With 2012 off to a good start, it’s time for us to take a look back at 2011 with our annual The Year in Screenshots feature that highlights our favorite games of the year. Rather than argue about awarding a single game as our game of the year, we here at SmashPad prefer to just tell you our 25 most favorite games of the year and give each game equal billing.

If you want a glimpse of the numbers ..read more

The vast  majority of games won’t mean much 10 years after they’ve been released. Sure, you can conjure up little used memories for a chuckle. Chances are, though, you won’t remember much. But then there are those games that are forever burned into your gaming memories. The first time you were Mario. Your first Doom kill. In this case, the time you spent blasting Covenant in Halo. Of course, Halo still resonates today because the game turned into an insanely ..read more

The Battlefield series has become one of EA’s most popular franchises, providing some of the most explosive and addictive multiplayer experiences in any shooter on the market today, rivaling even that of Call of Duty.  Battlefield 3 is no exception; marking the best entry in the series to date, DICE has gone all out to deliver a polished, one-of-a-kind multiplayer experience that you will have a hard time putting down.

Battlefield 3 is known first and foremost ..read more

Just when you think a game can’t possibly be topped, Rocksteady Studios rockets through the roof and takes off into the stars with Batman: Arkham City. The sequel to the award-winning title, Batman: Arkham Asylum, thrusts the player back into the cowl of the Dark Knight as the story continues beyond the massive destruction of the asylum. So for those who thought they actually were Batman, let’s get you out of those silly pajamas and into ..read more

Microsoft launched their Kinect peripheral last year in hopes of broadening their user base and taking a chunk out of the Wii in sales. Though it’s debatable that the Kinect even had an impact with the year’s dip in Wii sales, what’s undeniable is the fact that the Kinect hasn’t really taken off since its release.

Dance Central has been the best game that made use of the accessory.  Harmonix has come out with the inevitable sequel, and it has replaced ..read more

With the ongoing struggle of the current NBA lockout, much of the NBA season has been thrown into the gutter with almost no end in sight, which is unfortunate because last year gamers experienced what was probably the best basketball video game of all time in NBA 2K11.

Though they didn’t have to, 2K Sports has come out with NBA 2K12, and the game is every bit as good as its predecessor.

Ever since last year’s debacle that ended up ..read more

With the ongoing struggle of the current NBA lockout, much of the NBA season has been thrown into the gutter with almost no end in sight, which is unfortunate because last year gamers experienced what was probably the best basketball video game of all time in NBA 2K11.

Though they didn’t have to, 2K Sports has come out with NBA 2K12, and the game is every bit as good as its predecessor.

Ever since last year’s debacle that ended up ..read more

Last year, the much delayed and hotly anticipated Gran Turismo 5 was finally released for the Playstation 3. Fans of the series were pleased by its high level of quality, though most were a bit bothered by how inconsistent the game was across its various features. Some things were fleshed out, and others were bare-bones. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 driving enthusiasts were still putting hundreds of hours into Forza Motorsport 3. While the game may not have looked quite as good ..read more

id Software is one of those developers who do not release a game until they feel it is done. Unfortunately, this also makes them less than prolific. The theory though is that quality trumps quantity. With Rage this theory has proven itself to be true.

The last fully id developed game was Doom 3, which was released in 2004. Since then there have been new versions of Quake and Wolfenstein, but neither of those were fully developed by id. ..read more

EA Canada, the Hockey branch of the EA Sports brand, has been on a complete tear for several years now. Just as competitor 2K Sports hit a monumental slump from which they still have yet to even show the earliest signs of recovering, NHL 07 debuted a fantastic new gameplay engine for the long-running franchise, with each subsequent year adding substantial improvements over its predecessor. The most notable innovations include the Be A Pro mode, which effectively transforms your Hockey ..read more

Outside of the Halo franchise, Epic Games’ Gears of War series was intended to be a major player for the Xbox 360. The first Gears was a (literally) bloody hit. Gears of War 2 expanded that success and garnered its own rave reviews, and the final installment looks to top things off. Gears of War 3 is able to do more than that, making great improvements and creating a incredibly satisfying end to the series.

Gears of War 3 ..read more

For years, the Mortal Kombat fanbase was the polar opposite of the fighting game community at large. While most franchises were finding their success in implementing the greater depth and balance that a tournament scene thrives on, Mortal Kombat revelled in its simplicity, targeting a playerbase mostly bewildered by the more technical points of the genre and/or attracted by the spectacle that defined the series from the beginning.

Since the fighting genre boom of 2009 that kicked off with Street Fighter ..read more

Released in 1999, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is unquestionably one of the most finely-crafted games of all time, with a number of players considering it among the greatest overall. With such a strong following, it’s no question why fans were disheartened when the legacy Xbox Live shutdown left gamers without a completely legitimate way to play 3rd Strike online. That all changed at the 2010 San Diego ComicCon, when current Street Fighter series producer Yoshinori Ono announced 3rd Strike ..read more

With the start of another NFL season comes another entry to EA Sports’ long-running Madden football series.  Over the last few years EA Sports has added different nuances to the gameplay in order to enhance the experience and while nothing vital was truly “added” to the core gameplay, the latest entry is also one of its more polished.

Madden has been the best-selling football game this entire generation for a number of reasons.  The most obvious of which is ..read more

Fruit Ninja is a game that a lot of people will recognize because the game is an absolute blast in Apple’s growling library of iOS games.  Now it’s being featured on Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade, and while it may not be a hit to the hardcore crowd, the game is still a blast to play and is probably the most intuitive experience available on the Kinect.

Fruit Ninja Kinect offers no instructions.  Quite frankly, it doesn’t need any. ..read more

Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade continues with From Dust, a strategy game developed by Ubisoft Monpellier that will make gamers hate nature.

From Dust follows a nomadic and adventurous tribe looking to repopulate and settle in various worlds in order to properly prosper.  They do so with the help of “the breath,” a snake-like god that you take control of that has the power to move nature’s matter around in order to manipulate the earth’s pattern and make village ..read more

It’s quite curious to see Microsoft begin its Summer of Arcade campaign so late into July, where summer is already passed its halfway point.  Timing aside, the Summer of Arcade kicks off with the colorful Bastion, an action RPG developed by new independent developer Supergiant Games.

The story of Bastion takes place in a world that has fallen victim to the “Calamity”, an apocolyptic event that has enveloped the world in darkness and ruin.  Players take on the role ..read more

Publisher Atlus has been all money lately.  While the team is known for making mostly “niche” games, they’ve established quite a fanbase especially with eastern gamers.  From the Persona games at the end of the PS2′s dominance to other Shin Megami Tensei games on the handhelds, Atlus has simply been putting out quality titles.  Catherine is the publisher’s first internally-developed title for a high-definition console, and those patient enough to handle the game should find that this is ..read more