Gaming Top 10 PC Games of the Year 2008

Audiosurf is easily the best bang for bucks of 2008. My friend and I have a lot of fun beating each others records at this game. I currently hold the best mono record for SSH - Steel Dragon (Megaman 2) and he does for Tiesto - He's a pirate. There is just no way anyone could beat both our score in mono as they are perfect

I got L4D for christmas and so far the little I played has been awesome. It is much harder than I expected !

I haven't played CoD5 online yet because I haven't decided if I wanted to buy it or not (bought cod1,2 and 4) but the LAN coop games have been awesome both in the missions and the zombie mods !

Now I am very curious in trying GTA4 and see if the style improved at all since GTA3, the last GTA i tried

EDIT: IMO World of Goo doesn't belong on the top 10 list anyway. I would rather see Fantastic Contraptions there

 

I may be pouring rocket fuel onto the fire here, but I did not much care for Left 4 Dead. I found it repetitive, confusing and somewhat pointless. As such, in my mind, Fallout 3 should have made the top spot - closely followed by Mass Effect and The Witcher.

Just my two cents...

 

How come you people are still killing zombies? L4D and CoD:WaW??? Come on!!! How many nazis, Japanese, zombies or nazi-zombies (the worst) you think a game has got to have in order to be good???

For me innovation is the key here... and I will only speak about the games I've played so far

Dead Space
CONS: Same old story, monster closet AI, no multiplayer whatsoever, way too scripted, designed to be played with a gamepad. ZeroG, slow motion and lift mechanics feel more like bonus features than real useful stuff
PROS: Beautiful visuals, creepy audio (especially on 5.1), extra gore!

* Even though I got this game as a gift (I wouldn't purchased it otherwise) I'm really enjoying it. It's like Doom/Quake 4 meets Bioshock. The whole claustrophobic feeling makes me come back all over again... but not too much though

Warhead
CONS: washed out version of the CryEngine 2 (it almost look console-ish), not as open world as they claim it to be, the over-powered (almost unbalanced) Nanosuit makes the game a walk on the park (even in delta mode), adds nothing to the Crysis story
PROS: still a beautiful game, highly action-packed, Psycho really knows how to work that suit

* For me the original Crysis it's a lot better, Warhead feels like more of the same. However, once you see Psycho kicking ass from the very beginning of the game, you'll feel like Nomad on steroids

FarCry 2
CONS: it's a little too big (even for a sandbox game), lack of prone or lean movements show it's console-ish background, kind of repetitive (although I think most of the duplicate objectives are designed for us to explore the whole sandbox before the REAL missions). Don't get me started on the multiplayer... specially with my CoD4 and BF2142 background (REAL Multiplayer games)
PROS: Amazing Crysis-like visuals, REAL open world > endless strategic value, night-day cycles and weather effects. Challenging AI (in the hardest difficulty setting)

* Personally I've been having lots of fun with this game... The DUNIA engine is quite impressive and it has a huge effect in the gameplay. Yes, it has repetitive objectives but those are for you to get to know the whole sandbox before doing the REAL missions (APR or UFLL only). Personally, I've master a lot o guerrilla tactics (roadside bombs, hit and run, night stalking...) that have made the whole experience a lot more deep and rewarding.
Think Crysis without the suit

GRID
CONS: It's a tough game to race...
PROS: Awesome visuals and physics. Love that semi-arcade feeling

* HUGE improvement over the poorly-ported DiRT

The following games I've not played yet, but I will eventually.

CoD5
As I said before, WW2 is long gone... W@W feels more like a movie-based game than a FPS. Either way is a CoD game and I will play it eventually. Nothing to comment on the lame zombie fragfest...

GTA4
I was planning to purchase it until I read all the awful reviews... Almost the same specs as Crysis are required but with half the visual quality. If I play this game, it will be thanks to BitTorrent... Nuff said

Fallout 3
Haven't played the previous games so I'm not that crazy about it. Also I'm not an RPG fan
Graphics looked good... last year

Audiosurf
Fun, re-playable and I can play it with my girlfriend


I won't even bother with the other 2 games in the list...

 

whats this story in farcry 2 i keep hearing about, i kept playing it and had no story line for 6 ****ing hours?

 

Spoiler

You go to africa to hunt down some weapons dealer that armed both sides in a local conflict.

thats the entire story, there isn't anymore except smallish pieces that "justify" your current mission.

 

Good count guys, but GTA 4 was in both the most dissapointing and the the top 10 lists?

I gotta try audiosurf, it looks like fun. Valve deserves the top spot. Those poeple can make a game right, hands down.

 

For me it's been one game only - The Witcher (EE)

I know it came out in 2007 and technically can't qualify but damn it's a good game!

 

I still can't see the big deal behind L4D. I played it a week and put it on the retired games shelf.

 

it's been a poor year for RTS games...

 

Oh God yes!!!! CivIV Colonization was good but nothing special.

 

L4D isn't a good game to play alone i must admit.
But it's versus mode is somewhere between superb and fantastic! It's pure strategy. Serious. It isn't caotic as TF2, so, u need more planning before acting.
As for the solo play, it's a good for passing time. Tis good if you need to wait like 40 mins for something like waiting your girlfriend dress up.

 

M'eh. I disagree. I find Versus to be an entertaining time waster, but nothing really to write hope about especially in terms of strategy. 90% of the versus games I play online are just people stupidly rushing the survivors. True, you can get more out of it if you have all your friends or teams right there with you (or with mics) but you could easily say that about any game.

Plus, the fact that you can't affect which class you get put in means that 3/4s of the time you're likely not going to be playing as the one you want to be. That really irks me. You get forced to become good as all classes, sure - but, hey guess what, I still don't like playing as a smoker!

For me, true co-op is the best. 4 people, in the same room. It's where the game really shines.

 

I reckon your praising take on the game might be a bit skewed by the ease with which you can get together a 4-player LAN team in moments. Bear in mind that it's not as easy for most of us to get IRL teams together for PC gaming, and the game thus depreciates for us somewhat.

 

Yeah. We seem to have the same thoughts for games. ex. I've yet to find anything wrong with your thoughts on Fallout 3.

I guess times have changed, RPGs are now FPSs with APs, Zombies move like Lionel Messi without body decay being a factor, Apple invented the PC (Ted Landry MacNazi), COOP died & was reborn as if it never existed and causal gaming is innovation.

IMO difficult games used to be dime a dozen, now I find myself being challenged every 2-3 big titles if I'm lucky.

 

Maybe in the office that'd be true - but I wasn't actually in the office when we reviewed the game and thus missed all the office gaming. I've only actually played Left4Dead in the office once or twice, though that isn't true for the others. When we do play games at lunchtime (which, due to the number of daily reformats, isn't easy at the best of times) we actually prefer HL2 DM.

In fact, my ideal gaming experience is actually at home, with my girlfriend playing campaign with just two players.

 

I've barely been involved in the L4D LAN games as I haven't had time to play during office hours for a while.