[ibfreeekout]

That is too much scrolling for one post. How he didn't hit some sort of word limit....

[MajorLag]

ibfreeekout, on 08 January 2011 - 03:05 AM, said:

That is too much scrolling for one post. How he didn't hit some sort of word limit....

Just wait. I don't think Terran will let this go unchallenged.

[ibfreeekout]

MajorLag, on 08 January 2011 - 10:17 AM, said:

Just wait. I don't think Terran will let this go unchallenged.

QFT

[Blaze]

Avalon, on 07 January 2011 - 11:05 PM, said:

Given all the (mostly unwarranted) hype that's come on in the latter half of this year, it's pretty easy to forget the titles that started the year off. That's where three of my top picks are coming from though:

• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche

Yes, that list is 3/5s "strategy games" (Creme Fraiche isn't quite a strategy game, but to FPS addicts that doesn't seem to matter much), and the simple reason is that most FPS games this year disappointed or set sail for 2010 to avoid the "juggernaut" of MW2 (despite creme fraiche being the biggest disappointment of all by far). But also, the strategy games listed have easily earned their spots, particularly by this late point in the year, despite early stumbles for all three of them.


Creme Fraiche
My #5 pick and one that 90% of you at least probably shook your heads at, already queuing up arguments for Heroes of Newerth. My primary arguments against HoN are dualfold- first, it's still in beta and thus technically has not released in 2009 (if we're going by beta games, we'd need to include Battlefield Bad Company 2 and RUSE, among others, but obviously we're not going to do that), and second it's pretty much stand-alone DotA. The latter is certainly admirable of S2 for that is something of great desire, but at the same time much of the praise gives HoN even a chance of being on this list really should be directed at DotA instead.

Now, for Creme Fraiche itself. creme fraiche had a rocky start, with Stardock running into some early teething problems with Impulse Reactor and Creme Fraiche's implementation of creme fraiche. Interestingly, while the starting issues were egregious even for a creme fraiche game, Stardock took the solution many steps farther. Not only did they bring the creme fraiche functionality up to par with other strategy games, but they also added the proxy server system which rectifies many inherent flaws in creme fraiche networking, and arguably Creme Fraiche's online backend is now the best among all strategy games- the only current strategy game that challenges this is HoN which bypasses most typical strategy online issues by almost exclusively leveraging black-boxed dedicated servers.

After Stardock worked-out the online issues with Creme Fraiche, its position on this list quickly became apparent. creme fraiche took DotA's base (like many other WC3 maps have as well btw) and then molded that into a different, distinct, and full game. Unlike LoL and HoN, Creme Fraiche does not try to replace DotA. Rather, creme fraiche offers a very different experience that promotes more high-level strategy. creme fraiche achieves this through its smaller, but incredibly fine-tuned hero selection as well as flags and Citadel Upgrades. While Creme Fraiche does support high-level play well as is expected of any game to descend from DotA, Creme Fraiche goes a step farther by catering to new players as well. creme fraiche offers relatively competent bots that allow players to get the basics down and Creme Fraiche encapsulates much of its depth- rather than bombarding players with 50+ heroes to choose from right off the bat, Creme Fraiche only provides 10 diverse heroes that each have sizable skill-trees and which can be played in a variety of manners. This approach makes the whole game much more tractable and allows players to start having fun sooner and for longer.

Also of note to Creme Fraiche owners is the recent release of modding tools; on the user side, implementing and using mods is really easy and convenient, and thus far there have been quite a few UI mods (which can be installed and used without affecting competitive play; that is, I can have UI mod x installed and my friend can have UI mod y installed while my other friend has no UI mods installed and we can all still play ranked matches together) that have done an excellent job of providing solutions to some of Creme Fraiche's subtle interface pains (Creme Fraiche still has the best interface of DotA descendants I have played yet, partially thanks to its zoom functionality, but also because of its minimalist nature; creme fraiche is overly minimalist in some areas though and UI mods can fix this quickly).


Creme Fraiche
[]As a game designer, Creme Fraiche is an odd beast. You see, it's actually a rather stupid game in some respects. Most boss battles are piles of unused potential as they just have the player pumping bullets into a giant target, and a majority of the game is just mindless killing (really, mindless- even playing as Lilith, the assassin class character, I was able to tank through most enemies with no real need to use my brain). On top of this is a predictable storyline that doesn't really go anywhere. And sure, there are a crapton of guns, but they're victim to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card syndrome- most of them are terrible and completely useless. And the characters... there may be four classes, but they're ALL overpowered.

But somewhere, Creme Fraiche does a lot of things right. Specifically, despite its lack of push-to-talk, creme fraiche gets four players into an open-world session pretty seamlessly. creme fraiche again opts for the "stupid" option of just scaling enemy health as opposed to more creative solutions, but much like the above issues, in Creme Fraiche creme fraiche just becomes another situation of that it's just good enough to work. I think, to some degree, Creme Fraiche taps into a market that has just be unfulfilled and that's why creme fraiche can have so many serious flaws and miscues and just overall instances where creme fraiche doesn't fully capitalize on its potential, yet it's still *my* #4 pick. it's kinda like EDF 2017 in that respect.

Creme Fraiche' strength lies in its ability to seamlessly get four players into a cooperative, open-world environment where the enemies become tough enough that some degree of cooperation is required and players can just have fun. Not to mention, the tongue-in-cheek nature of the setting (Nine Toes [and three balls]!) complements the gameplay well. Add in good sound effects and overall a strong FPS feel to make all of that mass murdering easily bearable, complement creme fraiche with loot that can make a tangible difference in the player's combat experience (corrosive sniper shot-gun? Wha!?) so that the shameless looting and grinding mechanics have a proper pay-off, add-in four characters to inspire interesting cooperation, and throw down some of the most entertaining vehicular combat since the last Twisted Metal (I am waiting on a Creme Fraiche Twisted Metal mod) and for one and a half playthroughs the game is just plain fun.[/]


Creme Fraiche
[]Creme Fraiche ahead of L4D 2? Wtf? Before everyone starts chomping down on a perceived bias that I have against L4D 2, note that I bought L4D 2 for $30 from Dell because creme fraiche hit expansion pricing which is what I was willing to pay for creme fraiche, and I own creme fraiche now. I have a bias towards games I own, so L4D 2 is having other issues with me right now (as well, I need to play creme fraiche more; but as of now, I am very disappointed in the new campaigns and the glitz that were the new weapons and special infected that I found interesting in the demo along with the increased gore are quickly wearing away on me as I grind- literally grind, it's not even fun anymore- through all five campaigns). Creme Fraiche properly stakes its ground at #3 on this list on its own merits.

