[Amusing] Game of the Year (Grains of Salt)

Yes, I vote GotY to go to Grains of Salt.

I spent time this evening reading through IGN's (yeah, say what you want about them) lists for the new "Top 100 games of all time" and their awards for all but the overall categories for this year's games. Sadly 2008 looks a bit dry for all of gaming (with titles like Spore undoubtedly never coming out, really), so we've been blessed this year. I'll run through the awards for each major system and jot down my opinion on each. Feel free to cast a vote (based on IGN's list of Reader's Choice games) and bitch about the poor choices people make in their votes.

IGN's top:

Spoiler:

PC - Bioshock - Wow, I sure called this one months ago, but not under favorable conditions. Yes, it was pretty, but so are a ton of other games out there. Although the story was the winner in that category, it wasn't epic. I was really disappointed in the circle-jerking over this game, but will gladly display my Big Daddy statue on my desk. My vote: Portal.

360 - Call of Duty 4 - A title that I have not played (will get it for the PC), but I have heard nothing but praise for it. Those of us like myself questioned the campaign which is once again classically short. The next title will be back in the WW2 era, which is great for long-term fans of the series like myself and a bit disappointing for those who played this and Battlefield 2. Regardless, I'm glad it won over Halo 3. So happy. My vote: CoD4.

PS2 - God of War 2 - Sure, the first one was fun. The ending was bad. Both games. But this really wasn't much to cheer about. I guess people figured the PS2 was dead and didn't get new titles, because an overlooked game by ATLUS should have won it. My vote: Odin Sphere.

PS3 - Uncharted - Haven't played it, but its good to hear that PS3 owners are actually pleased with something that's come out on the system this year before the ravaging of their selves comes to take place next year when Final Fantasy 9001 and Metal Gear Old are released. My vote: Any Blu-Ray movie you have.

Wii - Super Mario Galaxy - Platformers are not dead, and although Metroid has swayed away from that genre, it was good. Mario used creative controls with the Wiimote to once again set a new bar for itself in the series. And yes, we already know that next year's Wii GotY is Brawl. My vote: Mario Galaxy.

PSP - Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow - Well, when Puzzle Quest is a close second in the voting, you know the PSP pool is rather dry. My vote: Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions.

DS - Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass - Wind Waker was good. Shut up about the artistic design, already. Phantom Hourglass uses LOL logic in some of the puzzles and does a great job making the game 100% stylus-controlled. My vote: Zelda.

I suppose it all depends on personal taste. 2008 is going to be a dream year for me with so many of my faviourate games coming out;

Ninja Gaiden 2
Devil May Cry 4
Tekken 6
Street Fighter REMIXED
MGS4
KILLZONE 2
Too Human
Disgaea 3
PS3 Naruto Project (if it's anything like Rise of a Ninja that is)
FFVII Crisis Core
*Gears of War 2?
*Resistance 2?
SSBB

and that's just the beginning.

On topic though I voted for Uncharted simply because I think the game doesn't get enough credit compared to other nominees.

All in all, I think you covered most of the bases there with thoes games. Good work.

Originally Posted by Slayer X

All in all, I think you covered most of the bases there with thoes games. Good work.

I said that's IGN's list, although there isn't epic hype like there was for games of this year.

From those choices I would vote for the Orange Box. Never has an FPS game had a better story than Half-Life two, and the Orange Box contains one large portion and two snack-sized portions of that delicious story. Then just to show how awesome they can be, Valve also threw in a great game that nobody really expected, Portal.

No other title on that list can match the hours of entertainment per buck that the Orange Box offers. Admittedly that's based on the notion that you don't already own any of the content.

How could you leave Persona 3 out? Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Out of all of those I'd probably say SMG. This game was as good as Super Mario 64 and what I was looking for when that piece of crap called Super Mario Sunshine came out. All is forgiven, Nintendo. I'd say Ratchet and Clank was pretty damn good too. Playing it is like controlling a high quality pixar film. The graphics were amazing and the game had a good mixture of platforming and shooting.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

From those choices I would vote for the Orange Box. Never has an FPS game had a better story than Half-Life two, and the Orange Box contains one large portion and two snack-sized portions of that delicious story. Then just to show how awesome they can be, Valve also threw in a great game that nobody really expected, Portal.

No other title on that list can match the hours of entertainment per buck that the Orange Box offers. Admittedly that's based on the notion that you don't already own any of the content.

Specifically, I chose Portal, but I'd otherwise still call it "Black Box."

Originally Posted by Miles

How could you leave Persona 3 out? Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Miles

Out of all of those I'd probably say SMG. This game was as good as Super Mario 64 and what I was looking for when that piece of crap called Super Mario Sunshine came out. All is forgiven, Nintendo. I'd say Ratchet and Clank was pretty damn good too. Playing it is like controlling a high quality pixar film. The graphics were amazing and the game had a good mixture of platforming and shooting.

