The "This Is Not My Top 10" List
I played a few games last year in 2008, moving out and having a roommate and switching off on who picks up what titles allows you both to play quite a few games. So I think I got a taste for a variety of titles to make quite a nice Top 10 list this year, but of all the games I played, some of them didn't make it. Which ones didn't? Well let's see.
Playing it again Sam.
Ports, remakes, and rehashes seems to spring up in 2008, I managed to play or buy some of these titles...
Chrono Trigger - DS
Chrono Trigger on DS is just as fun and an excellent RPG as it ever was. I’m not a Chrono worshipper, Chrono Trigger is no where near on my Top 10 games of all time, but it might show up on a list of Top 10 RPGs of all time. But it’s still a pretty fun game, and always has been. The DS screen’s clarity somehow makes the game look clearer, even though the sprites have remained unchanged. I look forward to finishing the game again so I can kick a football over some mountains to win the state championship, as long as Magus… the quarterback from Time Travel High. Doesn’t end up stopping me.
Silent Hill Origins - PS2
Better on a TV then a portable system, Silent Hill Origins managed to keep my attention far longer then it did on the PSP, long enough to realize that Silent Hill Origins is not as bad as I thought it was, but was still bad enough to not make me want to finish this game. The game simply lacks the appeal of any of the other Silent Hill titles. The music is literally the only thing going for it, but even that doesn’t seem to have same quality seen in Silent Hill Homecoming… which is odd because the music is made by the same person.
Okami - Wii
The creative Zelda like game comes to the Wii, and plays and looks amazing, the colors are far more vibrant then they were before, the only problem I have with Okami on the Wii is it should have taken a que from No More Heroes, and limited the wagging to certain moves and attacks, instead of making every single attack and combo a wagging motion.
Bioshock - PS3
The “never going to happen” PS3 port of Bioshock came out this year and actually improved a lot of the graphic quality, while managing to allow the game to stay at around 60 frames per second. Sporting new elements and areas, Bioshock is a simply must play, and if you missed it on 360, you have no reason to miss it now. The survivor difficulty mode was for me, a lot more fun to play then any mode of the original game on 360 or PC, it reminded me of how System Shock 2 played which earns it points.
Final Fantasy IV - DS
One of the best Final Fantasies of all time is remade in 3d on the DS, sporting new cinematics and voice overs. Final Fantasy on DS looks amazing compared to the previous game on DS, Final Fantasy III. It is a difficult game, but somehow incredibly rewarding even though this for me is probably the 4th time playing it through, the previous two times on the original SNES, and once on the GBA.
1942 - 360 / PS3
A remake of a classic shooter, 1942 manages to stay true to its roots, the problem is it might be a little too true. Some of the sound effects are down right annoying and horrendous, and the music isn’t catchy at all. While the action is intense, and it truly is a bullet hell game, a shooter still has to find a way to pull you in and keep the mood and adrenaline going… So that way when you face constant deaths, and game over screens, you still feel the need to keep going. 1942 misses the mark in that respect.
How can you spend $10?
Thanks to the Virtual Console, Apple Store, PSN Network, and X-box Live, you too can play games for cheap on your current console or Iphone.
Strong Bad: Cool Game for Attractive People - Wiiware / PC
The game is pretty good and pretty funny. It manages to keep your attention with it’s humor, the game is a nice throw back to the point and click games of yesteryear that were found on PC like King’s Quest and Space Quest, which works for a game based on a Flash Cartoon that already has a lot of pointing and clicking. While each episode of the Strong Bad game series is $10, and there are 5 episodes, I am not entire sure that the $50 price tag for the whole storyline is completely worth it yet, and until the Wii deals with it’s lack of storage space, I’m not exactly jumping on the bandwagon for the rest of the episodes yet.
