Pretty interesting list. Mine would have been different, of course.

10. Spore
9. Fieldrunners
8. Hunted Forever
7. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
6. Dead Space
5. Gears of War 2
4. Rock Band 2
3. LittleBigPlanet
2. Braid
1. GTA IV

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/ ... 69,00.html

Only 4 games I like on that list:

6. Dead Space
5. Gears of War 2
4. Rock Band 2
1. GTA IV

What the fuck...? I have never played Rock Band but isn't Rock Band 2 just the same thing with more songs? I am also kinda surprised Force Unleashed is there but not Fallout 3. I love Left 4 Dead a whole lot but can sort of understand why it wouldn't be listed either.

Oh and no Metal Gear Solid 4 but some iPhone game?

Yea, MGS 4 would definitely be on my list.

WotLK should be on there.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Somebody phoned in that list.

Since Spore made the list the obviously considered PC games. I don't think but 3-4 of these are even close and I really do not think GTA IV deserved to be 1. It is probably Top 3 but as far as a Top 10 game of the whole year I can't merit GTA IV or Rock Band 2 (being sequels built on a preexisting idea and creativity) withouth throwing WotLK in there.

LittleBigPlanet deserves a nod due to it's creativity. Left4Dead is incredible. Gears2 I'm ok with. Spore would have been an honorable mention but probably not Top 10. Spores concept is a top 3 but the delivery/execution probably Top 20.

Eh, maybe I'm a bit skeptical but, I thought console gaming this year was a bit eh. I thought some people delivered some great follow-ups to some series but, outside of LittleBigPlanet and Left4Dead I wasn't wow'd by anything new.

This man has the right idea. That is a horrid list.

Well, I'm glad Spore is up there, 10th is probably about right actually... but WTF.. no Fallout 3, Valkyria Chronicles, Lost Odyssey, or Disgaea 3?!

my favorite game of the year is braid, which i only got about 15 hours out of. gta4 and gears 2 and world at war i've spent way more time on, and will continue to, but for my dollar there wasn't a better one-time experience this year than braid.

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I played the demo, and really liked it. I have not bought the game yet (Damn WoW and Warhammer), but once I get back into my consoles...I will. Its good to see games like Braid on the Live Arcade. Something different, and not a shooter lol

The fact that Left 4 Dead isn't on the list discredits the whole thing.

Agreed. Left 4 Dead = GOTY.

naw, it's a good game, but not really close to GoW2 or Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is definitely a contender. GoW2? Feh.

gears 2 is way better than fallout 3 but fallout 3 is going to get the leg up because many people also played a fallout game up to fifteen years ago

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but comparing the two is like comparing apples and some other fruit that was not a big hit a decade ago until now when they made a new one

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Gears' biggest downfall is no simultaneous release on PC, it's a great game but so is Left4Dead on the 360, it's just so much better on PC.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Oh. You're one of those guys that thinks Quake invented the 3D FPS aren't you?

Quake DID invent the internet based FPS.

I'm confused, Wolfenstein -> Doom -> Quake, all idSoftware?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Fallout 3 is a great game no doubt.

The problem with it is when it turns into Oblivion 2 the moment you leave the Vault. The nostalgia will be pretty strong but it seems like the biggest pull to play now is remembering the cool stuff you did in Fallout 1 and 2. I can't bring myself to play it again and have no desire to mod it at all. Maybe in 10 years heh. They do have a ton of room for expansion tho and I'd suspect they will treat it like Oblivion and release packs.

Gears 2 will get the nod because it's Gears 2. It's more of the same but better, which is a win formula. They got a lot of life to milk this bitch with.



Left 4 Dead is also great. But it's suffering from TF2 syndrome. It just gets so repetitive. I need to get up on mods and such for custom servers. Seems like thats all that is played anymore.

no and i don't even particularly like FPS

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No, it really didn't. Marathon did. And it wasn't even on Windows. Shit, that game is responsible for dual-packing and rocket jumping while we're at it

Old games were win, because they were win, not because they were old, is my point. Fallout is a pretty damned good series. I just found GoW2 to be more of the same. It's not bad by any stretch, but it didn't blow me away like F3 or, by a larger margin, L4D.

Marathon was awesome, LAN'ing my parents Performa475s and playing against whoever came to our house was great!

My personal game of the year would be Mass Effect. I only play on PC where it came out 2008 so i guess that still counts. Close second, Touch Grind on IPhone.

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My stuff on facebook.

Yep.

There's a reason why my machines are Durandal, Leela, and Tycho.

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Oh! I know this one! It's because you're a massive geek!

There are so many rose-colored glasses up in this bitch, she's shitting out replicas of Marc Chagall.

Have to agree with this. I'm going with GoW2 as most overrated game of the year, honestly. The standard gameplay is alright, but it really doesn't do anything innovative. If anything it feels a little slow compared to other FPS's in terms of the twitch-factor, though part of that is it being on XB360 without mouse control(I actually turned up the sensitivity to max and it still seemed slow as hell).

