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.

Metal Gear Solid 4 – nominated by Ryan
As always, Kojima went for a stratospheric level of storytelling and detail, and mostly got what he wanted. MGS4 is a stupefyingly constructed, baffling, mesmerizing, confusing ball of comicbook heroism and political commentary. Somehow the story really does manage to pick up the few hundred stray threads of the Metal Gear universe and tie them up into a semblance of finality. Stunning presentation and some honestly heart-pounding moments near the end made this one of my favourite experiences.

Fieldrunners - nominated by Jim
There were a lot of top notch tower defense games out there this year, most of which have a place in my heart (and all of which were begging for a place on this list). But if I have to pick only one (and I’ve forced myself to do just that) it’s going to have to be FieldRunners. Sure it may not have the variety of towers or the huge selection of maps that other games have, but that’s honestly what’s so appealing about it. There’s a certain elegance in it’s simplicity. A great art style, simple touch screen mechanics, and two distinctly different maps that offer completely fresh experiences keep me coming back for more on a daily basis. It’s easily the best game on the iPhone so far.

N+ - nominated by Kevin
The year’s most challenging trial and error game was refreshingly simple in its appearance (evoking memories of a Commodore 64 era long since gone) and mechanics but exhaustingly deep in map design and skill implementation. It’s a great game to pick up and spend fifteen minutes or three hours playing though I wouldn’t suggest the latter, you may go mad.

Braid - nominated by Dan
I know, it was pretentious as hell… and some of us just didn’t get it. But for those of us that did were given a deep puzzle game disguised as a platformer. A different time-control mechanic for each level ensured that you never fell into a “been there, done that” feeling and the narrative, while self indulgent, left me truly satisfied. The game gives you a true feeling of accomplishment when beating each puzzle and never seemed unfair in it’s difficulty.

So each of us has chosen our top 5 games of the year, but we’re also chosen a few other awards to give out as well. Today’s is our most frustration inducing game, the one most likely to make us throw our controller across the room and into something breakable. Doesn’t necessarily mean we didn’t like the game, but at times felt like the game just hated us.

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

Home on PS3 - nominated by Dan
What a mind-fuckingly dumb idea. Take Second Life and remove the only interesting part (the user created content) and replace it with sponsors and microtransactions for furniture and clothes for your avatar. I suppose I could walk over to the virtual theater to watch the Twilight trailer, but wouldn’t I rather just download it somewhere? Having to wait for an arcade game to be unoccupied in order to play it was the final straw, and I quickly logged out before winging my controller in abject shock.

Braid – nominated by Ryan
And I am one of those who totally respect what that game is trying to do. But I also recall blacking out in a Tourette-esque haze of frustration at several of the puzzles, sometimes after finding out what the solution was. Braid wants to mock you. It’s a good game, and I do recommend it, but it’s fucking mean. (Special mention: PixelJunk Monsters, pre-difficulty patch.)

PixelJunk Monsters - nominated by Jim
As a girlfriend game PixelJunk Monsters couldn’t be more fun. Two people working together to annihilate hordes of adorable mosntrosities? Hottest date night EVER. But going it solo… you’d better have a Metal Slug level of patience. 14 tries, wave 18, death. You’ll find yourself wanting to put your foot through the nearest household pet long before you want to undertake attempt 15.

Grand Theft Auto 4 - nominated by Kevin
This is the last time I shit on GTA IV, I promise. I just can’t let it go without getting in one final dig for the year. I think if I actually had thrown my controller through a window it would have been more fun than trying to control a car in this game. I don’t care that it’s “more realistic” or whatever, the fact of the matter is it controls like shit, the cars feel heavy and it’s a burden in a game already chock full of burdens. Sure, driving in previous GTA’s wasn’t perfect but at least it was fun and effective.

What about you? What title frustrated you the most this year?

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.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - nominated by Dan
I know, I know… but can 11 million people really be wrong? A game that I love for the social aspects as much as the gameplay, I can thank this game for giving me more than a few real-life friends as well as hours of enjoyment inside the world. The new content brought some much needed variety to quests and dungeons and adds so much new stuff that this easily gives the most bang for the buck of any game on the list. There’s some truly epic shit going on in Northrend.

Fallout 3 – nominated by Ryan
I wasn’t a player of the original PC series, but I am big fan of Oblivion, and this is like Super Oblivion. The setting, guns, and general vibe of the Fallout universe lends itself to Bethesda’s spwarling RPG engine even more than their own homegrown medieval fantasy stuff. Takes forever to complete, and gives you a shockingly eerie Omega Man feeling. It’s the best western RPG of this year.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - nominated by Jim
While there were a dozen or so triple A titles that beat it out it in terms of gameplay and replayability, the inner Star Wars geek in me couldn’t have been happier to play The Force Unleashed. Tossing storm troopers into the belly of a sarlaac never gets old, and the story forms an integral part of the expanded Star Wars universe. I won’t spoil it for you, but there’s some jaw-dropping shit in there that still has me talking about it four months later. My only complaint is that there wasn’t more of it. Here’s to hoping we see another Star Wars game from the same team at LucasArts.

Fable 2 - nominated by Kevin
Peter Molyneux finally delivers on a good number of his promises and creates a sequel that betters its predecessor in every way. While the story left something to be desired the feeling that I was soloing a really good MMO overwhelmed me. There was so much to do in this game that you couldn’t possibly get to it on one playthrough.

With Christmas a couple days away that usually means a couple of things: Presents and time off from work. This year I’ve asked to get a bunch of GameStop gift cards so that I can put them towards a PS3 sometime around my birthday. More importantly I also get a day or two off of work so I might have some time to actually put in to gaming.

Last week Amazon’s video game deal of the day was the new Prince Of Persia for $40. With that scheduled to show up tomorrow I hope to tear into that before the new year hits. The game looks absolutely beautiful in the screenshots and videos so I just hope that it’s also as fun to play as the other recent entries into the series. I’m also hoping to get some more time to finish up co-oping Gears Of War 2 with Rich. Oh, and I should probably get back to WoW as well. It’s been about a month since I actually spent time playing…

What about you all? Are you expecting to get any games this Christmas? What do you plan on playing over whatever break you might have?

We.Love.Criterion.

Seriously, have you even seen a company take care of it’s customers so much when it comes to a game? All year we’ve gotten free (significant) upgrades. And what does that do? Keeps us playing and not trading the game in. They make more money by having less used copies out there and people continuing to buy more, and we gamers get tons of new shit.

So Criterion posted their video christmas card on iTunes, or you can watch it here. I suppose I could rip the video but doesn’t really feel right stealing anything at all from these guys. Also, you get your first look at the Delorean knock-off (and yes it really flies).

It’s done to the tune of “Twas the night before christmas”

My favorite line…

I’m loving this Burnout you built it to last,
I’m loving these stunts and driving to fast.
You’ve given so much to us players that’s free,
I can’t wait till next year, and paid DLC.

It’s been awhile since we’ve featured a new desktop/wallpaper for you computer, but that’s most likely because we haven’t come across anything as sweet as these 2 Team Fortress 2 ones. What can I say, I’m still addicted to the game, and cannot wait until they deliver the patches to the 360 version of the game.

Usual deal, click the images to get the larger one…. don’t be a dick and hotlink the images either.

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2008 has been a hell of a year for tower defense games. Things kicked off with the stellar PixelJunk Monsters, and then kept chugging along with titles like Ninjatown, FieldRunners, and everything in between.

To close out 2008, Steam recently saw the release of the bigger-than-usual-polish for a tower defense game title Defense Grid: The Awakening. But was it all flash and no substance, or did Defense Grid close out the year in style?

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