Gaming: Best of 2008

[Petrarch]

Once again it's time for the semi-traditional annual yearly round up. It's been a tough one to narrow down this year. Same old rules as the previous years.

Saints Row 2(360/PS3)
A GTA clone, SR 2 isn’t the most sophisticated game in the world and lacks a bit of polish, but with tongue firmly in cheek and skewing the serious tone of GTA for out and out silliness, it dishes out the entertainment with a particularly large spade. As Yahtzee said, the game is in it for the same reason we are, to have some fun. Turned out to be a pleasant surprise as it wasn’t on my radar until a couple of weeks before release.

Dead Space (Multi)
It’s as close to a System Shock 3 as any game can be without there actually being a System Shock 3. It doesn’t quite install the same atmosphere as SS2 did, going more for shocks rather than terror, but has plenty of things that make it stand out, such as the lack of a conventional HUD, instead using a holographic HUD that floats in front of your character and is only visible at certain times. The Zero-G mechanics are great fun to play with and add flavour to the game.

Fable 2(360)
A step up from the original which was one of my favourites on the Xbox, it’s improved in almost every way. Stuffed with the humour you’d expect to find in Fable, the presence of the Dog in the game gets you very drawn in. There was quite a few times I found myself wishing the dog was a real one as it acts like it is – and it’s your best friend throughout the entire game.

Gears of War 2(360)
More Gears, more Locusts, more blood, more gore. Like Fable 2, it’s another big step up from the original and it’s a finely crafted piece of work. The new Horde mode is great fun and there’s lots of nice little touches such as the chainsaw duels and the meat shield option with downed opponents. They’ve also done a far better job integrating the achievement system this time around.

Fallout 3(Multi)
In what I suspect is no shock to anyone, Fallout 3 wins. I know I said once I thought Fable 2 would get my game of the year, but Fallout 3 is a very different beast and easily soared ahead within the first hour. I did have several misgivings about it ahead of release, such as the degrading weapons, but that turned out to add a new level of tactics to the proceedings as scavenging is a lot more important this time around. And most importantly, the whole feeling of “Oblivion with guns” disappeared with the first view of the blasted landscape.

Plus the character creation tutorial will surely go down in history.

A few ropey animations aside, Bethesda have carried on the Fallout legacy. And now the wait for the DLC begins, unless you’re using the PS3 version that is. Looking forward the most to Broken Steel myself.

Honourable Mentions
Left 4 Dead
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
GTA IV

Turkey of the Year
Age of Conan

Yet another game that talked it big and was touted as a WoW beater (then again, what isn’t these days) that fell well short of the mark. Bugged to bits, unfinished, poorly optimised, it claimed about 800,000 active accounts at launch but it lost close to 50% of those at the end of the 30 days free. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned out to be the next MMO that goes under.

Biggest Disappointment
Too Human

All that time in development and it was a bit of a flop. Not a bad game, but not a brilliant one either. Mediocre, average, run of the mill, it was entertaining enough but unlike Diablo 2, I didn’t have any urge to level up a different class of character after I finished my first choice. Also whoever designed the second level and thought that death sequence which can’t be skipped was a good idea should be put up against a wall and shot.

Picks for 2009
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Halo Wars
Ghostbusters 
Alan Wake (assuming they finally get it finished)

[Ymir]

I'm limited in the amount of games that I play, but here's the ones that I've enjoyed - not even sure if they're all 2008!

Fallout 3 - obviously - just love the ability to explore, explore, then explore some more. It brought back many fond memories. The quests were spot on and could be solved in many ways. I still can't be evil.

Condemned 2 - freaky, hair on the back of your neck stuff.

Bioshock - pretty, disturbed, challenging. Liked it. A lot.

Gears of War 2 - more of the same, a bit linear and awfully short (though, I'd be playing Fallout and had just finished a 90 hour game), the humour, style and gameplay build on what I liked about the original.

Mass Effect - good story line, lots to do, character development, NPCs - Fallout in space?

