Skyrim
My game of the year. I personally have put over seventy hours into this game and have only completed fifty percent of the quests I have available, am at the halfway point on my way to max level, and still I have yet to visit three major towns as well as the lands under their control. This game is HUGE. I would go on but some arrow+knee meme is something something.


Portal 2
This game was a blast. While I personally was disappointed with the fact that it was more focused on story than on difficulty, I would still give this game a 9/10. For any of you who somehow missed this, it is a puzzle platformer focusing on portals that you place on the level by shooting a portal gun. The single campaign is short, but there are plenty more puzzles to enjoy with a friend. The most challenging part of the game for me was putting it down. I beat both campaigns within 36 hours of its release and had every achievement with in the week. While that does bring up the point of it being easier than its predecessor it was in fact longer. Plenty of comedy, great script and wonderful voice acting makes this game an actual joy to listen to. How many games this year can say that?

Deus Ex
This game is a prequel to the series with a lot of high expectations. Somehow, they were all met. You can play this game guns blazing like Duke or sneak around in the shadows completely unseen. Or you could be a cross where you kill everyone like an unseen ninja assassin, dragging the bodies into the air ducts where you hide them from their former co-workers and friends. I personally only played for a short time but here is a game that was received well by fans of the series, critics, and newcomers alike.

Bastion
I can't say enough about this game. You play as a boy after a calamity destroyed his war torn world. He remembers where his people was to meet in the case of an emergency and finds his way there. Upon arrival, he is given the opportunity to rebuild his world by collecting crystals to power a machine that can rebuild the world. Wonderful graphics, unique narration, many weapons and skills to collect and improve, challenges to overcome, and several enemy classes to get in your way. This game really does have a lot more to offer than I can put into words.

Batman: Arkham City
The first in this series had a difficult task. Make a game that wouldn't enrage the fans. More so, make a game that they would get in line at midnight for and call out sick for days to sit at home and play. Some how, despite all odds, mission success. Now, they had to do it again. In many ways this is even more difficult. They made Arkham City bigger and better. I don't believe I need to talk about the actual game here. Everybody knows by now.

TLoZ: Skyward Sword
They made another Zelda game. Many people played. Some bought two copies.

Uncharted 3
This series is making me want a PS3. Even more so than Disgaea or Resistance. I've read the reviews, watched the clips, listened to friends go on and on. It has been made clear to me that this is one of the more significant games of the year. Even to someone like myself without the console it's on.

Rayman Origins
This game came out on every console and handheld. Somehow people don't know about it. Go out and watch a gameplay video. Nevermind here's one now

If this doesn't convince you to at least consider playing it, then you must not chew big red gum.

Finally the biggest game of the decade.
Duke Nukem Forever
I'm still waiting.

On May 2, a team of Navy SEALs on a raid into Abbottabad, Pakistan, took the life of Osama bin Laden, ending the reign of terror of the al-Qaida leader who claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and the 1998 bombings of American embassies in two east African capitals, among other strikes.

More than a dozen years after President Clinton signed an order for the apprehension of bin Laden and authorizing the use of deadly force against him, bin Laden's campaign against the United States was ended, leaving al-Qaida in the hands of longtime cohort Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The mission that killed bin Laden hampered U.S. relations with Pakistan, whose partnership in the war on terror is valued by Washington. The Pakistani military took the cross-border raid as an affront to the nation's sovereignty. The United States held suspicions that some Pakistani authorities were harboring bin Laden, stoked by the fact that terror leader resided in a complex less than a mile from a military academy considered Pakistan's equivalent of West Point.

For almost 42 years since a bloodless military coup, Moammar Gadhafi held chief sway over Libya. The nation became a pariah largely because of state-sponsored terrorism directed by the man president Reagan called "the mad dog of the Middle East." Eventually, Gadhafi sought to normalize international relations, agreeing to a $2.7 billion settlement with families of victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and dismantling his weapons of mass production programs.

His reconciliation efforts brought him little international sympathy, however, when "Arab Spring" protests came to Libya in February. By the end of the month, rebels held a large swath of the nation's east, and Gadhafi's crackdown had escalated into violence. The United Nations soon voted to freeze the regime's international assets. In March, NATO imposed a no-fly zone to keep Libyan air power out of the crackdown.

Meanwhile, protests escalated into civil war.

By the end of September, Libya's rebels had control of much of Tripoli, Including Gadhafi's stronghold. And rebel forces seized Gadhafi on Oct. 20. and shot him dead, ending a four-decade regime.

The National Transitional Council, which was tasked with setting up a new government, estimated that 25,000 Libyans perished in the fight.

The council has pledged to hold national elections by April.

