Top 10 Games of 2010

Fifth - Call of Duty: Black Ops

Publisher: Activision Blizzard
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Bit-Gamer Score: 8 out of 10

One of the most controversial games of the year in the eyes of regular readers, Call of Duty: Black Ops is Treyarch's first attempt at a Call of Duty game since 2008's World at War. It's not a half-bad game either, although it reaches nowhere near the heady heights at which Call of Duty used to soar.

Black Ops is Treyarch's first Call of Duty game that isn't set in World War II, and it's instead based in the Vietnam War using an entirely fictional storyline. The plot is the most predictable and crude story we've seen this year, apparently fumbling together a few fashionable clichés leftover from the likes of Lost and The Manchurian Candidate, but it just about does the job.

The multiplayer portions fair much better, as is usual for the Call of Duty series at this stage, where multiplayer is the focus. There's the usual class-based competitiveness, with players ranking up and unlocking new weapons as they play, but there's also a new Wager Match mode where gamers can gamble their points.


The returning co-operative Zombie mode is where the laughably acronymed CODBLOPs really shines, though. Here, players can team up to hold off waves of zombie soldiers using a growing arsenal of weapons, although they'll need to barricade the entrances and open up new areas of the level too. The Zombie mode does sit a little incongruously with the rest of the game, admittedly, but it's also a lot of fun and it's refreshing to see an AAA studio that doesn't take itself too seriously, for once.

As if that wasn't enough, Call of Duty: Black Ops also features a bunch of hidden features and easter eggs that have just as much appeal as the full game. Hidden just away from the main menu, for example, is a complete top-down shooter and a full version of Zork!

Fourth - Fallout: New Vegas

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Bit-Gamer Score: 8 out of 10

We were in two minds about Fallout: New Vegas when we reviewed it back in October. On the one hand, Obsidian Entertainment's version of the Fallout universe was far more interesting and more in line with the older games than Bethesda's Fallout 3. On the other hand, though, it was clearly broken.

Not just broken, in fact, but old and ugly too. The Gamebyro Engine should have been put out to pasture long ago, we reckon, as New Vegas is one of the least attractive games we've seen in a long while.


In the end, however, the positive side of our hive mind won out and we recognised Fallout: New Vegas for what it really is - a flawed gem. Even if it's clunky and unappealing from a technical standpoint, New Vegas reclaims ground on account of the wit that permeates through it like an oily stain.

Want proof? There are dozens of little in-jokes and references piled into Fallout: New Vegas, but the one that stands out for us was when we first stumbled upon the town of Novac in the post-apocalypse wasteland. On the run from a gang of bandits, we ran up a neaby hill and, looking down, laid eyes on the giant dinosaur model that stands in the centre of the town. Mistaking it for an enemy, our first response was a shocked pause that let the pursuers cripple us with a critical hit.

We kicked ourselves as we resorted to an old save game, but we were chuckling at the same time too.