My Surprise Hits Of 2011

This year had no shortage of amazing games that I knew I would love and put countless hours into. However, there were also a few games I never thought I'd even play, which turned out to be among my favorites.

Dead Island
When I first heard of Dead Island, I was instantly intrigued. An open-world survival/horror format is exactly what I had been waiting for in a zombie game. When I got the chance to sit in on a demo of the game nearly a year before it came out, I went into the meeting with high hopes.

Those hopes were quickly dashed when the developer revealed the combat was melee-focused. Suddenly, none of the other interesting-sounding aspects of the game mattered to me. A zombie apocalypse where you're stuck using oars and broomsticks to kill zombies? Lame. Add to that a rough demo (it was still an early build of the game), and I walked away thinking the title had potential, but it wasn't really on my radar anymore.

Eight months later I played some Dead Island co-op with Tim while he was working on his review and was blown away by what the game had evolved into. The detailed environments were massive and encouraged exploration, and the melee combat that I had scoffed at was visceral, nuanced, and supremely satisfying.

Best of all, zombies are once again formidable foes, which make them as scary as they are deadly. Stumble into a lone undead corpse, and you're probably okay, but if there's more than a few, you'd better run for your life. In most zombie games the undead are weapon fodder, but Dead Island reintroduces players to the "survival" side of survival horror.

Dead Island wasn't a perfect game by any means, but it's probably my favorite zombie game of all time. In a way, I'm glad it fell off of my radar so that I could go into it without any real expectations. For better or worse, the same wouldn't be true for a Dead Island sequel – which is something I'm praying Techland is working on.

Dark Souls
When I first heard about Demon's Souls, I thought it sounded stupid. Some people feel the need to play punishingly hard games in an attempt prove their worth as gamers, but not me. Long ago I stopped butting my head up against games that are too difficult – if I struggle with a game to the point where I'm more frustrated than entertained by it, I either turn the difficulty down or stop playing. In contrast, the community that formed around Demon's Souls sounded downright masochistic. I didn't think twice about skipping it.

Dark Souls was also on my list of games to not give a crap about, but it had one intriguing twist that its predecessor lacked: it was open-world. It also came out a month before Skyrim, and I was craving a large-scale RPG to sink my teeth into. So, I took a chance on a game I would have otherwise never played. I'm extremely glad I did, though I wasn't at first.

At first I hated Dark Souls. The notorious difficulty lived up to its reputation, and the perfect storm of death penalties (you lose your progress, souls – which serve as your currency and XP, and all of your enemies respawn) abruptly ended my first night of play in a flurry of obscenities.

But the next day I wanted to play more. Returning to the game, I triumphed over the previous night's obstacle (that stupid bridge monster), only to have my will crushed and night ruined again by another overpowered foe (that stupid armored boar). The game wasn't just difficult – the core structure felt totally broken.

And yet like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day, I awoke the following day destined to do it all over again. But by that point something had clicked. I was playing the game differently (more cautiously and deliberately than any other action game), I had conquered a small section of Dark Souls' world, and I was no longer put off by the challenge, but enthralled by it. I still think the soul system breaks the game somewhat, but my enjoyment of Dark Souls now vastly outweighs my frustration with it, and I look forward to (and slightly dread) spending many more hours in From Software's creative and memorable world.

Driver: San Francisco
I have fond memories of the first Driver game. The rest of them? Not so much. For me, the main draw of the original Driver was that it featured an open-world format (you may be noticing a trend here), as opposed to track-based racing games. A year after its release, however, Grand Theft Auto III came out and eclipsed everything Driver did in every possible way. I never went back to the series, and judging from the critical reception, I didn't miss much.

When the premise of Driver: San Francisco was announced, I had the same reaction as every other gamer – I thought it was ridiculously dumb. You play as a character in a coma? In an open-world driving game? I honestly don't think I could come up with a worse plot for a game.

However, I was intrigued by Jeff Cork's positive review, which suggested that the lame premise is justified by the entertaining mechanic it introduces for switching between cars on the fly. I'm all for games that put fun gameplay before story or realism, so I checked it out. Cork wasn't wrong.

The craziness of Driver: San Francisco scratches the same itch that the Burnout series used to back when it had a dedicated Crash mode. Being able to jump into any other car on the road breaks the difficulty in some respect, but I'm not playing Driver for the challenge or the story, anyway. I want to drive semis into oncoming traffic, force cop cars off the road, and fly off massive jumps all over San Francisco. Not only does the game let me do this, but it sweetens the pot with the ability to buy garages, upgrade cars, and take on a wide variety of different missions. I haven't played as much Driver: San Francisco as I'd like to, but the fact that I want to play more of it is a very good sign.

NBA 2K12
I haven't played a basketball game since the original NBA Jam. In fact, I don't know if I've ever played a serious basketball game. But when Bertz named NBA 2K12 the best basketball sim ever, I figured it was time to finally try one out.

My first experience in NBA 2K12 was a rough one – I couldn't find the tutorial mode. Most games don't let you skip the introductory tutorial (no matter how unnecessary it is), but with NBA 2K12, it's buried in a submenu – a submenu the game doesn't even tell you how to access. I started three different game modes before finally backing my way into the menu that allowed me to enter training camp.

Two things became apparent as I made my way through the lengthy tutorials of training camp. One, 2K really nailed the controls – using the right analog stick to make your shots wonderfully simulates what it's like to shoot a basketball in real life (the only difference being that sometimes the ball actually goes in the hoop for me in the video game version). The second obvious revelation was that there was no way I'll ever remember all of the controls. NBA 2K12 probably has more commands than every other video game I've played this year combined. By the time I graduated from training camp, I estimate I remembered about 10% of the moves the game just got done teaching me. I've played through most of the tutorials twice now, and I still forget entire sets of the moves available to me.

Despite the high learning curve, NBA 2K12 provides me with a refreshing format that other video games don't. Individual basketball games are short, highly replayable affairs, but they add up to a much larger experience. And unlike a game like Skyrim, you can't manipulate your performance via save states; at the end of the season, all of my successes and failures over the year will dictate the results (which will likely involve my team not making the playoffs – I got drafted to the Timberwolves, after all).

I'm only about five games into my career in the Be A Legend mode, but I'm surprised and addicted to the tension that's created by playing a single position on the basketball court, and having my performance affect my status on the team and in the league (I'm relieved whenever the coach takes me out on a high note). I'm also excited by the plethora of other modes the game offers, which I hope to explore further in the New Year. If you don't care about basketball, you probably still won't be interested in NBA 2K12, but even casual fans of the sport might want to give it a try.

Did you end up enjoying a game you didn't think you would this year? Share your surprise favorite in the comments below.