Didn't want to bore everyone with another top 10 with a wall of text after every single choice, so here's my top 10 for 2008:
 
10. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
9. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix
8. LittleBigPlanet
7. Fable 2
6. Left 4 Dead
5.Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
4. Grand Theft Auto 4
3. Metal Gear Solid 4
2. Dead Space
1. Fallout 3

Guess I should say that Dead Space would have been my GOTY if I had not played Fallout 3, but luckily I waited until I got it for Christmas to write this list. It's not like Fallout 3 swept the title either, I put a lot of time weighing them both, but Fallout 3 has blown me away in a few ways that Dead Space did not. (wink wink)

So I entered that contest to win a free game "FUELED BY DEW!" before the VGA's, and just received my code for World of Goo on the Wii.

Anyone else get lucky and win something?

Alright, with all this Left 4 Dead talk floating around the interwebs (which I still haven't played yet), I thought I'd take a moment and give some reasons why Zombies are the best fucking thing ever created.


















































































And there you have it. Good day.

So, this morning I called up Wal-Mart and (unfortunately) Gamestop, to see if either of them had Dead Space in. Wal-Mart did not have it yet, so I regrettably made the drive to our old friends at Lamestop. I managed to get the last copy of Dead Space for Xbox 360, and raced home with glee.

I have now played about 5 hours of it, and have made it to chapter five (12 chapters in all) and can safely say that the game is stupendous. Dead Space is simply one of the greatest games I have played this year. The sound? Fantastic. The gameplay? Outstanding. The graphics? Amazing. The scare factor? Terrific.

Never have I ever been so incredibly terrified by a game's soundtrack and sound effects than I have been with Dead Space, and that says a lot. The game has it all, from sharp violin screeches, to near-silent heart thumps. The game's sound does an incredible job of immersifying the player.

This amazing eargasm of sound is only matched, if not downright shown-up by the incredible, intense gameplay. As said before, the game is incredibly immersive, and that is partly due to the lack of HUD. All of the HUD elements you need are displayed on Isaac's suit and/or guns, and this works incredibly well. The game's graphics are also a keynote. Everything from the shadows to the lights on Isaac's suit can be truly appreciated. A great example of the graphical finesse for this game would have to be when you are on the exterior of the ship, and the colors wash out a bit, due to the moon and star light. Moments like this really make you stop and breathe in all the pleasures we have today as "core gamers".

Dead Space at it's core though, is a survival-horror game, and boy does it do a great job of scaring the hell out of you. This game has a lot of scare tricks up it's sleeve, and continuously scares me again and again. I'm no pansy now, but they're something just horribly terrifying about the Ishimura's (the ship you are on) bload soaked corridors and torn up structures. You get the feeling that something is just wrong on the ship, and for good reason. Dont write this game off as just some jump-fest though, because there's a great narrative backing all the creepy shenanigans, and the game has something for every game lover.

So to wrap it all up in a thick strip of bacon, Dead Space is a fantastic game that Horror fans, and game fans in general should really look into.

HE'S OKAY.



And I secretly want to pinch his buttocks.