Games of the Year

[BobJustBob]

It doesn't feel like it should be time for this topic yet, but it is. The release calendar for the rest of the year is a wasteland of shovelware and ports. So why not have the GOTY awards now when they can benefit holiday shoppers?

Here are my top ten games of the year. Crackdown is my favorite game of the year, but the others are in no particular order.

1. Crackdown
2. Earth Defense Force 2017
3. Warriors Orochi
4. Stranglehold
5. Super Paper Mario
6. Medal of Honor: Airborne
7. Portal
8. Peggle
9. Geometry Wars Galaxies
10. Everyday Shooter

[RickH]

Crackdown
Portal
Bioshock
Halo 3 multiplayer

[NuclearWinter]

1) Super Mario Galaxy
2) Mass Effect
3) Bioshock
4) The Witcher
5) Team Fortress 2
6) Okami (it's a 2007 game for those of us in Europe!)

[extarbags]

But I haven't finished Assassin's Creed yet!

1. Bioshock
2. Crackdown?
3. A-assassin's Creed?

[Charles]

Portal, but I would also accept CoD4 or Bioshock.

[Bahimiron]

Wow. Two in a row with Crackdown. I thought I was alone in absolutely loving that game. Unfortunately, it's a game whose greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It's a pure sandbox game without even the structure of GTA. I love it, but I can see the arguments against making it GOTY.

Oh, also when they added the option of turning the bosses back on, the idiots didn't include a way to turn them back off. You had to go through and kill 'em all again. Goddammit! And even if the game was perfect, being stuck at 499/500 agility orbs still fills me with bitter, impotent rage after all these months.

I know it's the popular thing these days to squat down and take a messy crap all over Bioshock. Everyone seems to be doing it now. Like people are pissed that they got so excited about it and then it sold well. Well screw that, I loved every moment of Bioshock and my girlfriend bawled like a little girl at the end. So it's definitely on my GOTY list.

CoD4 is the one that surprises me most. I got it on a lark and have enjoyed multiplayer in it more than in any game in recent memory, spent most of the single-player campaign with my jaw on the floor and not once have I regretted the purchase. Any GOTY finals list without CoD4 on it is a damn crime.

Though in the end I'd have to give the award to the Orange Box. Five games in one, it's the single best way you can spend fifty dollars. Every game in it is pure quality from start to finish. TF2 might be second to CoD4 to me, but the first time I've ever seen my girlfriend get into a multiplayer shooty game. And damn if that girl isn't the best spy I've ever seen. Portal is one of the year's best gaming experiences. And hey, in addition to TF2 and Portal, apparently there's a game called Mister Freeman: Smiletime Detective or something like that that comes with it and it's pretty okay too.

[metta]

All are Xbox 360 or PSP:

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
Bioshock
Mass Effect
Assassin's Creed
Crackdown
Jeanne D'Arc
Halo 3
Call of Duty IV
SOCOM Tactical Strike
Portal

[Reed]

BioShock
Call of Duty 4
God of War II
Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces
The Orange Box

(Mario Galaxy and Mass Effect to be decided...)

[biclops]

1. Bioshock
1. Super Mario Galaxy
1. Orange Box
1. Mass Effect
5. Skate

[Nick Walter]

Portal by a mile. Plenty of good games this year, no doubt about it, but while other games might have hit on all cylinders Portal was revving up the turbojet.

[Drastic]

Crackdown
Portal
Bioshock

Assassin's Creed gets an honorable mention; it would've made the list if it weren't dragged down by the millstone of the tragic delusion that it has an interesting story to tell, and compounding that by throwing it in the way of the actual free-running, free-murdering joyfulness.

[tromik]

Orange Box, without a doubt. Specifically Portal, but I loved playing through HL2 again, and I really enjoyed both the first and second episodes. TF2 is fantastic, but the online options are limiting, and not many people are playing it.

Also:
Mass Effect
Call of Duty 4
Crackdown
BioShock
Halo 3
GRAW2 (probably alone here)

[Enidigm]

Portal was great fun, but ... it was a Half-Life puzzle game. The style of it's humor wasn't unanticipated, and the puzzles all felt vaguely familiar.

If quality is time spent playing, the two best games for me have been Red Orchestra and Dominions 3.

[madkevin]

I haven't played Assassin's Creed or CoD4 yet, so those are out. Crackdown was loads of fun, but Game Of The Year? Not so much, not this year.

My list, in no real order:

Catan
Portal
Bioshock
Mass Effect
Civ IV: Beyond The Sword

[krayzkrok]

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (I shouldn't be having fun but I am)
The Orange Box (wow, what an excelle... oh, it's finished)
Bioshock (like finding a cockroach leg in the best dinner you've ever tasted).

[BDGE]

Picross DS.

