TNL's TOP 10 Games of 2008 - RESULTS ARE IN!

1. Metal Gear Solid 4
What more can be said? A fitting end to perhaps the most epic... err, opus(?)... ever presented in this medium.

2. Fallout 3
I've loved Bethesda's style of large-scale RPG since Morrowind, and this was a superb melding of that with one of the most interesting and well-crafted settings/narratives/worlds in games. Playing the originals now, years after the fact, they are like perfect blueprints for everything Bethesda accomplished with this.

3. Dead Space
Amazingly atmospheric and cohesive. Other than MGS4, this is probably the most cohesive, focused experience I had this year. Makes me so hot for a System Shock 2 remake by the same team.

4. Bionic Commando Rearmed
Having never played Bionic Commando before, this was almost like a revelation for me. Such awesome, incredibly tight and unique gameplay, mixed with extremely good electro-oldschool remixes on the soundtrack and great visuals.

5. Burnout Paradise
Just some of the most enjoyable, balls-out racing gameplay in years.

6. Left 4 Dead
I've had countless great experiences with a group of friends in this game, and for that alone it deserves a spot on the list.

7. Mirror's Edge
I finished the game on a weekend, and though it has many design choices that I take issue with, the core gameplay of the movement often provided some of the most exhilirating moments found this year.

8. Braid
Joins a small circle of games that I feel at least challenges the question of games as art.

9. Grand Theft Auto IV
I've played it through twice, one of which was an incredibly bug-laden play through on the PS3, which I think should speak enough to the quality of the single player experience. It's still janky, but at its core the experience is worth it.

10. Wipeout HD
Superb gameplay, superb audio and visual style. Wipeout is for real again.

MGS4 and Fallout 3 are essentially a tie for me, but I'm giving it to MGS4 just because it's Snake's last hurrah, and damn it, Snake deserves it. Yakuza 2 would probably be right there with MGS4 and Fallout for me, but I still haven't dug into my copy. Will probably get to that in a week or two. And Rez HD is one of my all time favs, too, but as said before that isn't really fair to count.

Disappointments of the year: LittleBigPlanet, Prince of Persia, Mega Man 9. LBP I still respect immensely for its ambition and design, and it's a wonderful looking (and sounding; very eclectic soundtrack) game, but the core gameplay just didn't hold my interest. I've detailed my disappointment with PoP in another thread, and MM9 is probably a respectable game, but the difficulty just seems stupid and cheap to the point where I just don't care enough to keep pushing forward. I didn't care for World of Goo at all, either.

Honorable Mentions: Red Alert 3, Crysis Warhead, God of War: CoO, Lost Winds, GeoWars2. All very good, but offered nothing truly memorable/outstanding.

When's the deadline for this? I'm still composing my list.

teh club

Mark Ryan plays no games. Fable 2 doesn't belong on any top 10 list (it's ok though), but if that's the buggiest game he's ever played...weee

He played the Getaway so he's lying.

I finally composed my Top 10 list. I don't own a PS3, so I have to leave out Metal Gear Solid 4 and Little Big Planet since I haven't played them enough to accurately judge them. I also didn't get a chance to play Left 4 Dead, Fable 2, or Fallout 3 because of my graduate studies.

10) Ninja Gaiden 2 - It's too bad Itagaki left Tecmo, because this game really needs a redone treatment like Ninja Gaiden Black. The action and violence is absolutely amazing, but there are some unfortunate bugs that clearly show that this game needed some more polish before it was released.

9) Braid - Jonathan Blow created an exceptional independent game. Although it lacks replayability, the challenge of figuring out how to beat the levels using the time mechanic made it an enjoyable experience for me.

8) Schizoid - No one in TNL except for Joust Williams and Master got this game, and it's a shame because it's an awesome co-op game. I'm also nominating this as Best Game TNL Didn't Play.

7) Grand Theft Auto 4 - I really liked how New York City was recreated, and the single-player story was pretty good. I'm a big fan of the writing (fake TV shows, fake interent sites, comedy sets, radio shows). Turning off your cellphone is a must if you just want to explore the city though (no, cousin, I don't want to hang out). Multiplayer was a valiant addition, but I lost interest after a week.

