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The Best Games of 2008
As the year comes to an end, most game sites are putting up lists highlighting their favorite games of 2008. Gamasutra is no exception, but they've nicely consolidated a variety of lists, and included some of their reasons and commentary to go with them. The topics range from the best overlooked games (Soul Bubbles and Pure) to the best new gameplay mechanics (first-person parkour in Mirror's Edge and Spore's procedural content generation) to the best overall games of the year (Fallout 3, World of Goo, and LittleBigPlanet). What were your top games of 2008?
I'm an avid gamer, and Fallout 3 was the best game hands down this year. Bionic Commando: Rearmed was pretty great too, for a Xbox Live title. But beyond those two, this was actually a great year for games: GTA IV, Mirror's Edge, Far Cry 2, Gears of War 2...man, I wish I didn't have to go to bed now! :/
Well, it's been an interesting year - quite a few very good titles (with a particularly large cluster of these released in the September - November range) and also a few which turned out to be fairly huge disappointments.
Anyway, my own top 10:
10) Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii) - a rare example of a first party Nintendo game which has decent production values and doesn't suffer from a severe lack of content. The single-player campaign is slightly let down by a few over-long platforming sections, but the brawling components are more than fun enough make up for it.
9) Siren: Blood Curse (PS3) - the only game I've seen to date to really pull off the whole "episodic gaming" thing. Blood Curse is the best entry to date in what has always been a very solid survival horror series. It's an excellent refuge for those who have been put off by the action-oriented direction that the Resident Evil franchise has taken and the continued flogging of the dead horse that the once-epic Silent Hill franchise has become ever since its 4th installment.
8) The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS) - quirky and original take on the Japanese RPG formula. The distinctive style isn't to everybody's taste (or even particularly to mine), but it did produce one of the most unique titles of the last 12 months. A huge range of customisation options (including heavily tweakable difficulty settings) further boost its appeal.
7) Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) - hugely traditional take on the Japanese RPG formula. Superb production values and a well thought out narrative pull it above the average. A big improvement on 2007's Blue Dragon and a real sign that Square-Enix should be taking the competition from Mistwalker very, very seriously. The game's also notable for its extensive use of narrative text storytelling to flesh out the back-story.
6) Resistance 2 (PS3) - A few dubious design decisions mean that this isn't quite as good as its predecessor (the limitation on the number of weapons you can carry feels particularly restrictive in a game that's so heavily based around trying out funky weapons). However, it's still a slick and fun game, whose controls feel far more robust than those of pretty much any other console fps.
5) Far Cry 2 (PC - also Xbox 360 and PS3) - Despite a "ripped from the headlines" story that really is the ultimate in bad taste, this is a deeply impressive shooter. It takes some of the good ideas we saw in last year's STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl and marries them with the execution needed to really pull them off.
4) Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3) - Yeah, this is the controversial one. With the cutscenes being, at a rough estimate, roughly twice the length of the playable sections of the game, this was never going to be everybody's cup of tea. However, a complete overhaul of the combat system took the series from being one where combat was, as Penny Arcade put it, a punishment inflicted on the player for getting the stealth sections wrong to a being one of the most fun games to play as a shooter of the entire year. The fact that you can play it as a stealth-em-up just adds icing to the cake. The game's graphics and production values blow away anything else released during this year.
3) Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) - It doesn't do anything particularly original, but it improves on the original game in almost every respect. It presents a longer campaign with better balance than the original, more varied environments and some excellent tweaks to the weapons lineup. It also features some of the most fun multiplayer modes of any game I've seen this year, with a heavy emphasis on co-op and team-based gameplay.
2) Dead Space (Xbox 360, also PC and PS3) - Half way between Gears of War and a traditional survival-horror game, this was very close to being my favorite title of the entire year. As others have noted, it's anything but original, drawing heavy inspiration from three movies in particular: Aliens, Event Horizon and the Thing. However, it still establishes its own distinctive identity and mana
I'm pretty excited to see World of Goo take #2, go indy developers! That said, I'm surprised Mount & Blade wasn't listed at all, and that Sins of a Solar Empire didn't score higher. Still, I'll agree with Fallout 3 ranking #1. While it was a disappointment to those who expected a full on RPG, the FPS element brought many more people in, and allowed for more people to get into the game, while VATS kept it closer to an RPG.
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I'm probably being overly fixated on one of the many games featured on the list, but I must be one of the only people out there who thinks Fallout 3 was one of the most overrated games of the year, perhaps third only to GTA5 and Spore.
When I first played the game I regretted my purchase and lamented the fact that I couldn't return the game, having gotten the PC version. But I decided to spend more time with the game and found that my impression hadn't changed.
Getting past the excessively monotone color scheme, I will admit the game looks impressive. But otherwise I found it to be extremely tedious and the story a bit contrived. The characters followed the same uninspired templates I find in bad Sci-Fi channel movies.