Honourable Mentions

Hitman: Blood Money
The Orange Box

Turkey of the Year

Uuuuhhhh.... Seeing I bought 8 games and they were all enjoyable... the biggest turkey is my next door neighbour. Idiot.

Cheers

[inso]

even though some bugs have halted my main quest progress on two characters, i still think Fallout 3 is the best game i've played in a long time (or maybe i'm just a closet fanboy). blasting people's heads off in VATS never gets old  

MK vs DC was a nice little novelty... the voice acting was pretty good for the DC characters, too. watered down finishers is the main downside... it really doesn't truly feel like Mortal Kombat unless people are getting their heads ripped off or are being uppercutted into spike pits. they added some cool fighting mechanics though, like Klose Kombat and Freefall fighting (which can put an interesting spin on matches). it uses the Unreal Engine so it looks great (pretty normal mapping on the cutscenes!) but... no Johnny Cage... what the hell, Midway?!

Guitar Hero World Tour was pretty good, and Rock Band 2 was also great... both have things i prefer over the other (mostly game mechanics, less to do with song selection... both have pretty solid soundtracks, and Rock Band has a huge advantage anyway due to weekly DLC and being out almost a full year before World Tour) so they are more or less tied for me.

Left 4 Dead... i don't think i have to explain this one.

a few games i've played and enjoyed while at my friend's place:

- Soul Calibur 4 - fun fighting game, though i never played the ones before it. the controls are easy to get used to if you've played any of the recent Mortal Kombat games since many of the combos have similar button sequences (a few differences, like A (X on PS3) being block still get me though). the Critical Finish system is a great way to deal with excessive blockers, too... unlike MK, no memorizing obscure button combos and it can happen at any point in the round. shattering armour and custom characters are also nifty features.

- Little Big Planet - like the old school Mario games, but in 3D, and with up to 4 players at once. some of the puzzles really put the physics engine to use, and it even comes with a level builder.

GTA4 - i am reluctant to get this myself as the things i have heard about it being a real life simulator are a turn off (also heard it can be quite repetitive)... but my friend has the whole map unlocked, so we just pop 1 Health/Weapons cheat and then go on a rampage until death... which is mad fun... but  i'm probably going to grab Saint's Row 2 instead... customization and open endedness = win.


looking forward to Street Fighter 4, Fallout 3 DLC and hopefully something that starts with S, ends in 2 and has a tarcraft inside Ghostbusters sounds good too, especially since it's the original movie cast and a brand new story.

[Brugdor]

I haven't played many new games this year compared to most years. Despite some big games coming out I've managed to skip a lot of them. Spore being the biggest probably. Now that it's out on Steam without the idiotic DRM though, I might give it a shot.

Warhammer Online -
Held my interest for a couple of months. I find that to be typical of MMOs these days though so I don't hold that against it. I could eventually return if they ever get around to adding back all that content they cut for release. Still easily the most fun I've ever had with PvP in a MMO.

L4D -

Perhaps a bit early to be putting this here but it's been a lot of fun so far.  Hopefully Valve will crank out some new maps fairly quickly to keep versus mode fresh.

Fallout 3

Probably my GOTY pick but it didn't have a lot of competition. It had moderate replay value as I got to powered armor my second time through and lost interest. DLC hopefully will light a fire under me to crank it up again.

Games from previous years -

The reason I consider 2008 to be a weak year is because I'm still playing so many games from 2007 or earlier like LOTRO, Portal, TF2, COD4, Bioshock and I even brushed the dust off of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

Turkey of the Year

Age of Conan

I'd have to agree with this pick. The only reason I got this is because some of my fellow Dwarves wanted to try out the PvP. It wasn't a complete wash as we did have fun with it for a few weeks but it was released easily 6 months too early. Too many bugs and lack of content were glaring issues that are still being worked on from what I hear.

Biggest Disappointment

The aforementioned Spore is my pick for this category. After all that hype the game turned out to be pretty 'meh' according to many people that tried it. As I said, I might try it out of boredom since it's out on Steam and it's on sale atm. Still if you're going to build up that much hype over your game, you'd be well served delivering at least some of what you promised.

