Top 10 PC Games of 2011

10

CRYSIS 2

Crytek's been at the forefront of graphical achievement for years now. Crysis is still one of the first games people install when they get new hardware, even though the game came out in 2007. Now the company is finally developing something multiplatform. Not surprisingly, it's a shooter. Perhaps to the dismay of some PC purists, it sounds like the core Crysis formula is being altered somewhat to create a more funneled, streamlined experience. But honestly, is that really a bad thing? For now we can't really say for sure.

9	SHOGUN 2: TOTAL WAR

It's been over a decade, and The Creative Assembly is still burning the midnight oil with the Total War series. Rather than continue to build on previous versions of the revered strategy series and make bigger and more complex games with each release, Shogun 2: Total War is being slimmed down. It'll be a more manageable, focused game with some cool mechanics for progression on the battlefield. Also, considering the original Shogun is one of the most respected entries in the franchise, it's nice to a return to Japan with some updated visuals.

8	THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS

2011 is going to be an incredible year for role-playing game fans. And even though some higher profile titles might be on the release schedule, The Witcher 2 could very well be in contention of the best. CD Projekt RED's original was a great surprise. It was a huge and dynamic role-playing experience based on the fiction of Andrzej Sapkowski that wasn't without flaws, but it was solid to the core. After an insane amount of patching with the Enhanced Edition, the original Witcher stands as one of the best RPGs available to PC gamers.

7	DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION

It's about time this franchise was brought back into the spotlight. The original still stands as one of the best games, well, ever. While the follow-up, Invisible War, was a bit of a disappointment, there's no denying the potential of what Eidos Montreal is cooking up for 2011. From what's been shown off so far, it looks as though the focus of development is on all the right places. Lots of ways to approach each encounter, a flexible character development system, and of course a sweeping story of conspiracy and betrayal.

6	STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC

It's really too bad Star Wars Galaxies didn't cut it. The world needs a great Star Wars MMO like an assassin needs a target. Considering BioWare's reputation and the amount of resources that are being dumped into The Old Republic's development, we all have high hopes. This is one of the few games on this list that has actually been playable for more than a few minutes. Five hours with the game is proof that it isn't all hype: there's definitely something to look forward to here.

5	DRAGON AGE II

BioWare's been on an incredible roll within the last few years. Granted, it has a huge number of employees spread across multiple studios working on new products to its advantage, but it also has three of the hottest role-playing properties in existence right now. One of them is Dragon Age. With the original, BioWareprovided a slightly modernized take on the classic Baldur's Gate-style dungeon crawling gameplay. With the second, it seems as though the core formula is staying intact, though with an updated conversation system.

4

PORTAL 2

We're all still waiting for the next Half-Life, that's no secret. In the meantime, Valve has been very busy. Between Left 4 Dead 2, Dota 2, and ongoing Team Fortress 2 updates, there's a lot going on at the home base of Gordon Freeman. That includes the sequel to Portal, one of the most welcome surprises of gaming's modern era. With Portal 2, the hilariously maniacal robot GlaDOS is back and part of a much more fully-featured single-player game.

3

RAGE

id Software's been out the game for way too long now. Unless we're counting Quake Live and various iPhone titles, it's been a ridiculous amount of time between major releases from the studio that blasted the first-person shooter genre into popular consciousness. With RAGE, we get a few things we may not be used to in id products. First, there's a story that doesn't simply involve a dude on Mars killing stuff or Hitler with chainguns. Second, it's not set in claustrophobic corridors. Third, it's not solely about shooting stuff (although mostly it is).

 

2	MASS EFFECT 3

The Mass Effect series is arguably the best sci-fi experiencein the last few years. That's across television, movies, books – you name it, BioWare's role-playing franchise has it beat. While the first certainly had technical issues, Mass Effect 2 is in every sense the pinnacle of modern role-playing game design. A vivid cast of characters, accessible and fun gameplay, and an epic scale combine to create one of the most enthralling journeys of the times.

1	THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM

Skyrim may sound like a weird name, but it actually makes sense within the world of Elder Scrolls. It's the name of the region just north of Cyrodiil, where The Elder Scrolls IV was set, within the fictional world of Tamriel. If that description was a little too nerdy for you, then so be it, but that's where it came from. It was the same deal with the third Elder Scrolls game, called Morrowind, which sits just to the east of both Skyrim and Cyrodiil. With that out of the way, it's incredibly exciting to think about what the studio that built Oblivion, a role-playing game that defined a generation, will come up with next.