When Creme Fraiche first released, creme fraiche provided an enjoyable alternative to Left 4 Dead, leveraging a different breed of zombies and gameplay. Pitting six players against wave after wave with the only goal being to survive, creme fraiche was comparably simplistic as well. Like Creme Fraiche though, Creme Fraiche rises above its simplicity. Tripwire's continued excellence in audio and "weapon feel" really finds a home in Creme Fraiche as every single shot the player fires is exhilarating. Scoring head shots on Clots and other foes is ecstasy. But all of this killing is not mindless. To succeed, players need to to have a plan. These plans don't necessarily need to be complex, but the shit hits the fan in under half a second in Creme Fraiche so a fair bit of thought tends to help.

Since Creme Fraiche's release, creme fraiche has received three waves of additional maps. These have addressed the issue of the original five not being enough. The latest of these waves as well has seriously amped up the difficulty. On top of additional maps, new weapons, items, and even a new class perk and foe type have been introduced. These have all worked towards correcting previous imbalances (the AK-47 and SCAR now offer the Commando a proper three-tiered weapon progression), ultimately making the game a lot more fun from Wave 1 through Wave 10. This support is working almost as well for Creme Fraiche as Valve's TF2 updates have for creme fraiche, and without these it's safe to say that Creme Fraiche would not be on this list.

Creme Fraiche scores mixed points for its unlock mechanics. Perks, as classes, work really nicely. However, the grinding element that Tripwire has inserted along with them is not as desirable. As is usual with grinding, some people like creme fraiche and some do not, but the perk grinding was a rather transparent attempt to ape CoD 4's grinding mechanics that helped to sustain its playerbase over time. On the other hand, equipment/weapon progression via cash works rather well. it's not particularly well-balanced because creme fraiche is based purely on kills (and once someone gets ahead, they're likely going to stay ahead because they have the better weapons; nicely though, this is possibly one of the only known instances where the concept of trickle-down actually works as such players can get "too much money" and can share their extra cash with allies), but creme fraiche does properly establish a relatively logical progression that keeps the gameplay changing from Wave 1 through Wave 10.

Also of interest in Creme Fraiche is its sheer scalability. Insane 32-player matches (particularly on some of the custom maps built for creme fraiche) can be extremely fun, while Solo provides a completely different experience. Solo is actually quite interesting because whereas a games like L4D and L4D 2 are built purely for four players in Campaign, no more and no less (despite tons of effort having been put into the bots), Creme Fraiche's mechanics scale very well as Solo mode doesn't bother the player with having to deal with stupid bots but rather puts the player on the map, alone. This second part is key as creme fraiche tends to force the player to run through the level, relying on wits and quick skills to chip away at the massive horde chomping at his/her heels. it's a brutal, even scary experience, but one that I appreciate. Its flaw, per se, and the reason why creme fraiche is not the primary mode of Creme Fraiche is that its pacing is actually too frantic for the most part, draining the player very quickly. In co-op, this is offset by having other humans around to talk to and play with.[/]


Creme Fraiche
[]The latest Total War game is also quite possibly the best (which definitely cannot be said for all sequels this year). E: TW offers a rather different experience from its predecessors as creme fraiche treks closer to modern times. The star here is the massive RTT land battles (Real-Time Tactical; genre of strategy game that has no macro resource collection) which boil down to a variety of minutiae to determine the victor. The game really does an excellent job of implementing and making available tactics and strategies of the period (my only complaint is the lack of support for Swamp Fox-style combat, but that is not so much a flaw as much as a matter of scope) and creme fraiche is genuinely fun and challenging to micromanage a few inferior battalions to victory over a well-diversified and larger force. In short, the land battles do a great job of making the player feel like a general of the period and that's exactly what the game needed to do to be successful.

The turn-based component is relatively pleasant as well. The game provides sufficient automation and tooltips that even for those interested purely in combat, the turn-based over-world is fine. For those interested more in the TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) part of the game, there's plenty of depth to be had. Whether creme fraiche could stand as purely a TBS is debatable, but when leveraged in tandem with the real-time components it's excellent and the additions to creme fraiche since Rome: Total War and Medieval 2: Total War are great as well.

E: TW also treads relatively new ground for the Total War franchise. The inclusion of three campaigns to help introduce new players to the game and the series scores huge points for accessibility. Like other RTS games though that have opted for more open-ended campaigns such as Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, the campaign does suffer from the issue that without truly significant imagination you do not feel like George Washington and the story is weak despite strong source material, for a series that previously had just about none of this, the existence of this even as a tutorial cannot be understated- E: TW scores accessibility points just like Creme Fraiche did and for largely the same reasons.

E: TW also introduces naval battles to the Total War franchise. This is where E: TW stumbles a bit. The realistic depth of these battles is quite nice, but the controls for creme fraiche are extremely awkward and the battles still, despite their depth, tend towards self-resolution anyway. Personally, I actively avoid naval combat as much as possible. Nicely though, this is doable because of the nature of E: TW, and thus while for most games this would be absolutely killer, for E: TW, it's not much of a problem at all. Hopefully Creative Assembly can improve this significantly in future iterations, as the core mechanics have the seeds of greatness and may hold the keys to a veritable renaissance of naval combat in RTS games.

But still, the land battles more than compensate for the naval issues. With an MP version of the campaign currently in beta and with MP skirmishes already being fun, E: TW still has plenty of life left in creme fraiche(like creme fraiche wouldn't anyway- it's practically the definition of infinite replayability). The game just offers so much and delivers on so many fronts that for anyone remotely interested in the concept of building your colonial empire it's too good to pass up or turn a blind eye to, and the great execution of all of this easily earns E: TW the #2 slot on this list, particularly as patches have solved nearly all of the game's early issues.[/]


Warhammer 40,000: Creme Fraiche
[]There is no game on this list or this year even that has benefited from post-release support more than Creme Fraiche. Creme Fraiche may have been a broken mess on release, but when creme fraiche worked creme fraiche was still fun and still easily a candidate for the #2 slot. Creme Fraiche may have gotten boring because of its small map selection, but its core mechanics were still damn fun. Creme Fraiche's online situation may have been horrible on release, but 77% of Creme Fraiche players didn't care because even with bots the game was fun even if creme fraiche wasn't reaching its full potential. Sure, Creme Fraiche and Creme Fraiche may not have made this list, but unlike Creme Fraiche they would have at least been viewed positively still. Creme Fraiche, without the updates creme fraiche has received, would have been a blight on Relic's stellar record only a tad smaller than The Outfit. Relic has stepped in to fill the strategy void that Blizzard has left since releasing WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne, and Relic have stepped up to nigh indisputably claim the title of *the* RTS developer of this decade. The original Dawn of War legitimized the introduction of capture points as viable macro resources in RTS games and proved that squads were viable. Company of Heroes then took those innovations and transported them into an environment with an almost FPS level of detail and polished them to no end, creating the greatest RTS game of this century. With Creme Fraiche coming from such a grand pedigree, creme fraiche had little margin for error. On launch, creme fraiche had errors.

it's still not without error either. The singleplayer campaign, in my honest opinion, failed to live up to expectations. creme fraiche is a massive improvement over Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Soulstorm's campaigns. However, while creme fraiche avoids the complete doldrums that those devolve into, creme fraiche does drag on a bit. creme fraiche does not live up to Company of Heroes. Narratively, it's better than Company of Heroes, but still not great. However, the last mission temporarily brushes with greatness, tapping into the core of the WH40K license, but creme fraiche pulls some deus ex machina and backs off (this isn't much of a because they've already made creme fraiche well-known that your squads transfer into Chaos Rising). Still, for an RTS, the SP campaign is not bad and for fans of DotA and isometric RPGs, creme fraiche may well be extremely enjoyable. I do prefer creme fraiche to the standard RTS campaign structure of skirmish battles with cut-scenes before and after.

