As some of you might know, I only own a Wii this gen since my 360 died two years ago and my income doesn’t allow me to buy another one (or any other console for that matter), I’m pretty happy with it though. Due to this and the fact that work and college don’t let me much free time I haven’t been able to play some of the best games for the other consoles like most of you have, so I’m not able to do a proper GOTY list, which is why I’m going to do something a little different. Instead of just games released this year, I’m going to list the games I’ve played, regardless of whether they were released this year or not. The list consist of mostly Wii games (though I did play some others) so Nintendo haters might want to stay away from this one.
Here’s a brief list of the games I played this year:
Finished games (not counting new playthroughts)
- Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)
- The Conduit (Wii)
- Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube)
- Pro Evolution Soccer 09 (Wii)
- Heavenly Sword (PS3)
- Super Mario 64 DS (DS)
- Call of Duty: World at War (Wii)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex (Wii)
- Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 (Wii)
- Devil May Cry 4 (360)
- Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil (Wii)
- New Play Control: Pikmin (Wii)
- Condemned 2: Bloodshot (360)
I was able to beat Havenly Sword, Condemned 2 and Devil May Cry at a friend’s house. The DS games I played with my brother’s DS.
Games Played this year (but not finished):
I played these games extensively but for one reason or another I haven’t finished them.
- Odin Sphere (PS2)
- Godhand (PS2)
- Tenchu: Shadow Assassins (Wii)
- Killzone 2 (PS3)
- Snow Sakura (PC)
- Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: March of the Minis (DS)
- ExciteBots: Trick racing (Wii)
- Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (PS3)
- Silent Hill: Homecoming (PS3)
- Fate/Stay Night (PC)
- Guilty Gear XX: A Core (Wii)
- Punch Out!! (Wii)
- Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Wii)
- The World Ends With You (DS)
- Dead Space: Extraction (Wii)
- F1 2009 (Wii)
- Rygar: The battle of Argus (Wii)
- Wario Land: Shake It!! (Wii)
- Guitar Hero: Metallica (360)
- Onimusha 3: Demon Siege (PS2)
- Starfox Adventures (GC)
Now on to the awards, I won’t have just one winner like most people (except for the overall winner), but multiple because I can’t get myself to choose just one.
Best Graphics:
Heavenly Sword, Killzone 2, Dead Space: Extraction
Heavenly Sword is probably the best looking game I’ve played in my life, absolutely everything is visually stunning both technically and artistically and the cutscenes are flawless. Killzone 2 also stands out, mostly on the technical department, artistically I found it to be lacking, but other than that…holy fuck!
Extraction pushes the Wii hardware to its limit and while I can’t say it’s comparable to the other two games it’s still one awesome looking game.
Best Music:
Heavenly Sword, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean.
Both games have amazing music that suit the gameplay incredibly well. Heavenly Sword’s music is exciting and makes you want to beat shit up, while Baten Kaito’s is soothing and relaxing, quite simply excellent.
Most Surprisingly Good Game
Call of Duty: World at War, Excitebots: Trick Racing, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege
While I did like Call of Duty 3 on the Wii when my father gave it to me as a present a few years ago I noticed several problems in it, it was fun but some parts were broken as hell and I didn’t expect much from World at War except that it was probably going to be another shoddy port of the HD consoles, and boy was I wrong. Trechyard made a completely new game and perfected FPS controls on the Wii, and the online is one of the best on the system so far. The success of this game made go out and buy Modern Warfare Reflex when it was released, and it also delivered.
The same situation happened with Excitebots and Onimusha 3. I loved Excite Trucks, but the concept of Transfomer bugs didn’t appeal to me at all, glad I picked this up though, it’s one of the best racing games this gen. Onimusha 3 improved on absolutely every aspect of its mediocre predecessors.
Most Disappointing Game
Punch Out!!, Super Mario 64 DS , Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Starfox Adventures
Don’t get me wrong, Punch Out!! Is a good game, but it’s not nearly as good or as fun as some people claim, at least to me. It’s definitely funny and challenging but it gets boring after 15 minutes. Super Mario 64 DS is a broken mess, the controls are shitty and it actually makes me dislike SM 64, which I thought was impossible.
On to Tales of Symphonia…I was so hyped for this game when it was announced, having played the shit out of the original, so imagine my disappointment when I found out that this one is pretty much the same game sans the good parts. The same graphics and gameplay are used with a few changes (the new overworld being the most meaningful) but they took out the characters I grew to like in the first game and replaced them with a whiny cunt and an annoying little bitch placing them in one of the most stupid stories in any RPG I’ve played so far.
Starfox Adventures is like a bad Zelda clone with Fox in it….that’s just not right.
Most Decent(?) Game
Dead Space: Extraction, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Wario Land: Shake It!!