While I can accept the gritty theme of the game, I dislike overly realistic characters that end up looking ugly and more like actors than actual inhabitants of the world being depicted. Always lame is when children look like miniature adults, mainly because of overly mottled facial textures. Encountering old people in the game made me laugh a few times because of how insanely wrinkled they were, like they were made of cracked leather or clay.
I don't care for having to repair my equipment, are constantly being encumbered by random crap I find, having to sit there and sort through inventory trying to determine what I need and don't need. The side quests are so disruptive to flow and feel so disconnected that I eventually lost track and forgot what the main quest was all about. Basically, it's reminiscent of Bethesda's other RPGs, Morrowind included. Although I think that, in terms of gameplay, was the superior game.
One high point was combat which was somewhat entertaining. The targetting feature, while helpful, I found disruptive and felt like little more than an excuse to showcase the violence.
Maybe the game gets better, but I don't have the patience to find out.
Interestingly enough, I played Knights of the Old Republic 2 for the first time less than a week after abandoning Fallout 3 and found that to be, far and a way, a much better game. It wasn't perfect and I'm not normally one for Star Wars games but it was very engaging the whole way through and a lot of fun to play. The customization was satisfying without being tedious. About the only thing that crossed my mind a few times was what KOTOR2 would look like with current generation graphics on the level of Fallout 3 but with more style.
When isolating the games that really separated themselves positively from the rest of the pack this year it boils down to three games for me.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3 exclusive)
- Fallout 3 (PC version only)
- Dead Space (PS3,360,PC)
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the most polarizing AAA series in the last decade in gaming. Some people hate the cut scenes and stealth focus while millions of others embrace it. But the production values of the series, specifically the 4th iteration, are truly phenomenal, and are the best in gaming that have ever been seen. The entire package is aesthetically flawless. But what most people forget is that Metal Gear Solid 4 shipped with the amazing Metal Gear Online 2.0 bundled into it. And MGO2 is truly a remarkable multi-player experience and a standout amongst the already crowded shooter genre. By itself the single or multi-player components could warrant Game-of-the-Year consideration, they are that outstanding. But combined together the latest MGS game is an all-time classic. A single-player experience that will never die. A refreshing, engaging, and rewarding online experience as well. While the fact that is one console exclusive might stop many Nintendo and Microsoft fanboys or diehards from giving it GotY consideration they aren't going stop the flood of awards this game is going to get. One of the best reasons to own a PS3, practically the only reason I own a PS3. SNAAAAAAKE!
Fallout 3. First things first, the PS3 version is automatically disqualified from getting GotY praise as it has so many bugs, glitches, lacked trophy support at launch, and will not receive downloadable content, while the 360 and PC versions were less glitch prone (significantly) and will have DLC. But, the PC version, has the superior audio, visuals, and of course, the collective geniuses and minds of the ever-excellent MOD community (some of the MODs are brilliant already). So if any version of this post-apocalyptic science-fiction RPG-shooter hybrid it's the PC version. Fallout has excellent ambience and immersion, excellent environments and scale, remarkable side quests, and unique RPG elements. The flaws though are large, the main character story is cliche and terrible, compared to the epic and powerful story of Metal Gear Solid 4 it pales dramatically. The ending of the game was also weak, very weak, compared to the ending of MGS4 that some professional reviewers said left them in tears....there is no comparison to the MGS4 storyline. But Fallout 3's open ended quest structure was outstanding, every quest could be completed in any order, and each quest had several ways of successful completion. With the PC community the game is GotY, but as it shipped, with it's terrible story, HORRIBLE endings (Bethesda said the game had 200 possible endings, it has 4...only 196 off Bethesda), and glitches (especially on the PS3) on all platforms, the game shouldn't sweep the awards.
Dead Space. Oh Dead Space...probably the most surprising game of this year for the casual and hardcore alike. It crept up on us slowly like a necromorph hiding in the vents...and JUMPED OUT to scream the community abuzz. Good story? Check. Brilliant use of sound? Check. Good graphics? Check. Shout-outs and homage to The Thing, Event Horizon, and Aliens? Big fucking giant Ishimura mining ship sized check. The sound and graphics were well above par for this generation of games. The story was quite good for a survival-horror game. Unitology, interesting, I liked the back story, can't wait for the sequel (or prequel if you believe some rumors). But the game is mostly run-and-gun with little emphasis on original or unique gaming. And the puzzles? My hamsters could probably solve them. While Dead Space 1 is only a GotY contender, if Dead Space 2 is any major improvement on the first game, expect it to be one the greatest gaming franchises of all time.
Metal Gear Solid 4 for #1
Fallout 3 for #2
Dead Space for #3
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