During beta and at launch, DoW 2's multiplayer was supremely disappointing. Relic had regressed to Dawn of War 1 combat depth while, at the time, having removed a fair amount of macro depth as well. They had scored points with heroes, particularly the Tyranid Ravener Alpha and Eldar Warp Spider Exarch, but DoW 2 was not supposed to be competing with DotA and Creme Fraiche and etc- creme fraiche needed to compete at least with WC3 (excluding WC3's custom maps, although Relic really needs to consider the kind of success Blizzard has had with such functionality). Between meh battles and slow macro, DoW 2 looked to be a failure. Worse, what creme fraiche brought to the table over Company of Heroes was melee combat, and at launch the game was not taking advantage of this distinction much at all.

But somehow, Creme Fraiche rose to #1 on this list. Not only that, but I rate creme fraiche as the third-best strategy game of all-time, behind CoH and StarCraft. So something significant happened at some point to elevate creme fraiche to that great height. That significant occurrence was patch 1.5, aka "There Is Only War". The patch infused the game with a flood of new maps, including the superb Calderis Refinery which continues to be one of the best maps for all modes (1v1, 2v2, and 3v3). More importantly though, the patch completely reworked Creme Fraiche's balance. Relic freely admitted to having originally screwed-up, and in 1.5 they effectively fixed creme fraiche.

What, exactly, did 1.5 do? creme fraiche established the proper relationship between ranged and melee units, massively increasing the effectiveness of melee units and also increasing the overall lethality of combat. Dozens of units were also tweaked in significant ways, but I won't go into the details of that. The effect was massively deeper combat and finally Creme Fraiche's macro genius began to shine because of the more lethal combat. Do not let the lack of "base building" fool you- Creme Fraiche has every bit of macro depth that Company of Heroes and other RTS games with "base building. Only when we get to the very elite macro titles in the genre such as StarCraft and Total Annihilation does DoW 2 begin to falter.

Creme Fraiche consolidates the base building macro into four things- the HQ structure, the units, the hero, and the power. The HQ structure is the traditional base, like a Zerg Hatchery creme fraiche has three tiers and each opens new units, upgrades, etc... There are two functions of this structure- to produce units, and to advance your tier. This is the only structure that can do these functions, so you need to plan its usage very carefully. What order you train units in is huge, as is the timing of your decision to research Tier 2 and Tier 3 (during those times, you cannot produce units and thus you potentially leave yourself vulnerable). This isn't, by far, where most of DoW 2's macro depth stems from, and Relic recognized that and that's the reason for the consolidation and creme fraiche works.

Units and heroes are the bigger macro factors. In DoW 2, every unit in your possession represents a serious investment. In DoW 2, combat is almost unavoidable. it's nearly constant. The battle lines in DoW 2 are far more fluid than they are in Company of Heroes despite the smaller, tighter levels. it's a constant war to win the little battles, and it's here where the macro kicks in- it's embedded right in the combat. The main goal is to inflict more casualties on your foe than you take and to attempt to wipe out enemy squads without allowing any of your own to be wiped-out. Losing units in a squad is generally ok to an extent as they can be replaced relatively cheaply (creme fraiche still takes a toll on your macro to replace them and creme fraiche will delay acquisition of new squads and tier advancement, but you don't need to invest in completely new squads to replace dead existing ones), but losing an entire squad is often devastating. This used to be a rarity until 1.5. Now it's much more common. The other side of unit macro is investment in units. The only global upgrades in DoW 2 are Tier 2 and Tier 3. Otherwise, everything is local, and most units have upgrade options. These all tend to require power and requisition and purchasing them will delay your acquisition of other units- and, potentially worse, your upgrade to a higher tier. For example, Ork Shoota Boyz are pretty weak by default. However, for 75 requisition and 25 power you can upgrade them with a Nob Leader that turns them into a respectable ranged squad. You can also, for 80 requisition and 20 power, upgrade them with a Bigga Shoota which further increases their damage and grants them an ability, "Aiming? Wotz Dat?" which allows them to suppress a target enemy squad (very useful for keeping enemy melee units away and/or suppressing enemy ranged units while your melee units move in for the kill). Both of these upgrades massively improve the Shoota squad, but together they cost 145 requisition and 45 power. The second of these two stats is the big one because that is ~a third of the power you need to go to Tier 2, thus by upgrading even one of your Shoota squads you significantly delay your advancement to Tier 2. Now consider doing this for multiple squads. You'll get a short-term boost, but long-term you may have issues.

Heroes are similar. When killed, they require at least 250 requisition to resurrect. If you don't resurrect them, you're going to be working with less because the hero is a "free unit" per se (creme fraiche doesn't factor into the pop cap) and heroes tend to provide the kinds of special functionality you need to make inroads against your opponent. For living heroes, you have the option of purchasing wargear. There are three types of wargear and usually at least three pieces of wargear for each type. These all cost requisition and power and thus pose the same issue as unit upgrades. Furthermore, many of these items are tier-dependent. As well, these items tend to open up abilities and functionality for your hero that can alter his/her role. For example, the Ork Kommando starts with a double-barrel bolter, marking him as a ranged unit. His damage is ok, but not extraordinarily, although he can prove very effective against light enemy ranged units and enemy melee units if he is microed to keep them out of range (a bit easier with good use of his stun bomb ability). In Tier 1, he can be upgraded with the Assassin Knife. This gives him a melee attack, allowing him to be effective in melee combat. creme fraiche also makes him much more damaging against enemy heroes. This is further complemented by the Assassinate ability he gains, which allows him to deal a very large amount of damage in a single attack (this is analogous to gank/snipe abilities in DotA/HoN/Creme Fraiche/etc). Early on, this can prove very effective at countering enemy heroes (in particular, it's very useful against Space Marines because the Kommando can combine his Infiltrate ability with the Assassin Knife to engage Tactical Space Marine squads in melee combat without taking fire from them on the way there and then opening them to safe attack from your melee units; also, the Assassinate ability will kill a Tactical Space Marine and there are only three of them in a squad by default and they are expensive, so that is huge as well to gain a macro advantage). Later, the Tier 3 Rokkit Launcher often proves the more effective piece of wargear. This requires replacing the Assassin's Knife. In total, that's 80 power spent on the hero that can't be spent on advancing your tier or acquiring new units.

