Forum posters and bloggers for other, less-exciting websites have been saying that 2011 was one of the best years ever for videogames—and they are absolutely, unconditionally right. Let’s look at the facts:

FACT: 2011 saw direct sequels to not one, not two, not four, but three former GameCola Games of the Year: Batman: Arkham Asylum, LittleBigPlanet, and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy. (Yes, somehow we didn’t give Portal Game of the Year back in 2007, despite the fact that it topped our Top 50 Games of All Time list a few years later.) This is completely unprecedented, unless it’s happened before.

FACT: The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise finally broke its years-long dry spell by releasing a game that was, as many put it, playable.

FACT: For the first time in a decade, we got to know Jack. We also got the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a new Chrono Trigger, and the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a Final Fantasy VII remake.

FACT: Some popular shooting games were probably released, maybe.

FACT: Fans of the Back to the Future franchise were delighted to play as Marty McFly once again in a game that in no way involved giant balls of poop (at least, until the inevitable DLC comes out).

We gather here today to celebrate these games. Well, not these games. None of the games I’ve mentioned so far (save for one) actually won any GameCola awards this year. But others did, and we’re here to discuss the crap out of them.

Who are we? Well:

• Matt Jonas, news reporter, reviewer and video-er,
• Kate Jay, author and illustrator of “The Gates of Life,”
• Mark Freedman, reviewer and author of “What the Crap?“,
• Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray, editor as well as occasional reviewer,
• Vangie Ridgaway, author of “Gamer Girlfriend” and occasional podcaster and reviewer,
• Christian Porter, artist, blogger, news reporter, podcaster, reviewer, video-er and organizer, as well as author of “Poor Player’s Paradise,” Top of the Heap,” and “Power Gloves & Tinfoil Hats,”
• Alex Jedraszczak, the podcast master,
• Jillian Dingwall, reviewer,
• Michael Ridgaway, reviewer, podcaster, and former author of “Quantum Geek,”
• Nathaniel Hoover, editor, reviewer, podcaster, video-er, YouTube administrator, artist of “Sprite Flicker” and author of “Flash Flood” and “Impaired Closed Captioning,”
• Daniel Castro, author of “Don’t Be That Guy,”
• And, finally, me.

So join us today in celebrating 2011: the year that was, and, as always, be sure to tell us in the comments exactly where we went wrong. Here, I’ll start:

Where the hell is Gunstringer?!

Best Licensed Game

Batman: Arkham City

Christian Porter: The Batman: Arkham (Progressively Larger Geographic Location) series has been full of surprises. Arkham Asylum not only shirked convention by being a good superhero game, but it was actually an amazing game to boot, winning GameCola’s coveted 2009 Game of the Year title. Now Arkham City shirks convention by turning the sequel into a sandbox without making the game seem crammed with filler, and the game is still just as fun as the original. The same high-quality writing and voice acting also return, with tons of Batman villains around every corner, but somehow not feeling like they’ve all been shoehorned in. It’s an amazing adventure and, any other year, would be a shoo-in for Game of the Year.

Honorable Mention: Back to the Future: The Game
Last Year’s Winner: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Best Remake/Re-release

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Daniel Castro: What else can be said about this game? It’s freaking Ocarina of Time, a game remembered as one of the best games ever made—and now it looks so damn awesome that we won’t feel at all embarrassed showing it off to future generations. It’s not the perfect remake, since there aren’t any new additions besides prettier aesthetics, but I guess not everyone was waiting for newer mechanics or anything else for the game that they cared about and loved so many years ago. And, hey! The 3D effects are gorgeous, it’s portable, and you can aim by tilting your Nintendo 3DS in front of your face, which means I can finally play Ocarina of Time on the bus, drunkenly trying to aim at anything with the slingshot, while other passengers play shitty music on their cell phones. It’s fun!

Honorable Mention: No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise
Last Year’s Winner: Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge

Best Use of Motion Controls

Child of Eden

Jillian Dingwall: Child of Eden is an arcade-style shooter in which you use your hands to target and destroy various enemies. It’s set in space, and the object of the game is to rescue a super-hot fairy girl who has been eaten by what appears to be the Internet.

This game is HARD. It’s quite confusing to begin with, and the enemies come flying at you from all angles resulting in flailing arms, sweaty armpits, unattractive facial expressions and frustratingly continuous failure. As a “game,” it’s not that great; however, you can switch off the super-death mode and play the game in the much less challenging  ”Feel Eden” mode (Eden being the name of the environment, not the fairy—that game would be called Child of Molestation), and this is where you begin to appreciate the genius of the game’s concept.

