Eurogamer top 50

Retr0gamer

Starts here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurogamers-top-50-games-of-2008-50-41-article
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurogamers-top-50-games-of-2008-40-31-article
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurogamers-top-50-games-of-2008-30-21-article
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurogamers-top-50-games-of-2008-20-11-article
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurogamers-top-50-games-of-2008-10-1-article

Decent enough list, I usually agree with eurogamers list but this year there are huge omissions:

No More Heroes one of the most fun and excellently written games this year not to mention original and made great use of the Wii control scheme. Dead Space was a surprisingly brilliant and scary survival horror game. Valkyria Chronicles for me should have been top 10 material. Gorgeous to look at and a totally unique and clever take on turn based strategy games. Excellent production values, wonderful voice acting, great storyline dealing with some pretty mature issues. Probably my second favourite game this year. Ninja Gaiden 2 probably doesn't have the mass appeal but if you are good at games or have a bit of patience you will realise it's a fantastic combat game.

Not sure about their no. 1 as well. It deserves a high place for the wonderful level editor and online community but it really is let down by being a poor platformer. It's no Left 4 Dead Still I thought Braid would get it knowing previous lists when something unexpected and arty would place first.

This year I found myself agreeing with the readers list more this year. I can understand how some games got left off the list, something like Valkyrie Chronicles is only very new and despite solid 9+/10 scores across the board it has no real advertisement and most contributors wouldn't have played it.

Readers list here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurogamer-readers-top-50-games-of-2008-article

I did however like that Saints Row 2 got more praise than GTA IV from the people who played it. GTA IV felt a bit soulless to me but Saints Row 2 was just fun which counts for much more than GTAs technical achievements. Also HBO levels of writing in GTA IV? Crazy talk. The writing is awful, paddling pool depth characters and the acting was only as good as the awful script let it be. Saying that GTA definitely deserved a place and was always going to rank highly since everyone and their dog played it.

MGS4 though. It had no place on any list. Mediocre game that dies on it's ass in the 3rd act and reams off god awful cutscenes that out stay their welcome by 39 of their 40 minute length. Even if the story was Conrads Heart of Darkness it would be considered gash for that Meryl and Akiba scene. It also wasn't Conrads Heart of Darkness, i've seen saturday morning cartoons with better stories. Like Spongebob.

Stephen

I seem to be the only person I know that enjoyed both Saints Row 2 and GTA4. ò_Ó

cherryghost

Stephen wrote: »

I seem to be the only person I know that enjoyed both Saints Row 2 and GTA4. ò_Ó

I enjoyed both, waiting for SR2 on PC though. GTAIV mods are already coming in by the handful, should keep me entertained for a while

Retr0gamer

Stephen wrote: »

I seem to be the only person I know that enjoyed both Saints Row 2 and GTA4. ò_Ó

I enjoyed both, it's just I think GTA IV for me forgot what made it so good in the first place while Saints Row 2 really got it right this time.

steviec

I enjoyed both, but GTA IV was the better game. The cars were fun to drive and not a chore like Saints Row, and the combat and pretty much everything else about the gameplay was consistently much better. Saint's Row's strong point was its sense of humour, but I think people looking back on GTA saying it was too serious are only remembering the main characters and quick to forget how funny the radio stations and some of the side characters like Bruce were.

As for EG's list. Definitely agree with the number 1 and a lot of games near the top, but there were some strange choices in there and I think the reader top 50 was a better list.

noodler

Haven't played alot of the games so can't comment.

There seems to be alot of Xbox love in the comments of the contributors though.

Retr0gamer

steviec wrote: »

Saint's Row's strong point was its sense of humour, but I think people looking back on GTA saying it was too serious are only remembering the main characters and quick to forget how funny the radio stations and some of the side characters like Bruce were.

God I absolutely hated Bruce. Real forced humour, if you could even call it that. Dreadful character. I think what got to me was that the humour was only reserved for the radio stations. A bit of humour in the main game would have went a long way considering how badly written it was. They really don't have the talent to do serious narrative yet. Maybe they should poach some people from IO interactive. Take Kane and Lynchs narrative and merge it with a decent game like GTA IV. Not that would be something.