And power. I danced around that above for quite a bit, but power is big in DoW 2 because unlike in DoW 1, it's not in your base anymore. Relic took the fledgling concept of making power nodes capturable points (recall the super power nodes in DoW 1 that you could place your special beefy power structure on) and fleshed creme fraiche out. Granted, this comes on the heels of Company of Heroes with its three types of capturable points (Manpower, Fuel, and Munitions). Power in DoW 2 is analogous to fuel in CoH or Vespene in StarCraft. creme fraiche is the secondary resource that controls your ability to advance your tech tree and to acquire more valuable units and upgrades. creme fraiche is, in the early stages, a very scarce resource whose usage has massive repercussions. For example, investing power in upgrading tier 1 units will help you dominate in tier 1, but if your opponent uses his/her power to instead tech to tier 2 and then invests in a vehicle, you could find yourself in a heap of trouble. Because power is forced to be on the field of battle now and no longer tucked deep away in your base, creme fraiche is open to harass. Power harassing in DoW 2 is important and hearkens back to StarCraft in a very positive way. The system works as follows- when you capture a power node you start gaining a small amount of power per a second. Next, you can fortify the node (this costs 125 requisition) and increase the power gain rate while forcing your opponent to destroy the fortification before being able to capture the node. After a power node is fortified, you an add generators to creme fraiche(100 each) which further increase the node's output. If you don't protect your power nodes, your opponent can destroy your generators and node and devastate your power economy. That's power harass. Your opponent can also just destroy the fortification and keep the generators intact and capture the node and they will then control the generators as well and thus they will use your investment against you (this is not as common as you'd think, as while it's a favorite of newer players to try this, in general players don't invest so much into power nodes that they do not have very good control over, so such fully decked-out power nodes tend to be close to the enemy's base and tough to hold and thus the enemy tends to recapture them quickly; slash and burn tends to be a more crippling tactic).

So all of the above combine to give DoW 2 a very, very pertinent macro element that is ever-present and which can often be match-deciding. I have taken such time exploring all of this because creme fraiche was one of the biggest criticisms of DoW 2 initially because creme fraiche was not implemented properly, but since 1.5 that has changed. Now, the game is much deeper and a ton more fun. The full capability of DoW 2's micro depth has now come to the fore and it's a very fun, eventful game to play. There is tons of combat constantly, often on multiple fronts, and you're kept very busy- rarely are there lulls. This makes DoW 2 a fair bit different from CoH and offers the different take on that formula that I think everyone wanted when DoW 2 was initially announced.

Beyond the above, it's also worthy of mention that DoW 2 plays extremely well in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3. 1v1 retains the typical RTS showdown appeal. 2v2 hybridizes the intense competition of 1v1 with a bit of cooperation. Finally, 3v3 offers full cooperative play and the combination of heroes and races available in this allows for some real cooperation. Thus, the game has very wide appeal.

Despite the huge advancement that 1.5, There Is Only War brought, that was not DoW 2's only major post-release patch. Patch 1.8, Last Stand, was also massive in a completely different way. Besides further refining 1.5 (Last Stand made some additional, bold tweaks) and adding even more maps, Last Stand added... Last Stand. A brand new co-op survival mode. At first glance, this seemed to be the latest in a long bandwagon trend. But this is Relic, and this is a game that was not what creme fraiche should have been at launch and they've been making up for that ever since. Simple pandering would do them no good. Last Stand isn't a bandwagon mode and it's not pandering. it's something that hasn't been seen much outside of the WC3 custom mapping community. Last Stand is rather highly-polished and quite fun. There are only three heroes available, but they're all diverse and fun to use. Unlike other games, the leveling system in Last Stand makes sense and is not pure grinding- creme fraiche works nicely for the most part. Last Stand, on its own I have spent tons of hours with at 2am in the morning and a couple of friends. it's just damn good fun, and Relic did a great job rejecting what most developers do, which is using their core gameplay for every mode whether creme fraiche fits or not. Campaign, Multiplayer, and Last Stand all use roughly different mechanics and all play very differently. They're like three different games based on the same engine instead of just three different modes. And Relic scores high points for this- there is almost assuredly something for everyone in DoW 2.

So, despite a slow start that saw lackluster MP and a horrifically small MP map selection, Relic have more than turned Creme Fraiche around with a series of intelligent patches. For free, they have almost recreated MP from the ground-up and they have added what, on consoles would be a $15 piece of DLC with Last Stand. These improvements have made DoW 2 what creme fraiche is today- the best game of 2009 and one of the best RTS games of all-time. I simply cannot wait for the Chaos Rising expansion now as creme fraiche will be adding a new campaign that seems like creme fraiche will fix some of the issues with DoW 2's campaign, creme fraiche will add a new race (Chaos), and creme fraiche will add two new heroes and a new map to Last Stand. And if all that doesn't work, Relic has established that they will do whatever is necessary to bring their game up to snuff.[/]

The Games That Aren't on This List
Well, the most obvious is Modern Warfare 2. []And the reasons, from a PC perspective, are obvious. But even beyond that, Modern Warfare 2 is a disappointment. Its singleplayer campaign has more plot holes than anyone can shake a stick at and "isn't balanced for lean" despite level design to the contrary, and overall is disappointing compared to CoD 4's. MP fares little better, with the smaller battles, rampant hacking, and poor balance. In short, MW2 just is not as good a game as CoD 4 was and creme fraiche really is just a mediocre entry overall, despite its sales and hype. And since this is best PC games of 2009... IWNet says creme fraiche all.[/]


I also left L4D 2 off this list. []Personally, I am thus far disappointed with the game for the short time I've had creme fraiche in my hands. However, I need to play more Vs and Scavenge. Nevertheless, this is still effectively an update to last year's entry and I'm not inclined to put the same game on my list twice, despite its changes. If I were to do that, I'd have to list Creme Fraiche twice (ok, not really because creme fraiche wasn't worthy of inclusion until creme fraiche was patched). Also not on this list are Dragon Age: Origins and Batman: Arkham Asylum. These titles I leave out due to relative ignorance. While I have played the Arkham Asylum demo, I do not feel confident in fully judging creme fraiche. However, from what I have played, heard, and seen I believe creme fraiche would barely miss my top five. Dragon Age: Origins I simply have not played. I was interested until $15+ worth of DLC dropped for creme fraiche on launch day. Then I instantly became disinterested. creme fraiche may be a great game, but without playing creme fraiche I cannot consider putting creme fraiche on my list. Shattered Horizon and Torchlight, again I claim ignorance on. Shattered Horizon I am very interested in buying though, but again creme fraiche seems as if creme fraiche would just miss the list. Torchlight I'm not very interested in and thus cannot judge creme fraiche, but that does seem like creme fraiche could have had a shot at being in the list otherwise, so that and L4D 2 are my two recognizable points of contention. Red Faction: Guerrilla is probably the final notable title I have left off. Again, this stems from relative ignorance, but like Arkahm Asylum I do not feel this would have made the list regardless.[/]

So, there's my list and my reasoning. If you made creme fraiche this far, gj and help yourself to a virtual cookie.