Child of Eden combines its  surroundings, music and motion controls beautifully, and when you remove the fear of death, the game becomes a highly enjoyable, exciting and ethereal experience. Shooting different enemies produces different effects which blend together seamlessly to create your very own, unique sound. The motion controls are impressively responsive and make you feel as though you really are in control of the celestial surroundings. I agree with those who feel it may not be the best game in the world, but as an experience, it’s definitely a worthy winner. Motion control is still in its infancy, but if Child of Eden is anything to go by, we have a lot to look forward once it hits puberty.

Honorable Mentions: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword; The Gunstringer
Last Year’s Winner: N/A

Best New Character

Wheatley
(Portal 2)

Christian Porter: Homer Simpson, Rose Nylund, Jenny McCarthy—everybody likes a lovable moron. In Portal 2, Stephen Merchant fills the moron shoes perfectly. (I mean that in a good way.) Valve really hit the nail on the head by letting Merchant ad lib to his heart’s content, with some of the best comedy in the game coming from standing around and waiting to see what Wheatley will say next. No matter how many awful situations his rampant stupidity gets you into, Wheatley is simply impossible to hate.

Honorable Mention: Cave Johnson (Portal 2)
Last Year’s Winner: Sheep Man (Mega Man 10)

Most Innovative

Bastion

Alex Jedraszczak: To say that Bastion is the most innovative game of 2011 is a little odd. The game itself is a pretty solid action/adventure type game, but that genre has been around long enough to be fairly finely tuned. The innovation is all in exploration and storytelling.

The world literally drops from the sky as you explore. More than a cool visual effect, this leaves you always knowing when you’ve been someplace before. It’s pretty obvious where you’ve been, and this guides you where you need to be without needless exposition.

The game’s main claim to fame, however, is the storytelling. Rather than reading through boring text before getting to play the game, the story is told as you’re playing. The end result is a game that flows very well, and can be pretty entertaining when the narration is tailored to your in-game actions.

Honorable Mentions: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective; Catherine
Last Year’s Winner: Heavy Rain

Best Story

Portal 2

Portal 2

Nathaniel Hoover: Hmm…Portal 2, you say? Is it really the funniest game of the year? Absolutely. Unless you’re adopted. Or obese. Or a sympathizer to either demographic, for that matter. However, we here at GameCola are horrible, insensitive people, so we think it’s pretty hysterical. Eminently quotable. From the mad ramblings of Cave Johnson to the moronic assertions of Wheatley to the sarcastic barbs of GLaDOS, there’s no shortage of creativity in the humor. Throw in a prophetic talking turret, legions of its dimwitted cousins, a droll male computer, outrageous personality spheres, a few wonderful sight gags, and all the hilarious situations afforded by portals, springboards, and bouncy goo—especially in (un)co-operative multiplayer—and you’ve got pretty much the only game we could have voted for this year.

Honorable Mention: No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise
Last Year’s Winner: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Best New Peripheral

3DS Retractable Stylus

Paul Franzen: Oooh. Oh, baby. Come here, my baby. Let me slide this thing in. And slide it out. Slide it in. Slide it out. Over and over. Aren’t we having fun, my baby? You can touch it, if you’d like. Just don’t scratch up the screen; this thing cost me $250 and still doesn’t have any games.

…Wait, what? What did you think I was talking about? I’m talking about the new stylus that comes bundled with the Nintendo 3DS! It’s retractable! That means you can make it whatever length is most comfortable to you! Stop it; there’s nothing sexual about that. And it’s fun to play with, too, while you’re playing with yourself. I mean, playing games! With yourself. Phew. I can’t believe I got through this whole thing without any innuendo.

Honorable Mentions: Wappy Dog; Pop Star Sparkle Gloves
Last Year’s Winner: Pokéwalker

Best Multiplayer

Portal 2

Vangie Ridgaway: In the Portal 2 co-op mode, GLaDOS has finally found a more self-sufficient mode of conducting her scientific testing at Aperture Science. Her latest creations are P-body and ATLAS, a modified turret and personality sphere, respectively, who are now possessed of arms, legs, and portal guns of their own. Together, the two of them explore a completely new set of testing areas, which are specifically designed for two players, and require both guns (meaning a total of four active portals!) to complete. The new puzzles require a fair bit of cooperation on the part of the players, which ironically seems to annoy GLaDOS, as she is constantly trying to set her two new testers against one another through her unique brand of “encouragements.” Expect more cleverly designed puzzles, a fun twist on the original portal gun mechanic, and more of the humor that the Portal series has become famous for.

