The 12 Awesomest Games of 2010

2010 should be an awesome year. At least for those of us outside the Bird Flu Plague Zone. And for those of us not fighting in the wars against Iran, North Korea, Syria, China, Iraq and Afghanistan. For us, it'll all be about the games ...

These are the glorious games glowing down at us from the peak of the 360/Wii/PS3 generation, when developers will be making the hardware sing and when every PC will have 8 gigabytes of RAM to play with. Games like ...

Mass Driver
360/PS3
"This load of heroin has to be in Philadelphia in 10 minutes. And, Philadelphia is 150 miles away."

"Don't worry. I know just the guy."

Mass Driver is Grand Theft Auto at 1,000 miles an hour. Your character has the magical ability to enhance the acceleration of any boat, airplane, car, truck, tractor, tank or little red wagon to insane, mach-plus speeds, thundering across a game world hundreds of miles wide. Get going too fast and the vehicles can burn up in the atmosphere. The only way to slow down is by smashing through buildings, trees, mountains, other cars, livestock and crowded amusement parks ...

Screenshot by bakudai

... with each errand ending with charred damage proportional to the brutal laws of mass and velocity.

Add in a slow-motion feature to see the looks on your roadkill's faces milliseconds before impact, and you've got a crank-addled adrenaline-junkie game for the discerning lunatic. This could be the game that finally makes Jack Thompson take up arms.

Star Wars: Jedi Saga
Wii
First of all, this is real Wii swordfighting. Not that half-hearted "flick to activate sword swing No. 1" Red Steel crap. Real lightsaber fighting, the glowing blade mapped to your Wiimote.

And, it's every lightsaber battle from all six movies. You lightsaber your way right the damn hell through waves of storm troopers, then the boss battle is some famous duel from the movies. Darth Maul, Count Dooku, that one retarded four-armed robot thing with the completely unprotected heart, all of them, leading up to a climactic duel with Darth Vader.

In the bonus levels, you get to switch sides and cut down the good guys.

Screenshot by Phanderus

Then, if you beat the whole game, unlocking every secret, you get to lightsaber George Lucas. Just screams and burning flannel, man, I'm telling you.

DC vs. Marvel Superhero Brawl
360/PS3
Us survivors of the Cold War know one thing: If superpower ever meets superpower, everybody in the vicinity is getting fucked up. Therefore, any game that features superheroes fighting that doesn't also feature them knocking down entire buildings with each errant blow, is nothing but filthy digital lie. See THIS VIDEO for evidence:

Further research can be found in the climax of Matrix: Revolutions.

That's why Superhero Brawl gives you 10 city blocks to annihilate. If you want to damage Iron Man, you got to fling his ass through a building ...

... and if you really want to damage him, throw him through the foundation and make the freaking building collapse on top of him. Throw him into a tanker truck hauling rocket fuel, throw him into the core of a nuclear reactor and trigger a meltdown.

Do it right, and the last minute of each fight will look like a nuclear aftermath, smoke and rubble stretching to the horizon.

This is the scale of game Sony implied the PS3 could pull off during their ridiculous hype campaign. Let's see if they can live up to it.

World War Omega
PC
This is the Combined Arms Simulator PC gamers have been dreaming about from the first time a shot was fired in anger over a modem. A sprawling world war, a Battlefield 2 but with one gargantuan, persistent map that everybody plays on.

There'll be AI units to do grunt jobs like holding positions and supply lines. There'll be RPG elements like statistics, character growth, and chain of command “guilds.”

And, Normandy-sized invasions with 5,000 players.

Screenshot by Mortal Wombat

Oh, hell yeah.

Give the Chinese control of one army and the United States control of the other, and we'll fight all of our wars this way. Nobody gets hurt except the millions of neglected girlfriends.

Total Kung Fu
Wii
This is for all of us who secretly think those Dance Dance Revolution style rhythm games look like fun but fear they'll threaten our sexuality.

Total Kung Fu has the same frantic, spastic stepping and flailing as DDR ...

... only instead of dance moves, your movements are translated to vicious, bone-crunching kicks and punches.

We're talking lightning-fast blurred fists, '70s kung fu movie-style fighting where punching and blocking is done with the same desperate, heart-pounding frenzy it takes to keep up with the beat in the harder levels of DDR. You wouldn't even need a floor pad, just an extra Wiimote and nunchuck to strap to your ankles.