It's the type of game that is sure to please newcomers to the FPS genre, or people who just generally don't play FPS games much. I'm sure there are some good FPS players who genuinely appreciate it, but even L4D is more true to the old school death match gameplay.

The animations and graphics are top notch, no question about it. It's one of those games that really shows off the XB360's capabilities. And it will please those who enjoy a decent storyline with dialogue. It's just that it's hardly the ultimate FPS experience.

And why would you expect them to be "innovative" when they already have the winning formula for a great game? They don't have to put hokey horseshit in it when they already have perfected the series.





That is what matters.

People thow this word "innovation" around like it actually has weight.

P.S. any other FPS other than Left 4 Dead, CoD 4 and Resistance 2 sucks.

It doesn't need to be innovative to succeed, the obvious example being WoW. My point is the same as for GoW1, though. Scratch "innovation" and substitute in "something that separates it from the pack of FPS games, or makes it worthy of attention". With WoW, they utilized previously used concepts and implemented them fantastically.

I can't say the same for GoW 2, other than for the aesthetical qualities you mentioned. If aesthetics and coating really float people's boats over gameplay, then more power to them. And on top of the flaw I mentioned with its slow FPS gameplay, it lacks variety to keep staying power. Nothing akin to unique classes in TF2, and even less variety than L4D's "play as the zombies". We're stuck with different lackluster modes.

WoW is pretty innovative dude. Went far beyond standard MMO archetypes and put in a lot of unique and new features.

Tapping into untouched markets isn't innovation. They've done a lot of shit well and they are awesome at what they do, but I honestly can not think of anything revolutionary they have done.

Instancing, Anarchy Online did it better. WoWs are generic at best.
Raid Content, fun as shit but on par with everyone elses in terms of being there.
Classes, they are fun and they work, but nothing groundbreaking.

What they did do was offer a product, that at launch, could be accessed by more people than current competition. Their art style, while unique to them, was not innovative.

The only thing that comes to mind is their loot system of soulbound items for everything in game, but I am not 100% sure they were first to that. They were one of the first to use Item Durability, but innovative is the last word I would use for that shit.

If anything I would say they are behind in some areas. Their LFG/grouping system is laughable. Their summoning stone system they had to get people together quicker was a joke when they put it in and went unused forever because it was a gimmicky piece of shit.

And again, I'm not saying it's not a good game. While I enjoyed the first game immensely, I didn't get the same feeling playing the sequel that I got from the first run through of L4D, or honestly, from some sequences in F3. GoW2 is a first class production. But the others are > imo.



It does. That's why Half-Life (and Half-Life 2, hello grav gun) reinvented the genre. And they did with minimal additional production $$$. They turned what could be (or used to be) gimmicks and made them amazing gameplay elements. Innovation is still VERY possible.

Half-Life didn't reinvent the FPS genre.

I think you are forgetting how the old raid content really was. WoW went a long way away from "tank in a corner, rampage tank, CH rotation."

Yeah nobody has insanely scripted events like WoW does. WoW really kicked it up a notch there. PVP too. They made leaps and bounds over prior and future MMOs, and that's why they're king. It's a quality game. Not some shit fuck game like Warhammer, AoC, Vanguard, etc etc etc...

Other than Ragnaros, and Onyxia, I really can't think of any to begin with. All the rest of MC was put in without scripts or abandoned scripts. As time goes on they got a lot more detailed for sure, but certianly not the old days. And now that I think of it, those fights drew a lot from old EQ fights based on percentage of mob health, save rag which had timed events happening. RZTW comes to mind.

I'm not saying WoW content is shit, but most of it isn't innovative like people say. Refined, yes. But not new to the gene. They just do it with quality for the most part. Rag and Nefarion were easly their crown jewels and are the first content i'd consider giving them a nod for being different.

And fun is what matters. Entertaining. Every encounter you do, every game that comes out doesn't have to be graded on innovation.

Most would disagree.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

not me, it just made a very good FPS, nothing reinventing about it... personally i think call of duty's contributions to the FPS experience are much better than anything valve did, although tf2 has nice mechanics

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That's fine... doesn't make it true though. FPS was pretty standard in terms of mechanics and gameplay for the FPS genre.

Crack. It's made for smokin'!

Left 4 Dead just became the greatest video game ever.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMqPG4S8 ... re=related

Ahahahaha. I haven't had this much fun with a FPS since Doom wads.

As close to a game can come to 'reinventing' a genre, Half Life is it. There's never been a more celebrated FPS, nothing more needs to be said.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I would argue that modders reinvented the FPS genre with Half-Life's engine. Half-Life itself, while a good game, wasn't really ground-breaking by itself other than the fact that it was modable. The modders themselves did the gruntwork.