Honorable Mentions: Trine 2; Gears of War 3
Last Year’s Winner: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Best Indie Game

Bastion

Michael Ridgaway: I could go on and on (and have) about Bastion’s fun Diablo-style gameplay, its beautifully vivid graphics, the poignantly shattered apocalypse it centers around, the amazing use of narration in the storytelling, or the awesome soundtrack that I find myself listening to at least once every few days. I could talk about those things, and they’d all be true, but for the moment I want to focus on how earnest the fans are and how keen Supergiant Games is to return that affection. For instance, one gentleman wrote to them asking for help in making his wedding ceremony extra special, and they delivered. A soldier in Afghanistan was not able to get a digital version of the game, so they specially made and sent him a physical copy of the game. Bastion really is the full package here, folks: an awesome game with awesome people behind it.

Honorable Mention: Orcs Must Die!
Last Year’s Winner: Super Meat Boy

Best PC Game

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Mark Freedman: If someone says the name Elder Scrolls to you, and all you can think of is your grandpa trying to figure out how a mouse wheel works, it’s time to get on the Skyrim bandwagon. I can’t think of any other game where, after playing 60 hours, you can still feel like you’ve only scratched the surface. Compared to other open-ended worlds, this game has the scale of an entire galaxy. Even if you’re not interested in combat, there’s so many beautiful mountains, lakes, caves, and forts to discover. With over 60,000 lines of dialogue and hundreds of hours you can spend playing, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth here. Kill some bears, craft your own armor, learn some spells, betray some townsfolk, or reanimate the dead…it’s all up to you. Despite its many bugs, this is truly a breathtaking adventure.

Specific to the PC version, some really great mods are finally coming out that make it feel more like a PC experience. There haven’t been a whole lot of beards in videogames, but Skyrim majestically integrates the tenacity and allure of beards in to such an epic quest as ever you’ll see.

Honorable Mention: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Last Year’s Winner: Mass Effect 2

Best Console Game

Portal 2

Kate Jay: The original Portal made its mark on the gaming world with its witty dialogue, innovative concept, and fast-paced gameplay. Fans asked for a sequel, and Valve gave us everything we asked for and more: Portal 2 took that theme and ran with it, releasing with a fully-fledged story with actual character development, backstory, and, of course, more snarkiness. Playing through Portal 2, we learn more about the history of Aperture Science and the men and women who made it what is was (before GLaDOS killed everyone, that is). Valve added new Aperture Products, including three types of gel, robots for the multiplayer levels, and defective personality cores. To add more frosting on this delicious, theoretical cake, Valve also provided players with plenty of free—yes, FREE—downloadable content for the multiplayer and single player campaigns. Portal 2 is clever, quirky, and charming, and it most definitely takes the cake.

Honorable Mention: Batman: Arkham City
Last Year’s Winner: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best Portable Game

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Elizabeth “Lizo” Medina-Gray: What if you were dead, but you didn’t know how or why you died, and you couldn’t remember who you were? And then what if you found out that you could manipulate objects in the world, and even go back in time and save other peoples’ lives? And what if you learned of a mysterious conspiracy tied somehow to your murder, and you had only until dawn to figure everything out before you disappeared forever? Then you’d be the main character in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective!

Ghost Trick is a new game from the creator of the Ace Attorney series (and we all know how well-loved those games are here at GameCola). Fortunately for all of us Phoenix Wright fans who were hoping for another great portable game, Ghost Trick delivers in full. The characters are quirky and well-developed, the graphics and music are awesome, and the mechanics are unique, challenging, and fun. But, like the Ace Attorney games before, the thing that really made Ghost Trick stand out for me was its story. Many times, I’ve played a game and found myself disappointed because it didn’t surprise me in a big way—sometimes I feel like the ideas I have and the guesses that I make while playing a game are more interesting than what the writers actually do. With Ghost Trick, though, I had the exact opposite experience. I didn’t come close to guessing the ending, but beyond that, the story went places that I never saw coming, and that was a great thing for me. Plus, the story’s just really cool!

With awesome characters, a compelling story, only a couple of annoying puzzles among the many good ones, and probably my favorite graphics on the DS to date, Ghost Trick is definitely a winner.

Honorable Mentions: Pokémon Black/White; Super Mario 3D Land
Last Year’s Winner: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Best Downloadable Game

Bastion

Kate Jay: It’s not often that I download Xbox Live games, but then, it’s not often that games like Bastion come along to entice me. At a glance, this indie games seems like your typical RPG: a young hero sets out to save his world from destruction. However, Bastion takes a different approach to the whole “rebuilding the world” theme—the world literally rebuilds itself around you as you move around the richly colored isometric map. To make the experience even more unique, your adventure is narrated blow-by-blow in the mellow tones of Rucks, an NPC voiced by Logan Cunningham. Gameplay is fast paced, if a little repetitive, but the story moves pretty quickly, keeping the experience fresh. A sensational soundtrack rounds out this refreshing game, making it a must-buy for any RPG fans.

