Alternative Best of List 2010

Who says best-of lists have to be boring?
It’s nearing the holiday season, and chances are you have presents to buy. If you wanted to know which game has the best sex scene or is most likely to have you completely hooked, look no further.
Brent Rose, Flynn Daunt and Mike Sholars

1 BEST STEREOTYPICAL CHARACTER: Red Dead Redemption – Irish
It’s all in the name: Irish. Not only has Rockstar, the team that brought you Grand Theft Auto, stopped trying to come up with clever stereotypical names for their stereotypical characters, they decided to create a drunken Irishman and call him Irish – either due to a lack of imagination or because they had a blood-alcohol content over 0.26 when making this game. Irish is probably the most useless character in Red Dead Redemption. He’s always drunk, he’s a coward and he stumbles as he walks. Way to go, Rockstar, for taking it one step further and not giving a fuck about sensitivity.

2 BEST SURPRISE: Red Dead Redemption – Arriving in Mexico
Trying to cross the Mexican border in Red Dead Redemption is different than it is in real life: enduring heavy traffic and peeing in plastic bottles aren’t part of the experience. Actually, it was surprisingly euphoric. When I entered Mexico, I got on my horse and started to ride towards the sunset as a hero of the West. As I rode, I gradually started to hear the strumming of the acoustic guitar. The song “Far Away” by Jose Gonzalez
played as I could hear my horse trample its hooves against earth and crows screeching as they flew out of my path. Once the sun settled, the wolves were howling, the moon painted the landscape silver and the rain washed away my tracks. It was the first time in a video game where I was so engrossed in the environment, I forgot I was playing the game and I felt like I was watching a film – even though I was still in control. It was a moment of digital serenity.
3 BEST BRIT: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future – Professor Layton
Modern media tend to portray the British as stuffy, overly polite intellectuals with impeccable manners and amazing detective skills. The third game in the Professor Layton series for the Nintendo DS, thankfully, breaks this trend. The titular Layton is a stuffy academic who takes off his top hat in the presence of females, and uses his polite personality and skills at logic puzzles to solve mysteries. Every year, another stereotype is subverted through the gaming medium, and we’re proud to award Unwound Future for breaking down the walls of ignorance.

Runner up: Sofia Lamb, Bioshock 2, a murderous cult leader who sacrifices her own daughter for the sake of genetic research. Omitted for overt similarities to Margaret Thatcher.
4 BEST BOY-Murder SIMULATOR: Limbo
Watch as the unnamed school-age boy is impaled, lit on fire, sliced in two, crushed, drowned and then meant to fall to his death in Limbo. As you play through the game, this boy will die so many times it’d make for some sort of inappropriate metaphor.

5 BEST SUPER MARIO GALAXY: Super Mario Galaxy 2
In the long, prestigious history of Super Mario Galaxy games on the Wii (dating all the way back to 2007), this year saw the unprecedented unveiling of the best one yet. Building upon the already groundbreaking idea of an Italian tradesman in space, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is everything that Super Mario Galaxy was, twofold. Regardless of how the franchise grows, no one will ever be able to argue that this year’s installment was undoubtedly the second one.

Runner up: Super Mario Galaxy (excluded for being released in 2007)
6 BEST BEARD: Red Dead Redemption – John Marston
Look at that thing. It’s so gnarly and rugged. You know John Marston isn’t someone to mess with just by his raggedy beard. Look at the scars emphasized by such a beard. It’s a beard that would make a grizzly run in fear. Beard!

Runner up: that dude on the cover of Medal of Honor 2010.
7 BEST SOUNDTRACK: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Eight-bit super group Animaniguchi provided the soundtrack to Scott Pilgrim, a game that relies heavily on nostalgia and thus complements it with the same theme. Employing the sound chip used in the original Nintendo entertainment system and combining it with the music of a rock band creates a heavy, frantic fighting barrage of sounds. The result is noticeably old school but updated, like the game itself.

8 BEST BONING: Mass Effect 2
While Mass Effect 2 is severely lacking in side boob, the option for interspecies relations, which has never been more tempting, has finally been conferred upon us. Sure, if you want to bone a plain old human, you can do that, too. Some of us, however, are a bit more liberal than others.
The game always recommends practicing safe sex when mingling with extra-terrestrials. Just get Tali, your female companion, to remove the environmental-protection suit that defends her weak immune system, grab a tube full of antibodies and sterile silk sheets, and she’ll be decontaminating you in no time. Maybe there are only a few people with an alien fetish, but for those perverted few, Bioware gives you an experience out of this world.

9 BEST GAME SET IN TORONTO: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
You know when you and three friends are walking near Queen St. W. and a bunch of near-identical dudes won’t stop fighting you? You all mercilessly fight them and collect their change when they die. Then you pop in to Sneaky Dee’s to get some health. I can’t think of any other game that more accurately portrays the average Torontonian’s day than Scott Pilgrim. From the warp pipes near the lakeshore to the ninjas who constantly cut streetcars in half with swords, it feels like playing out my day-to-day life in a video game.

10 MOST COCAINE-LIKE GAME: Civilization 5
What? Oh you want me to share technology with you, Mr. Washington. Sure, why not? What are allies for? (Make more horse units to invade New York.) Oh, my mistake, I didn’t realize I was building too close to your border, Napoleon. (Immediately construct more cities and expand my borders into French territory to steal their silver and wine.) Adopt democracy? No problem, Wu Zetian. (Nuke them!) Hey! Whoa, whoa! Calm down there, Gandhi. I don’t want to go to war with you. Here, have some jewels. (Note to self: Gandhi is very aggressive when you piss him off.) Okay, I only have five more turns until I finish the space race and win. (Shit, it’s 9 a.m. and I have a history midterm in an hour. I’m screwed.)