As we enter the final weeks of the year, it is hard to deny that 2011 will not be remembered among the upper echelon of years in the history of this relatively young medium. The year started strong with the likes of Dead Space 2, Portal 2 and L.A. Noire before developing into a summer of quality downloadable software on Xbox Live and PSN and finally maturing into a fall season the likes of which has rarely been seen, even for those of us who have been gaming since the infant years of the...

Spike TV’s annual Video Game Award show finally has its GOTY choices decided. 2011 has undoubtedly been an incredible year in gaming, especially in the last quarter with so many huge titles releasing mere weeks from one another. Many games are worthy of recognition, but only a handful can truly be considered game of the year material. Have those choices been made wisely though? To say yes, it goes without saying that a level of objectivity must be taken. So what made the cut, and which ones...

As July rolls in, it marks the mid-point of the year and there have been a plethora of games worthy of recognition to look back on. It is arguable that we have already seen some front-runners for Game of the Year, though the majority of the year’s heavy hitters are set to release post-summer. Either way, let us stop and take a look at how 2011 has held up so far category by category, culminating in the best overall game of the year so far. Of course this is an unofficial list purely for...

I'm not sure there should be a Portal 3. This isn't a diss to Portals 1 or 2; quite the opposite. Rather I feel like Portal 2 ended on such an impossible high note that following it up with, well, anything sounds like a fool's errand. Then again, I said the same thing about the first Portal before Valve blew me away with its sequel three years later. So if they DO decide to make a Portal 3, here's what I'd like to see put in it: -Dual wielding portal guns. Portal 2...

I briefly mentioned my gripes about the boss fights in Mortal Kombat last week in my piece about its story mode. This isn’t just a trend I’ve seen in fighting games, though it is the most apparent there. For quite a while now, bosses have been, for lack of a better word, cheap, or at times incredibly easy. They should be some of the most memorable and balanced events in a game. Too bad in most games these days bosses are frequently complained about, and with good reason. For those who are...