Honorable Mention: Trine 2
Last Year’s Winner: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

GameCola Staff Member of the Year

Alex Jedraszczak

Paul Franzen: A lot has changed since Alex (real name: Jeddy) first won this award in 2007. GameCola changed formats, from a monthly e-mail newsletter to an actual Internet website. All of our writers decided to grow magnificent beards. Our site started having actual fans. But while he won last time because he was the only person who consistently submitted his articles in on time, this year, he won because he helped bring GameCola to an all-new level in 2011—and the fact that we have actual fans now is due in no small part to him.

The GameCola Podcast, under the Jedraszczak regime, has way more listeners now than ever it had before. I mean, it has actual listeners now! Listeners who send us e-mails, ask us questions, record covers of our theme song on their saxophones, and draw pictures of us as the cast of Phoenix Wright. (Note: This hasn’t actually happened yet, but here’s hoping.) Kevin Leacock won this award last year for making the site much more accessible to new fans; this year, Jeddy’s winning for drawing those new fans to the site. Whether he’s role-playing as Metroid, singing the theme songs to old Nickelodeon shows, or just sitting back and letting us argue the merits of Ace Attorney Investigations, you can bet that, if you’re listening to a Jedrazcast, your next hour is going to be awesome.

And he still gets everything in on time, too. You can set your calendar by it.

Honorable Mentions: Matt Jonas, Christian Porter
Last Year’s Winner: Kevin Leacock

Game of the Year

Portal 2

Michael Ridgaway: Man, what was it with 2011 and awesome storytelling?

Portal 2 refined and added a lot to the platformer/puzzle elements from the first game for yet another amazing quantum-tunneling exploratory experience, but where it really shined was the story. In addition to the ever delightful GLaDOS, players were introduced to Wheatley and Cave Johnson, voiced by professional actors Stephen Merchant and J.K. Simmons, respectively. I’m not sure I ever stopped laughing while playing the game, and it very squarely fell into the category of “games I can only play with Vangie around or she will straight up cut me.”

Portal 2 proved that it was possible to tell an exciting, entertaining story in the context of an excellent game, and it raised the bar not just for videogames, but all other forms of media, as well.

Honorable Mention: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Last Year’s Winner: Heavy Rain

I’m starting to think that The Book of Unwritten Tales is shooting for the dubious title of “The Duke Nukem Forever of classic-style adventure games.” Not because it’s a terrible parody of things that don’t exist, with naked boobies all over the place, but because companies keep teasing us, saying that “it’s definitely gonna come out, yep, it really is this time,” and it NEVER DOES. IT JUST NEVER DOES.

It was released in Germany back in 2009 to great acclaim, along with this trailer:

Which got everyone very excited, because it gave us all hope that a non-Telltale adventure game might be funny, too. And it was going to be full-length, none of this episodic bullshit! And it was going to have three main characters, like Day of the Tentacle! Everyone loves Day of the Tentacle!

Then later that year, The Adventure Company announced that they were going to publish it in the U.S., and all us adventure nerds held our breath…and then it got delayed…and delayed…and delayed…and delayed…and then the friggin’ publisher went out of business, so that never happened.

But now the game’s original developer, KING Art, is taking the “if you think YOU can do a better job, why don’t you do it yourself?” approach, and they’ve announced that they’ll be bringing it to U.S. shores personally this fall. They also released a brand-new trailer (which actually didn’t seem as funny to me as the original German one):

And four minutes of gameplay footage:

Here’s hoping this book doesn’t get closed yet again!

You see a game perched on the store shelf, and you’re thinking, “Hey, I’ve never heard of this game”. This happens to me all the time, the most recent examples being Dead To Rights: Retribution, Mindjack and Morphx. But on this particular occasion, I had a realization about the game I saw. I stopped and thought to myself, “No wait, wasn’t this announced back in 2008? And hasn’t this been canned, like, twice?”

The right thing to do at that point was to back off, but curiosity got the better of me.

This is a game that has not been advertised anywhere, and has already been confirmed cancelled. If you think about it, all the sirens should already be going off in your head, wailing “put this down immediately!”. Do you expect it to be good? Of course not. If you saw this game on the shelf, you would err on the side of caution, waiting at least to see if there are any reviews out there that tell you exactly what it is you want to know. After all said and done, if the game has just appeared, then it probably isn’t any good. At least, that is the logic I find it best to adhere to, with MindJack being the perfect example to back up this claim.