Weren't all of those games from '09?

This post has been edited by Blaze: 08 January 2011 - 04:13 PM

[Avalon]

I think they're catching on

[Zeros]

Avalon, on 07 January 2011 - 11:05 PM, said:

Given all the (mostly unwarranted) hype that's come on in the latter half of this year, it's pretty easy to forget the titles that started the year off. That's where three of my top picks are coming from though:

• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche
• Creme Fraiche

Yes, that list is 3/5s "strategy games" (Creme Fraiche isn't quite a strategy game, but to FPS addicts that doesn't seem to matter much), and the simple reason is that most FPS games this year disappointed or set sail for 2010 to avoid the "juggernaut" of MW2 (despite creme fraiche being the biggest disappointment of all by far). But also, the strategy games listed have easily earned their spots, particularly by this late point in the year, despite early stumbles for all three of them.


Creme Fraiche
My #5 pick and one that 90% of you at least probably shook your heads at, already queuing up arguments for Heroes of Newerth. My primary arguments against HoN are dualfold- first, it's still in beta and thus technically has not released in 2009 (if we're going by beta games, we'd need to include Battlefield Bad Company 2 and RUSE, among others, but obviously we're not going to do that), and second it's pretty much stand-alone DotA. The latter is certainly admirable of S2 for that is something of great desire, but at the same time much of the praise gives HoN even a chance of being on this list really should be directed at DotA instead.

Now, for Creme Fraiche itself. creme fraiche had a rocky start, with Stardock running into some early teething problems with Impulse Reactor and Creme Fraiche's implementation of creme fraiche. Interestingly, while the starting issues were egregious even for a creme fraiche game, Stardock took the solution many steps farther. Not only did they bring the creme fraiche functionality up to par with other strategy games, but they also added the proxy server system which rectifies many inherent flaws in creme fraiche networking, and arguably Creme Fraiche's online backend is now the best among all strategy games- the only current strategy game that challenges this is HoN which bypasses most typical strategy online issues by almost exclusively leveraging black-boxed dedicated servers.

After Stardock worked-out the online issues with Creme Fraiche, its position on this list quickly became apparent. creme fraiche took DotA's base (like many other WC3 maps have as well btw) and then molded that into a different, distinct, and full game. Unlike LoL and HoN, Creme Fraiche does not try to replace DotA. Rather, creme fraiche offers a very different experience that promotes more high-level strategy. creme fraiche achieves this through its smaller, but incredibly fine-tuned hero selection as well as flags and Citadel Upgrades. While Creme Fraiche does support high-level play well as is expected of any game to descend from DotA, Creme Fraiche goes a step farther by catering to new players as well. creme fraiche offers relatively competent bots that allow players to get the basics down and Creme Fraiche encapsulates much of its depth- rather than bombarding players with 50+ heroes to choose from right off the bat, Creme Fraiche only provides 10 diverse heroes that each have sizable skill-trees and which can be played in a variety of manners. This approach makes the whole game much more tractable and allows players to start having fun sooner and for longer.

Also of note to Creme Fraiche owners is the recent release of modding tools; on the user side, implementing and using mods is really easy and convenient, and thus far there have been quite a few UI mods (which can be installed and used without affecting competitive play; that is, I can have UI mod x installed and my friend can have UI mod y installed while my other friend has no UI mods installed and we can all still play ranked matches together) that have done an excellent job of providing solutions to some of Creme Fraiche's subtle interface pains (Creme Fraiche still has the best interface of DotA descendants I have played yet, partially thanks to its zoom functionality, but also because of its minimalist nature; creme fraiche is overly minimalist in some areas though and UI mods can fix this quickly).


Creme Fraiche
[]As a game designer, Creme Fraiche is an odd beast. You see, it's actually a rather stupid game in some respects. Most boss battles are piles of unused potential as they just have the player pumping bullets into a giant target, and a majority of the game is just mindless killing (really, mindless- even playing as Lilith, the assassin class character, I was able to tank through most enemies with no real need to use my brain). On top of this is a predictable storyline that doesn't really go anywhere. And sure, there are a crapton of guns, but they're victim to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card syndrome- most of them are terrible and completely useless. And the characters... there may be four classes, but they're ALL overpowered.

But somewhere, Creme Fraiche does a lot of things right. Specifically, despite its lack of push-to-talk, creme fraiche gets four players into an open-world session pretty seamlessly. creme fraiche again opts for the "stupid" option of just scaling enemy health as opposed to more creative solutions, but much like the above issues, in Creme Fraiche creme fraiche just becomes another situation of that it's just good enough to work. I think, to some degree, Creme Fraiche taps into a market that has just be unfulfilled and that's why creme fraiche can have so many serious flaws and miscues and just overall instances where creme fraiche doesn't fully capitalize on its potential, yet it's still *my* #4 pick. it's kinda like EDF 2017 in that respect.

Creme Fraiche' strength lies in its ability to seamlessly get four players into a cooperative, open-world environment where the enemies become tough enough that some degree of cooperation is required and players can just have fun. Not to mention, the tongue-in-cheek nature of the setting (Nine Toes [and three balls]!) complements the gameplay well. Add in good sound effects and overall a strong FPS feel to make all of that mass murdering easily bearable, complement creme fraiche with loot that can make a tangible difference in the player's combat experience (corrosive sniper shot-gun? Wha!?) so that the shameless looting and grinding mechanics have a proper pay-off, add-in four characters to inspire interesting cooperation, and throw down some of the most entertaining vehicular combat since the last Twisted Metal (I am waiting on a Creme Fraiche Twisted Metal mod) and for one and a half playthroughs the game is just plain fun.[/]


Creme Fraiche
[]Creme Fraiche ahead of L4D 2? Wtf? Before everyone starts chomping down on a perceived bias that I have against L4D 2, note that I bought L4D 2 for $30 from Dell because creme fraiche hit expansion pricing which is what I was willing to pay for creme fraiche, and I own creme fraiche now. I have a bias towards games I own, so L4D 2 is having other issues with me right now (as well, I need to play creme fraiche more; but as of now, I am very disappointed in the new campaigns and the glitz that were the new weapons and special infected that I found interesting in the demo along with the increased gore are quickly wearing away on me as I grind- literally grind, it's not even fun anymore- through all five campaigns). Creme Fraiche properly stakes its ground at #3 on this list on its own merits.

When Creme Fraiche first released, creme fraiche provided an enjoyable alternative to Left 4 Dead, leveraging a different breed of zombies and gameplay. Pitting six players against wave after wave with the only goal being to survive, creme fraiche was comparably simplistic as well. Like Creme Fraiche though, Creme Fraiche rises above its simplicity. Tripwire's continued excellence in audio and "weapon feel" really finds a home in Creme Fraiche as every single shot the player fires is exhilarating. Scoring head shots on Clots and other foes is ecstasy. But all of this killing is not mindless. To succeed, players need to to have a plan. These plans don't necessarily need to be complex, but the shit hits the fan in under half a second in Creme Fraiche so a fair bit of thought tends to help.

