Announcing the 2010 Game of the Year Awards from the First Hour! We published over 60 full reviews this year, tripling our output from last year. Of course, our writing staff has grown quite a bit also. I personally beat 30 games, undoubtedly making 2010 my most productive video gaming year ever. We also played over 55 first hours, keeping up a steady pace of one a week. We have not been lacking for great games or content this year.

This isn't your normal Game of the Year awards, we cover everything from older game of the year to worst first hour, so keep scrolling all the way to the bottom! If anything, our game of the year picks are the least interesting decisions. The writers here also don't vote on the categories, instead, everyone is welcome to submit their picks as their own definitive decision.

I can't name a lot of puzzle games I've honestly enjoyed.  Tetris Attack, the Professor Layton series if those count, World of Goo?  As you can tell I'm not a huge fan of the genre.  I might play a puzzle game for a few rounds before I become bored, but Picross 3D was different, really different.  I've already managed to beat over 200 levels and was becoming so obsessed with the game I was carrying my DS to work in case the opportunity came up over lunch.

Picross 3D is not a typical puzzle game, it's slow moving and requires a lot of careful thought.  There is little guessing involved and it does an excellent job of driving you on from puzzle to puzzle.  As someone who had never played a Picross game before, I really had no idea what I was getting into until I read Nate's half hour review of the game.  The game is cheap though so there's little investment for a chance of tons of hours of gaming.  Plus it reminds me of my Kakuro obsession during my senior year of college.

Get ready for my shortest review ever!

Picross 3D is the latest brain-teaser game for the Nintendo DS. If you're not familiar with the concept of Picross, it's a simple puzzle game: a grid of squares is presented, and numbers next to the rows or columns indicate how many squares in that column or row should be colored in. As squares are colored in, they clue the player in on what other squares should be colored in. The end result is a crude object, like a person or a clock. It's simple enough that it could be done on graph paper, but Nintendo has made millions of dollars collecting these puzzles and putting them in videogames, most recently Picross DS a few years ago.

Picross 3D takes the concept in three dimensions, giving the player a large cube or rectangular prism made up of blocks. Remove the right blocks and an object appears. The concept is almost as simple in 3D as it is on graph paper, though it would be nigh-impossible to do with physical objects. It's well-suited for videogames, however, where virtual representations can easily be created.

As someone who enjoys brain-teasers and puzzle games, I have a feeling I'll enjoy Picross 3D as long as I'm sufficiently challenged. But this is one of those new-fangled "Casual games" that seem to be popping up everywhere nowadays and trying to appeal to everybody, so it may be oversimplified or very slow to start. Let's find out.