Favorite Game of 2011: "Catherine"

Part platforming puzzle game. Part dating sim game. Part anime. And part bizarre nightmare. In total "Catherine" for the PS3 (also available on the Xbox 360) has been my favorite game for 2011.

Courtesy of Atlus, "Catherine" pits you as an average Joe named Vincent with an average job and average personality. Naturally in a Japanese anime setting, this average Joe quality means that he's a lady's magnet and is dating his hot childhood friend Katherine who is trying to push marriage on him. His lady's magnet powers are too effective when the titular Catherine (whose outfit emphasizes the word titular) tosses herself into his pants. Vincent's infidelity sets him up for a fate worse than appearing on the Maury Povich show. A wave of adulterous men like Vincent have been dying around town. The rumor is that those men who die in their nightmares die for real... and Vincent is starting to have nightmares himself after that night with Catherine.

Vincent's soap opera like situation is just the staging ground to set up the main game of "Catherine" where you control Vincent through a vertical platform puzzler representing his nightmares. You guide Vincent up a tower pushing blocks to create bridges and stairs to reach the top before it all crumbles. Traps like spiked floors, bombs, slippery ice, and black holes will hinder your progress and possibly send you plummeting to your doom. And occasionally floor bosses will directly attack you or screw up the tower blocks to really mess your progress up. Fortunately, fellow adulterers trapped in the nightmare will assist you with climbing techniques and other advice.

The puzzles are frenetically difficult and may cause a panic while solving them, but that's the point. It's a nightmare; you're supposed to be frantically climbing to escape it in a panic. Solving each stage is a frustrating effort but provides a satisfying feeling once solved.

In between nightmares, Vincent spends his time living in an anime series where he hangs with his friends at a bar to advance the story. Your activities in the bar such as talking to patrons, getting drunk, or choosing between Catherine and Katherine will affect your reactions to situations in the story and eventually the ending.

The multiple endings may warrant replay. But once you kill a puzzle, the challenge usually dies with it. The main purpose of replaying the puzzles is to get a better score to eventually access the randomly generated puzzle feature for single and co-op modes. It's a pity that mode takes a long time to access.

But the disturbing visuals and engaging story are sure to suck you into "Catherine." Even without the visuals or story, the challenging puzzle game play is more than enough to succeed as an actual game. And the GAME is always supposed to be the most important part of a game.