Joystiq’s Top 10 Games of 2008
January 1st, 2009
I’m sure there will be many similar lists in the weeks to come, but now that you know how Joystiq feels about it, what games do you think are missing? Which don’t deserve to be on the list? Are there really NO worthy handheld or Wii titles? Here’s the list!
1. Fable II
2. Metal Gear Solid 4
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Fallout 3
5. Braid
6. Gears of War 2
7. LittleBigPlanet
8. Far Cry 2
9. Dead Space
10. Mirror’s Edge
As far as I know and have played, Brawl is the only worthy Wii title. Granted, I haven’t played World of Goo, which everyone says is fantastic. I think Mirror’s Edge is a bit high considering I only saw 7-8 reviews. Honestly, though, I’ve only played 2 of those games, so I really can’t say anything with a fair opinion.
I’d agree with some of those choices, but a lot of these lists recently neglect a lot of stand out Wii games that have actually been released: No more heroes, de blob, world of goo, ssbb, zack and wiki, okami. Theres a few on the DS as well like soul bubbles and professor layton. Theres probably more but i can’t think at the moment – very tired!
I think it’s a pretty fair list, though open to interpretation and personal preference as always with these things. I personally couldn’t put them in order and still keep the list meaningful.
I’m surprised that GTA4 didn’t make it I suppose, but I can’t really think of any Wii or DS games that deserve to knock any of those games off the list. It’s not that the Wii didn’t get some good games, it’s more that there’s a lot of very strong competition up there.
1. Grand Theft Auto IV
2. Super Smash Bros. Brawl
3. Wii Music
Ok, so I’m kidding about number three, but I’m always shocked Brawl is missing from lists such as this. I mean Braid is cool and all, but is it really a better game overall than Brawl?
Of all the things people complain about for games on Wii (poor graphics, waggle, too kiddie, minigames, etc) Brawl is the complete opposite of. I think it’s safe to consider Brawl a ‘hardcore’ game, and for that reason alone it deserves to be on the top 10 of 2008. Now if only the online was fixed….
Well I think Brawl lost some of the hardcore gameplay that Melee provided. Some people viewed the combat system as a step-down even though it evened the playing field with the characters. But I do agree it should definitely be in the top 10 games of this year. I think it could at least take the number 7 spot on that list, but once again, it’s all subjective to personal opinion.
Well I think the problem at hand is the list comes from bloggers top 5s. Which of course get tabulated. While SSBB is a great game, I could see how it slipped off many of their writers top 5 lists. Also being so early in the year didn’t help matters just as Persona 4 and Prince of Persia were hurt by their late releases.
I bought countless Wii and DS games this year, but most will not agree with my buys, but they’re enjoyable.
What happened to The World Ends With You, Brawl, Animal Crossing (IMO obviously) and others I can’t think of right now because they came out early in 08.
Brawl is the stupidest thing to be left out. It had I think a 93 on Gamerankings, that’s higher than some of the games up there. Heck, Mirror’s Edge looks really fun and I bought it (though I don’t have it in my hands yet), but I don’t think it even reviewed as well as Mario Kart or Animal Crossing…Actually, I’m going to go check now. *goes to check*
Okay, so it got 5% higher than City folk, but 3% lower than Mario Kart and 14% lower than Brawl. Kirby Superstar Ultra got 79%, the same as Mirrors Edge. And I just looked it up, Rune Factory 2 recieved 81%. Still higher than Mirrors Edge. But let’s stop focusing on Mirrors Edge and take a look at some of the other games.
Fable II got an 88%. Still lower than Brawl.
Metal Gear Solid IV got a 92%. Still lower than Brawl
Left 4 Dead got an 89%. Still lower than Brawl
Fallout 3 got a 92%. Still lower than Brawl
Braid got a 92%. Still lower than Brawl
Gears of War 2 got a 94%. Finally, something higher than Brawl
Little Big Planet got a 94%. Again, higher than Brawl (why are these the ones at the bottom?)
Far Cry 2 got an 85%. Lower than Brawl
Dead Space got an 86%. Still lower than Brawl
Obviously, this list is opinionated so it doesn’t have to stick with the critic reviews, but I think we can all agree that Brawl should be SOMEWHERE on the list.
I was sort of hoping to see one of MY top 5s, Burnout Paradise, at least make a showing. But oh well, if everyone agreed with everyones opinion, the world would be excesisvely boring.
Also, roadjcat, READ the article, find the justifications. You may find that, like most intelligent people, aggregate scores are only useful to console warriors. Where Mirror’s Edge stacks against Brawl at metacritic means nothing if the person who voted Mirror’s Edge in their top 5 doesn’t like fighting games. See my post above to see how their list was created.
Also keep in mind this is one of the few websites who still enjoys Assassin’s Creed long after it became cool to hate it.
Well, I would assume that such a list would be compiled by multiple people, and I doubt that the majority of them hated fighting games, if they did, I think it’s time to get some new people or otherwise your viewers that like fighting games are going to be seriously alienated. And can Brawl even really be called a fighting game? I’ve never played a game like it. It’s practically it’s own genre. IMO, calling Brawl a fighting game, is similar to calling Metroid
Prime a first person shooter.
But yes, I do think that some of the early releases were kind of forgotten.