Also: Online Multiplayer. Yes, it's tough to do for a rapid-fire twitch fighting game. But this is 2010, Nintendo. Figure it out.

Hard Cell
360/PS3
Ah, who can forget the first time we directed the guy on the screen to walk across a narrow catwalk suspended over lava, only to have the guy turn to the screen and say, "Eat my fuckmeat, muchacho! In case you didn't know, lava is hot."

Hard Cell is a third-person game where you control an avatar that isn't particularly happy about being controlled. You can see the character and you can give him commands, but he doesn't necessarily agree with your goal.

Doing a good job of not getting your character hurt or killed will make him happier, filling your “Rapport Meter." Filling the meter makes him faster, more responsive, and overall more willing to work with you rather than against you. But lead him into dead ends, forget to take time to find food, fail to look out for his safety ...

Screenshot by eddie_lummox

... and things get ugly.

You're working with a deep (that is, well-written) and complex character, operating from the most advanced A.I. ever to appear in a game. You'll build trust, you'll become friends.

Which you'll think is great, until the end of the game when you find out you have to sacrifice his life to win. This is an hours-long affair during which he will lie bleeding on the floor, screaming "WHY, DAVID? WHY?!?!?" over and over again at the screen. Did I mention that the guy knows your name?

Whipping Boy
Wii
Here's the secret of the Wii. In the markets where Wii Sports isn't included as a pack-in game, and you have to buy it separately, it still outsells Zelda: Twilight Princess. Why?

It's the boxing. Punching something with your actual fist wrapped around the Wiimote is enormously satisfying. It taps into something primal, releases those violence endorphins that fuel all mankind. Hell, even in tennis, the satisfying THOCK! from the Wiimote speaker when the racket smacks the ball, plus the rumble jolting your hand with the impact ... you can just feel the frustrations of the day lifting through the soothing salve of simple violence.

So you take Wii Sports Boxing, add in the most detailed character creation system the hardware can handle (after all, wrestling games have been perfecting this for years). Let me create the exact replica of my old boss, or my neighbor who kicked my dog, whoever. Their voices, too, we'll have a huge range of sound clips and accents to pick from so they sound almost like the real life counterpart. And then, we beat the shit out of them.

The Wi-Fi connection will let gamers somehow download and trade whipping boys, borrowing from people who have made perfect Tom Cruise or George Bush dummies. They can even download user-created custom weapons to beat them with ...

Screenshot by oball

And that's it, that's the whole game. What else does it need? You come home, in a bad mood. You turn on your Wii, you pound your tormentor until you feel better. It'll be the first game to ever sell 50 million copies.

Deconstructionist
Wii
Take Whipping Boy even further. Here you work for a demolition company. You got that job because you happen to be a gigantic robot.

Take the Wiimote and nunchuck and guide your crushing robotic hands to tear out walls and roofs and support beams with the satisfying sound of snapping timber and crumbling stone.

Screenshot by Carson Vandertruck

It's not just mindless smashing. You've got to take out this building without damaging the ones next to it, you've got to make it fall a certain direction or collapse in its own footprint, etc. Until you get to a level where there's an emergency and you've got to clear two blocks in two minutes, then it is just a mindless, frantic rampage of destruction.

Seriously, you're going to see workplace violence drop through the floor once these bastards hit the shelves. I feel less murderous just talking about it.

Killchain
360/PS3
A puzzle game for people who hate puzzle games and love brutal death. In Killchain you are an assassin who has no weapons, and no fighting skill. What you can do, is freeze time.

So, with each level you'll find yourself in a bustling city, then, time will slow until all of the people are frozen like statues. You can then position any person or object, arranged so that once time resumes you'll create a chain reaction of chaos that will ultimately kill the target.

Cut the brake lines on this car over here, make this lady spill her groceries, set this dog so that it runs across the sidewalk, event triggering event in a ridiculously roundabout Rube Goldberg chain of accidents.

Screenshot by eddie_lummox

By level 12, you're trying to kill a target who's two miles away, on the sixth floor of a locked office building. By level 30 you'll be studying the TV watching habits of your target, realizing he watches baseball every afternoon, then sneaking onto an airfield, reprogramming a plane's flight path so that it crashes into the stadium where his favorite team is playing, the sight of which will give him a fatal heart attack.

