Game Of the Year, 2008

It's time to announce my pick for best video game of the past year. I have played quite a few game this year and there are many that I have enjoyed immensely. There are some first-rate games that I did not play, so they are not eligible for the award. Among those games are:

Gears Of War 2
Dead Space
Metal Gear Solid 4
Prince Of Persia
Resistance 2
Rock Band 2
Guitar Hero Wold Tour

I am a big fan of the original Guitar Hero and Rock Band games so I have a pretty good handle on what they have to offer. Metal Gear Solid 4 is supposed to be a stellar game, but I hear you spend nearly as much time watching the extensive cut scenes as you do actually playing the game, so that really limits my interest. Dead Space sounds good and I will probably be checking it out in the future. Same can be said about Prince Of Persia. Resistance 2 is supposed to be a great multiplayer game, but I don't enjoy multiplayer games as much as a good single player game, mostly because of the idiots you have to endure while playing online. I did enjoy the first Resistance game a great deal, but I hear the sequel is really aimed more at the multiplayer gamer. Gears Of War 2 seems a lot like more of the same to me, which to be fair can be said of most sequels. While I liked the first one and thought it was very well done, I never really felt compelled to check out the sequel. I am probably missing out on a great game, but with my limited amount of gaming time, it was just never a priority.

As far as the Wii is concerned, I like it, but nothing on the system blows me away. So basically this is a contest among Xbox 360 & PS3 games.

For those keeping score at home, my favorite game last year was Bioshock. Indeed I scored the game a perfect 10, which is very rare for me. I have only given 2 perfect scores before that, to a couple of older games: X-Com UFO Defense and Front Page Sports Football, both of which were released in the early 90's. What made Bioshock so compelling was the setting and atmosphere. The game completely immersed you in it's world and it controlled very well too. It consistently had me ooh-ing and aah-ing throughout the game. I really think that Bioshock crossed the line from being just a video game to being an actual work of art.

2007 was a great year for gaming. Bioshock had some serious competition for the Game Of The Year (GOTY) award. 2008 was basically a carbon copy of 2007. There were some quality games that came out during the first 3 quarters of the year and then the final quarter was just littered with truly exceptional games. So without further ado, let's get to it!

Here are the finalists for the GOTY award:

MLB '08: The Show
NHL '09
Grand Theft Auto IV
Fable 2
Left 4 Dead
Far Cry 2
Little Big Planet
Fallout 3

Of these 8 games, 3 of them I played on the PS3 (MLB' 08, NHL '09 and Little Big Planet) with the rest being played on the 360. Two of them are sports games, 2 are RPGs (Fable 2 and Fallout 3), 2 are action games (GTA IV and Left 4 Dead), 1 is a platformer (LBP) and 1 (Far Cry 2) is a first-person shooter. That's not a bad variety. Let's take a look at each one individually.


MLB '08: The Show is a Sony's baseball game, and it's only available for Sony consoles. Last year's version was quite good in it's own right, and 2008 upped the ante considerably. The game looks and plays very well. To me the best thing about the game is the Road To The Show mode, where you create a AA minor league player and advance him through his entire career, hopefully becoming an impact MLB player. You only play as that player; you skip though game moments until one involving your player (as a fielder, batter or pitcher) arises. It is really compelling as you guide your player through the ups and downs of your career. It has a light RPG element, as you can decide which skills you want to improve your player upon as you accomplish certain goals. You can create any sort of player you want. I played 2 separate careers, one as a closer and one as a shortstop. I made it to the big leagues in both and with one being a pitcher and one being a position player, each career played out differently. My only problem with RTTS (and MLB '08) was when you reach base and become a base runner. From that point on you play each pitch in the game while you are on the bases and it is quite time consuming. If you have a base stealer, it can be a fun game of cat and mouse. But even that gets old after a while. A typical game consists of about 10% batting, 15% fielding and the remaining 75% running the bases, which is the least rewarding part of the game. Couple that with some lengthy load times for each game and you can find yourself wishing the game would move along faster. Still, MLB '08: The Show is the best baseball game I have ever played, and that says a lot cause I have played 'em all. On a scale of 1-10 I would give The Show a lofty 9.1, very high praise indeed.

