10 must-play games of the year

With the lingering economic malaise making video game publishers considerably more risk averse as of late, the past year in console releases saw an incredible number of sequels. Established franchises became safe bets to bring in the big bucks like never before, resulting in less experimentation in 2011.

While several franchises suffered from a case of too-much familiarity, two seemed to be the magic number, with fully half of our top-ten games of the year counting as the second iterations in their fledgling series.

It was a a big year for returning dragons, cloth dolls and familiar heroes, although it wasn't all sequelitis - some brand new ideas did manage to click with both critics and gamers. Year-end lists are always subjective, but that shouldn't stop you from checking out our favourite console games of 2011.

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