It's a great game, but not anywhere close to being a cause for "reinventing" the FPS genre.

Half Life 2 was just the Crysis of it's day, like Quake before it. It pushed most modern day technology that was available back then to the limit, forcing upgrades.

And gravity gun was boring. But using it in the way they set it up, that was hot shit. The puzzle aspect of the Half Life series is what I always appreciated more than the actual FPS part.

Except for the Buggy/Boat parts. God that shit was bad. But it was just as bad as the driving scene in Gears.

Half my post got eaten so I'll fill it back. I guess what bothers me most is when games, truly great games, get blasted on for not being innovative, and it is a negative mark placed against them. Like with Gears 2. No there really isn't much different from its first, but it gives you a triple shot of what made that first one so chest thumping awesome it doesn't have to add in a ton of new stuff to shine. I really wish the adjective would be less important when judging a games overall presentation. People seem to look too much into it, and some seem to expect something new and different in each title.

It's of course good to try and spice it up and want to be different from the rest of the pack, but sometimes, just being an awesome game is enough. I read some reviews on that game Neesha talked about in PC Games, Kings Bounty The Legend and it got its dick slammed in the door for not being innovative. Yet Fallout 3 scores a 10/10.

Now I'm not stupid and I know that money buys the ratings, unless you are Kain and Lynch, but that is a perfect example of the word "innovation" being used incorrectly to compare and judge. "Kain and Lynch is also an underrated title and while it had flaws, the story was stellar"

I guess some just put different weight on innovation and new things to old genes. To me, I feel the Call of Duty series is a good example here. It's a FPS with more story driven element, and its carved out a niche for itself in that regard. But if you are to reward it for that, I would also give a nod to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., even tho it tends to be firstly TOO FUCKING HARD, and B unfortunately bug ridden, their approach to making it more of a RPG element is something we haven't quite had since System Shock 2 or Deus Ex. Very appreciated but some paint it as simply trying to cash in on an old formula and review it as such.

To wrap it up I guess the idea of innovation is an individual one. Some might see a feature as groundbreaking, others might view it as something similar to an experience past. Like with WoW. One mans Majordomo is another mans Rallos Zek the Warlord. To me, the most important aspect is being able to look back at either of those and say "god damn, Majordomo/Rallos was a fucking fun fight, remember that time we did this?" with bros and generally not bring up too many memories where we pulled our testes out through our nostrils.

so what specifically was decidedly innovative about half life? the modifiable engine? doom, quake and nukem both allowed for that from their inception. the gravity gun? how many subsequent games not produced by valve has that been used in? fighting against aliens? that's certainly nothing new, and was not at the time.

i'm still going to contend that despite being a world war 2 game, of which there were already several, call of duty provided the first truly new FPS experience in a long while, with its elaborate scripted events and cinematic qualities, and environmental awareness

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GUARANTEED VICTORY!

Macho Man is pure grade awesome.

Looks like Fallout 3 won IGN's GOTY:

http://games.ign.com/dor/articles/94424 ... 11609.html

Nominee's were apparently:

L4D, MGS4, LittleBigPlanet, GTA4. Gears of War 2 was not on the list.

Not a bad list, but WTB Valkyria Chronicles with at least an honorable mention =/

Fuck you and your never seen a raid in VG ass. Don't compare things you don't know, its not 2009 and not cool any more. That is all.

Back on topic, I would have loved to see Disgaea 3 on there but sadly it never gets the main stream media credit it deserves. It might be a bit of a niche game but something that provides that much for for 100's + hours....I just can't ask for much more even though the story wasn't quiet as good as previously NIS disgaea games but the amount of customization and ability to make your characters just retardedily over powered yet still get your ass raped is at an all time high.

WoW should be up there, there is no denying its success and its ability to provide something for everyone. Yes the latest round was a tish easier then a lot of us would have liked it to see it (sadly I managed to put together a 10 man pug, learned naxx the first week, added some random people to create a guild and led the guild to become the 2nd fastest guild to clear 20 man naxx) but the game itself really is a testament to quality gaming even if a few just "duh" things seem to exscape blizzard's grasp.

I didn't play too many games this last year so I can't give much of a comparison but I can't see how a game could get too much better then MGS4...it seems pretty crazy not to even make that list.

It's 25-man

And it is 2009.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Maybe that was an April Fool's day joke?

what

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Fuck you and your never seen a raid in Hello Kitty Online ass.

What was this all about?

Turbo has openly stated before that he posts nonsensical posts while in a drunken state. Maybe this was just another drunken stupor he was in?

I dunno. I just know that I don't agree with that list, even 4 months later.

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I always thought Tribes was pretty innovative for its time. The whole concept was fresh and a whole lot of fun. CTF that required a whole lot of team work to get things done. It had vehicles, tons of different weapons, and a lot of other utility items to set up a great base defense.

Maybe it isnt really as good as I remember, I was young when I played.