Best Video Games Of 2008 - Your picks

I hope I haven’t missed a best of the year thread!

So give us your picks for this years Best video Games. One pick per genre and finish it off with you pick for overall best game. Some games can fit various genres, that’s fine.

Genres: RPG, Strategy, Adventure, Platformer, Puzzle, FPS, Racing Or Sim.

My picks:

RPG - Fallout 3
Strategy - Sins of a solar empire
Adventure - Tomb Raider Underworld
Platformer - N/A
Puzzle - Peggle nights
FPS - Left 4 Dead
Racing - Grid

Best of 2008: Left 4 Dead.

I added a couple of categories to your listing, hope you don’t mind. I should also add that I work in the game industry and have low tolerance for bad gameplay decisions, and thus, there are very few games I like in any given year, despite having played most of them.

RPG - n/a–Didn’t like any of 'em
Strategy - n/a–Didn’t like any of 'em
Adventure - Professor Layton
Platformer - Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Puzzle - Professor Layton
FPS - Far Cry 2
Racing - Mario Kart Wii
Music: Samba De Amigo

Best of 2008: Super Smash Brothers Brawl

Super Smash Brothers Brawl. There has not been a game in years that I played as much as this. It is simply some of the most fun I’ve ever had with a video game, for such an extended period of time. Hell, we’re coming up on its anniversary soon and I’m still playing the damn thing! Easily one of the best multiplayer experiences ever created.

Runner up: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. This game is brilliant, simply brilliant. I was initially turned off by the “create your own vehicles” aspect, but once I sat down and really dived into it, I realized how innovative and revolutionary this feature really is. It is, hands-down, the best use of physics I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s so damn fun to try out different vehicle to see what works best for the task at hand–it’s immensely rewarding when you finally find a vehicle that can nail it. Few games truly allow, or even permit, the level of creativity here. Add to that a fantastic art style and one of the sharpest and most hilarious scripts I’ve ever read (how many games do you know of that make fun of the fact that it probably won’t sell any copies?)

My top three games of the year:

  1. Persona 4 (RPG, PS2)
  2. King’s Bounty (Strategy, PC)
  3. Rock Band 2 (Music/Party/Fun, PS3 or 360; Wii doesn’t count unfortunately because of reduced song DL options)

Other random awards:

Game I most wanted to play this year but didn’t because I don’t own a PS3: Valkyria Chronicles

Portable-Game-Loving-Fact: If I extended that top three to a top ten, about five of the next seven spots would be DS games.

Most Overrated Game of the Year: Fallout 3. You’d think I’d have learned to back off from Bethesda RPGs by now… but no, it was Fallout, so I had to try to go back.

Game that would have been in the 3 slot above if not for the Blue Shell thread currently going on elsewhere in this forum: Mario Kart Wii

My Top 4 for the year would be…

1. Mega Man 9 (Wii)
A perfect recreation of Mega Man’s 8-bit days. If you like side scrolling platformers at all, you have to play this game.

2. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
Is it a huge evolution over Mario Kart 64 or Mario Kart: Double Dash? Hell no. Is it crazy fun and did it spend more hours in my Wii than any other game ever. HELL FUCKING YES.

3. Culdcept Saga (Xbox 360)
A card-battling RPG that mashes together Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly. Addictive like crack.

4. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360)
Shut up. The Star Destroyer fight was EPIC.

Pretend #5. Earth Defense Force 2017 (Xbox 360)
A budget shooter from the bowels of the Japanese bargain bin that came out in 2007 and is just a ton of fun. Basically, it’s Starship Troopers: The Movie: The Game. Pure fun.

Role-Playing Game: Fallout 3.
Strategy: Sins of a Solar Empire
Shooter: Gears of War 2
Puzzle: Braid
Platformer: LittleBigPlanet

Game of the Year 2008: Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots

RPG: Okami Wii.
Puzzle: World of Goo.
Platformer: Prince of Persia.
FPS: Left 4 dead.
Game of the year: Okami Wii.

I know Okami was originally released 2006, but the Wii version was released 2008. If Okami is not accepted. Best RPG: Fallout 3.