quite anticipate, both for good and ill.

It seems the same is true with gaming. You see, Cracked has put out a hilarious (and somewhat frightening) list of 6 Baffling Early Prototypes of Your Favorite Video Games. Although you’ve no doubt heard some of the highlights of this list (Super Mario Bros 2 and Halo come to mind), there are others that are downright shocking. Ocarina of Time as an FPS? The original Super Mario involved a gun-slinging plumber? This is the stuff that rocks world views, my friends. And perhaps even socks.

Personally, while I can tend to be an information hound, I have to say that I’m glad that sometimes we don’t know every little detail of development as it’s going down. Think of all the fan overreactions we’d hear about on a daily basis if we saw extremely early iterations of games that more than likely changed over the development cycle.

What do you guys think of this list? Are you glad that developers hold back on what they have to show until closer to release? Or do you wish that they would show us sooner?

Source – Cracked

One game that’s recently received a lot of flack about poorly designed boss battles is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. While I commend the dudes at Eidos for trying to give the game that old school flavor, I think most people would prefer to have no boss fights at all over lame bosses.

As bad as a repetitive or boring enemy is, he is at his most heinous when he is cheap, or virtually unbeatable. I think we’ve all seen our fair share of these. In case you haven’t, or you need your memory refreshed, Dorkly has put together a list of the 7 cheapest boss fights in all of gaming.

I can’t say I’ve actually dealt with all of these antagonists first hand, but I know that Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts was one ridiculous mofo, dishing out death with a flash of his blade and that iconic silver hair. Also, I remember Death Egg being a total bastard in Sonic 2.

Were any of these familiar to you guys? Were there any cheap bosses that you think should have been on the list? What are some of the best boss encounters you can remember in recent years?

Source – Dorkly

Last year, we did a feature highlighting some of our favorite multiplayer maps of all time, in which we singled out Halo’s Blood Gulch, Mario 64′s Block Fort and Left 4 Dead’s No Mercy, among others. All of you answered with some great suggestions, and I promised I would return with another edition (and beyond) honoring some of those mentioned.

So, here we are. Remember, these aren’t intended to be definitive lists, but rather, a way for us to reminisce on some great games and some great maps that we enjoyed in our time with them. If you have more suggestions for awesome maps that deserve to be in the Multiplayer Hall of Fame, by all means, post them in the comments and we can continue to induct new members.

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Is there no greater pain than watching a franchise fall from grace and into the gutters where only the video game slime lives? I’d submit that for a series’ greatest fans, there probably isn’t.

On the subject of great franchises that have sadly lost their way, GamePro has put together a list of The Greatest Franchise Nosedives in the industry. It’s a funny yet sad look on the titans of old that, for one reason or another, tumbled down to earth after seeing great success. While there are a few on there that are givens (Sonic, anyone?), there are also some that I hadn’t considered in a while simply because of how irrelevant they’ve become in recent years.

In terms of other franchises that I’d like to see find their way back to prominence, I would have to say that I think Starfox is due for a comeback sometime in the near future. And while I don’t think Final Fantasy is in the hole as of yet (XIII was a good time, if flawed), I do want to see them find the same sweet spot they used to last decade.

What do you guys think? What franchises have really tanked in your opinion, and which do you hope can make a comeback? Go!

Source – GamePro

Listen, guys. I’ve got some news. We’re already halfway through 2011. No, we didn’t all hop in a time machine together and jump to July. That’s just the way these things go sometimes. One minute, you’re waiting for Portal 2 to come out, the next you’re wondering why Portal 3 wasn’t announced at E3 the month before. Seriously, time likes to do that kind of thing.

Since we’re closing in on the fall that gaming will never forget, we thought it would be good to drop in and hit you guys up with another pop quiz. People are supposed to loathe these things, but you guys seem to shred them to pieces like little vicious animals. And we love you for it. Hopefully, you’ll love us for these new questions. The “soapbox” question was such a big hit last time we decided to keep it for this go around as well. You’re welcome.

As always with our getting-to-know-you type games, feel free to answer with as much or as little as you like. Answer to the best of your ability. Go!

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One of the more useful things about E3 is that it allows us to take stock of where the industry currently is – and more importantly, where the powers-that-be think it needs to be heading. Each year, we can come away with a few lessons about the kinds of trends we’ll be seeing for the immediate future. For instance, since the unveiling of the Nintendo Wii a few years back, we knew that motion gaming had arrived in a major way.

While there are always going to be fanboys and naysayers on every side of the table, Cracked took some time to put together a list of The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games, in which they outline all the dire portends that loom on the horizon. While the list is meant to be hilarious (and it is), it does have a few things that I find worrisome as well. Most notably would be the idea that technology is moving backward (touch gaming, the Wii-U, etc.), and that the video games industry seems to be moving towards a place of creative bankruptcy (countless sequels and re-hashed ideas).

So, what do you guys think of this list? Do you think the things it lists are fair towards the game industry? What are some of the more ominous trends that you’ve observed? Or is all of this just hogwash? Go!

Source – Cracked

Oh summer, you have unleashed the full fury of your fireballs upon us. Or at least, that’s the case in Texas. The constant 100+ temperatures are a reminder that yes, we are now fully in the grips of summer’s suffocating heat, which usually means a healthy summer drought of gaming. Or does it?

As such, we thought it was time to drop in with a brand new edition of Would You Rather. This time around, we ask you all kinds of summery questions, just to see how you take the heat. There are a couple of good Sophie’s Choices in there, so try not to hate us too much for the decision-torture.

For the Would You Rather newbies out there, the game is easy: we ask and you dish out your response. Give as much or as little explanation as you want for your choices, but we all know that we like to see the reasoning behind the madness.

Don’t let your answers suck, though. There is a special bat that Anthony lugs around in his trunk for people that don’t give good responses. Let’s just say that it is dented and has seen a fair share of action. So yeah, he will hurt you if you don’t answer well. Go!

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Alright friends, it’s been a few months since we’ve done a GamerSushi Pop Quiz, so I figured it was time to drop one in the bucket for you piranhas to devour.

Now that some of the huge titles of 2011 have been released (Portal 2, Little Big Planet 2, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2, L.A. Noire, Brink and The Witcher 2), I had some questions on my mind about the nature of hype and how games live up to it. The year is already halfway over, and we’ve had some major surprises and major letdowns to boot. I’m curious how you guys feel about how 2011 is shaping up. At the end, you’ll even have a soapbox opportunity to talk about whatever gaming issue is on your mind.

As always with our getting-to-know-you type games, feel free to answer with as much or as little as you like. Answer to the best of your ability. Have at it, gents and ladies.

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