EWB's game of the year!

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

So then we're nearing the end of a fine year for gaming.

We've had the Wii destroying the competition with hardware sales and winning awards left right and centre for Wii Sports.

We've had the 360 continuing it's assault on UK and US markets with a succession of big name games and numerous gems.

We've had the PS3's release and, after a slow second quarter, a very solid end to the year which promises a very interesting 2008.

We've had the DS Lite more than fulfilling it's role as the new Gameboy - winning adult and child, man and woman alike to it's quirky charm.

We've had the PSP providing no-nonsense quality arcade and action enjoyment in the palm of your hands.

We've had the PS2 refusing to die and still proving to be a useful console to own when you have your singing, quiz and guitar loving mates around.

The question is, which games have been YOUR games of the year.

To qualify the game MUST have been released in YOUR country during the period from 1st December last year until the 1st December this year. It can be ANY console OR PC.

As with such threads you can list ten games which will score points as follows:

1st - 5 points.

2nd and 3rd - 4 points.

4th and 5th - 3 points.

6th and 7th - 2 points.

6th to 10th - 1 point.

If you're waiting on a game that is coming before December then you can edit your list as I won't be adding up until after 1st December.

Give screenshots, reasons, box covers or just the name of the game. Up to you!

UK releases...

Anyway without further ado it's only right that I start this myself.....

1: Assassin's Creed (PS3 & 360)

2: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)

3: Call Of Duty 4 (PS3 & 360)

4: Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (PS3)

5: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)

6: Heavenly Sword (PS3)

7: Pro Evolution Soccer '08 (PS3, 360, PC, PS2)

8: Pro Cycling Manager (PSP)

9: International Cricket Captain 3 (PSP, PC, PS2)

10: Guitar Hero 3 (360, PS3, PS2)

Edited January 10, 2008 by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster

[stokeriño]

I've bought so few games this year...and some I have bought (Final Fantasy XII, FM 2008, etc.) I really don't want to put on the list for various reasons...

So therefore, I'm only going to list one game.

1. EUROPA UNIVERSALIS III (PC)

Released: 26th January 2007

Alright...maybe one more.

2. SUPER MARIO GALAXY (WII)

Released: 16th November 2007

I'm done. (It's a shame Disgaea 2 came out just a month too early!)

Edited November 18, 2007 by stokeriño

[Baddar]

Well, I haven't really played that many games this year, but there's still 3 which stand out for me...

3. PES2008 (PS3) - Yes, it has the framerate issue and defending can be a bitch sometimes, but I've never been challenged by the CPU like I have in this years edition. The small additions to the game like diving, shirt pulling and of course, Jon Champion, have helped my experience of it greatly.

2. FM2008 (PC) - I know for a fact that this game will have me hooked for hours on end once the proper patch is released sometime next week. I didn't play 07, and only briefly played 06, so I'm quite new to FM. Like it alot already.

1. Resistance: Fall Of Man (PS3) - Wiki says 23rd March in Europe, so I guess it counts. It was my first game for PS3, and easily the most enjoyable I've played all year. The different types of Chimera are great in this. Bring on the sequel.

Btw, if there HAS to be five choices made, I'll do my best to add some more. For now, I'm gonna leave it like this.

[Big Tuna]

1. BioShock

2. Halo 3

3. Call of Duty IV

4. Guitar Hero III

5. The Orange Box (or Portal if the box counts as 5 games)

6. Guitar Hero II

7. The Bigs

8. WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008

9. Assassin's Creed

10. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

Edited December 6, 2007 by Big Tuna

[abundant]

1. Mass Effect (360) – This game is one of the best I’ve ever played. The story is without a doubt one of the best, it truly fills like you’re in a movie. The voice acting is top notch, which translates into great characters. The combat is a nice mixture of shooter and strategy, utilizing your team to take down a boss within minutes is wonderful. This game stands out above the rest, by far.

2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) – Looks gorgeous, has some of the best music ever, and every galaxy presents new challenges, so it never gets old.

3. Call of Duty 4 (360) – The best online shooter right now.

4. Orange Box (360) – Ep. 2 is great, Portal is exceptional, and Team Fortress 2 is the 2nd best online shooter right now.

5. Halo 3 (360) – Great single player except for one level, online is fun, but being thrown into a game type I don’t want to play or with some of the dumbest players ever is not.