I’m not sure how to explain this category. I guess it’s the games that had a lot of potential but never quite reached it. I wanted to like them, but in the end, they didn’t manage to hold my attention for too long.
Best Atmosphere
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Silent Hill was one of this year’s best in terms of successfully drowning you into its terrifying world. Its use of your personal info to create your character’s nightmares was just brilliant. REmake is classic Resident Evil at its best, full with incredible moments and terrifying situations.
Baten Kaitos on the other hand is not scary at all, but its beautiful graphics and relaxing music really make you feel like you’re in that magical world.
Best Story & Characters
Odin Sphere, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
While I didn’t get to finish Odin Sphere (Though I hope to do so eventually) I enjoyed the story a lot, it’s a bit childish and with a good reason but it’s full of wonderful moments and great characters to make you forget about certain cliché things. Same goes for Baten Kaitos, it’s a fairy tale at its best.
Silent Hill is brilliantly mindfucking in pretty much every aspect; you really feel like you’re the character and want to find your daughter in this ghost town. And the plot twists are just fantastic. Quite simply brilliant.
Worst Game
Snow Sakura, Rygar: The Battle of Argus, F1 2009
Being an Anime fan I tend to go to Anime sites and IRCs, and I noticed that many other Anime fans are into Visual Novels though I never understood why since I never really enjoyed them, it’s like reading a crappy book with cute pictures on the background. But I decided to give them another chance this year in the form of Fate/Stay Night and Snow Sakura. And while Fate/Stay Night has a decent story, Snow Sakura is just a stupid piece of crap, rarely do you get to choose what your character’s going to do, the story is dumb as hell and the characters are boring. It’s not even good for the ero scenes.
Rygar is a complete butchering of an awesome early PS2 game, the controls are crappy, the graphics are laughably bad and they changed the lead character from a calm, lovable guy to a generic badass.
F1 was borrowed from my brother, I’m sorry for him for wasting money on this game. It’s buggy, there’s no sense of speed, no damage modeling and it looks like a PSone game.
Overall they’re all terrible games but if I had to choose just one I’d go with Snow Sakura, though it barely qualifies as a game.
Game of the Year
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil, Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, New Play Control Pikmin, Heavenly Sword, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, Call of Duty: World at War.
Though 3 of these games are not from this year and two of them are ports I had great gaming moments with them this year, I loved each and every one of them and I don’t really like to choose just one overall best but then it wouldn’t fun would it? :P
REmake is a fantastic game from start to finish, after playing RE4 I didn’t think I’d be able to go back to the old RE gameplay, but boy was I wrong. This is as thrilling as gaming can hope to be, definitely second only to RE4 as my favorite Resident Evil game. And recently I bought the Archives version of Zero so it hopefully lives up to the pedigree of this fantastic action adventure masterpiece.
I usually don’t enjoy stealth games, but there are two exceptions to this: Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu. Even though compared to Tenchu 2, most of the games in the franchise released in the last few years are pretty much crap, I’ve still bought each and every one of them, only to be disappointed. Shadow Assassins changed that, it’s a brilliant stealth game and a really addictive one too. Even though I’m stuck (>_<) I still loved this. Definitely the best in the series.
I never got the chance to play Pikmin on the Gamecube, but when I heard they were coming to the Wii I was really excited, not only I was finally able to play the game, but also a superior version too. And boy did it deliver, I spend more time with this game than any other this year, it’s addictive, funny and freaking frustrating. I haven’t bought Pikmin 2 yet, but I’ll get to it when I have more free time.
Like I said before, Heavenly Sword is a brilliant game, not only in its looks, but in the overall experience, which is why it’s sad that it’s so short. It’s the best GoW clone so far, and by the look of things it’s going to hold that spot for quite a while. Hopefully a sequel manages to include some more original gameplay designs, but as it is, it’s already a fantastic game.
Baten Kaitos is the best RPG I’ve played in my life. Even though the combat system is flawed and feels really random at times, the overall experience is just fantastic. The story, characters, music, graphics…all these things combine to make a great experience from start to finish.
Call of Duty World at War is not a superb game, especially when compared to CoD4, but fuck if I didn’t have fun with this. It just felt right and made me go back to the genre, which I had given up on a long time ago (except for things like Metroid Prime, which is not really a FPS anyway). Screw the haters, this game is awesome.
And finally…Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, a masterpiece of a game, a brilliant idea and an even better execution. This game scared the crap out of me, made me laugh, get frustrated at some of the puzzles and curse those mother fucking little monsters like you have no idea. The atmosphere, the gameplay, sound design, story, voice acting, characters…everything was just perfect. The only flaw was its length, but that was easily overlooked once you looked back at the whole experience. And this is why Silent Hill: SM is my game of the year.
Winner: Silent Hill: Shattered memories.
PS: I apologize for any grammar mistake I made, it's 2 am and my english is never at its best when it comes to writing long stuff.
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