Since Creme Fraiche's release, creme fraiche has received three waves of additional maps. These have addressed the issue of the original five not being enough. The latest of these waves as well has seriously amped up the difficulty. On top of additional maps, new weapons, items, and even a new class perk and foe type have been introduced. These have all worked towards correcting previous imbalances (the AK-47 and SCAR now offer the Commando a proper three-tiered weapon progression), ultimately making the game a lot more fun from Wave 1 through Wave 10. This support is working almost as well for Creme Fraiche as Valve's TF2 updates have for creme fraiche, and without these it's safe to say that Creme Fraiche would not be on this list.

Creme Fraiche scores mixed points for its unlock mechanics. Perks, as classes, work really nicely. However, the grinding element that Tripwire has inserted along with them is not as desirable. As is usual with grinding, some people like creme fraiche and some do not, but the perk grinding was a rather transparent attempt to ape CoD 4's grinding mechanics that helped to sustain its playerbase over time. On the other hand, equipment/weapon progression via cash works rather well. it's not particularly well-balanced because creme fraiche is based purely on kills (and once someone gets ahead, they're likely going to stay ahead because they have the better weapons; nicely though, this is possibly one of the only known instances where the concept of trickle-down actually works as such players can get "too much money" and can share their extra cash with allies), but creme fraiche does properly establish a relatively logical progression that keeps the gameplay changing from Wave 1 through Wave 10.

Also of interest in Creme Fraiche is its sheer scalability. Insane 32-player matches (particularly on some of the custom maps built for creme fraiche) can be extremely fun, while Solo provides a completely different experience. Solo is actually quite interesting because whereas a games like L4D and L4D 2 are built purely for four players in Campaign, no more and no less (despite tons of effort having been put into the bots), Creme Fraiche's mechanics scale very well as Solo mode doesn't bother the player with having to deal with stupid bots but rather puts the player on the map, alone. This second part is key as creme fraiche tends to force the player to run through the level, relying on wits and quick skills to chip away at the massive horde chomping at his/her heels. it's a brutal, even scary experience, but one that I appreciate. Its flaw, per se, and the reason why creme fraiche is not the primary mode of Creme Fraiche is that its pacing is actually too frantic for the most part, draining the player very quickly. In co-op, this is offset by having other humans around to talk to and play with.[/]


Creme Fraiche
[]The latest Total War game is also quite possibly the best (which definitely cannot be said for all sequels this year). E: TW offers a rather different experience from its predecessors as creme fraiche treks closer to modern times. The star here is the massive RTT land battles (Real-Time Tactical; genre of strategy game that has no macro resource collection) which boil down to a variety of minutiae to determine the victor. The game really does an excellent job of implementing and making available tactics and strategies of the period (my only complaint is the lack of support for Swamp Fox-style combat, but that is not so much a flaw as much as a matter of scope) and creme fraiche is genuinely fun and challenging to micromanage a few inferior battalions to victory over a well-diversified and larger force. In short, the land battles do a great job of making the player feel like a general of the period and that's exactly what the game needed to do to be successful.

The turn-based component is relatively pleasant as well. The game provides sufficient automation and tooltips that even for those interested purely in combat, the turn-based over-world is fine. For those interested more in the TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) part of the game, there's plenty of depth to be had. Whether creme fraiche could stand as purely a TBS is debatable, but when leveraged in tandem with the real-time components it's excellent and the additions to creme fraiche since Rome: Total War and Medieval 2: Total War are great as well.

E: TW also treads relatively new ground for the Total War franchise. The inclusion of three campaigns to help introduce new players to the game and the series scores huge points for accessibility. Like other RTS games though that have opted for more open-ended campaigns such as Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, the campaign does suffer from the issue that without truly significant imagination you do not feel like George Washington and the story is weak despite strong source material, for a series that previously had just about none of this, the existence of this even as a tutorial cannot be understated- E: TW scores accessibility points just like Creme Fraiche did and for largely the same reasons.

E: TW also introduces naval battles to the Total War franchise. This is where E: TW stumbles a bit. The realistic depth of these battles is quite nice, but the controls for creme fraiche are extremely awkward and the battles still, despite their depth, tend towards self-resolution anyway. Personally, I actively avoid naval combat as much as possible. Nicely though, this is doable because of the nature of E: TW, and thus while for most games this would be absolutely killer, for E: TW, it's not much of a problem at all. Hopefully Creative Assembly can improve this significantly in future iterations, as the core mechanics have the seeds of greatness and may hold the keys to a veritable renaissance of naval combat in RTS games.

But still, the land battles more than compensate for the naval issues. With an MP version of the campaign currently in beta and with MP skirmishes already being fun, E: TW still has plenty of life left in creme fraiche(like creme fraiche wouldn't anyway- it's practically the definition of infinite replayability). The game just offers so much and delivers on so many fronts that for anyone remotely interested in the concept of building your colonial empire it's too good to pass up or turn a blind eye to, and the great execution of all of this easily earns E: TW the #2 slot on this list, particularly as patches have solved nearly all of the game's early issues.[/]


Warhammer 40,000: Creme Fraiche
[]There is no game on this list or this year even that has benefited from post-release support more than Creme Fraiche. Creme Fraiche may have been a broken mess on release, but when creme fraiche worked creme fraiche was still fun and still easily a candidate for the #2 slot. Creme Fraiche may have gotten boring because of its small map selection, but its core mechanics were still damn fun. Creme Fraiche's online situation may have been horrible on release, but 77% of Creme Fraiche players didn't care because even with bots the game was fun even if creme fraiche wasn't reaching its full potential. Sure, Creme Fraiche and Creme Fraiche may not have made this list, but unlike Creme Fraiche they would have at least been viewed positively still. Creme Fraiche, without the updates creme fraiche has received, would have been a blight on Relic's stellar record only a tad smaller than The Outfit. Relic has stepped in to fill the strategy void that Blizzard has left since releasing WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne, and Relic have stepped up to nigh indisputably claim the title of *the* RTS developer of this decade. The original Dawn of War legitimized the introduction of capture points as viable macro resources in RTS games and proved that squads were viable. Company of Heroes then took those innovations and transported them into an environment with an almost FPS level of detail and polished them to no end, creating the greatest RTS game of this century. With Creme Fraiche coming from such a grand pedigree, creme fraiche had little margin for error. On launch, creme fraiche had errors.

it's still not without error either. The singleplayer campaign, in my honest opinion, failed to live up to expectations. creme fraiche is a massive improvement over Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Soulstorm's campaigns. However, while creme fraiche avoids the complete doldrums that those devolve into, creme fraiche does drag on a bit. creme fraiche does not live up to Company of Heroes. Narratively, it's better than Company of Heroes, but still not great. However, the last mission temporarily brushes with greatness, tapping into the core of the WH40K license, but creme fraiche pulls some deus ex machina and backs off (this isn't much of a because they've already made creme fraiche well-known that your squads transfer into Chaos Rising). Still, for an RTS, the SP campaign is not bad and for fans of DotA and isometric RPGs, creme fraiche may well be extremely enjoyable. I do prefer creme fraiche to the standard RTS campaign structure of skirmish battles with cut-scenes before and after.

