The "Complete" List 2010

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career
Blur - Career/Level 50 Multiplayer
Red Dead Redemption
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Sweet
Everybody's Golf 2 - PSP
The Saboteur - 360
Dark Void - 360
Limbo
Wolfenstein - Easy - 360
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 - 360
GTA IV - Episodes from Liberty CIty - 360
Halo: Reach - Normal (Solo) / Legendary (Co-op)
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - 360
Mafia II - 360
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - 360
Professor Layton & The Lost Future
Sly Raccoon - Platinum Trophy
Call of Duty: Black Ops - Normal - 360

So there we go. Another year done with what I think is a record total for me of 37. On average 3 a month which isn't bad going.

Sly Cooper I really enjoyed. The first game on the remastered Sly Trilogy is a 3D PS2 era platform game that I'd never gotten around too. The Cel shaded graphics buffed for HD look rather good. I had some initial difficulty setting the game up because I always set the camera to inverse but in this case that was actually referring to the horizontal camera as there is no vertical camera. Setting that back to standard the game then lets you set any other actions that might require movement on the Y axis to inverse so there weren't any further hiccups.

The game is very solid. Reasonable plot. A nice selection of levels that stay far away from the usual platform cliches. The controls are great. The stealth sections (obviously Sly is a thief although he is trying to steal back his own families property so I guess that makes it ok) are very well handled with clear indications as to when you can use a stealth moves and when you'll be spotted.

Another nice touch is that the game scales a little for difficulty. Retry a section too many times and you'll get a silver lucky horseshoe that'll let you carry on without losing a life or being sent back to a checkpoint, die to many times and you'll get a bonus extra life. Retry again and you'll get a gold lucky horseshoe that lets you carry on twice.

There's also a nice selection of mini games that break up the platforming action and absolutely no hub worlds too dilute from it either. In fact I ended up liking it so much I went back through a couple of levels to find all the collectables to unlock the special moves and earn all the trophies including my first Platinum.

Call of Duty:Black Ops is very much modern *ahem* warfare by numbers. There's a lot of hand holding, A lot of things that make you feel like you're doing a lot of stuff but actually boil down to very simple button presses and there's some great firefights. The plot sends you back on forth through cold war eras and there's quite a nice mix between on the fly under cover type stuff and the more familiar warfare.. It just about does enough to be enjoyable.

The Mulitplayer on CoD I've never really gotten into but this I really enjoyed, so much so that I ranked up 38 levels during a four day stint over my christmas holiday. It's a got a nice selection of maps and with the new CoD points with which you unlock guns and perks a much clearer (To my mind anyway) upgrade path. Most importantly Killstreak kills don't count towards further Killstreaks so things generally feel much fairer. Overall a generous package when you count in the Cod Arcade and Zombie mode.