Pixeljunk Eden - PS3
An odd little game, Eden is part puzzle game, and part platformer. I remember when they tried to hype this game as some sort of puzzle version of Bionic Commando and Ninja Gaiden. While imagining what kind of game you’d get with a puzzle version of these two titles, Eden ends up delivering a fun and rewarding experience for the cheap price it is offered at on the Playstation Network. It’s also nice to see the internet resurrecting scores, players who literally play for hours per level to farm as many points as possible in order to be the number one player is amusing to me.
Pixeljunk Monsters - PS3
Pixeljunk Monsters is another game by the people who made Pixeljunk Eden, it’s a completely different style of game. Instead of a cute puzzle game with Eden, you are now getting a cute Warcraft style strategy game that envolves creating and placing towers to defend your tribe of baby-mojo-mask-wearing-turtles from evil giant spiders and rock monsters. Pixeljunk Monsters is oddly addicting and at times relaxing to play. Like Eden, it is also a very rewarding experience for the cheap like free price of $10.
Hero of Sparta - iPhone
I wouldn’t normally put a cellphone game on this list, because most are just simplified versions of a larger game. Or like a tiny piece of a complete game, only in Japan does it seem that cellphone games are treated with any respect. I mean in Japan they have a Final Fantasy IV-2. Why don't we have that? Final Fantasy IV is awesome. Anyway, Hero of Sparta is a full on game that uses probably the best the tiny Iphone can do graphically, which is somewhere between DS and PSP quality. It also makes the multi-touch screen a full on controller in the best way possible. While story wise, Hero of Sparta is a clear God of War ripoff, it's still worth the $10 to get onto the phone to enjoy.
There’s a Party in my Console and everyone’s invited!
Invite some friends, get some liquor, and your bound to have some topless gaming with gross manly chests.
Rock Band 2 - PS3 / 360 / PS2 / Wii
Rock Band 2 is even better then Rock Band 1 in every way, and is a lot of fun with friends. In my opinion Rock Band has always been better then Guitar Hero, and for Rock Band 2 to allow extraction of almost all the Rock Band 1 tracks into the game, as well as allowing all the old songs to be playable hands down makes this a superior title to Guitar Hero, even with Guitar Hero World Tour, that series is showing it’s age, and lack of ability to connect with the fanbase it helped establish.
LittleBigPlanet - PS3
It’s nice to see that, at least for now, Sony has its own Mario-like franchise again, cause sadly exclusives are slowly becoming things of the past. But LittleBigPlanet is an overly cute and overly fun platformer that allows you to play up to 4 players together either online or locally. It also allows you customize your characters and create your own levels to share and play with others. While I understand the point of LittleBigPlanet is to create, share, and play… I can’t get over the fact this is a lot like The Sims, the fun of the game lies deeply within the experience and content you find by other people. Thankfully, LittleBigPlanet so far hasn’t had the Spore experience of nothing but penis monsters. It has had some very good and very creative content made, I even made myself a Silent Hill and Contra level... maybe I'll make some more later.
Super Smash Bros Brawl - Wii
This game had a lot of hype that it lived up to, but Smash Bros Brawl oddly enough managed to grab my attention then crash like a 747 out of gas. While the game is fun, the characters are exciting, the online play is working, and the single player campaign is long, and has incredible cinamatics… somewhere along the way the ability to keep my interest was completely lacking. It’s not because the game was bad, but I think the ability to unlock characters and items just took to much time for anyone to really care except the diehard Smash Bros fan. I didn’t even play it long enough to unlock Solid Snake… and that made me sad.
Mario Kart Wii - Wii
Mario Kart in my opinion is one of those games that is only really as fun as the people you play with. While yes, it is a fun game, it’s just amplified by the experience of playing with others. For the Wii the graphics are pretty good, but nothing like the quality of Super Mario Galaxy. It’s nice to see Nintendo finally branching out online play as well. Sadly the Wii blew it's load of good games the first two years, and besides a couple titles, there really wasn't anything worth talking about like the PS3 or 360 got this year. Mario Kart Wii easy seems to just be going through the motions, and compared to Smash Bros Brawl that had an onslaught of extra content, didn't seem to offer any much beyond what was already available from the start.
