Giant Bomb -

Best Debut

Results will be revealed on Dec. 27, 2008

Video posted by Vinny on Dec. 19, 2008

This is an industry built on the promise of sequels, and it can often take a few iterations before a series really finds its footing. The nominees in this category, though, impressed us thoroughly on their first try. This doesn't necessarily mean that we'd like to see sequels to all of these games, simply because we wouldn't want to risk retroactively tainting the experience of the original with a contrived extension.

Dead Space

This was the year EA started to make good on its new directive to explore original properties and get its feet wet with genres it hadn't tried before. Dead Space was the finest result of that effort, a superb action game that was visceral, visually stunning, and thoroughly entertaining from start to finish.

It's not that Dead Space brings a lot of new ideas to the table. Rather, the game takes a stack of existing concepts--third-person shooting, sci-fi horror, and space zombies among them--and executes all of them with such precision that it achieves a degree of quality much greater than the sum of its parts. Just try to reproach it for lousy controls, bland graphics, or boring action sequences. You can't!

Before it came out, Dead Space was easily dismissed as an also-ran Resident Evil in space, but we're glad to eat crow on this one. Far from a copycat, the game carved out a unique identity and set new standards for the horror action genre. This is one new property we can't wait to see more of.

	Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead puts players in the role of one of four survivors during a zombie apocalypse. Gamers are challenged to get from one safe house to another while facing clusters of "Infected." Co-op is key to survival in this fast paced game of zombie genocide.
	No More Heroes An action-adventure hack-n-slash title for the Nintendo Wii, players take the role of Travis Touchdown, a man who challenges an organization of assassins to become the most feared hitman in the world.
	LittleBigPlanet Lead the way as your very own Sackperson in the highly customizable side-scrolling world of LittleBigPlanet, where you can play, create, and share 3D levels with your friends and the whole PSN community.
	Braid Manipulate time to complete puzzles in this 2D platform game made by indie developer Jonathan Blow.

79 Comments

Kraznor
on Dec. 20, 2008

This is also a tough category. I guess I'd vote for Braid...or Left 4 Dead...or No More Heroes. Depends on the day of the week. And the other two weren't bad either. Gross.

HashHeesh
on Dec. 20, 2008

Left 4 Dead.

Scooper
on Dec. 20, 2008

I'd go with either Left 4 Dead or Dead Space, as long as it's dead.

kardon16
on Dec. 20, 2008

No More Heroes because is cool, fun, and funny

Meltbrain
on Dec. 20, 2008

Oh man that's tough, I was gonna go with Dead Space because that game was awesome, but with LittleBigPlanet in the list I might have to side with that.