The J for Janky Game of the Year Spectacular, 2011 edition — Part 1: The Honorable Mentions

It’s that time again. This year I’ve got 14 games to discuss: my 10 favorites of the year and four honorable mentions.

The latter are four experiences that I won’t soon be forgetting. There’s something about each of them that’s unique, effective and intensely admirable, but they didn’t quite make it into my top 10.

Here we go!

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron — Ignition Tokyo  

El Shaddai is what happens when you give a visual artist free reign over a project. Takeyasu Sawaki, whose previous credits include lead character designer on Okami, and his team at Ignition have created the most visually spectacular game ever made.

Mr. Gerardi’s 2010 Game of the Year Spectacular, Part 3: The Top 10 (5-3)

Sorry about the wait, but I went on vacation and then….well I’ve been busy. I’m still writing up my top two games, but I figured I should just publish what I had so far.

You can check out the honorable mentions here and numbers 10 through six of my top 10.

5.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo EAD Tokyo – Wii)

Mr. Gerardi’s 2010 Game of the Year Spectacular, Part 2: The Top Ten (10-6)

Be sure to check out the previous entry in this series, the honorable mentions. And now my top games of 2010…well five of them.

10.

Vanquish (Platinum Games, Sega – 360, PS3)

Mr. Gerardi’s 2010 Game of the Year Spectacular Part 1: Honorable Mentions

Better late than never. I’ve been biding my time on this project, finishing up some games and collecting my thoughts on 2010′s trends and innovations. While it wasn’t a tremendous year for games, the ones that stuck out did some really incredible things with the medium and stand as some of the most memorable games I’ve ever played.

I will be rolling this out in four parts, the first being my honorable mentions. Later on I’ll be posting games 10-6, then 5-1 and finally a retrospective on the list and the year as a whole.

So….here we go.

The Honorable Mentions

These are five great games that just couldn’t hang in the top ten, but each one has an aspect so special and important that I felt it was important to talk about them.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light                                                     (Crystal Dynamics, Square-Enix – XBLA, PSN, PC)