If I hadn’t walked away by then, I should have.

I’m a man who runs on logical decisions, with thoughts firmly grounded around saving money and having a good time by playing great games. I should have avoided this game, but I didn’t, and now I’m really paying for it. Critical Mass makes Time To Kill look respectable. If I had waited twelve years for this game, I would have turned to self-harm in the hopes of finding something to equal the pain. Critical Mass? More like Critical Ass, or rather, Duke Nukem: Shit in a Glass. This game is an ugly, disheveled mess.

How can a game with promotional art of this standard be so dreadful?

Needless to say, I am very disappointed with every aspect of this game, but I have no one to blame but myself. Even when loading it up, the company logos drag on and on, which is an excellent start. The title screen is completely devoid of a logo and it says “Touch To Continue.” This would have been acceptable when the Nintendo DS came out, but not this late in the handheld’s life cycle, and the screen doesn’t serve any purpose.

After starting a new game or loading a saved profile, the highlighted menu option is for New Game, even though you have progressed further than a level in. This is 2011, you’d have thought that making the menu auto-highlight “Resume Game” would be the norm these days (Final Fantasy VII did this over ten years ago!).

The opening cutscene shows promise. It explains the premise of the game, but there are only so many times I can take “time travel” lying down. Seriously, time travel. How friggin’ original, guys. Duke Nukem already defeated time-traveling aliens in Time To Kill, his first PlayStation outing besides Duke Nukem 3D. Are you really that short on ideas?

When the game starts out, it insists upon showing you four screens’ worth of controls, which you instantly forget anyway. Put the damn things in the manual; don’t force us to see them when starting the game. On a loading screen would be fine, but this is Nintendo DS, and if you’re trying hard enough, you can making loading completely unnoticeable. These controls you’re forcing me to look at are not masking a loading screen at all. You’re just showing them to me for no reason.

Once you’ve finished skipping the controls, you can finally get into the game. You will suddenly wish the screens detailing the controls had dragged on for an eternity. It blows.

There is a lack of decent screenshots online; most are from very early builds.

This festering “Skag pile” is a clear clone of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, yet without the polish and affection for The Duke that is present in that game. Several of the sound effects seem to have been lifted straight from Manhattan Project, as are the backgrounds, level designs, enemies, weapons and game elements such as trapped babes. So much for a time traveling storyline, as these first levels just mirror Manhattan Project, and do nothing but cause upset.

Sadly, for a game imitating Manhattan Project, it does a better job of ruining the excellent controls of the 2002 PC hit than it does improving anything. This DS catastrophe plays like a game where Duke Nukem has been replaced with the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, in levels made up entirely of quicksand. The flow of this game is anything but comfortable and everything but acceptable. The Nintendo DS was launched in 2004, meaning that it has been a part of our lives for almost seven years, and this game feels like it should have been a launch title. A bad launch title.

A new cover system has been added, which can only be done at certain sections. If you’ve played Time Crisis: Razing Storm and thought the “G Action” was pointless and ruined the whole game for you, then you haven’t seen a single damn thing yet. Believe me when I say, the controls suck and the game sucks. End of paragraph.

Duke Nukem Forever had better not suck.

The graphics are a large concern in this game. In short, easy to understand terms, they make Ridge Racer look like L.A. Noire. In long-winded terminology that requires some heavy contemplation, the graphics are too blurry and too dark, as though the game developers tested their game with the gamma and brightness up too high compared to real Nintendo DS screen. The screenshots make the game look alright, but on a DS screen, you cannot see anything at all.

I know that a Duke Nukem isn’t meant to be a colorful game (except for the language), but the inability to see far in this game can be likened to the terrible draw distance in Tenchu: Time of the Assassins. It is impossible to make out where the platforms are when scaling the skyscrapers in the first chapter of the story, and the graphics are just plain dissatisfying and too matte black. I understand that these levels take place at night, but not being able to see where you are climbing totally ruins whatever fun was left, and this isn’t acceptable. Definitely not now, when I’d have thought we’d have ironed out how not to do lighting in Nintendo DS games.

Flying stages piqued up my hopes, only for them to be shot down again. There was, for a short moment, the possibility of some decent shoot’em’up action. But these dreams were spoiled by the realization that there is no challenge to the stages, every enemy drops a pick-up, and the boss is easily defeated just by holding down primary firing button and occasionally pressing secondary firing button.

The behind-Duke’s-back boss battles are also a great idea, but executed poorly. Story of this game, from start to finish. You find yourself wading through this incessant steam-train of fail-fuck, just to get the snippets of storyline, the only acceptable—nay, dare I say it—great parts of the game.