NHL '09 is EA Sports multi-platform hockey game and in a lot of ways, it compares to The Show. Like Sony's baseball game, NHL '09 has a career mode where you take a created player from the minors up through the NHL. To me this is the highlight of the game. You determine what position you want to play and what type of player you'd like to be. Once the game hits the ice, it plays like a dream. You are able to call for passes or shots from your teammates and you are judged after each game by your on-ice performance. With the points you gain, you can determine which area of your game you'd like to improve, again much like The Show. You can also play a regular game of hockey, where you control whoever has the puck. While I found this mode to be fun, I preferred the career mode. NHL '09 also has teams from leagues throughout the world, as well as each country's nation team. These include the bigger ice surface used for the international game. NHL is excellent in nearly every way. I would score this game an 8.9 on a 10 scale.

Grand Theft Auto IV should need little introduction to gamers, so I will spare all of the details here. I will say that I found the story to be pretty darned good and the character of Niko to be compelling. With the game clearly based in the action genre, such a good story and character is really a plus. GTA IV is an improved version on the earlier GTA games, so there's not much new here. What there is in spades is a tremendous amount of freedom to do as you please, a game world which seems alive and plenty of missions to accomplish. The game does get repetitive after a while (most lengthy games do) and some of the things you have to do, like spending time with your friends to keep them happy, seem like more of a chore than anything. Still, this a real monumental effort and it plays very well. Overall, I'd give GTA IV a solid 9.0 out of 10.

Fable 2 was a game I was most anxious to play. I had not played the original Fable, tough my son did and he really enjoyed it. But the more I read about the upcoming Fable 2, the more excited I was to get my hands on it. Happily, it did not disappoint. Right from the start the story grabbed me. The visuals and sound were a real treat and there was plenty to do with a lot of variety. As I made my way through the Fable 2 world, I kept repeating to myself, "This has got to be the game of the year, this has got to be the game of the year..." It was that good, that deep and most of all, that fun. I enjoyed battling the many creatures, improving my character as I saw fit, meeting my wife, having children, finding a nice home, etc. I am sure I had a grin on my face throughout as I played Fable 2. My only complaint was there was not a whole lot of customization with your character. You improved your skills however you wanted, but the outfits didn't really do much and you could buy the best outfit for your player quite early in the game. Once you did, there was no need to look for improved items to wear. Overall, it's a minor complaint but it makes the game more of an RPG Lite rather than a true RPG. Which is fine; a good action RPG is a lovely thing. Fable 2 is a fantastic game. It scores a truly special 9.3 out of 10 for me.

Left 4 Dead is basically like the George Romero "... Of The Dead" zombie films on steroids. It is a simple action game in which your one goal is to survive while going from point A to point b. It could not be simpler to control or get the hang of. What makes it special is that the single player game, though not very long, is different each time you play through and the multiplayer portion of the game is perfection. The zombies in Left 4 Dead are not your brainless, shuffling variety found in most zombie movies. They are fast and strong and there are hundreds of them. You team up with 3 other survivors (controlled by the CPU in single player mode and by other gamers in the multiplayer mode) and try to find your way to safety. You encounter an incredible number of the undead and there is some variety among them, with some having special abilities. What makes the single player mode so good (despite the aforementioned short length) is the "director" which makes each game different. Basically no single player game plays the same because the zombie hordes are placed differently throughout each level. So you never know what to expect, even though the actual level layout is always the same. The game really shines in multiplayer mode though. You can play cooperatively against the zombies or you can play humans vs. zombies with both sides controlled by gamers. It works incredibly well and the game controls are absolute perfection. As I said, I am more of a single player guy and there is some repetitiveness that is inevitable because the levels themselves don't change. It also doesn't have a lot of variety or depth. But Left 4 Dead is fun, simply gaming at it's absolute best. I score Left 4 Dead a solid 8.9 out of 10.

Far Cry 2 is a game that was not on my radar at all until it's release was imminent. I found out about the game thanks to some folks who were discussing it over at Operation Sports. The more I read, the more hooked I became and the more anxious I became for Far Cry 2 to drop. When it arrived, I was still finishing Fable 2, so it had to wait a couple of days. Once I popped it in, I was at first a bit underwhelmed. It takes a couple of hours for the game to get rolling, but once it does it is FPS heaven. You are a mercenary in an African nation which is being torn apart by civil war. There are 2 factions that are battling it out and they are both being armed by the same guy, known as The Jackal. Your ultimate job is to take the Jackal out. Along the way you have to play both factions against each other, face double crosses, improve your arsenal and then head into the heart of darkness to come face to face with the Jackal (and your fate). What makes Far Cry 2 so outstanding is the environments (from lush foliage to desert wastes), the weapons (all real and all life-like) and the scope of the game world. Far Cry 2 takes place in an enormous area. The map is huge and full of treacherous roads and rivers. Making your way through this world can be quite time consuming (and repetitive), but the sights you see, such as wondrous waterfalls and grazing gazelles, zebras and wildebeest make it feel real. The action is more grounded in reality than your typical FPS; there is no crazy jumping or inhuman abilities to make the game seem more arcadish. Instead real world physics apply. You can get around the map in a variety of vehicles and these all handle very well. The visuals in the game are exceptional, with some of the best explosion effects you will ever see. Far Cry 2 is quite lengthy, especially if you decide to do the side quests. It took me over 70 hours of game play to finish the game. When I did reach the end, I was sorry that it was all over. It was an epic journey and one that I found very rewarding. Some people found the game to be overly repetitive and the constantly repopulated checkpoints annoying. While I can see their points, the game simply worked for me. Far Cry 2 scores a very praiseworthy 9.0 out of 10 for me.