Okay am I the only one who liked Sunshine? The only gripe I have is about the different spray modifications, otherwise it was a good Mario game.

Originally Posted by Miles

How could you leave Persona 3 out? Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I too would have voted for P3 if it was included.

I voted Galaxy because the poll didn't list Persona 3. For some reason Uncharted: Turok 1 has more votes than Galaxy right now.

My Games of the Year would be:

PS2 - Persona 3: For everyone who gives jRPGs and visual novels shit, this is actually fucking awesome. A kickass soundtrack (which I intend on purchasing), a great visual novel experience with dungeon crawling and fantastic voice acting. Most of the characters are memorable and everything fits together nicely. The game's lengthy and I still haven't finished it, but I don't want it to end. This is, by far, one of the best games available for the PS2.

Honourable mention: Odin Sphere. Well, what can I say. The graphics are fantastic, the characters are great, the voice acting is great, the difficulty is up there, and it has excellent replay value. It presents itself as an RPG which you can't grind endlessly on just to overcome. Skill and mastery are needed in order to complete this game, not just high levels.

Wii - Mario Galaxy: It gave me that feeling which I got when I was playing Mario 64 for the first time. The soundtrack is fantastic, Yoshiaki put countless amounts of time into coming up with something so memorable. I look forward to buying the OST. The game isn't long, but there's still a bunch of post-game stuff you can go back to if you like. There's always different routes you can take if you get stuck on a world, so you're constantly playing something new.

Honourable mention <3: Zack and Wiki, for it's wacky design and neat puzzle solving. Game's hard as far as puzzles go, since messing up means you're screwed in different points. But it gives you the feeling that you're playing a 3D Monkey Island.

PC - Orange Box. Team Fortress 2 is a great game, and this is coming from someone who hates FPS games in general. Yet they've managed to make it fun again. By far this is the best value for money in terms of game purchases. Portal is also very well designed. I can't comment on the HL2 stuff as I haven't played it.

Honourable mention: Mountain of Faith. I admit, I'm a touhou fan right to the centre of my hitbox and I was absolutely addicted to this game for a month when it first came out. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely the more graphically superior touhou game of the series.

360 - Eternal Sonata; This game's beautiful. Simply beautiful. Namco Bandai have put a lot of effort in bringing this game out, but it was unfortunately overshadowed by Halo 3. The entire game is very, very colourful and enjoyable, and there's rarely a dull moment.

PS3 - lol

Honourable mention: lol

DS: Contra 4. If there was ever a game which made you feel like you were playing a newly released SNES title, this should be it. The difficulty remains the same (frustratingly hard) but it wouldn't be proper Contra without it. This is a direct sequel to Contra 3 from the SNES. The game plays well and doesn't butcher anything with DS touchscreen gimmicks or any of that nonsense commonly found in DS shovelware.

PSP: Disgaea. This is probably one of the best ports of a game I've ever seen. Everything about the original PS2 version is fixed - option to cut animations, proper Japanese in-battle sounds (which weren't in the PS2 ver), widescreen, better graphics, extra content, and pretty much a better game because of it. There's no reason to play the PS2 version after touching this.

I think that's it..

Originally Posted by Elixir

360 - Eternal Sonata; This game's beautiful. Simply beautiful. Namco Bandai have put a lot of effort in bringing this game out, but it was unfortunately overshadowed by Halo 3. The entire game is very, very colourful and enjoyable, and there's rarely a dull moment.

I should mention that Eternal Sonata was voted "Best game nobody has played" for the 360. Heard the sound for it was very nice.

Originally Posted by Elixir

360 - Eternal Sonata; This game's beautiful. Simply beautiful. Namco Bandai have put a lot of effort in bringing this game out, but it was unfortunately overshadowed by Halo 3. The entire game is very, very colourful and enjoyable, and there's rarely a dull moment.

Since I've decided to get a PS3 for Disgaea 3, I'm really hoping that the PS3 port of Eternal Sonata is localised for America. I don't know how long it will be before I can afford another console.

PlayStation 2

Power Rangers Super Legends
Do you know what this game is abo-THAT'S RIGHT PUNCHING PUTTIES IN THE FACE.
Runner-up: Global Defence Force.