Picks for 2009
Ghostbusters (agree)
Champions Online (basically COH2 and COH/COV had enormous replay value for me)
FEAR2 (loved the first one)
Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2 (not big on RTS games but the first one held my interest for a bit)

[Night Owl]

All are 360 unless otherwise noted.

FO3 is easily my game of the year. Was everything I hoped it would be. I love how they made you scavange; I love that the wasteland was pretty dangerous; if it had enemy leveling, it was hardly noticable (HUGE improvement over Oblivion's "thugs with glass armor" thing) - just a really fun game. An added plus was that they actually improved on the skills, etc - it really mattered if you knew repair, science, lockpick, etc. And you could wear that cool duster all game if you wished - yea, it was a little harder, but not overly so (the older games were very hard to finish with anything less than combat armor - it could be done, but it was hard.) And VATS rocked.

Madden 09 was really fun as well. Finally, they took out the "drop back 20 yards and chuck the bomb" gameplay, and they also made the running game much more realistic. Excellent football game. Plus, THE JETS DRAFTED WELL, TRADED WELL, AND WON THE SUPERBOWL IN 2010.

Burnout Paradise held my interest for awhile. Although the lack of life in the city made it get stale quick.

Saints Row 2 was fun as well. Although I hate "chase" missions, and this one had a few that annoyed me. I'm just not good enough to shoot while driving, etc. But you just have to love a game that has a mission where you have to spray poop on enemies.

I'm playing Resistance 2 (PS3) now - I'm enjoying it a lot. Fun shooter. Although the PS controller sucks compared to the x-box.

Unreal Tournament 3 was fun for awhile, too. But the multiplayer got old fast, as I'm just not that good. I play on the casual zone, and it's still way beyond me. I guess I do not have the twitch skills necessary for this game. I never could circle strafe, etc.

For me, the biggest disappointment was Fable 2. I didn't play the first one, and I was expecting something more, I guess. The highly touted reputation thing was a complete joke. From the advertising, I was really expecting something a little deeper than "this person is mad at you, so dance a little and everything is ok". It was almost like a kid's game, to be honest.

Anyway, back to Resistence 2.   

[Doombot]

For me, the biggest disappointment was Fable 2. I didn't play the first one, and I was expecting something more, I guess. The highly touted reputation thing was a complete joke. From the advertising, I was really expecting something a little deeper than "this person is mad at you, so dance a little and everything is ok". It was almost like a kid's game, to be honest.

This has been a topic of discussion at our place for a while. Here's one of the lines.

We should try doing this in the seedy part of LA.

*Mime thrusting two fingers into the air* Waaazzzzzaaaaaaa!!!

[Brugdor]

So I broke down a few minutes ago and bought Spore on Steam. It's 25% off until the 2nd and all DRM is removed except for standard Steam DRM. I've heard  the game got heavily dumbed down but I had so much fun just creating creatures with the creator a few months back that just creating vehicles, buildings and creatures should keep me occupied for quite a while.

Since I'm not playing MMOs atm, I was in desperate need of a non-FPS game to play. *shrug*

[inso]

Saints Row 2 was fun as well. Although I hate "chase" missions, and this one had a few that annoyed me. I'm just not good enough to shoot while driving, etc.

ugh, agreed. i was doing the Road Rage mission last night.  :dead:

[Petrarch]

With the mention of Ghostbusters by a couple of us, this made me smile with glee. 

Ghostbusters Trailer

All the sound effects spot on and the original cast doing the voices, bliss

[Silver Dragon]

With the mention of Ghostbusters by a couple of us, this made me smile with glee. 

Ghostbusters Trailer

All the sound effects spot on and the original cast doing the voices, bliss

Vaguely recalling this from an article I read in Game Informer, but I'm pretty sure Ramis and Aykroyd wrote it too, so essentially it's Ghostbusters 3.