All of the rest... Sequels and New Games!
Some peoples decided to make some games for the casual gamer too...
Baroque - Wii / PS2
The free game I won from Nintendofanboy.com which is supposed to be bitch-ass difficult, ends up being not so difficult to me. There are games that are difficult by design, and then there are games that have design issues that make them difficult. Baroque is the latter. I didn’t find the game play or action to be all that rough, what ended up stopping me was when I reached the bottom floor, and was told to enter some doorway to end the level, and the doorway didn’t exist. There was no clear indication of how to end the level or progress… all I had was some impaled Angel telling me to enter something that was no where to be found.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - DS
After Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia is sure to be awesome right? Wrong sir. Konami shows us further signs of falling apart in game design creating such travesties to mankind like Castlevania Judgment, and Rock Revolution. The only thing Konami seems to do right nowadays is outsourcing it’s talent, MGS4 was awesome, Silent Hill Homecoming was good, Contra 4 was fantastic, Gradius V was incredible… but all these titles had assistance from outside creative minds, and three out of the four titles I mentioned, that creativity came from Western Developers, which even the creator of Silent Hill said that Western Developers are truly innovating games nowadays. Order of Ecclesia is tedious, and while at parts is enjoyable, it is no where near as gripping or enjoyable as the last two DS Castlevania games, not to mention that, the music blows goats, which is a sin for Castlevania game… at least Castlevania Judgment has a better soundtrack.
Castle of Shikigami III - Wii
Last year Contra 4 made it on my Top 10 list cause I am a huge shooter fan. So it was nice to see this Japanesse only shooter finally make to America on the Wii, oddly enough, the game is an X-box 360 game in Japan they ported to the Wii. The graphics aren’t all that impressive to wonder if there was any graphical reduction in quality… The main thing that makes this game interesting is the sheer amount of dialogue for a shooter. The game has 10 different characters, each with their own story and voice overs. The game goes a step beyond that by allowing you to not only play one character solo, but play it with two, suddenly you have two characters interacting with each other in full voice over, giving the player hundreds of possible story line experiences.
Resistance 2 - PS3
Far better then the first game in everyway; Resistance 2 is a great follow-up to its predecessor. The action is a lot bigger and more intense, it’s also got plenty of jaw dropping moments, but Resistance 2 doesn’t feel any newer then any Halo game… it doesn’t seem to want to plant a flag of creativity. While others might suggest it’s strange and bizarre weapon system is one of the fun parts about the game, I easily point at Resistance 2’s development team, whose previous achievement was Ratchet and Clank Future, a game with plenty of unique weaponry. All they did was seem to take some of their best ideas for weapons, include some new ones, and take them from an E-rated cartoony game like Ratchet and Clank, and transplant them to the brutal and bloody M-rated world of Resistance.
Persona 4 - PS2
After taking a few hours to get the plot moving along, Persona 4 definitely proves itself to be an awesome and deep RPG, with many elements that previous role-playing games (like character development) have had as pointless now seem to harness as essential parts of the gameplay as getting to know characters in the game seem to strengthen yourself. Many consider Persona 4 to be the swan song game for the PS2, just as Final Fantasy IX was the swan song for the PSX, and I have to agree. Persona 4 easy will be seen as the last PS2 game worth owning, unless of course Persona 5 goes to PS2 as well... and well, there has to be a Persona 5 sometime right?
Devil May Cry 4 - PS3 / 360 / PC
To sum up a review from months ago, the graphics are good, and Dante is awesome, but Nero is a hobo. The plot of Devil May Cry 4 has gaps the size of the Grand Canyon and the music is repetitive. Seemed like Capcom just wanted to shovel something next gen out as quickly as possible and didn’t care what kind of creative flaws would be created along the way, like… playing the entire game in reverse half way through the game. It’s not that the game is bad, it’s just not as good as Devil May Cry 1 and 3… maybe Devil May Cry has something like the “Odd numbered Star Trek movies suck” curse… where the even numbered Devil May Cry games are simply not as good.
