There were a ton of great games that came out last year.  So many in fact that a lot of very good games were simply overlooked because people just had too many other games to play.  So here are five great games that you were all too busy to play when they came out.

Poker Smash (Xbox 360)
Poker Smash is a rather unique puzzle game available on Xbox Live Arcade.  The concept is rather simple.  You have a grid of cards on screen and the object is to shuffle them around to create traditional poker hands.  Three of a kind, four of a kind, straights, flushes, all of these things count towards your score.  To really get good at the game though, you’ll need to learn the art of chaining hands together.

The game is very similar to older games like Tetris Attack on the SNES, or Pokemon Puzzle League on the N64.  The advantage to playing Poker Smash though is that you do not need to be ashamed to admit that you actually play it.  With all of the great games released on Xbox Live Arcade, this one was overlooked by a lot of people, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
Strategy RPGs have stagnated over the past ten years or so as the result of little innovation in the genre. Along came Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles to try to make some significant innovations along with a new art style to help the game stand out even more. The major issue became that Sega made the questionable decision to release it this past fall around the same time as big games on the PS3, like LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, and the same week saw Resistance 2. A release in the spring or summer of this year would have given it much more room to breathe and a better chance of surviving with more than the abysmal 33 thousand copies it sold in November last year.

Why it should have been a bigger success is that it injected third-person shooter elements into the core strategy RPG system that made it a much more accessible game than most strategy RPGs. Instead of moving around grids, you were able to move around freely and get behind cover to stay away from enemy fire since enemies can fire upon you when moving around if you’re in range. Add in the ability to level up jobs as a whole instead of individual characters and you don’t have to worry about building a clique of strong characters that simply got more fighting experience. The great presentation of the story through simple cutscenes and battle laid out in the style of a book made the good story easy to digest what was going on from multiple viewpoints. All of that made for a strategy RPG that felt fresh, rarely repetitive and boring, and something that needs to make more of an impression than its poor sales in the US can ever do.

Persona 3 & 4 (PS2)
Atlus USA originally released Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 with low expectations, because not a whole lot of copies were produced. When the game received astonishing ratings across the board from all the major publications, Atlus rethought their strategy and released the game’s director’s cut—Persona 3 FES—a year later.

The new generation of Persona games literally define what an RPG is. You play the role of a transfer student attending a new school and joining an organization out to uncover the truths of “The Dark Hour”, a hidden time of the day where normal people disappear into coffins and the world is succumbed into an hour of curious darkness. In order to unlock your true potential as a fighter, you have to shoot yourself in the head to unlock a Persona, an inner warrior to help overcome the darkness.
The success of Persona 3 caused Atlus to bring Persona 4 to the PS2, further making RPG fans really question whether the PS2 is truly dead or not.

Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360)
Another Japanese RPG finds its way to the Xbox 360.  Brought to us by Mistwalker, the same studio that released Blue Dragon the year before, many people passed on this one because of bad experiences with Blue Dragon.  This is a shame, since Lost Odyssey is a far better game than Blue Dragon was.

It has a truly excellent story with characters that have a surprising amount of depth to them.  This is in stark contrast to Blue Dragon’s stereotypical anime derived characters.  It is also a very good looking game with beautiful visuals and excellent music and sound effects.  While it didn’t do much in the way of re-inventing the Japanese RPG formula, it did make a few tweaks to it which made the experience a little bit better.  If you have any interest in Japanese RPGs and you own an Xbox 360, you should go pick this one up.

World of Goo (PC/Wii/iPhone)
Sometimes the most bizarre sounding games are the ones that can be the most fun.  World of Goo is a fine example of this.  Your goal in World of Goo is to use balls of Goo to construct structures to help you reach the exit pipe.  It is a simple sounding concept, but there is more to it than that.  First you’ll need to deal with gravity, building up your Goo Structures is all well and good, but you need to keep in mind that you have to keep them balanced.  If you over-extend your balls of Goo the whole structure could come crashing down.

The game has a really charming look and feel to it, which is really great to see.  It’s very easy to get in and start playing, but it isn’t so easy to actually pull yourself away from it.  World of Goo is one of those games that will make you wish there were more hours in a day.  It’s just that addicting.  You can get World of Goo on the PC, the Wii via Wiiware, and on the iPhone.  Whichever platform you decide to get it on, you’ll be in for a great time.

Did we miss any?  Don’t agree with our picks?  Please, leave a comment!  We’d love to hear what you’ve got to say!

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About This Author: Filippo Dinolfo

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