Game-of-the-Year-to-Date

[Saint of Killers]

BANHAMMER!

STFU. FF XII is gonna be awesome.

[MarkRyan]

Okami is going to end up in the Bargain Bin. Wait until it hits $20 in two months.

Hope you enjoy your sack of shit Maddens and GRAWs day one while letting original gems like Okami flounder, waiting for a bargain price (at which point Capcom's not making money anymore). This attitude drives me fucking nuts. Thanks for adding your own stain to the industry.

Current Game of the Year: New Super Mario Bros
The biggest complaint anyone has is "it's not as good as Mario 3," which is something you could say for almost every Game of the Year since Mario 3 released. New Super Mario Bros. has fantastic controls, great level design (World 6 is completely awesome) and plenty of challenge if you go after all the star coins (I did--got all 240). Haven't had nearly that much fun with any other game I've played this year.

Runner-up: Meh
Haven't really played anything else that I'd consider Game of the Year material. Oblivion's probably the best non-NSMB I've played, but as everyone's pointed out, the game has crazy flaws.

Contender: Okami
I played the import for about 20 hours not knowing what the hell was going on. Usually twenty hours of poking and prodding would bore the shit out of me, but Okami really is quality. The characters come through even in a foreign language, the world breathes, and the combat is satisfying (hoping it gets more difficult later). There's tons of content in the game, and Clover anticipates it'll take about 60 hours to 100% complete. Plus visually, the game has more wow and impact than any next-gen title to date.

Contender: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
I honestly haven't been following this game very closely, but on purpose (I didn't follow Okami, either). I don't want expectations of anything--I just want a beautiful, great game. All videos and screens I've seen (coupled with Nintendo's track record, which I have no problems with) point to a game that should be completely awesome.

Contender: Metroid Prime 3
It's still uncertain if this'll release this year or not, but I'm hoping it does. I like the Metroid Prime games (except for the DS game) for their amazing art and fantastic level design. If Prime 3 keeps this up and successfully uses the Wii controller, I think we'll have another solid Metroid game. I just hope there are no compromises to the core Metroid design.

[Tommy Tallarico]

Hope you enjoy your sack of shit Maddens and GRAWs day one while letting original gems like Okami flounder, waiting for a bargain price (at which point Capcom's not making money anymore). This attitude drives me fucking nuts. Thanks for adding your own stain to the industry.

People aren't required to buy shit on day one just because it's there. A certain level of accountability falls on the publisher to make people interested enough to put down their hard earned 50 dollars. Stop being so dumb about this.

[Salsashark]

Final Fantasy XII, please.

Same.

Or if imports count: Mother 3.

But, those are probably the only two games that I'll have bought this year. There are a TON of DS and GBA games I would have liked to play, but time and funds are sparse these days.

[SamuraiMoogle]

Does Okami support progressive scan?

Best game so far: GRAW

Hope you enjoy your sack of shit Maddens and GRAWs day one while letting original gems like Okami flounder, waiting for a bargain price (at which point Capcom's not making money anymore). This attitude drives me fucking nuts. Thanks for adding your own stain to the industry.

LOL! Strike a nerve? Must suck to know that nobody gives a shit about game reviews and just looks at your site for the videos and pictures. Maybe you think your job is kinda pointless?

[Gooch]

People aren't required to buy shit on day one just because it's there. A certain level of accountability falls on the publisher to make people interested enough to put down their hard earned 50 dollars. Stop being so dumb about this.

Word. Capcom and Okami aren't entitled any sales.

I think some of the acerbic responses EvilMog has garnered are due to him probably being right.

GotYTD: New Super Mario Bros. - I was a little disappointed in it (especially the power-ups), but that's only because the bar (and my expectations) had been set so high. It's a terrific game on its own and I'm still playing it consistently.

Runner-up: Ultimate GnG - along with NSMB, was my most anticipated title of 2006 and it's pretty much all I hoped it would be. I will definitely be picking up the US version in Sept.

Contenders: Okami, Yakuza, Twilight Princess, Gears of War

[MarkRyan]

People aren't required to buy shit on day one just because it's there. A certain level of accountability falls on the publisher to make people interested enough to put down their hard earned 50 dollars. Stop being so dumb about this.

I don't care if he wants the game or not. But the "I want this game, but since it's obscure it'll drop in price soon so I'll wait a bit" attidue is an infuriating self-fulfilling prophecy that's no good for the industry.

suck to know that nobody gives a shit about game reviews and just looks at your site for the videos and pictures. Maybe you think your job is kinda pointless?

I don't write reviews for a living. What the hell are you talking about anyway?

[Opaque]

As of right now I'd say Oblivion followed closely by Dead Rising.

With Twilight Princess, Gears of War and Final Fantasy XII coming out it's still anyone's game at this point.

People aren't required to buy shit on day one just because it's there. A certain level of accountability falls on the publisher to make people interested enough to put down their hard earned 50 dollars. Stop being so dumb about this.

IAWTP.

Okami looks interesting, but so far I've been shown nothing which makes me believe it's worth 50 dollars.

[Rumpy]

Looks like they're going for a DS style game on the PS2 to me.

[Yoshi]

Its MSRP is $40, so Capcom agrees.