6) Burnout Paradise - I have a love-hate relationship with this game. I love being able to choose between Burnout 2-style (can't use burn meter until it's full) and Burnout Revenge-style (traffic check) cars, and the open-world city worked out better than I imagined. However, not being able to restart a race instantly is the stupidest thing ever, Stunt Runs aren't that fun, and Showtime is a poor, poor substitute to Crash mode. The Bike update was cool, even if it was ridiculously easy to win all the races.

5) Castle Crashers - It's a well-made beat-em-up, and online co-op (when it worked) was pretty good. The 2D art is great, the combat and juggling system is fun, and Insane Mode makes a relatively easy game ridiculously hard.

4) Bionic Commando Rearmed - This is my penance for voting Castle Crashers over BCR as TNL's August Game of the Month. I didn't appreciate how Grin remade the NES classic until recently. The music is fantastic, the remade bosses are cool to fight against, and the Challenge Rooms and harder difficulty levels give us that good ol' 8-bit challenge that recent games lack.

3) Gears of War 2 - This should have been this year's Game of the Year for me, but its terrible multiplayer bugs disqualify it from earning a Game of the Year title. I did have fun playing the game in co-op (especially Insane), and Horde mode is a blast to play with people you know.

2) Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix - I almost made this 2008 Game of the Year because it has supplanted Third Strike as my favorite fighting game of all time. The rebalanced changes give the majority of the cast a fighting chance against the top-tier fighters. Although the netcode isn't GGPO, it's not too shabby. David Sirlin did a fantastic job updating this classic, to the point that I hope a similar rebalancing effort is done on Third Strike (without redrawing the sprites in HD, which would take forever).

The reason it's not Game of the Year is because if I'm going to penalize Gears of War 2 for its bugs and problems, I have to do the same for SFHD. The redrawn art has issues (some character portraits like Vega's look off and certain characters like Guile and Cammy weren't colored properly) and the UI bugs are almost game-breaking (you have to quit to the dashboard to fix it). I couldn't in good conscience make it Game of the Year, even though the rebalanced changes make Super Turbo awesome.

If I'm going to award Game of the Year for 2008, I have to give to a game that was pretty much perfect. After thinking about for some time, I feel that the top game should be...

1) Geometry Wars 2 - It improved everything about the original six-fold. You no longer lost your multiplier when you died in the classic mode, making the game a little more forgiving but no less challenging. The five other modes are fantastic (my favorites are Waves and Sequence). The best improvement was the implementation of the Friends leaderboard right in the game selection mode, so you can instantly see how you stack up against your friends. Local co-op is fun too, and I respect why online co-op wasn't implemented (way too hectic to reliably keep track of what's going on in an online setting).

Honorable Mention: Mother 3 fan translation - Amazing game. The combat system is more involved than Earthbound's and the story kept me hooked. Unfortunately, the ending was a little disappointing compared to Earthbound's, but the game is nonetheless fantastic (and kudos to the translation team for doing an exceptional job). KAY-O!

Hey, Strider, if you can tally this up sometime soonish, we can make the list a part of our year-in-review feature coming up. Might be neat.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Hey, Strider, if you can tally this up sometime soonish, we can make the list a part of our year-in-review feature coming up. Might be neat.

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I tallied them earlier this evening, but it took me a while to put together the post.

Check the OP for the winners!


Warning, spoiler:

Fantasy Zone 2 came >< this close to making the honourable mentions with 35 points.

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Fantasy Zone 2 came >< this close to making the honourable mentions with 35 points.

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It's insane that it did that well. Awesome.

It's a crime that Mirror's Edge was nowhere to be found. You guys suck hard.

Fallout 3 is something I'll be playing soon.

That's shocking, it looked like ME was doing well at a glance, too. Also sucks that FZ3 came so close without making it, but it's impressive that it did as well as it did considering that it sold like 7 copies.

I need to play Dead Space. I didn't know so many people here dug it - I remember it being largely overlooked and reading several "it's good but not great" impressions when it hit. Since then it seems to have generated some positive word of mouth.

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Originally Posted by Tain

It's a crime that Mirror's Edge was nowhere to be found. You guys suck hard.

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Maybe if it was released on PC in 2008.

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Originally Posted by StriderKyo

I need to play Dead Space. I didn't know so many people here dug it - I remember it being largely overlooked and reading several "it's good but not great" impressions when it hit. Since then it seems to have generated some positive word of mouth.

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Dead Space is AWESOME. Plays well, ridiculously stylish, came out of nowhere. Its only real flaw is that it might be too long.