3) HOKUTO NO KEN (PS2)
Simply watching this video made me go "Gee, that looks good" and since I'd played through my fair share of Capcom and SNK fighters I thought it was time to try something different. This paid off because Hokuto no Ken is my favourite fighting game that I bought this year, featuring fantastic 2D graphics and some really great music. Nothing that unique about it gameplay wise but the super moves are all extremely over the top and fun to watch, and the fights are fast paced and frantic. Playing this turned me into a fan of the series and after watching the anime, I just wish the game had a few more characters in it -Shuu, Ryuuga and Juuza would have been most welcome. Aside from the small cast size however I'd advise any fighting game fan to pick this up immediately.
2) LEFT 4 DEAD (XBOX 360)
Simple premise: 4 people against a near infinite amount of zombies. Make it so you can co-op the game with 3 other people and that just about sums up Left 4 Dead: Online multi-player gaming at it's finest. Compared to the vast amount of jerks you'll find playing games like Halo 3, this is much more fun as you'll have to co-operate to survive each campaign -trying to go it alone simple doesn't work. And taking on hundreds of zombies at once is exhilarating, as is trying to take down the bigger foes like tanks. You'll really need to be online to make the most with this title though as it just isn't the same trying to run through levels with the A.I. characters.
1) CASTLEVANIA: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT (PS1, SATURN, XBOX 360)
I'd played all of the Metroidvanias for the GBA and DS, but none of them come close to matching the quality of SotN. I've stated several times what I like and don't like about the game before, but to put it simply: everything about this game is great aside from the slightly easy level of difficulty and Konami could have tried to make the inverted castle a bit more interesting. Apart from those gripes I really enjoyed this game, going through the castles was a lot of fun (particularly the first one) and it was extremely rewarding to find out how to get to a new area and then exploring it. It also has some of the best music for a Castlevania title that I've ever heard, possibly my favourite score for the series. It also gets bonus points for helping me take my mind off how shitty my job was for the first quarter of the year.