In almost 30 years as Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak survived six assassination attempts and was an often-divisive figure at home. He ruled the nation for his entire tenure under its oppressive emergency law provisions that expand police powers and curb civic freedoms. He was also accused of condoning and participating in corrupt activities that allowed him to amass personal wealth of as much as $80 million.

But he often served as a key ally to the West within the Arab world and an intermediary for Israel in its peace talks with the Palestinians.

So while the toppling of Mubarak in Arab Spring protests was much celebrated in Egypt, President Obama was lambasted by opponents for abandoning a longtime and staunch American ally. Critics suggested the move allowed the Muslim Brotherhood or a harder-line Islamist party to position itself for the implementation of radical Islamic policy in what had been a relatively moderate state. Parliamentary voting that began in December appeared poised to give the Muslim Brotherhood the lead role in the legislature and the harder-line Salafi party significant clout.

Protests that started Jan. 25 ousted Mubarak in just 18 days. The relatively peaceful confrontation claimed about 850 lives.

In mid-March, Arab Spring protests arose in Syria, where Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez, had held power for 40 years. Amid a fierce crackdown, casualties mounted at a rate far exceeding that of most Arab Spring nations. By mid-December, the civilian death toll eclipsed 5,000. While the death toll mounted, so did international pressure on the Assad regime to meet opposition demands U.S., European and even Arab League sanctions did little to sway the Assad regime.

As the year progressed, Syria was in the midst of an armed conflict that either constituted or approached a civil war.

The turmoil started in Tunisia in December 2010, when an defiant act of self-immolation by Mohamed Bouazizi sparked a popular uprising that drove leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power.

Protests struck more than a dozen nations. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, who has agreed to step down by February 2012 in exchange for immunity from prosecution in his crackdown on protests, would be the fourth leader toppled by the unrest. He had been relied upon by Western nations as an ally against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a terror offshoot based in Yemen that the CIA Director David Petraeus called the biggest threat in "global jihad."

On March 11, one of the five most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck of the coast of Japan, triggering a huge tsunami, exceeding 30 feet in places, that pounded the nation's northeast. More than 15,800 people perished in the disaster.

The energy radiated by the temblor was equal to the power consumption of the United States for a month, and the strength of the temblor was such that the island of Honshu moved eight feet to the east and shortened the length of a day, speeding up the earth's rotation by 1.6 microseconds.

Because of its power and the fact that it happened hundreds of miles north of where experts predicted the next "big one" would occur, the earthquake found a vulnerable area in Japan's elaborate safety measures. Despite what are considered the world's strongest building standards to prevent damage from seismic events, which frequently strike Japan, more than 125,000 homes and buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged.

Among those were reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, adding to a monumental natural disaster the threat of a man-made one.

Three reactor meltdowns displaced 100,000 people, likely made areas around the plant uninhabitable for decades and tainted some of the nation's food supply with radioactivity.

In Spain, Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was forced to step down; Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative People's Party, was poised to take the reins after his party's victory in November elections.Civil servant Jose Vazquez said of the election, "We can

choose the sauce they will cook us in, but we're still going to be cooked."

Portuguese Socialist leader Jose Socrates resigned in March; Pedro Passos Coelho of the more conservative Social Democrats took power in June. In Ireland, February elections also moved the nation to the right.

In Greece, Socialist leader George Papandreou stepped down to allow economist Lucas Papademos to run a transitional government that would oversee a $180 billion European Union bailout as the nation prepares for elections in February. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi was forced from a 17-year reign in which he survived numerous scandals. He was also replaced by an economist, Mario Monti, who could have the helm until a 2013 vote.

Troubled economies in Europe increasingly turned to new governments that promised stringent austerity measures that threatened popular but expensive social programs.

The move to austerity measures was buttressed by external pressure, as troubled nations' economic partners insisted on standards of fiscal accountability across Europe. Britain notably abstained from a pact among 26 EU members, including all 17 eurozone members, that would impose economic sanctions on member nations that engaged in deficit spending. The decision to relinquish some fiscal sovereignty in the name of stability was a contoversial move for many Europeans.

When a bombing and shooting spree claimed 77 lives in Norway on July 22, initial speculation was that Islamic terrorism had reached the nation. The bomb strike on government buildings in Oslo killed eight, and 69 people, mostly unarmed adolescents, were killed at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoya island.

But the perpetrator turned out to be a Christian: blond-haired, blue-eyed Anders Behring Breivik -- for all intents and purposes the Nordic archetype. And his professed motivation in the attacks that injured 151 was to halt the spread of Islam in Europe. Breivik reportedly accused the Labour Party of "treason" for encouraging multiculturalism.

Despite the carnage, Breivik apparently won't be sentenced to jail time; the confessed killer was deemed legally insane, meaning he'd be given mandated psychiatric care unless the courts overturned that evaluation.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg vowed in the aftermath of the attacks that Norway would remain "an open society."