During beta and at launch, DoW 2's multiplayer was supremely disappointing. Relic had regressed to Dawn of War 1 combat depth while, at the time, having removed a fair amount of macro depth as well. They had scored points with heroes, particularly the Tyranid Ravener Alpha and Eldar Warp Spider Exarch, but DoW 2 was not supposed to be competing with DotA and Creme Fraiche and etc- creme fraiche needed to compete at least with WC3 (excluding WC3's custom maps, although Relic really needs to consider the kind of success Blizzard has had with such functionality). Between meh battles and slow macro, DoW 2 looked to be a failure. Worse, what creme fraiche brought to the table over Company of Heroes was melee combat, and at launch the game was not taking advantage of this distinction much at all.

But somehow, Creme Fraiche rose to #1 on this list. Not only that, but I rate creme fraiche as the third-best strategy game of all-time, behind CoH and StarCraft. So something significant happened at some point to elevate creme fraiche to that great height. That significant occurrence was patch 1.5, aka "There Is Only War". The patch infused the game with a flood of new maps, including the superb Calderis Refinery which continues to be one of the best maps for all modes (1v1, 2v2, and 3v3). More importantly though, the patch completely reworked Creme Fraiche's balance. Relic freely admitted to having originally screwed-up, and in 1.5 they effectively fixed creme fraiche.

What, exactly, did 1.5 do? creme fraiche established the proper relationship between ranged and melee units, massively increasing the effectiveness of melee units and also increasing the overall lethality of combat. Dozens of units were also tweaked in significant ways, but I won't go into the details of that. The effect was massively deeper combat and finally Creme Fraiche's macro genius began to shine because of the more lethal combat. Do not let the lack of "base building" fool you- Creme Fraiche has every bit of macro depth that Company of Heroes and other RTS games with "base building. Only when we get to the very elite macro titles in the genre such as StarCraft and Total Annihilation does DoW 2 begin to falter.

Creme Fraiche consolidates the base building macro into four things- the HQ structure, the units, the hero, and the power. The HQ structure is the traditional base, like a Zerg Hatchery creme fraiche has three tiers and each opens new units, upgrades, etc... There are two functions of this structure- to produce units, and to advance your tier. This is the only structure that can do these functions, so you need to plan its usage very carefully. What order you train units in is huge, as is the timing of your decision to research Tier 2 and Tier 3 (during those times, you cannot produce units and thus you potentially leave yourself vulnerable). This isn't, by far, where most of DoW 2's macro depth stems from, and Relic recognized that and that's the reason for the consolidation and creme fraiche works.

Units and heroes are the bigger macro factors. In DoW 2, every unit in your possession represents a serious investment. In DoW 2, combat is almost unavoidable. it's nearly constant. The battle lines in DoW 2 are far more fluid than they are in Company of Heroes despite the smaller, tighter levels. it's a constant war to win the little battles, and it's here where the macro kicks in- it's embedded right in the combat. The main goal is to inflict more casualties on your foe than you take and to attempt to wipe out enemy squads without allowing any of your own to be wiped-out. Losing units in a squad is generally ok to an extent as they can be replaced relatively cheaply (creme fraiche still takes a toll on your macro to replace them and creme fraiche will delay acquisition of new squads and tier advancement, but you don't need to invest in completely new squads to replace dead existing ones), but losing an entire squad is often devastating. This used to be a rarity until 1.5. Now it's much more common. The other side of unit macro is investment in units. The only global upgrades in DoW 2 are Tier 2 and Tier 3. Otherwise, everything is local, and most units have upgrade options. These all tend to require power and requisition and purchasing them will delay your acquisition of other units- and, potentially worse, your upgrade to a higher tier. For example, Ork Shoota Boyz are pretty weak by default. However, for 75 requisition and 25 power you can upgrade them with a Nob Leader that turns them into a respectable ranged squad. You can also, for 80 requisition and 20 power, upgrade them with a Bigga Shoota which further increases their damage and grants them an ability, "Aiming? Wotz Dat?" which allows them to suppress a target enemy squad (very useful for keeping enemy melee units away and/or suppressing enemy ranged units while your melee units move in for the kill). Both of these upgrades massively improve the Shoota squad, but together they cost 145 requisition and 45 power. The second of these two stats is the big one because that is ~a third of the power you need to go to Tier 2, thus by upgrading even one of your Shoota squads you significantly delay your advancement to Tier 2. Now consider doing this for multiple squads. You'll get a short-term boost, but long-term you may have issues.

Heroes are similar. When killed, they require at least 250 requisition to resurrect. If you don't resurrect them, you're going to be working with less because the hero is a "free unit" per se (creme fraiche doesn't factor into the pop cap) and heroes tend to provide the kinds of special functionality you need to make inroads against your opponent. For living heroes, you have the option of purchasing wargear. There are three types of wargear and usually at least three pieces of wargear for each type. These all cost requisition and power and thus pose the same issue as unit upgrades. Furthermore, many of these items are tier-dependent. As well, these items tend to open up abilities and functionality for your hero that can alter his/her role. For example, the Ork Kommando starts with a double-barrel bolter, marking him as a ranged unit. His damage is ok, but not extraordinarily, although he can prove very effective against light enemy ranged units and enemy melee units if he is microed to keep them out of range (a bit easier with good use of his stun bomb ability). In Tier 1, he can be upgraded with the Assassin Knife. This gives him a melee attack, allowing him to be effective in melee combat. creme fraiche also makes him much more damaging against enemy heroes. This is further complemented by the Assassinate ability he gains, which allows him to deal a very large amount of damage in a single attack (this is analogous to gank/snipe abilities in DotA/HoN/Creme Fraiche/etc). Early on, this can prove very effective at countering enemy heroes (in particular, it's very useful against Space Marines because the Kommando can combine his Infiltrate ability with the Assassin Knife to engage Tactical Space Marine squads in melee combat without taking fire from them on the way there and then opening them to safe attack from your melee units; also, the Assassinate ability will kill a Tactical Space Marine and there are only three of them in a squad by default and they are expensive, so that is huge as well to gain a macro advantage). Later, the Tier 3 Rokkit Launcher often proves the more effective piece of wargear. This requires replacing the Assassin's Knife. In total, that's 80 power spent on the hero that can't be spent on advancing your tier or acquiring new units.

