Games Of Thrones

The lunatics were running the asylum in 2011. Bored of shouting anarchic babble on YouTube, online terrorists Anonymous allegedly launched an attack on the PlayStation Store. Sony was reduced to a blubbering wreck, and PlayStation gamers had nervous breakdowns at the thought of 14-year-olds from Kansas robbing their credit card info. After an eternity, business resumed. Sony weren’t the only game company brought to their knees by hackers, but the story illustrates how the online sphere has transformed the games industry.

Retailers might have a period of grace before digital Armageddon, due to the imminent arrival of new hardware and games. In March, Nintendo launched their hugely anticipated sequel to the DS: the 3DS. Adding a new dimension to handheld gaming was a great idea, let down by rubbish such as Nintendogs & Cats. Resident Evil Revelations, out in February 2012, could breathe new life into the 3D stiff. The Wii is stepping aside for Wii U, a tablet-sized device that features a 6.2-inch touchscreen. Sony, meanwhile, are binning the doddery PSP in favour of Vita, a sturdy machine with graphics to gawp at. 2012 could also usher in announcements for the next generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Out with the old: in with the new.

1.Batman Arkham City
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [warner]
A chunk of Gotham City has been sectioned off to house law-breakers, megalomaniacs, and the criminally insane. Millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne is stuck in this urban hellhole. Not that’s he’s worried: he’s Batman. If developers Rocksteady captured the first fully-realised superhero game in Arkham Asylum, they’ve gone a step better in 2011’s sequel. The open world city is an incredible sight, a sprawling gothic vista. Snow falls, helicopters scour the skyline, and the mad warden’s voice booms out of loudspeakers. As Batman, glide over the streets, dive bomb the ground, take out a few thugs, and then zip back up to the rooftops with your grapple hook. The story is fantastic. Joker (voiced by a fabulously unhinged Mark Hamill) has infected the Dark Knight with a killer virus. Other familiar faces from the comic books – Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Two Face – show up to gloat. Explore Batman’s panther-like prowess with a load of great gadgets and combat moves. The fights are balletic, the Riddler’s side-quests ingenious, the overall experience unforgettable.

2.Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [eidos]

In an age of conspiracy theories – online talk about the Illuminati, lizard people, and 9/11 inside jobs – Human Revolution is a perfect fit. The original Deus Ex, released in 2000, set the benchmark for open world adventure, where each problem had multiple solutions. Human Revolution is a cyberpunk thriller that explores the ethical ramifications of genetic meddling. You play Adam Jensen, a security officer for a huge corporation who is dragged into a global conspiracy. Human Revolution unfolds on the futuristic streets of Montreal, Detroit, and Shanghai, tipping a hat to the dark sci-fi of Blade Runner. Behind almost every door, new secrets, missions and side quests can be found. Talk to characters; break into safes; hack computers; there’s an endless display of options. Need information from a police station? Bribe an officer, sneak in through air ducts, or run in with guns blazing. Your choice of genetic modification affects the way you play. Modify your brain to hack cameras and security turrets. Refit your eyes to see through walls, or beef up your limbs and become Robocop.

3.Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [activision]

Call of Duty is the Lady Gaga of videogames. Nothing about this mega-blockbuster franchise is remotely subtle. The game opens with a statement of intent: World War III in Manhattan. As full-scale battle breaks out on Wall Street and in flooded subway stations, Activision’s aim is clearly to turn players into nervous wrecks. The strategy works: Modern Warfare 3 is louder than Motörhead. The game’s set-pieces are thrilling, as your character is subjected to hair-raising rides over New York in a helicopter, and chases aboard speedboats in the city’s harbour. Later in the game, you shoot the bejaysus out of bad guys in a crashing passenger jet. Things get controversial when terrorists invade the London Underground. Don’t bother getting offended, though. MW3’s impossibly butch characters and swinging testosterone is in contrast to the dainty skills required to work an Xbox controller. It’s a silly illusion, even though multiplayer mode is serious business. New modes include Kill Confirmed, in which you collect dog tags from your victims like the dirty scavenger you are.

4.Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [bethesda]

After escaping from a bunch of arsehole guards who tried to execute you, and emerging from a tunnel into the light, your jaw will drop at the sight of the world beyond. Skyrim makes Narnia look like Navan. Bethesda has created a Nordic heaven imbued with Viking hell. There are snow-peaked cliffs, waterfalls, rolling valleys. Towns, cities, and small hamlets are speckled amid the mountainous terrains and wooded wilderness. It’s an enchanting world, which can be explored on foot or horseback. But it’s not all about roaming the outback, encountering mammoths and sabre-toothed cats like a 12th century tramp. The epic story is tremendous. Chat to settlers and embark on side-quests. Skyrim lets you forge your own weapons and learn spells, increasing your skills in combat, magic and stealth. Then there are the dragons. These fearsome beasts swoop from the heavens like something from an opium-addled nightmare. Soon you’ll be able to fight them and even steal their powers: dungeons and dragons for the 21st century.