After more than eight years of fighting, questions remained as to whether the Iraqi government installed after the ouster of Saddam Hussein could stand on its own. With about 4,500 Americans sacrificing their lives in a conflict that might cost the United States $4 trillion before all is said and done, U.S. leaders seemed willing to extend the nation's troop presence if it would cement gains.

But the Iraqi government wouldn't acquiesce to American demands that its troops be immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. As a result, the advise-and-assist role of American troops will come to a close at year's end.

As 2012 begins, the United States will remove the last of nearly 50,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq after the 2010 end of combat operations.

The withdrawal could leave Iraq vulnerable to violence within its borders, but also sectarian divisions, to Iranian influence, or to a host of other issues that could threaten the nation's stability in the volatile region.

In 2007, News of the World reporter Clive Goodman and an associate, private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, were jailed after convictions that they had hacked into phones of aides to the British royal family, government officials and celebrities. The U.K. tabloid dismissed the incident as the isolated work of a rogue reporter.

But in July, the list of phone hacking victims expanded to include a 13-year-old murder victim, relatives of fallen soldiers and victims of the 2005 terror attacks in London. And the list of those implicated in or accused of complicity the practice grew to include much of the tabloid's staff, Prime Minister David Cameron's communications director and bigwigs at parent company News International -- all the way up the chain to Rupert Murdoch and his son James.

News of the World was shut down in July after 168 years of publishing. A $12 billion bid by Rupert Murdoch to take over British Sky Broadcasting was another casualty. In November, a probe concluded that other tabloids used much the same tactics as News of the World.

In December, an e-mail chain was released showing that James Murdoch had received and responded to missives discussing phone hacking as early as 2008. He had denied knowledge of the practice in testimony to Parliament and maintains that he did not read the entirety of the e-mail chain he responded to.

News International faces dozens of lawsuits in connection with the phone hacking scandal.

As 2010 wound to a close, the effort by President Felipe Calderon to combat violent drug cartels entered its fifth year with the reported number of "deaths due to criminal rivalry" at 34,612. The government has not kept its vow to update the tally since then. The reticence might be influenced by the apparent deterioration of the situation; U.S. observers have put the updated toll as high as 60,000.

And as the numbers rise, so does the brutality and visibility: bodies hung from bridges, truckfuls of corpses left in the street, severed heads dumped by an elementary school and the like. Cartels appear to be expanding their interests beyond drug trafficking to extortion, kidnapping, money laundering, human trafficking -- just about any criminal enterprise that offers a profit. In December, reports suggested that a significant chunk of the populace suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Calderon and government officials characterize the burgeoning violence as a sign of success rather than of failure. They contend that mounting atrocities are evidence of desperate cartels turning to desperate tactics, citing the capture or killing of more than half of the 37 most-wanted crime bosses on a list released in 2010.

Government, police and prison officials continue to be shown to be acting in accordance with cartels' wishes, either out of fear or because of bribery. But American law enforcement agencies have reportedly returned the favor by building a network of informants that have infiltrated the cartels as the United States works to keep violence contained south of the border.

Good relations with Pakistan are seen as critical to war efforts in Afghanistan and against global terror. Key supply lines to NATO troops in Afghanistan run through its neighbor, and Pakistan's mountainous northwest provides a haven for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. Moreover, instability and radicalism in the nation are widely feared because of its nuclear arsenal.

But much of its citizenry holds a deep-seated animosity towards the United States, and its disjointed ruling apparatus means that good relations with its government don't ensure good relations with its military or intelligence services.

So when Raymond Davis, who had been employed as a contractor with the U.S. consulate in Pakistan, shot and killed two men in January, it was an immediate blow to relations. Despite claims of self-defense and diplomatic immunity Davis was jailed and charged with double murder. He was released in March upon the payment of $2.4 million in compensation to victims' families, but anger over the event did not dissipate.

The May killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden angered the military, which decried the violation of sovereignty, and citizenry, many of whom sympathized with the terror leader. U.S. mistrust of Pakistani military and intelligence organizations grew with the suspicion that bin Laden had received willing shelter.

In September, attacks on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, were blamed on the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said "acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency."

After a late November cross-border airstrike killed 24 of its soldiers, Pakistan shut down shipping lanes to Afghanistan, boosted air defense on its border, and told its troops they could return fire against any supposed aggressor without consulting central command. In December, a move was made to reopen the shipping lanes -- but with a levy that could boost the cost of shipments through the country by as much as a third.

With the extensive discord, the United States is on shaky ground with a valued -- if not trusted -- ally even as it begins to withdraw forces from Afghanistan.