It's still Mario's galaxy
| 2010 | |
| Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) |
97 |
| 2009 | |
| Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) | 96 |
| 2008 | |
| Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3) |
98 |
| 2007 | |
| Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) |
97 |
| 2006 | |
| The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) |
95 |
When Mario heads into outer space, great things happen. Topping our list of the best-reviewed videogames of 2010 is Wii title Super Mario Galaxy 2 97, the sequel to our 2007 game of the year, Super Mario Galaxy. The new Mario title edged out the Xbox 360 sequel Mass Effect 2 96 and two versions of western adventure Red Dead Redemption 95 (for PS3 and 360) to take home this year's title.
Was 2010 a good year for games in general? Not if you go by sales: preliminary reports by NPD reveal that consumer spending on game content was down about 1% last year when compared to 2009. And maybe not if you are looking at quality. While 2009 saw the release of 29 "great" games (with Metascores of 90 or higher), that number dropped to 24 in 2010. More tellingly, the average Metascore for all releases for each console was down last year vs. the averages for 2009.
That doesn't mean there weren't bright spots, with PC gaming shining the brightest. Not only were PC game sales up last year by about 3% vs. 2009, but the average Metascore for a 2010 PC title was up by over a point compared to the prior year. Metascore averages also increased for each of the handheld platforms.
In the following pages, we take a look at the best-reviewed games for each gaming platform. First, however, let's take a look at how each platform fared during the past year. In the console department, though there were slightly fewer "great" games for the 360, the PlayStation 3 had the better metrics in most categories, including the most "good" games (i.e., games with green Metascores), highest percentage of good games, and highest average Metascore.
| Platform | Scored Games* |
# Great** | # Good Exclusives** |
Avg. Metascores | Metascore Distribution | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exclusives | % Good |
% Mixed | % Bad | |||||
| Consoles: | ||||||||
| PlayStation 3 | 231 | 7 | 12 | 70.0 | 66.2 | 44% | 46% | 10% |
| Xbox 360 | 260 | 9 | 13 | 67.8 | 64.0 | 39% | 48% | 13% |
| Wii | 156 | 2 | 19 | 64.6 | 64.8 | 29% | 54% | 17% |
| Other: | ||||||||
| PC | 182 | 4 | 18 | 71.3 | 68.6 | 42% | 54% | 4% |
| Nintendo DS | 127 | 1 | 24 | 69.4 | 71.1 | 35% | 61% | 4% |
| PSP | 73 | 1 | 9 | 70.4 | 70.6 | 33% | 62% | 5% |
Here's another look at the number of good games (titles with a Metascore of 75 or higher) released by platform last year:
Good Games by Platform (Platform Exclusives vs. Others), 2010
And here are the year's best-reviewed titles available on multiple platforms:
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| Mass Effect 2 | Red Dead Redemption |
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX | Super Street Fighter IV |
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood | |||||
| Average: | 95 | Average: | 95 | Average: | 93 | Average: | 92 | Average: | 90 |
| 360: 96 PC: 94 | 360, PS3: 95 | 360: 93 PS3: 92 | PS3: 92 360: 91 | PS3: 90 360: 89 | |||||
Releases by platform
On the next pages, we examine the best and worst 2010 games released for each platform, including the top titles exclusive to each platform.