6. Bioshock (360) – Great story & atmosphere, but the later parts of the game drag it down.

7. Assassin’s Creed (360) – I love the free running & the story. It can get repetitive, but not to a point where I lose interest.

Edited November 22, 2007 by abundant

[Boogey131]

Updated 13/01/08

1)Mass Effect(X360) - I haven't played a BioWare game I haven't liked. With an engrossing storyline and a great sense of choice and freedom, this is the beginning of something amazing, can't wait for the second part in this trilogy.

2) Halo 3(X360) - I really enjoyed the single player mode but the real highlight here is online mode. Definately the most fun I've had on Xbox Live.

3) Call of Duty 4(X360) - If the single player was short it was only because they cut out all the un-needed filler and left nothing but a great single-player experience. Great characters, great missions Great game. If I'd played more online this would maybe knock Halo 3 from #1.

4) Assassins Creed(X360) - An amazingly beautiful fun game. Perhaps closer to december this will slip a place or two to make way for Mass Effect, but for now, its my favorite single-player experience of the year.

5) The Orange Box(X360) - Portal is love, Half-Life is sex and the box is money. Money well spent. A great bargain for a great collection of games, and to think I haven't even played Epi1/2 or even Team Fortress.

6) BioShock(X360) - Created one of my favorite enemies in Big Daddy and created an atmospheric period FPS with some cool abilities. Pulled off what most FPS' are trying now-a-days only with some slickness.

7) Guitar Hero 3(X360) - Same old, which in the case of GH is always a good thing.

8) C&C3 Tiberium Wars(PC) - Im a huge fan of the C&C series, and nwo that its reverting back to the Red alert style, I couldnt be happier. Plus...Sawyer, Dr. Cameron, Sam Fisher and those chickls from Battlestar Galactica = NERDGASM!

Edited January 14, 2008 by Boogey131

[Kyle_]

1. Halo 3

2. Assassin's Creed

3. Madden 2008

4. Guitar Hero III

5. Stuntman: Ignition

Expect some editing to this.

Edited January 10, 2008 by Kyle_

[New Damage]

Same here, very few games I've really bothered with this year, one of the main ones not being bothered with is PES 2008, as I dont really care for football anymore to be honest, and I couldn't really give a crap about whether Dave has moved to Steve Untied for £30, when I only play master league. And SD! vs. Raw 2008 is in a similar boat, but probably more of a chance of getting that than PES2008, but I'm holding out for the TNA game. That plus probably better keeping the money, and being a different game to be honest.

My list anyway... probably be small, as for the reasons above and I've been reviving older games, like MGS 2 & 3 and GTA Vice City & San Andreas.

1. Guitar Hero 2

2. Unreal Tournament 2004 (on Unreal Anthology - released late 2006 says wiki if it counts)

3. Tony Hawk's Project 8

4. Scarface: The World Is Yours

Jesus, I've just realised, the only game I've got for this year, besides Christmas games was Scarface, and that was in February. It's an ok game, but doesn't live up to Vice City. And I got Unreal Anthology a few weeks ago for £15, which is a 4 game anthology of Unreal Tournaments (the newest being UT2004). That's all I've got for 2007!

Edited November 18, 2007 by TheModernWay

[oldskool]

1) The Orange Box

IMO if you add 10 hours to Portal and release it solo, it makes the top five. You cut the length and add it to a previous GOTY in HL2, along with an excellent multiplayer TF2 and the first two episodes of the HL2 extension and you have a massive gameplay experience.

2) Bioshock

Even though it's a ripoff of System Shock 2, it's an excellent game, great graphics, great gameplay. Needed more balance, more plasmids & longer gameplay to steal #1 and didn't get any this year.

3) Assassin's Creed

Could very well end up revolutionizing the platformer. Is trapped at #3 due to unavoidable repetition (what else is an assassin going to do?) and lack of multiplayer option.

Current honorable mention: CoD4, Halo 3, Mass Effect

Those three could change depending on how the release goes for Mass Effect and how the FPS group balances between CoD4 and Halo 3 in the upcoming month and a half.

[Maxx]

I'll wait for Mass Effect to cast my votes, but currently I've been happiest with The Orange Box, those I expect ME to replace it as my choice.

