For the purposes of this assessment, there are a few games which are certainly in contention for the top places, but that I’ve not had the chance to play yet. These are Fallout 3 and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the former is a vast improvement over the dull Oblivion, the latter is again a vast improvement over the dull Banjo games of the past. I may well later amend this list, but as the year came to an end, my favourite games were as follows.
3. Gears of War 2
Gears of War 2 could actually be counted as my dissapointment of 2008 as well. That certainly explains its lowly position of third; in a year where I only really played 5 or so new games, no less. I had really high hopes for the sequel to one of my favourite games of 2006 and Gears of War 2 eventually failed to live up to its predecessor in several key areas. It all started off very promisingly as a lot of the niggling issues with the controls had been sorted out. For the most part all those occasions where your character would incorrectly clamp on to a piece of cover as you were trying to run, or a piece of scenery which looked like it should be cover, but wasn’t, have been ironed out.
This makes the failings in the rest of the game’s design all the more galling. The largest of the problems I had with Gears of War 2 was its story. More specifically the focus on Dominic Santiago’s missing wife. Perhaps if his wife had been mentioned more in the first game, or if Dom wasn’t such a complete idiot whenever he mentioned his wife, I could have identified with his issues. As it was that particular section of the story stuck out like a sore thumb and felt really tacked on. This feeling was made much worse by the juxtaposition of Dom’s whining in cutscenes with his ignorance of his wife’s plight as he is murdering hundreds of Locust in the action. Perhaps if more of his incidental speech during the action made mention of his wife, his story would have been more believable. As it was, it was like there was two Doms, the cutscene Dom who cared about his wife and the action Dom who cared about killing Locust. It made Dom a much less believable character and took the focus away from the stronger character of the piece. On that note, Marcus Fenix and Augustus “Cole Train” Cole were easily the standout characters in the first game. The relative lack of good moments involving these characters in the second game was extremely disappointing.
Finally on the Gears of War 2 front is its completely flat and dull difficulty curve. I played both Gears of War and Gears of War 2 on the Hardcore difficulty settings. Gears of War had a really satisfying difficulty curve; which saw the difficult increase steadily, until the game was really challenging near the end. This was topped off by a final boss which actually put up some sort of a fight. In Gears of War 2 you could be forgiven for thinking that the difficulty of the game was going in the opposite direction, getting consistently easier until you reach a pathetic final interaction (I refuse to call holding down the left and right triggers for about 30 seconds a boss). I’ve yet to try Gears 2 on the Insane difficulty level and this may yet redeem it, but it is extremely disappointing nonetheless.
In all; despite the advances in the reliability and responsiveness of certain play mechanics, and the undoubted graphical improvements, Gears of War 2 falls short of its predecessor as an overall package. It’s still a very good game, just a disappointment.
2. Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradise came as something of a surprise to me. The demo felt really bad and it wasn’t just me, nearly everyone I knew was seriously worried about the game after the demo. This actually put me off buying the game for some time. Eventually a few trusted people spoke of how the game was initially disorienting, then they fell in love; so I picked it up. It has to be said that they were correct.
The first few hours I spent in Paradise City (the city in which this racing game is set) were extremely disorienting and frustrating. The open world setting seemed to work against the game and it seemed impossible to learn your way around the city. Suddenly though, everything clicks. There’s a magic moment where you start to learn the routes around the city and then suddenly the entire game makes sense.
Suddenly you realise that not only do you have the intensity of the previous games, with the no nonsense aggressive racing, but you also have a city which is designed as one giant toy. It quickly becomes a joy to simply drive around the city, not even entering events. In Paradise City, there is so much to see and do it’s a wonder I ever played anything else.
Burnout Paradise is the perfect example of a revolutionary entry in a franchise, it changed the game in a way which made it a much more compelling experience; if you took the time to fall in love with it. When you add this to the pitch perfect car handling, gloriously brutal crashes and beautiful graphics, you have a very compelling package. That Criterion also supported the game with a number of substantial and free updates, you have a genuinely great game, from a fantastic and forward thinking developer.
1. Rock Band / Rock Band 2
This game is much easier to summarise than all the others. Everybody wants to be a rock star, or at least pretend; just for a little while. With their wide ranging track-listings and plastic instruments, Rock Band can coax nearly anyone into giving it a go, even if only for a short time. Be it your parents playing a classic from their youth, or a friend unleashing their unknown singing talent and passion.
Rock Band / Rock Band 2 is the perfect party game, sober or aided by alcohol. It is the great unifier between gamers and non-gamers, more than that, it is simple pure fun. Gaming at its best then.