2011 Was a Great Year for Gaming, BioShock Creator Believes

Ken Levine, head of Irrational Games and the mind behind the cult classic BioShock, believes 2011 has been one of the greatest years in gaming in quite some time, saying that a huge variety of great games have appeared throughout the last 12 months that have all delivered quality experiences.

We’ve seen the release of quite a lot of games in the last year, ranging from great downloadable titles like Bastion or Orcs Must Die, to stunning triple-A titles like Skyrim, Portal 2, or Batman: Arkham City, all managing to delight legions of gamers, no matter what their preferred genre was.

Irrational Games’ creative director, Ken Levine, also noticed this impressive stream of great releases, and told Eurogamer that this year was one of the best in terms of gaming experiences, at least since 2007.

"I always make time for games," Levine said. "That's important. If you're not playing games you're compromising your ability as a game developer to make good games.”

"It's been an interesting year. It's the best year since - and I'm not just saying this because of my game - 2007. A lot of great games, like Portal, came out that year. It's the best year in a very long time. There have been a ton of games I've been playing. I play more games right now mostly because there's just so much good stuff to play."

We’ve already talked about the avalanche of high quality titles that appeared in the last few months and how they’re now being fully experienced by gamers because of the free time they have during the winter holidays.

Levine also believes that the industry should pride itself with such a solid year and continue offering great experiences throughout 2012.

"[2011] is a year to be proud of our industry. It's a year to be proud of the Uncharted guys. It's a year to be proud of Epic. It's a year to be proud of the Call of Duty guys. It's a year to be proud of everybody because people are delivering this year in a way the industry hasn't delivered in a very long time."

2012 won’t be so bad either, as straight in its first half we have great games like Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Diablo III, or even Levine’s own BioShock Infinite title.