That is all.

[ARogan]

1. Crysis
2. COD 4
3. Orange box (portal!)
4. Rock Band (drums specifically)
5. Halo 3
6. Bioshock
7. Heavenly Sword
6. Mass Effect
7. Crackdown
8. God of War 2
9. Earth Defense Force 2017
10. Assassin's Creed

[Nick Walter]

Originally Posted by TheSelfishGene

Portal was great fun, but ... it was a Half-Life puzzle game. The style of it's humor wasn't unanticipated, and the puzzles all felt vaguely familiar.

If quality is time spent playing, the two best games for me have been Red Orchestra and Dominions 3.

The great thing about Portal is that it appeals to a lot of people who couldn't stand HL2. I bought the Orange Box just to get Portal and after I beat it three times I went back to play HL2 since I'd never done so and it was thrown in for free. Couldn't stand it, the flow of gameplay was annoying and it was obviously trying to use really fancy graphics and pretty levels to distract players away from the nonsensical plot and poor pacing.

So to a HL2 veteran it might like look like an odd cousin of a familiar friend but trust me the appeal was much much wider than that. I'm not much of a FPS fan and I loved Portal to death. My wife who can't stand the FPS genre loved Portal to death. My friend who hardly ever plays video games saw me playing Portal and got interested and bought it and it was his first video game purchase in five fricken years.

Portal may share a superficial resemblance to HL2 but it does things gameplay wise that appeal to a much larger audience and that's a sign of genius design and excellent polish.

[Kool Moe Dee]

Originally Posted by ARogan

4. Rock Band (drums specifically)

I am shocked that it took 17 posts to get to Rock Band. SHOCKED!

[mono]

Putting aside refinement by genre or single/multi-player?

Portal.

[BobJustBob]

I suppose I should give some explanations for my choices before this becomes a list thread (too late).

Crackdown is the evolution of the sandbox genre. In all previous sandbox games I felt the missions were just part of the gamer tax that I had to pay before I got to the real game, where I had access to the whole city and all the toys and could play the game as I saw fit. Crackdown waives the gamer tax and just hands you everything from the start and says "Have fun!" And credit must be given for making jumping around the city so much fun that you ignore the car that drives up walls.

EDF2017 is... well, I want to say the evolution of the 3rd person shooter, but can something so retro really be an evolution? Let's just call it the essential 3rd person shooter. Hordes of giant enemies, loads of powerful weapons, dozens of missions, five difficulty settings, and a few fully-destructible cities. The gameplay more than makes up for the lack of polish.

Warriors Orochi takes the Warriors formula and cranks it up to 11. Enough said.

Stranglehold is nonstop action -- a shooter for when you just want to kill hundreds of bad guys and look good doing it. The destructible environments, environmental interaction, and Tequila Bombs give this more of an action movie feel than any other game I've played.

Super Paper Mario is brilliant. One of my favorite levels is relatively short and easy but requires you to backtrack a few times to get the "code" (actually the proper sequence of blocks to bonk with Mario's head) to open a series of doors. This culminates in you, the player, having to write down a ludicrously long code so that you can have Mario act it out and complete the level. It's busywork as much as anything else in these types of games but by making you tackle it with pen and paper in addition to button presses, it becomes almost a commentary on gaming itself.

Medal of Honor Airborne seems a strange choice to be lauded for its open level design. After all, the series' hallmark is tightly-scripted linearity. But it tries something different and it becomes much more enjoyable for it. The occasional lapses into forced linear setpieces do not diminish this.

Does Portal really need any justification?

Or Peggle?

Geometry Wars Galaxies is a ridiculously good value. Every level is distinctly Geometry Wars and yet different enough to justify, well, being different. Each level feels like what the original Geometry Wars could have been in a parallel universe. And the helper drone is always useful while never being more than a sidekick.

Everyday Shooter is Geometry Wars taken in a different direction. The action and score-chasing are still there but each level is a tightly crafted aesthetic and thematic experience. It astounds.

[J. Matthew Zoss]

BioShock
The Orange Box (Yes yes, Portal)
Rock Band
Call of Duty 4
Crackdown
Puzzle Quest

[Chris Nahr]

The best game is clearly Bladestorm but I'll have to play some more of the recent releases before I can decide on the rest...

[Bahimiron]

Originally Posted by TheSelfishGene

The style of it's humor wasn't unanticipated, and the puzzles all felt vaguely familiar.

I would argue that for the majority of people Portal's writing was entirely unanticipated. I follow these things and I didn't even realize Portal was going to have a story until Shane Bettenhausen started talking about how the game's writing by itself made it game of the year material to him.

Once word of mouth got out there about the comedic quality of the GlaDOS voiceovers more people doubtlessly knew what to expect, but the simple fact of the cake meme and the response to the Still Alive song are pretty indicative of how people were, for the most part, pleasantly surprised by the game.