The World Ends With You - DS
An interesting DS title, it uses completely touch screen commands and actions, and like Zelda Phantom Hourglass, does it amazingly well. The entire soundtrack has vocals and is recorded on mp3s. For a portable game, the audio quality is top notch. The plot is also very good, it’s basically about an emo kid who doesn’t care about anyone learning to live outside of himself and learn to care about other people… basically it’s an anti-emo storyline. He does this by dying and taking part in a game for a second chance to live. It’s a really original title, and I consider a must own DS title.
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core - PSP
“Men not cry for themselves, but for their comrades.” Is the slogan for Final Fantasy Crisis Core. This is a great game, and an even better PSP title. With incredible graphics and a great soundtrack, the game is pretty good. But the single player is kind of lacking and the only way to prolong the game is by farming Materia. Otherwise a single player run could be beat in about eight hours. Its story is on par with most Final Fantasy games. But somehow between the opening slogan, the messages about Sephiroth owning a brand of Shin-ra shampoo with 31 different scents, and the extremely near gay ending. I feel like somehow I got gypped into playing a fangirl game. Besides the gripes about what gender this game was really aimed for, the story is incredibly solid, which anyone who has played FFVII already knows how this game ends... but surprisingly somehow the story still manages to hook you in, which in my opinion is hard to achieve.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot - PS3 / 360
By the Condemned 2 is the scariest and most disturbing game of 2008, proving itself to be nightmarish even over both Silent Hill Homecoming and Silent Hill Origins. The added features of investigations is what makes Condemned 2 shine, having to actually pay attention and observe crime scenes and thinking for yourself about what you are seeing is a great aspect of this game... instead of just hitting a button and having the game think for you, which was what was what the previous Condemned did. The only reason this game didn't make the Top 10 list is because the first half of the game is stabbed in the back by the second half of the game. The story takes a dump on itself about half way through, and the investigation aspects slowly fade away into non-existance near the last levels. If the game managed to keep itself as well paced as it did at the beginning, it would easily made the top ten of 2008...
So what did make my Top 10? Keep yourself posted cause it's coming.
Playing it again Sam.
Ports, remakes, and rehashes seems to spring up in 2008, I managed to play or buy some of these titles...
Chrono Trigger - DS
Chrono Trigger on DS is just as fun and an excellent RPG as it ever was. I’m not a Chrono worshipper, Chrono Trigger is no where near on my Top 10 games of all time, but it might show up on a list of Top 10 RPGs of all time. But it’s still a pretty fun game, and always has been. The DS screen’s clarity somehow makes the game look clearer, even though the sprites have remained unchanged. I look forward to finishing the game again so I can kick a football over some mountains to win the state championship, as long as Magus… the quarterback from Time Travel High. Doesn’t end up stopping me.
Silent Hill Origins - PS2
Better on a TV then a portable system, Silent Hill Origins managed to keep my attention far longer then it did on the PSP, long enough to realize that Silent Hill Origins is not as bad as I thought it was, but was still bad enough to not make me want to finish this game. The game simply lacks the appeal of any of the other Silent Hill titles. The music is literally the only thing going for it, but even that doesn’t seem to have same quality seen in Silent Hill Homecoming… which is odd because the music is made by the same person.
Okami - Wii
The creative Zelda like game comes to the Wii, and plays and looks amazing, the colors are far more vibrant then they were before, the only problem I have with Okami on the Wii is it should have taken a que from No More Heroes, and limited the wagging to certain moves and attacks, instead of making every single attack and combo a wagging motion.
Bioshock - PS3
The “never going to happen” PS3 port of Bioshock came out this year and actually improved a lot of the graphic quality, while managing to allow the game to stay at around 60 frames per second. Sporting new elements and areas, Bioshock is a simply must play, and if you missed it on 360, you have no reason to miss it now. The survivor difficulty mode was for me, a lot more fun to play then any mode of the original game on 360 or PC, it reminded me of how System Shock 2 played which earns it points.
