It’s that time of year again when everyone makes up their best of the year lists…I may not be a journalist anymore, but there’s no reason why I can’t write up my own.
A few notes about the list: I can’t pretend to have played most of the games released this year, or even most of the big name games (I haven’t for example, gotten around to trying Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, Mario Galaxy or several others yet). So consider this the top ten list of games I actually played this year.
10. Rock Band (360)
9. Everyday Shooter (PS3)
8. Halo 3 (360)
7. Catan (360)
6. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (PC)
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (360)
4. Portal (PC)
3. Space Giraffe (360)
2. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
1. Mass Effect (360)
Runners Up: flOw (PS3), Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (PSP), World in Conflict (PC), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Puzzle Quest (DS), MotorStorm (PS3), Team Fortress 2 (PC), Carcassonne (360), Crackdown (360), The Eye of Judgement (PS3).
Platform breakdown of top ten games: four 360 retail games, two Live Arcade games, one PS3 retail game, one PSN downloadable game and two PC games.
It’s not a bad list if I do say so myself. Admittedly, I’m only a few hours into Mass Effect, but I already know it’s the best game I’ve played this year. There are so many things I love about it, and even though combat isn’t one of them, it’s a great, great game.
You might notice that I put Guitar Hero III well above Rock Band…this is because I think it’s a better game. Rock Band is great, particularly when you play with other people, but they seem to have left something out of the game…there’s very little incentive to play through the solo tours, and the game doesn’t do a very good job at making you want to keep playing to get higher scores (unlike Guitar Hero III, which is all about the stars/points).
So anyway, there’s my list. Since I’m not going away for the week between Christmas and New Year’s (except for that weekend, when we’re driving to L.A.), I’m planning on checking out a lot of the games I haven’t tried yet…particularly Call of Duty 4 and Assassin’s Creed.
Did you ever try Warhawk? I haven’t bought a new game in forever and I was thinking of getting that because it’s one of the few options that isn’t from last year and isn’t $60, which, even while we’re fully into this generation cycle, I continue to insist is too much for a video game that isn’t a collector’s edition.
No, never tried Warhawk. The fact that it’s multiplayer-only means my interest level is pretty low.
I hear it’s cool, but only to a point.
Either you deliberately didn’t mention games from our mutual employer or you had to play the alphas, betas, whatevers too often. But not even including BioShock in the runners up should make you feel ashamed. Very ashamed.
Read the rules.
plus bioshock sucksSpace Giraffe? Really?