Originally Posted by BobJustBob

Super Paper Mario is brilliant. One of my favorite levels is relatively short and easy but requires you to backtrack a few times to get the "code" (actually the proper sequence of blocks to bonk with Mario's head) to open a series of doors. This culminates in you, the player, having to write down a ludicrously long code so that you can have Mario act it out and complete the level. It's busywork as much as anything else in these types of games but by making you tackle it with pen and paper in addition to button presses, it becomes almost a commentary on gaming itself.

This paragraph managed to kill my desire to ever play this game.

[Hugin]

1. Mass Effect (Yes, the game has a list of quirks and problems as long as my arm, but it's still my personal GOTY. I start playing it and I just can't stop. No other game has come close to absorbing me as much this year, except a retro-binge of Master of Orion 2 I engaged in recently. Yes, I really, really like Space Opera.)

2. Orange Box (Best value in gaming this year, arguably best~top three multiplayer, arguably best~top three puzzle game)

3. Bioshock (Ending is a bit of a letdown but it's still a remarkable overall achievement)

4. Rock Band (Okay, this is an oddball choice because I have never played a single note of Guiter Hero or Rock Band in my life and don't intend to, it's not my thing, but it seems clear to me from reviews and watching people play the demo kiosks that it moves the rhythm game/rock star fantasy simulator genre forward in a significant way).

Haven't gotten to Assassin's Creed yet, that's really the only other game that might make the list (of the games I care about/intend to play).

[Rock8man]

Originally Posted by BobJustBob

Crackdown is the evolution of the sandbox genre. In all previous sandbox games I felt the missions were just part of the gamer tax that I had to pay before I got to the real game, where I had access to the whole city and all the toys and could play the game as I saw fit. Crackdown waives the gamer tax and just hands you everything from the start and says "Have fun!" And credit must be given for making jumping around the city so much fun that you ignore the car that drives up walls.

Agreed. I'm glad to see some appreciation for Crackdown here at Qt3. I was really annoyed when I was playing the Halo 3 beta, and all the random people I ran into all said they only got Crackdown to play the beta. The only people I ran into who appreciated Crackdown for the awesome game it is were people from Qt3. I love Crackdown for the same reason I love Portal: They distilled the game down to its most fun elements, and made those elements really, really fun. And after that, you realize you don't really need things like "missions" and other trappings you usually see in the "GTA" genre.

Medal of Honor Airborne seems a strange choice to be lauded for its open level design. After all, the series' hallmark is tightly-scripted linearity. But it tries something different and it becomes much more enjoyable for it. The occasional lapses into forced linear setpieces do not diminish this.

Agreed again. I had a blast playing through MoH: A on Casual difficulty over Thanksgiving holiday with my brothers watching. I finished it in about 4 or 5 hours, so it was pretty short, but even though I enjoy games like Half Life 2 on Hard difficulty, I think Casual was the best difficulty for the first run through Airborne. Once you start fighting the super soldiers you thank your lucky stars you're not playing on Normal or Expert.

My only complaint with the game is that their previews seemed to imply that the game had new music from Michael Giacchino, but in fact all of the tracks were from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. (I know because I'm a huge fan of that soundtrack and listen to it all the time, so I recognized every track, note for note, they didn't even remix any of the tracks in any way).

Does Portal really need any justification?

Or Peggle?

Portal doesn't need any. But I am curious what everyone finds so appealing about Peggle. I guess it just eludes me. I loved the demo, just like everyone else. Such a vibrant display of sights and colors and sounds, and a physics based game to boot. But when I got the full game, it seemed to be more of the same and I didn't really enjoy some of the later powers you get, and the game stopped being fun pretty fast for me. I guess I just don't get the appeal of peggle past the first hour of play.

[Draikin]

1) Assassin's Creed
2) NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer
3) The Witcher
4) Halo 3
5) Forza 2
6) Eternal Sonata
7) Bioshock
8) Crackdown
9) Lost Planet
10) PGR 4
11) FIFA 08
12) GRAW2
13) Blue Dragon
14) Orange Box
15) Mass Effect
16) Earth Defense Force 2017
17) PES 2008

That's pretty much everything I played this year.

1-5: amazing
5-10: good
11-14: average
15-17: really bad

[olaf]

The Witcher

[Brendan]

Game Of The Year for me would have to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which is odd since I don't even like first person shooters.

Despite its faults it just had a special quality about it that I cannot explain. The world was wonderfully realized, the wind blowing the grass before a storm would hit. The great combat (but awful spawning.). It seemed like a truly alien world set in familiar surroundings.

It immersed me totally.

[E-phonk]

Mario Galaxy