It is as though Critical Mass exists only to become the subject of hilarious jokes. Once you’ve seen Duke Nukem review his own game and hate it, you’ve seen all you need to know.

Don’t blow your cash on Mass, just blow it outta your ass.

Hah, hah, hah. Good one, Gearbox. Don’t you think you’re taking the joke a little too far now, though? Just admit that the game doesn’t exist, and that it never DID exist. If you can do that for me, I promise I’ll try playing Borderlands again.

Another PAX East is in the books and, despite only being there for one day, I was definitely able to see a lot of what was going on. Not the least of what was going on: lines, and lots of them. Here’s a brief run-down of the event:

Always happy to assist a Scout Trooper dispatch some rebel scum. Yes, that's a Scout Trooper, not a Stormtrooper. I suck.

BioWare’s The Old Republic – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo.

Gearbox’s Duke Nukem Forever – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo.

2K’s The Darkness 2 – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo.

Bethesda’s Brink – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo.

Bethesda’s Hunted – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo.

Sony’s SOCOM 4 – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo.

EA’s Battlefield 3 – Line was too long, so I didn’t get to see their demo. Also you had to be a member of their exclusive “Gun Club,” so fuck ‘em. They think they’re so fancy.

And that’s it. The end.

OK, fine. Despite the place being positively lousy with lines, I was able to check out some cool things:

Valve’s Portal 2 -Valve’s been showing off the co-op mode of Portal 2, but what about the single player we know, love, and are compelled to play due to our lack of friends? That’s what Valve was exhibiting at PAX East this weekend. Valve’s demo makes it clear that comedy is still in the forefront of Portal 2, introducing new, funny characters like Cave Johnson, founder of Aperature Science and voiced by J. K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies), and Wheatley, a GLaDOS personality sphere voiced by British comedian Stephen Merchant (who worked with Ricky Gervais on The Office and An Idiot Abroad). Both characters were very funny and not a single cake reference was made.

Also, Valve hasn’t forgotten that the true joy of Portal is its simplistic gameplay. However, it also knows that the original Portal clocked in at a svelte three or so hours, whereas Portal 2 is a full-length game, so a few new gameplay elements are being introduced. One of the only ones really shown at PAX were blobs of special blue paint that make any surface they touch super-bouncy.

Portal 2 is really shaping up to be Game of the Year material already—but will it unseat its predecessor as GameCola’s #1 game of all time?

Ubisoft’s Kinect game, Child of Eden – Ever played Rez? It’s Rez.

Rockstar’s L.A. Noire - I loved Grand Theft Auto III. I loved it again when it was set in the ’80s, I liked it when it was set in 90s ghettos, I liked it again when it was set in a private school, I enjoyed it when it was set in fake New York, and I even liked the most recent GTA III game, which they set in the old west…and added in zombies, for some reason. But, frankly, I’m starting to get sick of Rockstar pumping out a new GTA III clone every year, choosing a new locale/time period, jamming in some crude jokes and some ham-handed political commentary, and pretending it’s not just GTA III again. My patience with Rockstar is growing thin.

I say all this not because I hated L.A. Noire, but because I loved it. However, I am not, as Pee-Wee Herman might suggest, ready to marry it. You see, we’re still getting to know each other. From what I know of L.A. Noire, it’s a murder mystery game set in the golden age of Hollywood based on actual unsolved murders from the period, in which you must uncover clues, investigate crime scenes, and interrogate suspects. This sounds amazing, but I’ve been very scared so far that Rockstar’s idea of “uncovering evidence” is visiting a point on a map that triggers a pre-rendered cutscene in which you receive an item, and are told that Joe Badguy did the murder and that you should go to another point on the map to arrest him/shoot him in the face.

Thankfully, the demo has put to bed some of my fears. I was shown that investigating crime scenes is truly in your hands. I will say that it wasn’t particularly challenging to find clues, since many of them are tagged and cataloged before you even get to the crime scene, but it still looked like it added a fun, new crime-solving element to the game. Another entertaining (if a bit simple) aspect is the interrogation sections of the game. Believe people’s lies and you’ll miss clues; push too hard, and they’ll get belligerent and stop cooperating. Keeping a good balance between trust and doubt is what this part of the game is all about.

I may not be ready to go all the way just yet, but I left Rockstar’s demo hopeful that, some day, L.A. Noire and I will share the forbidden love that Pee-Wee Herman himself once dared to share with a fruit salad.

