The Obligatory "Games of the Year" post.... #1

Written by Dan Zuccarelli

Thursday, 01 January 2009 19:50

So each of us has chosen our top 5 games of the year, and we'll be posting one each day all week... leading up to our favorite games of the year on Friday. It was incredibly hard picking only 5 games to recognize, as this year we had some truly fantastic titles. Suffice to say there's a ton of games we loved this year that didn't make it into our Top 5. So it goes.

Feel free to agree/disagree/wish death upon our choices in the comments.

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World of Goo (PC version) - nominated by Dan

If it seems like an oddball choice, then you've never had the pleasure of building enormous goo structures in 2D Boy's ridiculously entertaining puzzle game. The game's physics are the star here, and present a rule set that is wacky but totally reliable. A decent learning curve that doesn't hold your hand to long has you placing and throwing all sorts of goo balls around in order to find your way to the finish line. I bought this game after losing one of the demo levels. Think about that. I failed and that intrigued me enough to plop down the $20 right there to buy it, even though I wasn't even done the demo. Best money I spent on a game all year. 2DBoy should be proud of what they've made. (I can't believe we never gave it a proper review, expect that to be rectified soon).

LittleBigPlanet – nominated by Ryan

I actually think that this game has arrived from the future, not having been developed so much as teleported from another dimension. LBP is just such a ridiculously ambitious undertaking, I can hardly believe that it didn't slip into one of those multi-year delays. Let's tally the reasons: best art direction of any game this year by far; an almost-offensively hip soundtrack; and an infinite supply of user-created and -ranked levels. Add in the recent Metal Gear-themed DLC with its attendent gameplay changes (paintball guns!) and you can see where they're going with this thing. Despite a slow sales start I do think LittleBigPlanet will be with us for a long time.

Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection - nominated by Jim

While it may not be for everyone, Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection is the single best pinball simulation that's ever been on the market. With dead-on physics, classic tables, and an ingenious control scheme that simulates real flippers, Williams Collection was the total package. FarSight Studios have proven themselves the masters of the simulated table. I only pray that we see another entry in the series, or at least see the UK-only Wii-release of the Gottlieb Collection come stateside. 10 tables just isn't enough, even if Pinbot is in there dammit!

Burnout Paradise - nominated by Kevin

You might not know it now but years down the road we'll probably be looking back at this game as a landmark title. Not only did Criterion take a beloved franchise, flip it on its head and make it work but they also showed unprecedented free content love to a console title that has never been seen before. Let's not forget that this title came out in the beginning of the year and there's still a ton of people playing it every night, and it doesn't even have the words "Halo" or "Call Of Duty" in its title.

Comments (4) Add Comment

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written by headcase, January 04, 2009

So this is like the first batch of favourites, with more to come? Because I'm not seeing Kart Wii or Brawl or RB2 in there *shakes fist*

All the ones I've played up there I agree with. World of Goo is one of the first great indie titles to see mainstream appeal, and Burnout Paradise was the product of a miraculously talented dev team.

Only played a little LBP and it's fairly solid, haven't played many user-created levels but the controls seem tight enough to allow pretty challenging levels.

Heard good things about the pinball game. If I want to play pinball on a console, I need nothing more than Virtual Pinball on the Genesis.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, January 04, 2009

Rockband 2 definitely would've made a top 10 list, but we felt limiting it to 5 would make it more challenging to put together and force us to really validate each game on the list.

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written by Kevin Alexander, January 05, 2009

Perhaps folks wondering about other games that would have made a "Top 10" should anxiously await the next BitCast, which should be posted tomorrow with any luck.

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written by TheBBPS.com (Bits, Bytes, Pixe, January 20, 2009

[...] crap I love me some 2D Boy. Not only did they make my favorite game of 2008, but they operate with class. Obviously bummed about the piracy rate of the game they’ve [...]