Final Fantasy IV - DS
One of the best Final Fantasies of all time is remade in 3d on the DS, sporting new cinematics and voice overs. Final Fantasy on DS looks amazing compared to the previous game on DS, Final Fantasy III. It is a difficult game, but somehow incredibly rewarding even though this for me is probably the 4th time playing it through, the previous two times on the original SNES, and once on the GBA.
1942 - 360 / PS3
A remake of a classic shooter, 1942 manages to stay true to its roots, the problem is it might be a little too true. Some of the sound effects are down right annoying and horrendous, and the music isn’t catchy at all. While the action is intense, and it truly is a bullet hell game, a shooter still has to find a way to pull you in and keep the mood and adrenaline going… So that way when you face constant deaths, and game over screens, you still feel the need to keep going. 1942 misses the mark in that respect.
How can you spend $10?
Thanks to the Virtual Console, Apple Store, PSN Network, and X-box Live, you too can play games for cheap on your current console or Iphone.
Strong Bad: Cool Game for Attractive People - Wiiware / PC
The game is pretty good and pretty funny. It manages to keep your attention with it’s humor, the game is a nice throw back to the point and click games of yesteryear that were found on PC like King’s Quest and Space Quest, which works for a game based on a Flash Cartoon that already has a lot of pointing and clicking. While each episode of the Strong Bad game series is $10, and there are 5 episodes, I am not entire sure that the $50 price tag for the whole storyline is completely worth it yet, and until the Wii deals with it’s lack of storage space, I’m not exactly jumping on the bandwagon for the rest of the episodes yet.
Pixeljunk Eden - PS3
An odd little game, Eden is part puzzle game, and part platformer. I remember when they tried to hype this game as some sort of puzzle version of Bionic Commando and Ninja Gaiden. While imagining what kind of game you’d get with a puzzle version of these two titles, Eden ends up delivering a fun and rewarding experience for the cheap price it is offered at on the Playstation Network. It’s also nice to see the internet resurrecting scores, players who literally play for hours per level to farm as many points as possible in order to be the number one player is amusing to me.
Pixeljunk Monsters - PS3
Pixeljunk Monsters is another game by the people who made Pixeljunk Eden, it’s a completely different style of game. Instead of a cute puzzle game with Eden, you are now getting a cute Warcraft style strategy game that envolves creating and placing towers to defend your tribe of baby-mojo-mask-wearing-turtles from evil giant spiders and rock monsters. Pixeljunk Monsters is oddly addicting and at times relaxing to play. Like Eden, it is also a very rewarding experience for the cheap like free price of $10.
Hero of Sparta - iPhone
I wouldn’t normally put a cellphone game on this list, because most are just simplified versions of a larger game. Or like a tiny piece of a complete game, only in Japan does it seem that cellphone games are treated with any respect. I mean in Japan they have a Final Fantasy IV-2. Why don't we have that? Final Fantasy IV is awesome. Anyway, Hero of Sparta is a full on game that uses probably the best the tiny Iphone can do graphically, which is somewhere between DS and PSP quality. It also makes the multi-touch screen a full on controller in the best way possible. While story wise, Hero of Sparta is a clear God of War ripoff, it's still worth the $10 to get onto the phone to enjoy.
There’s a Party in my Console and everyone’s invited!
Invite some friends, get some liquor, and your bound to have some topless gaming with gross manly chests.
Rock Band 2 - PS3 / 360 / PS2 / Wii
Rock Band 2 is even better then Rock Band 1 in every way, and is a lot of fun with friends. In my opinion Rock Band has always been better then Guitar Hero, and for Rock Band 2 to allow extraction of almost all the Rock Band 1 tracks into the game, as well as allowing all the old songs to be playable hands down makes this a superior title to Guitar Hero, even with Guitar Hero World Tour, that series is showing it’s age, and lack of ability to connect with the fanbase it helped establish.