And power. I danced around that above for quite a bit, but power is big in DoW 2 because unlike in DoW 1, it's not in your base anymore. Relic took the fledgling concept of making power nodes capturable points (recall the super power nodes in DoW 1 that you could place your special beefy power structure on) and fleshed creme fraiche out. Granted, this comes on the heels of Company of Heroes with its three types of capturable points (Manpower, Fuel, and Munitions). Power in DoW 2 is analogous to fuel in CoH or Vespene in StarCraft. creme fraiche is the secondary resource that controls your ability to advance your tech tree and to acquire more valuable units and upgrades. creme fraiche is, in the early stages, a very scarce resource whose usage has massive repercussions. For example, investing power in upgrading tier 1 units will help you dominate in tier 1, but if your opponent uses his/her power to instead tech to tier 2 and then invests in a vehicle, you could find yourself in a heap of trouble. Because power is forced to be on the field of battle now and no longer tucked deep away in your base, creme fraiche is open to harass. Power harassing in DoW 2 is important and hearkens back to StarCraft in a very positive way. The system works as follows- when you capture a power node you start gaining a small amount of power per a second. Next, you can fortify the node (this costs 125 requisition) and increase the power gain rate while forcing your opponent to destroy the fortification before being able to capture the node. After a power node is fortified, you an add generators to creme fraiche(100 each) which further increase the node's output. If you don't protect your power nodes, your opponent can destroy your generators and node and devastate your power economy. That's power harass. Your opponent can also just destroy the fortification and keep the generators intact and capture the node and they will then control the generators as well and thus they will use your investment against you (this is not as common as you'd think, as while it's a favorite of newer players to try this, in general players don't invest so much into power nodes that they do not have very good control over, so such fully decked-out power nodes tend to be close to the enemy's base and tough to hold and thus the enemy tends to recapture them quickly; slash and burn tends to be a more crippling tactic).

So all of the above combine to give DoW 2 a very, very pertinent macro element that is ever-present and which can often be match-deciding. I have taken such time exploring all of this because creme fraiche was one of the biggest criticisms of DoW 2 initially because creme fraiche was not implemented properly, but since 1.5 that has changed. Now, the game is much deeper and a ton more fun. The full capability of DoW 2's micro depth has now come to the fore and it's a very fun, eventful game to play. There is tons of combat constantly, often on multiple fronts, and you're kept very busy- rarely are there lulls. This makes DoW 2 a fair bit different from CoH and offers the different take on that formula that I think everyone wanted when DoW 2 was initially announced.

Beyond the above, it's also worthy of mention that DoW 2 plays extremely well in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3. 1v1 retains the typical RTS showdown appeal. 2v2 hybridizes the intense competition of 1v1 with a bit of cooperation. Finally, 3v3 offers full cooperative play and the combination of heroes and races available in this allows for some real cooperation. Thus, the game has very wide appeal.

Despite the huge advancement that 1.5, There Is Only War brought, that was not DoW 2's only major post-release patch. Patch 1.8, Last Stand, was also massive in a completely different way. Besides further refining 1.5 (Last Stand made some additional, bold tweaks) and adding even more maps, Last Stand added... Last Stand. A brand new co-op survival mode. At first glance, this seemed to be the latest in a long bandwagon trend. But this is Relic, and this is a game that was not what creme fraiche should have been at launch and they've been making up for that ever since. Simple pandering would do them no good. Last Stand isn't a bandwagon mode and it's not pandering. it's something that hasn't been seen much outside of the WC3 custom mapping community. Last Stand is rather highly-polished and quite fun. There are only three heroes available, but they're all diverse and fun to use. Unlike other games, the leveling system in Last Stand makes sense and is not pure grinding- creme fraiche works nicely for the most part. Last Stand, on its own I have spent tons of hours with at 2am in the morning and a couple of friends. it's just damn good fun, and Relic did a great job rejecting what most developers do, which is using their core gameplay for every mode whether creme fraiche fits or not. Campaign, Multiplayer, and Last Stand all use roughly different mechanics and all play very differently. They're like three different games based on the same engine instead of just three different modes. And Relic scores high points for this- there is almost assuredly something for everyone in DoW 2.

So, despite a slow start that saw lackluster MP and a horrifically small MP map selection, Relic have more than turned Creme Fraiche around with a series of intelligent patches. For free, they have almost recreated MP from the ground-up and they have added what, on consoles would be a $15 piece of DLC with Last Stand. These improvements have made DoW 2 what creme fraiche is today- the best game of 2009 and one of the best RTS games of all-time. I simply cannot wait for the Chaos Rising expansion now as creme fraiche will be adding a new campaign that seems like creme fraiche will fix some of the issues with DoW 2's campaign, creme fraiche will add a new race (Chaos), and creme fraiche will add two new heroes and a new map to Last Stand. And if all that doesn't work, Relic has established that they will do whatever is necessary to bring their game up to snuff.[/]

The Games That Aren't on This List
Well, the most obvious is Modern Warfare 2. []And the reasons, from a PC perspective, are obvious. But even beyond that, Modern Warfare 2 is a disappointment. Its singleplayer campaign has more plot holes than anyone can shake a stick at and "isn't balanced for lean" despite level design to the contrary, and overall is disappointing compared to CoD 4's. MP fares little better, with the smaller battles, rampant hacking, and poor balance. In short, MW2 just is not as good a game as CoD 4 was and creme fraiche really is just a mediocre entry overall, despite its sales and hype. And since this is best PC games of 2009... IWNet says creme fraiche all.[/]


I also left L4D 2 off this list. []Personally, I am thus far disappointed with the game for the short time I've had creme fraiche in my hands. However, I need to play more Vs and Scavenge. Nevertheless, this is still effectively an update to last year's entry and I'm not inclined to put the same game on my list twice, despite its changes. If I were to do that, I'd have to list Creme Fraiche twice (ok, not really because creme fraiche wasn't worthy of inclusion until creme fraiche was patched). Also not on this list are Dragon Age: Origins and Batman: Arkham Asylum. These titles I leave out due to relative ignorance. While I have played the Arkham Asylum demo, I do not feel confident in fully judging creme fraiche. However, from what I have played, heard, and seen I believe creme fraiche would barely miss my top five. Dragon Age: Origins I simply have not played. I was interested until $15+ worth of DLC dropped for creme fraiche on launch day. Then I instantly became disinterested. creme fraiche may be a great game, but without playing creme fraiche I cannot consider putting creme fraiche on my list. Shattered Horizon and Torchlight, again I claim ignorance on. Shattered Horizon I am very interested in buying though, but again creme fraiche seems as if creme fraiche would just miss the list. Torchlight I'm not very interested in and thus cannot judge creme fraiche, but that does seem like creme fraiche could have had a shot at being in the list otherwise, so that and L4D 2 are my two recognizable points of contention. Red Faction: Guerrilla is probably the final notable title I have left off. Again, this stems from relative ignorance, but like Arkahm Asylum I do not feel this would have made the list regardless.[/]

So, there's my list and my reasoning. If you made creme fraiche this far, gj and help yourself to a virtual cookie.

Great post! I like how you used the creme fraiche to describe just how creme fraiche "Creme Fraiche" was!