Nintendo’s 3DS – I did get to have some hands-on playing time with Pilotwings Resort on the 3DS. First, does the 3DS work? Well, have you ever used a ViewMaster? Yeah, it’s nothing like that. The 3DS is full 3D and it looks great, almost like you’re playing in some kind of magical diorama. It also has a setting where you can adjust the depth of the 3D effect, or turn it off completely. This is great, because that switch will probably be in the off position permanently after the first week of owning the 3DS, after you realize that you’re tired of the novelty of 3D and would like to play Pokemon Plaid/Paisley without getting a goddamn migraine. As for Pilotwings—meh, it’s all right.

Sadly missing from the expo:

Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Sure, they had the trailer that’s been out forever playing on monitors, but I was hoping to see a lot more of the game and have some questions answered. For example, will the guards still know if I pickpocket and kill someone in the middle of a dense 50-square-mile forest, or have they been stripped of their psychic powers? But really I just wanted a free t-shirt.

Sony’s The Last Guardian – I would have loved to see more of Team Ico’s newest game/art masterpiece. But really I just wanted a free plush guardian.

And a few other quick highlights:

• Quack In The Box is a fun tabletop card game.
• People with backrolls shouldn’t wear sideless tunics.
• The guy in front of me at the Fangamer booth got the last Robot Ness EarthBound sticker. I hope he dies of cancer.
• Rockstar gives out t-shirts like water.
• All iPad games are awful.
• A Fire Pro Wrestling game is coming out in which you fight your Xbox Avatars against each other. Who cares? Nobody.

Per Destructoid, who heard it from Game Informer, the gaming industry’s favorite phantom product (besides the actual Phantom) has an actual, honest-to-God release date, and that release date is May 3.

It’s coming May 3. It’s really going to happen! Holy shit!

At least, that’s what they’re saying. Like so many people on the Internet, I won’t really believe it until I’ve purchased the game in-person, played it, and then actually beaten it; but if anyone can get it done, it’s the company whose president…actually learned about the release date from Game Informer, too. Uh-oh. He was joking, right?!

Check out a new trailer for the game below. (Warning: It has censored butts and things.)

We’ve previously heard that Masahiro Sakurai, the producer of Kid Icarus: Uprising, had already come up with the basic idea for the game before deciding which classic Nintendo character to stick in it. Now, Destructoid is reporting that the exact same thing happened with Kirby’s Epic Yarn, too.

According to Destructoid, developer Feel Good had already started work on what they were calling Fluff’s Yarn, starring a character named “Fluff,” before Nintendo co-opted it for their new Kirby game. Fluff found a new home as Kirby’s side-kick rather than the main character, but the team was reportedly very sad, because they put a lot of work into the Fluff character, and now he’s totally not going to make the cut for the next Smash Bros. game.

This change in license may, perhaps, explain why Kirby’s Epic Yarn appears to have less to do with anything at all Kirby-related, and more to do with beating bad guys to death with pieces of yarn. Not that it doesn’t look awesome anyway.

In other news, Nintendo has reportedly purchased Gearbox Software and will be once-again restarting development on Duke Nukem Forever, rebranding it as the latest in the Clu Clu Land series and turning the main character into a fish. No other changes are planned for the game, except that Duke’s famous catchphrases will now consist mostly of gurgling sounds.

Welcome to the NEWEST edition of the thumbs that can (…but can’t really) see the future! I would NOT like to point out that the last two months have seen more new THUMBS articles than the new GameCola has ever seen before. However…I just did point that out. Whoops. …ANYWAY! Fasten in for awesomeness, because the journey begins NOW.

So…wasn’t the Kinect supposed to be this revolutionary device that would change gaming as we know it forever? Why is it a Wii add-on for the 360? Why would we want to play Wii Sports with a different name? THESE are the questions that will haunt us over the coming years, as Sony and Microsoft continue to make their own versions of all the Wii’s popular games (so, like three, right?), and ONLY those games!

Seriously, you played this game four years ago. We all played it four years ago. Who hasn’t played Wii Sports? Isn’t their advertising slogan, like, “Even your grandma’s grandma has played Wii Sports“? Pretty sure it is. STEP IT UP, BOYS!

Captain Eric’s Psychic Thumb says… Thumbs down.

If you know me, you know that I have a certain love for all things massive, multiplayer, and online. To say I’m pretty pumped for this game is an understatement. It just looks so cool, man! Star Wars! MMO!! You can actually be a Jedi without giving up your life!

It’s a Bioware product, so it looks like pretty much every game they’ve ever made. It’s going to have a lot of dialogue options and a lot of voice acting. But…in an MMO! Craziness abounds. If only it came with a light cycle toy, it could be the greatest thing…EVER.

