Vanquish?

29. New Super Mario Bros U (New!) first impression 8.5, replay 7.5, technical 8.5

Pros: 2D Mario finally begins to resemble the glories of Super Mario World, with Yoshi availability and an actual world-map, as well as the ability to pass between worlds in certain circumstances. The game also ratcheted up the challenge from NSMBWii.

Cons: Still feels kind of "samey" against the other NSMB games.

28 drew great amounts of love and hate for its control scheme

Please don't let it be Metroid: Other M.

Resident Evil

31. Final Fantasy X (PS2)

With the new scoring system this has actually crept up a good few places. I remember this felt a bit linear without the world map of previous games, but the story and new strategic battle system kept me plugging through the game and I'm glad I did. The story was suitably epic with plenty of depth and emotion whilst the devs filled the world of Spira with plenty of side quests, character quests, summons and mini-games (Blitzball!). The graphics at the time were pretty good too and getting a new lick of HD paint soon. I actually played through a good section of this not that long ago but stopped with the intention of buying the HD version.

Skyward Sword.

Yea! I think this was hard because no one played the game here......shame on you all.

So this game was mocked because it takes place on a human colony which looks A LOT like the Citadel in Mass Effect with the arms closed. The main enemy type are AI Robots controlled by the Russians, which look a lot like Geth from Mass Effect, and there is another stealth section where you snipe people, and on the radio someone messages you "good job Sam" every time you get a shot, which is a mocking of Spinter Cell.

Anyway, I strongly recommend people pick this up, I'm normally not a fan of fast paced games, but this game is definatly the type to cause seizures. From taking down giant robots, to slow motion dodges, this game is a blast. As for the post game mode, Challenge 6 of Challenge mode is damn near impossible. You have to fight 3 of the hardest bosses in the game, while being under fire from 20 or so enemy units, some big ones. I barely did this, I was really really lucky that I jumped left instead of right........

30. Portal 2 (PC, also on 360 & PS3)

What to say about a work of pure genius? The original Portal was fun. Short, unpretentious and pure gaming fun. Portal 2 could have just continued with the same, but instead added some fantastic new ideas, more mind-bending puzzles with witty characters and great humour. The story mode alone really was comedy value and could have justified the asking price alone. Steve Merchant was great and really helped set the tone at the start of the game with comments like

"Most test subjects do experience some, uh, cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now, you've been under for quite a lot longer, and its *not* out of the question that you might have a *very* minor case of serious brain damage! But, don't be alarmed, alright? Uh, although if you do feel alarmed, try to hold on to that feeling because that is the proper reaction to being told that you've got brain damage."  

The added co-op mode though really added to the value. Overall I can sum this up in three words; pure gaming genius.

29. Starcraft + Brood War expansion (PC, also on N64 as Starcraft 64)

Talk about unoriginal! This game adding nothing new to RTS gameplay; 2 resources, 3 factions, basic RTS techs and units. It just did it all prefectly. Very few games in the genre are as amazingly polished as this one. The 3 races were incredibly well balanced and in the coming years were patched to perfection whilst they managed to incorporate a decent campaign mode into the game.