Wii

Ninjabread Man
What other game makes innovative use of the innovative Wii continnovativeroller while ALSO being a port of a three year old PS2 game that originally never left the land of PAL because the game would have been banned and the developer shot if SCEA got a hold of it (oh right like twenty other Wii games) but also haha look at the title it is a ninja gingerbread who is also a man rather than a woman this game is wonderful because there's rarely anything to do in any of the levels and there are exactly three different types of enemies also the controls make it really fun to do stuff because they don't work.
Runner-up: Super Mario Galaxy

PSP

Brooktown High
"GUYS I have an idea"
"Let me hear it Gus. Gus the janitor"
"We should put a dating game on PSP.. FOR AMERICA AND FRIENDS"
"Oh yeah! Those things are really popular in Japan, I wonder how something like that would do.."
"WE'LL FIND OUT, PUT OUR BEST TEAM ON IT, WHERE ARE THE CHARACTER DESIGNERS?!"
"Sleeping, it's 3:30 in the morning"
"OH GOD I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THEM TO WAKE UP, THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE NOW! I'LL DO IT! PASS ME THAT CRAYON AND LUMP OF RAW MINCE"
"Wait Gus, Gus no! NOOOOOOOO!"



Runner-up: Crush

DS

Imagine Fashion Designerz Hamsterz Babyz Dogz Catz Horsez Testicular Cancerz Dolphinz
I cried at the emotional story development when the catz did trickz and won me thirty fun buxz at the fairz to spend on neatz accesszzoriezzzzz fzz mzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Runner-up: Hotel Dusk

PlayStation 3

Die Hard 4.0
Oh John McClane how do you survive all these explosions in the space of a few hours!
Runner-up: Super Stardust HD

Xbox 360
Frame City Killer
Something like this only comes along every seventy thousand years, and we were lucky enough to see Namco's dream game finally come to life. I don't need to remind you that it went on to sell out in the first five minutes of launch, because you know. You were there. I held you softly. We had ice cream. It was mango flavour.
Runner-up: The Orange Box (well I dunno I'm still playing catch-up but I did enjoy this a lot!)

PC

Indy 500
LOOK AT THOSE TRIANGLES FLY.
Runner-up: Halloween Harry

360
Mass Effect - either you love the Bioware style, or you hate it. I happen to love it. The gameplay is fun, the story is great, the characters are believable, and the overall look and feel of the universe they created is wonderful. It has some problems, like the texture popping and the lack of variety of pirate bases, but those weren't game breaking.
Runners-up: Ace Combat 6; Halo 3 co-op campaign.

PS3
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - Granted, I haven't yet completed the game, but I've played enough of it {about 5 hours} to know that this is some quality material. The main characters Nathan and Elena {voice acting, motion capture, visual design, and the whole "who they are"} are great. The tropical locales are spectacular. The platformy bits are enjoyable, and the combat is challenging at times, with the enemies showing at least decent AI. Plus it doesn't have much other PS3 competition.
Runners-up: Casino Royale; Superbad on Blu-ray.

Multiplatform
Call of Duty 4 - The campaign mode, for me, was kind of uneven. The actual combat I didn't care a whole lot for except on the All Ghillied Up mission and the Epilogue at 39,000 feet. The story, and its presentation, was amazing. The British SAS guys were great. The multiplayer, however, is where its at. When you put together a group of 6 GFF members and dump them into a game of Headquarters, pretty much any map, and you are going to have a good time. Take a group of 6 GFF members, put them into a game of Headquarters on the Shipment map and all hell is pretty much going to break loose. In an overall Game of the Year list, I would put Call of Duty 4 just a hair behind Mass Effect.

Wii
Uh I don't know, pick your favorite character from 1986 and they are probably a Wii Game of the Year candidate!

PS2
Probably some JRPG starring high schoolers or some JRPG featuring bright colors. Who cares.

I guess my overall list would look something like this:

1a - Mass Effect
1b - Call of Duty 4
3 - Ace Combat 6
4 - Halo 3 co-op campaign
5 - Forza 2

Of course, I didn't play everyone's darling Bioshock because it made me motion sick.

Sine I can't pick two, I'll just go with Mario Galaxy. I've never had such a huge amount of fun playing a game. It's one of those experiences that's great on all the senses (except for smell). It's a blast to play, it's got the best soundtrack in years, it looks gorgeous, and with a little whipped cream on top. it even tastes good.

The game it's tied with is Bioshock, the sole reason I bought an Xbox 360, and with good reason. Another brilliant assault on the senses, with an incredibly gripping storyline, with a plot twist that completely and utterly blew my mind. An utter masterpiece from beginning to end.

I usually say that Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is GOTY, and since you left both that and Ass Creed out of your poll, I voted Mass Effect. Though there's annoying flaws, it's a lovely adventure with great dialogue and story.

I didn't get to play much of the new games this year, as I don't have a PS3 or a 360, only a Wii and a (barely capable) PC, but Super Mario Galaxy and The Orange Box (mainly Portal) were definitely the highlights for me.