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

1. Bioshock - This was a fucking magnificent game. Top to bottom, left to right, thoroughly and fully an amazing gaming experience. Possibly the best looking game I've ever played. The only draw back is that it has a minimal replay value.

2. Skate - The character creation sucks, and it has some limitations, but goddamn it's fun. It's the kind of game you can idly play for hours and not get tired of.

3. Guitar Hero 3 - I love Guitar Hero. Sure they got rid of my favorite characters, and some of the note charts are outright retarded, but this has the best tracklist of any of the games so far.

4. Orange Box - Even if it was just a re-release of Half Life 2, it'd be on the list. But it's got Half Life 2 plus 4 more games in one box!

5. God of War 2 - Badass and epic for every moment... except those fucking madusa.

6. John Woo's Stranglehold - I like shooting things, I like breaking things, I like Chow-Yun Fat. I like this games.

7. Elebits - The next-highest point of my Wii owning experience. It was fun throwing shit around, finding elebits in various nooks and crannies.

8. Carcassonne - I just downloaded this a couple days ago for free, and I love it. Simple, elegant, strategic and best of all it was free.

9. Mass Effect - I'll be honest, I haven't played this game yet. However, it's an RPG, it's made by Bioware, so unless they royally fuck it up, I bed I'm going to love it.

10. Viva Pinata - .... What? It was $17 and I find it relaxing.

[Vilge Duin]

1. Warhawk - PS3

- This game has made me love online. I used to hate the concept of playing online, and thus never did (some bad Starcraft and Counter Strike experiences back in the day). But damn is this game fun. Since it's release I've put in an hour or two every other day. It is just incredibly fun and has made getting the PS3 all the more worth it. Albeit stat problems, glitchers and cheaters have dimished it it's still fun. Despite the problems it has I still think it's tremendous fun. May not be the best this year per say, but damn if it's not the one I've had the most fun with.

2. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions - PSP

- Just as fun as it was all those years ago. And the added content has made it even better. Just a tremendous game overall and an outright classic. Nothing more really needs be said.

3. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction - PS3

- A long (3 year) wait for the series to return to what originally made it great. Despite a disappointing ending and such, I've come to absolutely love it. Any problems I even may have are only there because I crave more of it. More arena matches, more worlds, more weapons... Can't get enough.

4. Halo 3 - XBox 360

- Great fun. I didn't play online much (since I just plain fucking suck at it the couple of times I tried), but the co-op and single player in the campaign were tremendous fun. A nice conclusion to the trilogy and a fun overall package.

5. Stuntman Ignition - XBox 360

- Never would have thought how fun this was. I never played the original, didn't even know this had been released, but I was rooting around the demo section of the Marketplace shortly after getting a 360 to see what may be interesting, saw this and figured "why not". The three missions it came with were great and I had to have more. So I got it and spent quite a bit of time just messing around with it trying to perfect everything. It's just one big ass action sequence after another, which is just awesome. None of them may really connect well with each other (even on the same movie) but these levels have more action and excitement packed in them than a lot of games.

That's about it for now, may (and likely will) wind up changing it up once I actually get around to playing some of the games actually released this year.

Mario Galaxy, Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4 are sitting in a stack completely untouched by me... Likely Uncharted and Mass Effect will join them. Any number of other games this year have been great or possibly are great too (Guitar Hero II/III, Super Paper Mario, Metroid Prime 3, God of War II, Rogue Galaxy etc.) a lot of which I haven't even gotten around to. Damn lack of free time.

This year has simply been stacked with goodness, especially the tail end... Next year's going to be just as bad.

Edited November 19, 2007 by Vilge Duin

[Slogger]

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2. Stuntman: Ignition

4. Halo 3

7. DiRT

8. Saints Row - It's doesn't say when it came out here but i assume it was past the deadline.

9. NHL 08

10. NASCAR 08

Unfinished List

[King Ellis]

1) Halo 3 - So yeah, the single player bored me rigid and it's hard to get anyone into co-op because of that. Online though is tons of fun. Especially custom games. I swear us EWB'ers are the only ones who know how to have fun. Everyone is just too serious about the killing.

2) Crackdown - Similar story here. The single player isn't deep, what with each mission being essentially the same but co-op possibilities are endless. Me and Kaney were just making up our own little games as we went along and had lots of fun.