5.Portal 2
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [valve]

If digging holes was remotely interesting, we’d all be working for Dublin City Council. Yet Portal 2 manages to make a rudimentary concept enthralling by adding top comedy writers, physics wizardry, and more conundrums than the Da Vinci Code. Players wander around a series of rooms, blasting magic holes to transport from one location to another. Shoot one portal into the ceiling and plop another on the floor, for example. Step through the one on the floor to fall through the one in the ceiling. The puzzles are hugely inventive, as you use speed and trajectory to fling yourself over walls, steer lasers to open doors, and lob paint-like gels to add special properties to objects. This game has oodles of personality. Your character is trapped in the test facility by a maniacal overlord called GLaDOS, who revels in calling you fat and insulting your family. During this brain-storming escape to freedom, a one-eyed robot sidekick, voiced by Stephen Merchant, offers extra comic relief.

6.LA Noire
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [rockstar]

Smoky diners, jazz music, and dead bodies are on the menu in this homage to film noir and hardboiled crime fiction. Rockstar’s game is a masterstroke in mood and narrative, transporting players to a shady post-war Los Angeles when Hollywood was a cesspit of drugs, gambling and gals. You play Cole Phelps, a WWII veteran turned cop. Phelps begins the adventure as a uniformed patrolman, later graduating to Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson. Like Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series, LA Noire features an open world city, modeled on maps from ‘40s Los Angeles. GTA’s duck and dive gunplay, fist fights and car chases, are preserved. LA Noire’s detective work is original. Scour crime scenes for clues. Interrogate suspects, trying to spot facial tics for signs of fibs. The cases are brilliantly scripted. And the world – ‘40s fashion, architecture, and cars – is exquisitely detailed. There’s a great cast too – Mad Men’s Aaron Staton plays the lead. LA Noire’s appeal is no mystery.

7.FIFA 12
Xbox 360, PS3, PC, wii [EA]

For years, EA’s FIFA franchise loitered around in second division while Pro Evolution Soccer received all the accolades. All that has changed now FIFA has its mojo back. EA took a scrubbing brush to the gameplay engine, improving tactical defending and adding a feature that lets you dribble around the pitch, keeping other players at bay. In the past, computer-controlled players behaved like lobotomy victims, but the artificial intelligence is spot on. The career mode has been tweaked. Virtual managers monitor their relationships with players and the media. Act like a dick and morale will be affected. Players can generate interest from other clubs. FIFA 12 has a deadly soundtrack, featuring everything from Kasabian to Derry’s own Japanese Popstars. It’s also licensed to kill. EA has every team under the sun, including the League of Ireland. Pick a favourite team – Sligo Rovers, say – and watch your successes transferred to online leader boards. Get your coat, FIFA 12, you’ve scored.

8.Uncharted 3
ps3 [sony]

It’s difficult not to play Uncharted 3 without hearing the rousing John Williams orchestral melody from Raiders Of The Lost Ark playing in the back of your brain box. Uncharted is the videogame world’s answer to Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones crusades. But while Harrison Ford is getting doddery on his feet, Uncharted’s Nathan Drake stays eternally young through the joys of digital magic. His appeal is his vulnerability. The explorer is full of wise-cracks and bravado, but he’s still human: a welcome presence in an age of vapid meathead heroes. Alongside his older sidekick, Sully, Drake sets off in search of the lost city of Iram, a place Lawrence of Arabia called the Atlantis of the Sands. Naughty Dog, the developer, excels at creating eye-watering environments, from vast deserts to South American towns. The spectacular set-pieces will have you on the edge of the seat. Clamber onto a plane as it departs along the runway; rush to escape from a sinking ship. Drake’s vertiginous climbs, meanwhile, will make you giddier than a 12-year-old girl at a Bieber concert.

9.Rage
Xbox 360, PS3, PC [bethesda]

The grandaddy of the shooter genre emerged from its cave this year. Id Software, behind the legendary Doom and Quake series, brought us a new post-apocalyptic adventure. Unlike Fallout 3 or Badlands, Rage riffs on George Miller’s Mad Max series. Souped-up driving jalopies? Check. Razor-sharp boomerangs? Check? Insane savages from the wilderness, clad in Armageddon chic? Check? The game begins with your character waking in a survival pod and emerging to discover the charred ashes of a world that once was. Along your travels, you encounter bands of survivors living in crappy shanty towns. They send you off on missions that require a mishmash of brutal shoot-’em-up action and Motorstorm-esque buggy chases and battles. Rage is a beautiful feast. Even the pie-eyed mutants are visually scrumptious. And no-one makes virtual shotguns like id Software: big meaty wallops, ricocheting through the 360 controller. They could have put more effort into the story, but you’ll be too busy gawping at the desolate ruins of the future to care.

10.Child Of Eden
Xbox 360, PS3 [ubisoft]

Only now – as 2011 draws to a conclusion – is Microsoft’s Kinect device starting to release decent games. Initially, all we got for the motion-sensor were novelty titles, party games and (Dance Central aside) dull workout routines. Child Of Eden, released in June, changed all that. Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the genius behind 2001’s Rez, crafted this rhythm action game and there isn’t anything else quite like it. You don’t play this game: you conduct it. Use your hands to shoot abstract objects that spring onto the screen: one hand to aim and lock on targets; the other to shoot streams of bullets. Clap your hands to change weapons. The surreal action has a plot of sorts: a digital character is under attack by a fleet of viruses. Destroy them in order to save her, the music swelling with each virus that you destroy. Child Of Eden manages to be hypnotic, phantasmagoric, and hallucinogenic