Winning will take thought, patience, creativity and the ability to think outside the box. Who says you can't stimulate those things and have grotesque decapitations in the same game?

H vs. Z
360/PS3
It starts out as a standard zombie-killing game, you and your strike force beating back the hordes of the undead as they slowly take over the civilized world. You take out the undead, you level up in strength and experience, you get better weapons. But in H vs. Z, if you get bitten, or get bitten enough times, you become a zombie.

And, you stay a zombie. You're now preying on your squad mates, eating their flesh to upgrade your own strength. As a zombie you can "smell" their internal organs so you can pick out the choicest meat needed to upgrade your zombie skills.

The whole time your former mates are begging and screaming your name, saying "FRANK! It's me! Don't you recognize me! FRAAAAANK UGGGGHHhhh ..."

Your game is stored on a locked file on the hard drive. Reset the game, you're still a zombie. You can't change it. Not until you finish the game. Hey, that's life.

World of Starcraft
PC
This is the gaming version of the flying car. Everybody wants it, nobody wants to give it to us. It was even the subject of a famous April Fool's hoax on Gamespot.com.

Starcraft stands today as the most compelling fictional world ever created in gaming. The three-way intergalactic war between the humans and the Zerg (insects whose entire technology is organic, from their cities to their flying transports) and the Protoss (a race so highly-advanced and civilized they make the humans look like the Zerg).

I realize that knowing all this makes me some kind of sci-fi geek. But that's OK, because the whole world knows a sci-fi geek is about six steps up the social ladder from a fantasy geek and studies show they have more sex.

That's why there are more of us. We're outbreeding them. Even now, even in the shadow of the Lord of the Rings craze, Sci-fi movies and TV shows outnumber anything starring dragons and sorcerers 3-to-1.

There are 8 million WoW players right now. Give me World of Starcraft, with ships and technology and lasers, and the Zerg splicing their genes to create huge-ass bugs that can bite through tanks ... hell, we'll triple that number.

S.N.A.F.U
PC
There's never been a war simulation.

Oh, they've made lots of games like Command and Conquer, but those aren't war simulations. They're "strategy games," fancy versions of Risk, pushing little toy tanks around a game board.

No, I want a war simulation. The ultimate war simulation, where our noble battle against an international terrorist organization quickly turns into a gut-twisting quagmire.

In S.N.A.F.U., you have to worry about civilian casualties, and fuzzy intelligence, and negative media coverage, and funding ...

Click to enlarge. Screenshot by Carson Vandertruck

... and backstabbing allies and lying politicians and faltering popular support.

Rumors will circulate that the single-player mode is, in fact, unwinnable. People will play online, only to find the map objectives changing half an hour into the game, completely against their will.

We've done a whole separate article about this game, HERE

These games came from the imaginations of David Wong and a bunch of PWoT fans.

Mass Driver, Hard Cell and World War Omega were thought up by Haimoimoi.
Jedi Saga was suggested by The Black Knight and I got ants in my pants and probably millions of Star Wars fans everywhere.
Total Kung Fu was sort of suggested by Vermillion.
H vs. Z was the brainchild of spermus.

79 Comments

MorganChaos

I want to play hard cell and whipping boy. Hard cell moreso since I'm not thrilled with the wii (I find the remote hard to control but maybe i haven't played it enough). I love unreliable narrator stories and I've actually thought about and wanted games where the person you're controlling isn't terribly interested in being controlled.

Posted on 5/15/2008 1:06:14 AM

aljensen

If you want to study Chinese so bad you can taste it AND you're broke go to www.zhongwenred.com

Posted on 5/5/2008 12:47:08 PM

katie5000

lol, some of these are great! I for one would seriously like to see a "World of Starcraft".

Posted on 4/30/2008 1:26:36 PM

held094

hot dude is actually a 45 year old fat man that wants to put whip cream bikinis on 14 year old girls.