LittleBigPlanet - PS3
It’s nice to see that, at least for now, Sony has its own Mario-like franchise again, cause sadly exclusives are slowly becoming things of the past. But LittleBigPlanet is an overly cute and overly fun platformer that allows you to play up to 4 players together either online or locally. It also allows you customize your characters and create your own levels to share and play with others. While I understand the point of LittleBigPlanet is to create, share, and play… I can’t get over the fact this is a lot like The Sims, the fun of the game lies deeply within the experience and content you find by other people. Thankfully, LittleBigPlanet so far hasn’t had the Spore experience of nothing but penis monsters. It has had some very good and very creative content made, I even made myself a Silent Hill and Contra level... maybe I'll make some more later.
Super Smash Bros Brawl - Wii
This game had a lot of hype that it lived up to, but Smash Bros Brawl oddly enough managed to grab my attention then crash like a 747 out of gas. While the game is fun, the characters are exciting, the online play is working, and the single player campaign is long, and has incredible cinamatics… somewhere along the way the ability to keep my interest was completely lacking. It’s not because the game was bad, but I think the ability to unlock characters and items just took to much time for anyone to really care except the diehard Smash Bros fan. I didn’t even play it long enough to unlock Solid Snake… and that made me sad.
Mario Kart Wii - Wii
Mario Kart in my opinion is one of those games that is only really as fun as the people you play with. While yes, it is a fun game, it’s just amplified by the experience of playing with others. For the Wii the graphics are pretty good, but nothing like the quality of Super Mario Galaxy. It’s nice to see Nintendo finally branching out online play as well. Sadly the Wii blew it's load of good games the first two years, and besides a couple titles, there really wasn't anything worth talking about like the PS3 or 360 got this year. Mario Kart Wii easy seems to just be going through the motions, and compared to Smash Bros Brawl that had an onslaught of extra content, didn't seem to offer any much beyond what was already available from the start.
All of the rest... Sequels and New Games!
Some peoples decided to make some games for the casual gamer too...
Baroque - Wii / PS2
The free game I won from Nintendofanboy.com which is supposed to be bitch-ass difficult, ends up being not so difficult to me. There are games that are difficult by design, and then there are games that have design issues that make them difficult. Baroque is the latter. I didn’t find the game play or action to be all that rough, what ended up stopping me was when I reached the bottom floor, and was told to enter some doorway to end the level, and the doorway didn’t exist. There was no clear indication of how to end the level or progress… all I had was some impaled Angel telling me to enter something that was no where to be found.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - DS
After Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia is sure to be awesome right? Wrong sir. Konami shows us further signs of falling apart in game design creating such travesties to mankind like Castlevania Judgment, and Rock Revolution. The only thing Konami seems to do right nowadays is outsourcing it’s talent, MGS4 was awesome, Silent Hill Homecoming was good, Contra 4 was fantastic, Gradius V was incredible… but all these titles had assistance from outside creative minds, and three out of the four titles I mentioned, that creativity came from Western Developers, which even the creator of Silent Hill said that Western Developers are truly innovating games nowadays. Order of Ecclesia is tedious, and while at parts is enjoyable, it is no where near as gripping or enjoyable as the last two DS Castlevania games, not to mention that, the music blows goats, which is a sin for Castlevania game… at least Castlevania Judgment has a better soundtrack.
Castle of Shikigami III - Wii
Last year Contra 4 made it on my Top 10 list cause I am a huge shooter fan. So it was nice to see this Japanesse only shooter finally make to America on the Wii, oddly enough, the game is an X-box 360 game in Japan they ported to the Wii. The graphics aren’t all that impressive to wonder if there was any graphical reduction in quality… The main thing that makes this game interesting is the sheer amount of dialogue for a shooter. The game has 10 different characters, each with their own story and voice overs. The game goes a step beyond that by allowing you to not only play one character solo, but play it with two, suddenly you have two characters interacting with each other in full voice over, giving the player hundreds of possible story line experiences.