Little Big Planet is a platformer game exclusive to the Sony PS3. It's visuals are amazing, it's puzzles increasingly difficult and it's lifespan is aided immeasurably by the level creator, which allows you to create your own levels and share them with others. The vast number of user created levels already available for download puts the replayability of this game through the roof. I have to confess that I have not put as much time in with LBP as I would like to in order to give it a legitimate score. But in the time I have invested I have found LBP to be charming game with a lot of options. It controls pretty well, though sometimes it is hard to get your character where you want it to be in the 3 dimensional world. Right now I would have to score LBP an incomplete because of my limited time with the game. I have played enough, however, to determine that the game belongs on the list of finalists for GOTY. It does not, however, appear as if it is good enough to be named the GOTY. Early indications are that LBP will score somewhere between 8.6 to 9.1 on my scale. A worthy game in an exceptional year.

Fallout 3 is the last game of the finalists It is an RPG made by the creators of the early 360 standout RPG Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Fallout 3 arrived at a time when I was finishing Fable 2 and waiting to start Far Cry 2. As you read earlier, I put a lot of time into Far Cry 2 so Fallout 3 really was on the back burner for some time. Fable 2, Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 all arrived within the same couple of weeks and I was excited about all 3. But Fallout 3 was perhaps the one I was looking forward to the least at that point. When I finished the long, engrossing Far Cry 2, I was really a bit strung out from playing such a long, drawn-out game. When I popped Fallout 3 in for the first time, I was a bit overwhelmed, to put it mildly. The game map is huge, with tons of locations, each of which is a huge area itself. There was so much to see and do that I didn't know where to start other than the main quest. And I wanted to do the side quests before I got too far into the main one. Like Far Cry 2, it took about 2 hours to get into the meat of the game. I made my way to the little town of Megaton, a small town that housed desperate people. You see, Fallout 3 takes place many years after a nuclear war has wiped out most of humanity. You play a character lucky enough to have been born in an underground vault, a fallout safe bunker. For years and years the topside of the planet has been a nuclear wasteland, populated with human scavengers, hideously mutated creatures and grotesque, superhuman mutations. Your father has left the safety of the vault, a big no-no. You are to be punished for this transgression. Rather than stick around for said punishment, you strike out into a completely alien world in search of your father.
The setting of Fallout 3 is Washington D.C. and the surrounding area. To travel around and see the Capital Building, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument in a shambles is quite chilling. It really looks like what you would imagine a nuclear wasteland landscape to be. Dangers are everywhere and small pockets of humanity are sprinkled throughout. In order to find your father, you must first help put others, with their own agendas and ideas. The storytelling is top-notch. The atmosphere rivals that of Bioshock. Everything feels right about the game. There are countless ways to build and improve your character. You get to decide what his or her strengths and weaknesses are, how you handle combat, how persuasive you are, etc. It is all masterfully done. You earn experience points for every thing you do and these points allow you to level up. As you do, you make the important, permanent choices that will effect you and the world throughout your game. The consequences of your actions and decisions are real.
You have a wide array of weaponry, both real and futuristic. You can also gather junk around the landscape and build your own weapons. The possibilities are endless. And talk about epic! The game can take anywhere from 20 to 100 hours, depending on how deep you want to get. You meet interesting characters, get to know them and sometime kill them or at least decide their fate. It all adds up to a complete package that closes in on perfection. I have run into a few bugs which have required me to reload from a previous game save, but nothing catastrophic. Just remember to save frequently in multiple save slots.
Already 3 separate downloads are planned with new areas, adventures and quests. To say I am stoked would be a dramatic understatement. Fallout 3 meets and exceeds all of the requirements for a "Game Of The Year." It scores a near-perfect 9.8 on my scale of 10. It is a game for the ages that will be remembered as a true classic.