Posted on 4/3/2008 3:09:02 PM

Capt_Poco

Good games are not just about good ideas. You also need production values (controls, camera work, level design, etc). How many games with a cool concept have been ruined by shitty camerawork? Did WoW really have such a revolutionary game idea, or was it just Everquest + uber production values? Best bet to making Jedi Saga and the rest a reality: Make a shitty version of them yourself, then post it as freeware. If it's popular, Will Wright might steal your idea (won't be the first time), or give you a job.

Posted on 3/29/2008 8:49:12 AM

Koves2K8

Ha ha ha some of these ideas are in a class of their own. Whipping boy and total kung fu stick out in my mind although how the hell they would get the coveted Nintendo seal of approval is beyond me lol

Posted on 3/25/2008 1:51:18 AM

Noisebot

I hate you people so much. Start making these. NOW.

Posted on 3/15/2008 5:21:47 PM

hot dude

wanna have sex anyone

Posted on 3/13/2008 7:41:34 PM

Unwavering

Unwavering[UN]You guys should shut Cracked down and become game developers. I would buy every one of these, especially S.N.A.F.U. And in response to "I love Idiots," self love is great, but we'd appreciate it if you did it alone. Who would make a game about hitting people and nothing else you ask? Ever heard of boxing? And if they can release a game about John Deer Tractors why wouldn't anyone make that one?

Posted on 3/12/2008 11:18:32 PM

FireSpell

Shut your face, both you idiots. this is CRACKED.COM. stop ruining our fun and get out of my life.

Posted on 3/12/2008 6:50:11 PM

I love Idiots that think other people are idiots

Hey "I love idiots" although these games may not be real. Do you have any idea how long it takes to make a good game shit tard? More than a few years.

Posted on 3/12/2008 3:04:00 PM

I Love Idiots

If you honestly believe these games are'nt made up you are retarded. i mean think people 2010? two years away morons. plus NO ONE would make a game about hitting someone and nothing else. who ever made up this bull shit needs to think next time.

Posted on 3/12/2008 12:36:10 PM

Drizzt125

Killchain would be awsome. Can't wait for 2010. :)

Posted on 3/11/2008 1:46:53 PM

Mental-Origami

World of STARCRAFT?! synonymous with GODLY? iight. i'll bite.

Posted on 2/25/2008 7:12:57 AM

Huh?

I read the exact same H vs Z thing in an interview with Hideo Kojima, where he essentially said the same thing. Is there something you need to tell us, spermus?

Posted on 2/19/2008 1:56:51 PM

guywithpasta

Well, that was intriguing as well as scary. It knew my real name in hard cell. :(

Posted on 2/14/2008 3:56:15 PM

DrPayne

I would buy at least six of these games, in a heartbeat. And Killchain might be the best idea for a video game ever commited to paper (or bytes). But if it is, Whipping Boy would be a damn close second.

Posted on 1/31/2008 9:02:27 AM

Orgenegro

Here's one for the future... a racing game, with the concept of Race Driver, the versatility of rFactor and the accessibility of Gran Turismo. You start out in any period of racing history, making your way up from the lowest ranks and try and progress as far as you can, unlimited to any type of car. But all cars drive differently. All team owners act differently; piss them off and you lose your factory contract. All teammates act differently; become better than one and he may fall in line, but he also may try to steal your glory. Fans treat you differently-- an American winning the British Grand Prix may not be treated as just peachy. Have a bad season and find yourself criticized and maybe out of a job. Skillsets change per car; a modern F1 Ferrari will feel a lot different from a CART Reynard from ten years ago, and worlds different from a pre-war Auto Union.

Posted on 1/24/2008 6:53:46 PM

Pyrratus

Marvel vs. DC gets me salivating. Though it would be awesome if instead of 10 blocks you had the whole fucking city of New York something like the map of the Spiderman 2 or Superman Returns games. You would have to search the city or just start blowing shit up to bring the other hero to you. And with something like 50 heroes from each of the brands. Yeah!

Posted on 1/24/2008 5:11:41 PM

Jamila

I swear to God, I hope you aren't joking. I need these games to exist. 2010's when I graduate... mike111-Stop being a damn pussy. No one mentioned it because it's FUNNY. It's called humor, ya crybaby furry. "Oh God, their pretending to beat their dad with a dildo! What has the world come to?! (sobsobsob)"

Posted on 1/20/2008 11:54:25 AM

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The 12 Awesomest Games of 2010

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