Edit: No Megaman 9 or Bionic Commando Rearmed either I really despair sometimes.

abelard

There seem to be quite a few notable omissions that make it hard enough (for me, at least) to take seriously;

The World Ends With You
No More Heroes
Dead Space
Fifa (only played a few minutes of this, and I haven't played either of the two big soccer game franchises in years, but was impressed)
Valkyria Chronicles (haven't played this one, but have heard nothing but praise for it)
Super Street Fighter 2 yadda yadda yadda HD whatever (infinite online replayability, have pumped too many hours in here already);
edit: Ninja Gaiden II

and probably one or two more I'm forgetting.

Would have given GOTY to Braid or Fallout as well.

mcgovern

Man, that list is terrible.

wayne040576

Fairly predictable list. I thought they might try to be controversial as usual.

I'm still undecided about Little Big Planet myself. I've played through a fair bit of the story mode but the fiddly controls really annoy me. And I found multiplayer to be complete chaos with people getting in each other's way and eventually logging out in frustration.
I also tried a lot of the online content. Found a lot of intresting and creative contect but I wouldn't exactly say it was fun to play.

I still haven't tried the editor myself which is the reason I won't give a final decision on it.

steviec

FIFA is an incredible omission really. It's the best Football game in years (pretty much the best ever in fact, by nature of the small improvements EA have made year on year) and given the popularity of football games (and the fact they're still enjoyable even if you're not a soccer fan) you'd really think it would be up there.

Retr0gamer

steviec wrote: »

FIFA is an incredible omission really. It's the best Football game in years (pretty much the best ever in fact, by nature of the small improvements EA have made year on year) and given the popularity of football games (and the fact they're still enjoyable even if you're not a soccer fan) you'd really think it would be up there.

20 player online multiplayer is fanastic as well. It really puts to shame PES's online effort.

noodler

steviec wrote: »

FIFA is an incredible omission really. It's the best Football game in years (pretty much the best ever in fact, by nature of the small improvements EA have made year on year) and given the popularity of football games (and the fact they're still enjoyable even if you're not a soccer fan) you'd really think it would be up there.

Its is not the best football game created in years.

Jesus, just cos Fifa has risen from utter crap doesn't make it better than previous Pro Evos. Even offline I'd prefer PES2009's gameplay.

Azza

I'm suprised Valkyria Chronicles did not make the list. Would of easily made it into my top 20 at least.

So far I'm currently playing it and I am just about half way through it and its a great game, but its got its issues. From an artistic viewpoint its fantastic. Like a water painting come to life. A shame it resorts to less spectacular close ups for the majority of its dialogue scenes but you can understand that as its quite a lengthy game. The story is good, as is the voice acting but I find it a little off putting that dialogue is told in an extremely child like manner. Not to say that it does not have charm but I'm not really used to dialogue like that. Having said that I don't play too many games that come out of Japan. While the 6-7 main characters are abit too goody goody for my tastes, I actually like the personality of my secondary squad members. Means I'm less likely to treat them as the disposable cannon fodder I normaly do with secondary characters in RPG's. As for actually gameplay, its a tactics game that plays out like a turned based version of rock paper siccors, its good fun and addictive if not very challenging. The problem with this game type is that once you find a way through a mission, the same tactics will work any time you try that missions. Therefore skimirsh mode is abit of a chore. I have yet to loose a squad member and I'm about 60% in. Only had to replay 2 different missions so far. The mission length is quite long but thanfully game has a save in battle feature so screwing up isn't painfull. The A.I. is rather irratic and on a few occasions when I badly messed up it left me off the hook. A reasonable percentage of the A.I's turns are wasted moving troops to one spot then moving them back to where they started. Still the game is unqiue and refreshing change from the vast majority of games I play. I will certainly play it through to the end.
Also I'm a little dissapointed that there is no multiplayer as I reckon this game could of worked great in mutiplayer. Lag would never be an issue in it.

Also I'm dead impressed with Fifa 09 this year on the PS3. Thats coming from a long time PES player. I'm suprised how much I'm enjoying it having not touched a Fifa game in years.

Happy to see Race Driver Grid do well too. Great Game.

TheDoc

I dont read online reviews or opinions.

And after reading that list i understand why. An awfully attrocious compilation.

And its a great thing that they just do have opinions and thats it.

Attrocious list

tman

Some of the comments are a little odd... Take GoW2 for example, pretty much nobody seemed to like it yet it still ended up in the top 10

I've played 24 of them so far ^_^ (22 if you exclude betas)