2010 was a great year in gaming.  For Americans, it showed that the video game industry can thrive even during tough economic times.  For story buffs, we were blessed with a breakout year from Bioware.  FPS loyalists saw more action from Bungie and Call of Duty.

What did we learn though?  We see the trends, hell we even play them, but what did the last 365 days actually teach us about the industry?  Click below to read what permeated the collective braintrust at Glitchoris.com.

FPS’s May Tell Better Stories Than RPG’s

If you’ve been with us for awhile, you will remember just how astounding the end to Halo: Reach was.  A desolate scenescape, lack of ambient music, and ultimate doom penetrated the gaming industry.  For Dragon Age: Origins, I chose to kill off the protagonist instead of sacrificing Alistair (which in retrospect was a bad decision).  Reach took me all of about seven hours to beat; Origins, 40.  Yet Reach‘s ending so beautifully wraps up the entire series in the most ethereally isolated manner that it puts Bioware to shame.  And that’s coming from a huge Bioware fan.

Medal of Honor, meanwhile, quietly shut up a lot of Call of Duty fans.  And while these are both FPS’s, and both have great stories, the majority of people that this critic has spoken with concede that while Call of Duty boasts the war game multiplayer, Medal of Honor did rock the better storyline.  2010 showed us that FPS’s can venture into the land of storytelling, shoot a couple bad guys, blow up an enemy encampment, C4 another bunker, and make it back in time for milk and cookies.  (On the way back to the barracks, the FPS made fun of the RPG for hiding during the firefight.)

Some games crossed genres.  Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption instituted an informal RPG element into it’s reclaimation of Marston’s character.  And while this was not a set-up-shop-and-build-a-town kind of game, we did get the feeling that our choices regarding right and wrong highlighted our future experiences. Final Fantasy XIII couldn’t do this if it tried.  Not that it tried to, but isn’t that the point?  I know Final Fantasy is still sticking to it’s roots, but eventually even tradition impedes progress.

Nobody Can Beat Bioware At Their Own Game

Telling a great story is really fucking hard. And while some portions of stories in games may shine brighter than a Bioware release (see Reach above), nobody can do it longer, deeper, and as sexy as Bioware can.

Mass Effect 2 was like Choose Your Own Adventure for grown-ups.  And Dragon Age: Origins was like that on steroids.  Wonder if Bioware will create a game where you just use a protagonist and do whatever the fuck you want?  I bet it’s like…three months from release.

Other developers may write scripts that compete with the storyline.  Origins has a great storyline, but it didn’t really break the genre like ME2 did.  For Origins, the fun came in the manipulation of the storyline, not the storyline itself.  I didn’t really think my decision to hunt for a lost boy in the woods would mean that an entire village would get eradicated by the oncoming horde.  I was wrong.  And I had never been so happy to be wrong.

Final Fantasy Is Dead…For Now

You could say, “Who didn’t see this coming?”  I would reply, “…Damnit.”  FFXIII did not live up to the marketing campaign one iota.  Sure, the graphics were stunning.  But, really?  That’s the best part.  I have a degree in English, and I couldn’t even follow the fucking storyline.  It’s like listening to an acquaintance talk about their new Toyota.  Who the fuck cares?

The most disappointing aspect of FFXIII, more than the capital letters, is that it is completely devoid of what its players wanted.  Numero uno, story.  Number two, an evolved yet more classic battle system.  FFXIII does not deliver on either of those two.

In a related tangent, I saw my favorite gaming comment, quite possibly of all-time, knocking FFXIII.  One user commented (and I paraphrase), “Once I was fourteen hours in, the game really started to come alive for me.”  I added the italics for effect.

Gamefly Is Still A B-Rate Company

If you do not mind waiting three to four months for a new game, or just want to play much older games, Gamefly is the choice for you.  Unfortunately, that’s not what I want, nor probably a bunch of you.  Gamefly is like rail tequila: at best it’s the worst.

Plus, if you take the time to try and figure out how it works, the company does not even disclose that information.  Now, spot in queue and length in queue are both factors, but I get the eery feeling that if I have a game number 7 on my queue for the last three months pre-release, someone with it as number 1 on their queue, for say, an hour, will see it before me.  For example, I have Black Ops on my queue still (for 360) as number 3.  It’s been on queue there since roughly three months prior to its release date.  Like a man with a crushed purple suit, I still have no game.

Gears of War 3 Is Going To Punch The Video Gaming Industry In The Dick In 2011

Amongst the chatter of Black Ops, Reach, and Cataclysm, I still hear the standard conversation changer, “…Just wait until Gears of War 3 comes out.”

This game has been pushbacked longer than a Carolina Panthers opening drive.  Yet, Gears is successfully able to redirect the players’ steam from frustration into unrivaled anticipation.  Nobody will not play Gears of War 3 because it took too long to come out.

The energy of the game, through previews and screenshots, continually emits suspense.  It looks like a cross between Borderland‘s badassery, the cult uprising of Halo, and the ethereal ambiance of Fallout.  Gears of War 3 is the reason why we game.

Glitchoris Loves Its Audience

Sure, there may only be roughly a couple hundred of you that stop by regularly, but we thank you, from the deepest part of our collective heart.  Without you, we would still play the games, but they would not mean as much.  You guys and girls are awesome; much more awesome than us.

Happy new year to everybody.  2011 will bring Raffman back home from the war, Tebo a bottle of Silver Patron, and everybody else continued updates, reviews, and feature articles.  We will share our new year’s resolution upon my return from Kansas City.