3) John Woo presents Stranglehold - It's a word i'm using alot but i'll use it again, fun! Running, gunning, diving all over the place, swinging off chandelers, crotch shots, throat shots...it's fun. The graphics are good with the spin Tequila Bomb look very nice. Shame the online scene is dead now.

4) Guitar Hero III - A shame that their is no online co-op career but still it's a great. The soundtrack is good with more masters than ever.

5) Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 - Good old footy, a big improvement over last years shovelware port. Not a lot to say here.

6) Elite Beat Agents - Sneaks in due to it's EU release. I normally stick with shooting games and sports so this was a big change, something I was looking for as I tried to embrace the DS and it's 'quirkiness'.

7) The Ledgend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - Not too far into this yet but it's pretty good so far.

8) Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (Well, it was this year on XBLA ) - This came out in like March but my 360 died so I didn't get into too much because of that. Just finished it recently and i'm set to hit the inverted castle once I finally explore th normal one fully. So yeah, still got some legs in it despite it being like 6 months since I got it. I think I preffered Dawn of Sorrow on the DS to this though.

9) Pokemon Diamond - I haven't really played Poke games since the originals so any developments since were new to me in this iteration. Still, it's Pokemon and as a game it's hard for me to get overly excited about it. The online features were interesting but I haven't touched this in a while. Still fun for what it was. The whole ledgendary battle and the cut scene going into it was quite awesome.

10) Carcassonne - Yay freebies. It's refreshingly addictive because games can go quite quickly and it looks quite simplistic.

Honourable mention

TMNT 1989 Classic Arcade (Again, XBLA) - I was looking forward to having a big 4 player co-op on this but never got around to it. Closest I got was me and Kou but we didn't manage to beat the damn thing.

Well, I think that's about all of the games i've got this year.

Edited November 28, 2007 by TheEllisComplex

[Gongsun Zan]

I'll wait for Mass Effect to cast my votes

Edited November 19, 2007 by Gongsun Zan

[King Ellis]

I agree with Zan. If possible waiting till maybe right near the end of the year or new year would be best. Like I said in my post, I plan on getting a few games for Christmas and i'm sure many others will too.

[illmatic]

1. Super Mario Galaxy

2. Zack & Wiki

3. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

4. Guitar Hero 3

5. Halo 3

6. Super Mario Strikers

7. Battalion Wars 2

Haven't played many non-Wii games that came out this past year.

[Hailtothechimp]

Agreed with waiting for Mass Effect and maybe Rock Band. To be honest, I am quite surprised that the people that have voted don't have a lot of Halo 3 as 1. Shocker for me.

Seriously though, the end of this year has been amazing. I don't have time to play everything I want, as Mario Galaxies has remained untouched for close to a week now and I am sad.

I already have the GOTY for next year ready to picked though.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED!

[Fitzy]

1. Halo 3

2. Rock Band

3. Guitar Hero III

Edited January 10, 2008 by Fitzy

[Laice07]

2007 was such a landmark year for games with great AAA titles coming out for all systems. Each system also had that one game that made everyone turn their heads. The only problem was near the end of the year, eveything came out at the same time, which really made my wallet bleed, but man was it worth it! Another question is what game was the most dissapointing to you last year?

It's actually a hard choice for me between Bioshock for the 360 and Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, both games are just absolutely perfect. But in the end of the day, I went for my old friend Mario, playing Galaxy was like playing Super Mario 64 for the first time....but now with an even better soundtrack! Bioshock comes reall, really close, and special mentions goes to Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4, and Guitar Hero 3. I've yet to play Rockband but I'll get my hands on it soon. As for the most dissapointing game, the honuors go to Assasins Creed which after the first 2 assissantions, I just got bored of playing it. The sad thing is that its gorgeous, and had potential.

Anyway on to 2008 which brings Brawl, Final Fantasy, Solid Snake, and Dante for our gaming pleasure!

Boy, was that stupid, the thread was right in front of me and I still missed it. But yeah here's my top 10:

1.) Super Mario Galaxy

2.) Bioshock

3.) Guitar Hero 3

4.) Call of Duty 4

5.) Mass Effect

6.) Halo 3

7.) NHL 08

8.) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

9.) Uncharted: Drakes Fortune

10.) The Orange Box

Edited January 10, 2008 by Laice07