2011: The Year in Review

In the last few weeks, IGN has been detailing the big events from the past year; the games, the people, the mistakes, the stories. Read this over-arching analysis on why 2011 really mattered...

It was a year of mastery. Again and again, games thrumming with wizardry came to us delivering all that they had promised, and more. The disappointing misfits fade in our memory as we recall marvelous creations of game design that shined, clicked, whirled and ticked in joyful harmonies of software engineering.

Portal 2, FIFA 12, Skyrim, Zelda: Skyward Sword, Uncharted 3, Minecraft, Infinity Blade II, Batman: Arkham City, Dark Souls, Gears of War 3. All of them were feats of incredible design, examples of minute attention to the sacred art of making fine entertainment. Ye Gods. Such an age that we live in!


And yet within that list of excellence, lurking in plain sight, is a great ugly wrench. Every single game therein, bar one, is a sequel or a new iteration of a long line of titles stretching deep into the last century. Here we are in the spangled future-verse of 2011, playing franchises that are as old as dirt.

For this console generation, the great wheel turns relentlessly towards end-time, the oblivion of our era. So it is natural and proper that the builders of our games know their craft and are able to bring half a decade's experience to Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 3. Cliff Blezinski said it true, "We're now at the point where it's not about learning how to use the hardware, it's about learning to trick the hardware into doing what we want it to do."

But CliffyB and his peers at the pinnacle of game design must now surely be turning their gaze towards the next generation, setting bold ambitions around new technologies.

It may be that 2011 was the creative zenith of this generation, a moment when its greatest talents produced their very best work. Already, this generation leans slightly too hard on the phenom of 'HD remakes,' things that are old, dressed up to look like things that are young.

This is not to suggest that 2012 will be a bad year. Things fall apart, usually slowly and by degrees.

Nor are the games consoles the only ways to play games. PC gaming operates on its own generational loop and although its 2011 roster of great games is heavily influenced by console cross-overs, it can point toward Terraria, The Witcher 2, Frozen Synapse, Star Wars: The Old Republic, as well as the petri dish of innovation that lives on Steam, in turn influencing smart, likeable games available to us via Xbox Live and PSN.

People also do play games, in their millions, on Facebook and via social networks. Although our primary interest here is in the things that cut edges, we must not forget this milieu of Mafia Wars and Bejeweled and whatever else Mom plays. By necessity, these games are evolving at a faster rate than console games, albeit from a position a long way down the tree of life.

And then there are the mobiles...




It's not every year that a new games machine is launched, let alone two new systems. 3DS arrived in Japan last February while Vita arrives any day now. And yet these two spanking new machines are not the big news in mobile gaming. That honor belongs, indisputably, to iPhone, the work of a genius, sadly gone.

There are 150 million of these things in circulation - compared to 3DS, which is still well shy of 10 million. If Vita ever hits 10 million sales, it would surprise many critics who believe the world has no call for an expensive, dedicated handheld gaming system. No, the world of mobile gaming belongs to Apple.

It's true that not every iPhone owner plays games, merely 93 percent of the ones who download apps. It's also indisputable that iPhone games cannot compare with the best 3DS or Vita titles, like Super Mario 3D Land or Uncharted: Golden Abyss. But Infinity Blade II ($7) has shown that iPhone games are not so far behind on quality. There's no doubt that games almost matching the quality and fidelity of dedicated handheld games are coming to iPhone, and will flourish in a commercial environment way more attractive than Sony and Nintendo's cozy little eco-systems.


In 2011 the biggest games for mobile are the ones that really make use of the platform's unique capabilities for collaborative social gameplay. Titles like Quarrel beg, borrow and scrape from everything that has come before, to appeal to our need interact with people. Gaming has become less a diversion from human contact, than a conduit through which we connect with one another.

The game is not up for 3DS though. Nintendo has had a bad year for sure, and true killer apps were slow to emerge. But a massive price cut, some late-year big releases like Mario Kart 7 and a good marketing campaign may yet pull this machine through. Much of what we like about mobile games finds its true inspiration in DS and Game Boy. Mobile gaming is not the same without Nintendo.

And Vita, although a latecomer in terms of this 2011 retrospective, plays to Sony's strengths of technical and design excellence. iPhone may be winning, but it has not won yet.

More to the point, in 2011 gaming is everywhere. Sit on a train and look around you. People are not reading newspapers. They are playing.