My top 6 games 2008
By optimusprime223 7 Comments
So everyone is doing top 5 or top 10, so I decided to do a top 6, just to be different, plus its an even number which sits well with slightly OCD personality.
These are the games that this year, after finishing them, I have felt...satisfied. But not because of the gameplay (though that helps), it is mostly because of the story of each game. 2008 has been a fantastic year for gaming, as 2007 was before it and 2009 is shaping up to be, but more than it, games have started to come into thier own as a medium where great stories can be told, and what stories they are.
I dont play games generally that are not heavily story based, so story is quite important to me. In the last couple of years, developers have started to realise games can be/do more, and as such, the quality of the writing within them has increased exponentially. So here it is, my top 6 games of 2008!
Disclaimer: at least one was released in 2007, but i didnt play it until this year, so please bear with!
Simply Great. I have been a fan of the DMC series since the first one, and despite the hiccup that was 2, everyone was fantastic and the series is one of my all time favourites. A truely great game.
A real surprise, this game made me like Tomb Raider style games again. Nathan Drake is a great protagonist, the story is fantastic (though it did get a little daft toward the end), and the production values immense. This and Heavenly Sword really justified the PS3 for me, but Uncharted won out, I just found it to be a much better game, full of atmosphere.
Though they are technically 2 different games, they are essential the same so they go together. Crysis created the one military team I want in real life, the nano suits are so bad ass and just make the wears super cool (to be fair the enviroment also does that later in the games). Pyscho and Nomad and great protagonists, and the larger battle happening around them gives both games tons of atmosphere. The aliens were kinda cool (literally!) too, and I enjoyed every second of both games.
Now I have said the other games in this list have buckets of atmosphere, but not one has the atmosphere with the power to make you shit yourself. Dead space does, and it is a truely fantastic game, foregoing muliplayer non-sense and crafting a truely scary place to be trapped in. A great story, with a more personal touch for the protagonist, makes this my 3rd best game of 2008. If you liked the movie Event Horizon, play Dead Space right now.
Gears 1 was a great game, but Epic wanted it to be better, so the now infamous 'Bigger, Better, more bad-ass' quote was created. Epic delievered on that lofty goal, and Gears 2 surpasses it's predecessor in every way. Better graphics, art style, a truely epic story, everything is better, though the best bit is Dom's desperate search for his missing wife, a deeply personal story interwoven into a larger, planet threating struggle for survival, which creates enough questions to justify the obvious Gears 3.
Quite simply a masterpiece. I know of several people who wont add this to a list like this under the guise of 'it isnt really a game', and to be fair it isn't. What it is is the first game to take true advantage of the medium, allowing people to watch a fantastic, cinematic story unfold before letting play a fantastic game. So what if there is a 45 minute cutscene? that scene will be probably the best cutscene you have ever seen, directed and written as Hollywood has done for years. The story might be a little complex, but this is a watershed moment in gaming history, and one that will be celebrated for years to come.
So there you have it, my top 6 games of 2008, I hope you enjoyed the read. What do you think about these games?