Resistance 2 - PS3
Far better then the first game in everyway; Resistance 2 is a great follow-up to its predecessor. The action is a lot bigger and more intense, it’s also got plenty of jaw dropping moments, but Resistance 2 doesn’t feel any newer then any Halo game… it doesn’t seem to want to plant a flag of creativity. While others might suggest it’s strange and bizarre weapon system is one of the fun parts about the game, I easily point at Resistance 2’s development team, whose previous achievement was Ratchet and Clank Future, a game with plenty of unique weaponry. All they did was seem to take some of their best ideas for weapons, include some new ones, and take them from an E-rated cartoony game like Ratchet and Clank, and transplant them to the brutal and bloody M-rated world of Resistance.
Persona 4 - PS2
After taking a few hours to get the plot moving along, Persona 4 definitely proves itself to be an awesome and deep RPG, with many elements that previous role-playing games (like character development) have had as pointless now seem to harness as essential parts of the gameplay as getting to know characters in the game seem to strengthen yourself. Many consider Persona 4 to be the swan song game for the PS2, just as Final Fantasy IX was the swan song for the PSX, and I have to agree. Persona 4 easy will be seen as the last PS2 game worth owning, unless of course Persona 5 goes to PS2 as well... and well, there has to be a Persona 5 sometime right?
Devil May Cry 4 - PS3 / 360 / PC
To sum up a review from months ago, the graphics are good, and Dante is awesome, but Nero is a hobo. The plot of Devil May Cry 4 has gaps the size of the Grand Canyon and the music is repetitive. Seemed like Capcom just wanted to shovel something next gen out as quickly as possible and didn’t care what kind of creative flaws would be created along the way, like… playing the entire game in reverse half way through the game. It’s not that the game is bad, it’s just not as good as Devil May Cry 1 and 3… maybe Devil May Cry has something like the “Odd numbered Star Trek movies suck” curse… where the even numbered Devil May Cry games are simply not as good.
The World Ends With You - DS
An interesting DS title, it uses completely touch screen commands and actions, and like Zelda Phantom Hourglass, does it amazingly well. The entire soundtrack has vocals and is recorded on mp3s. For a portable game, the audio quality is top notch. The plot is also very good, it’s basically about an emo kid who doesn’t care about anyone learning to live outside of himself and learn to care about other people… basically it’s an anti-emo storyline. He does this by dying and taking part in a game for a second chance to live. It’s a really original title, and I consider a must own DS title.
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core - PSP
“Men not cry for themselves, but for their comrades.” Is the slogan for Final Fantasy Crisis Core. This is a great game, and an even better PSP title. With incredible graphics and a great soundtrack, the game is pretty good. But the single player is kind of lacking and the only way to prolong the game is by farming Materia. Otherwise a single player run could be beat in about eight hours. Its story is on par with most Final Fantasy games. But somehow between the opening slogan, the messages about Sephiroth owning a brand of Shin-ra shampoo with 31 different scents, and the extremely near gay ending. I feel like somehow I got gypped into playing a fangirl game. Besides the gripes about what gender this game was really aimed for, the story is incredibly solid, which anyone who has played FFVII already knows how this game ends... but surprisingly somehow the story still manages to hook you in, which in my opinion is hard to achieve.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot - PS3 / 360
By the Condemned 2 is the scariest and most disturbing game of 2008, proving itself to be nightmarish even over both Silent Hill Homecoming and Silent Hill Origins. The added features of investigations is what makes Condemned 2 shine, having to actually pay attention and observe crime scenes and thinking for yourself about what you are seeing is a great aspect of this game... instead of just hitting a button and having the game think for you, which was what was what the previous Condemned did. The only reason this game didn't make the Top 10 list is because the first half of the game is stabbed in the back by the second half of the game. The story takes a dump on itself about half way through, and the investigation aspects slowly fade away into non-existance near the last levels. If the game managed to keep itself as well paced as it did at the beginning, it would easily made the top ten of 2008...
So what did make my Top 10? Keep yourself posted cause it's coming.