Captain Eric’s Psychic Thumb says… Thumbs UP!

So this is a game for…some system. Who knows which! Hopefully it’s one I own, because this game looks pretty spectacular! If you haven’t seen the gameplay trailer, you should check it out, because it’s pretty enjoyable:

The graphics style hearkens back to the original days of the RPGs; however, the action is all action-y! Trade in your turn-based combat for some hammer (and probably other things…) swinging ACTION!

The coolest and most innovative aspect of this game is that narration. The game narrates your actions as you play! That’s right! WHOA. Pretty amazing stuff. The developers have promised that the narration isn’t too intrusive or repetitive, and that the game doesn’t narrate every little thing you do. From the trailer, it feels just about right. Good times!

Captain Eric’s Psychic Thumb says… Thumbs UP!

Online co-op! WHAT?! But no one ever remembers to add that in anymore! (EXCEPT YOU, MY BELOVED BORDERLANDS.)  That’s totally awesome.

What’s the game actually like, though? It’s…an HD version of an iPhone game?! Uh-oh! Well, at least phone games are much, much better than they were just a few short years ago…

What? It’s supposed to be like Torchlight?! But Torchlight is like Diablo! Online co-op Diablo on a console?!?! YES PLEASE!

Captain Eric’s Psychic Thumb says… Thumbs UP!

Well, this game sure came out of nowhere. How did they keep this thing under wraps? Surely, people would be talking about a sequel to that quite-popular Duke Nukem game. Why did it take them so long to think of this, anyway? Of course people would want to reunite with their old pal Dukey! For many of us, he was our first introduction to the wildly popular first-person shooter genre! It is a CRYING SHAME that they did not think of this until now!

…whaaaaaaaaaaaat? This game has been delayed HOW long?! Historic, you say? Killed off THAT many times?! OH MY! This is too much for me to handle. I must get back under my rock now.

Captain Eric’s Psychic Thumb says… Thumbs UP!

This month featured a staggering FOUR thumbs up! Quite a rarity for the THUMBS! But after nearly a year of silent thumbs during a year of hardly any awesome games, you deserve some positivity. The WORLD deserves some positivity.

Oh, who am I kidding? You ARE the world! I know my fanbase.

In this edition of The GameCola Podcast, Zach Rich loses his cell phone. Also, he, Christian Porter, and Justin Luschinksi talk about:

• What games they’re playing now: RPGs, Borderlands, LittleBigPlanet and more
• Bad voice acting
• The Dreamcast
• 3D movies and 3D TV are bad.
• Christian Porter was scarred for life after watching 3D porn.
• Pokémon Black and White? Oh no…
• It’s the last weekend to play Xbox 1 games on Xbox Live. They go offline on Thursday!
• Green Day: Rock Band
• Broadway musicals
• We will buy Super Mario Galaxy like the good little sheep we are.
• The beta for Halo: Reach is coming soon.
• People on Xbox Live are jerks.
• NES cart harmonica now conveniently for sale.
• Christians Retro ≠ Good article about Castlevania
• Red Letter Media’s hilarious movie reviews
• 8-bit Theater is ending.
• Zach and the other six people will be psyched about Hydro Thunder Hurricane.
• Mega Man 9’s programmers confused “being challenging” with “being an asshole.”
• Games our podcasters are looking forward to playing
• Zach loses his cell phone, and he is no longer able to contribute to the podcast.
• Games that should have sequels, but do not: Star Force Gemini, Okami and Soul Blazer
• Possible Rock Band games
• The Gigyas theory: The final battle of EarthBound is a metaphor for an abortion.
• We want Mother 3, but all we’re getting are spoilers for it in Super Smash Bros.
• Duke Nukem Forever is really coming this time.

Enjoy!

GameCola Podcast #23: Zach’s Lost Cell Phone

…Erm, Metroid, not Netroid. Darn, and I thought my acronym was airtight, too.

Michael Gray’s got another video walkthrough up his sleeve, this time of the Game Boy Advance hit Metroid Fusion. Apparently, no one knows how to make a sequel to this game—between Metroid: Zero Mission, the Metroid Prime trilogy, Metroid Prime Hunters, Metroid Prime Pinball, and Metroid: Other M, we’re getting closer and closer to a full decade without an actual sequel to Metroid Fusion, unless by chance we finally get Metroid Dread in early 2012.

Fingers crossed; I just hope that it doesn’t coincide with the impending release of Duke Nukem Forever, or else I’ll really be out of cash.

Oh, right. Michael’s videos. Collected here are the first two videos to get you started; your orders are to watch the rest of this run of Metroid Fusion on the GameCola YouTube channel. Any objections, lady?