Brawl is a fighting game no doubt. And the list is made up of Joystiq writers who made their own list and then based off each individual list, a master list is created. Like sheppy said, with Brawl so early in the year and the Wii being left alone this time of year, Brawl is easily forgotten. Its unfortunate but true. And AC would never stand a chance, and TWEWY suffers from the early year release as well.
brawl definitly needs to be on that list. i also believe that mm9 and de blob need to be on that list. but most importantly, and this might be a bit oldschool…. i think that metroid prime 3 should be there. although i am quite happy that WoW didnt make it on there..
The choices are pretty good for the most part, although I haven’t played very many of them. I do agree that Brawl should be on that list, even if it was at 10. I was pretty surprised that Braid was on there (or even that high), but it makes sense. That game was one of the few “experiences” I’ve played recently. By that, I mean something so different and original (and done correctly, I might add) that it’s a game that you have to at least try. I suppose the same applies (but not nearly as much) to Little Big Planet, Fallout 3, Dead Space, and Mirror’s Edge.
Oh yeah definitely. Only MP3 is from 2007.
LOL.
I agree that Left 4 Dead is on the list (love the game) and I agree with probably the rest of the people who look at this site that Brawl should definitely be on this list.
Well I was pretty serious. I was going to say the same thing, but I couldn’t think of a way to say it to avoid sounding like an idiot because Corruption came out last year. XD Corruption should be on every positive top ten list IMO. 😀
Take out Fable 2 (that game was just pitiful compared to the first iteration… improved in some spots, pathetic in the rest) and put in Brawl and I’m happy. I’m glad MGS4 didn’t get forgotten, considering how long ago it came out (great game, just like the other MGS games).
One game that I’m surprised isn’t on there is Team Fortress 2. Or even Portal (not my choice for top 10 but it was hugely popular and still is). The reason I say TF2 is that it took the good things of FPSes and pack them all together. Oh well. :S
Ray:
Yes, GTAIV! Not even if it was my cup of tea (it’s a GTA game), it was a lot of fun. 😀
I must be in a real minority for having rented brawl and not really been able to see what the fuss was about. I can see that it might have been fun if I’d got three friends around and we’d spent a few hours kicking each other off platforms, but the single player just didn’t draw me in at all. As far as I’m convinced a game can’t live on multiplayer alone.
Then again, I’d not played any of the previous SSB games, so maybe I just wasn’t as hyped as everyone else?
Just because a game reviews well doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best game around. Some games ride high on a love of the genre or nostalgia or a multitude of other reasons.
See Sonic Unleashed Wii vs Xbox reviews for a good example of why review scores aren’t the be-all-and-end-all.
Ooh, I forgot about that. Yeah, that was a good game indeed.
I loved Assassin’s Creed. The missions themselves were disappointing, but every other aspect of the game was so fun that I didn’t mind the occasional dodgy mission getting in the way of my city roaming fun.
Orange Box was 2007. And Portal got Game of the Year last year for Joystiq, so your wish was granted.
I think that Brawl and GTA IV should be on there, but otherwise the list looks fair. I’m glad Far Cry 2 is on there, maybe more people will star playing it now.
1. LBP
2. Brawl
3. MGS4
4. TWEWY
5. World of Goo
6. PoP
7. Rock Band 2
8. de Blob
9. Mirror’s Edge
10. Lego (Blank)
Oh, not necessarily. I very much enjoyed Brawl, but I completely agree that its great multiplayer can only carry it so far. I think it should be on the list, but I definitely don’t think it should be at the top.
And since when did game reviews all of the sudden become totally unreliable? I mean I get it, we each have our own opinions, but when…what?….how many people say it’s good…I think it’s got to be at least decent.
I don’t think that any Wii or handheld game can match the scope and depth of the 10 games listed on Joystiqs top 10. There are a few that come close…
The World Ends With You, SSBB, deBlob, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Professor Layton, etc…
But even though those are great titles, and I loved my time with each, they don’t really hold a candle to the awesomeness of those 10 console games above.
Now see, I dont think that GTA IV should be on the list. I dont have it, but I have played it extensively. Its not that good. And this is just my opinion.
I never said that. Reviews can be very useful, but more from the content of the actual review (you know – the words)
I don’t think that “X scored 4% higher than Y” on metacritic really proves anything. If you read the body of a review you’ll often find that the score is rather arbitrary and does tend to get influenced by hype.
Besides, after playing two completely different games and trying to score them out of 100 you’re often going to end up with numbers that don’t really mean anything. If the same reviewer gives Soul Calibur 4 85% and Football Manager 2009 92%, that doesn’t mean that FM is a 7% better game because they aren’t directly comparable. Comparing scores between 2 very similar games might have some merit… but it’s still quite fuzzy.
But if they are directly comparable, then how can one rank one higher than the other on a top ten list?
I did say that I think that assigning an order is a little silly:
But comparing two games which are wildly different is still better than comparing the scores of two games which are wildly different.
For example, if I had to choose a number, I would probably have given Braid around 95% and Gears 2 around 90%. That’s because I think Braid deserves to be recognised for some of the fantastically clever mechanics, innovation and story-telling. Gears was great but didn’t innovate as much.
I would still rank Gears higher than Braid on my best-of-the-year list because, for everything that it did right, Braid simply didn’t give me as much fun over the course of the year.
What I mean is that assigning scores to games should be intended as giving the reader a quick idea of just how good you think a game is, but if you want to compare you need to go much deeper than the number.
I don’t care about Joystiq’s top 10. This is your site, what are your top ten from 2008?
I always just assumed that a score was a numerical value on how one who likes the genre would enjoy the game.
tbh i found fable 2 to be quite dissapointing
the first ones (the lost chapters) was so awesome
and braid should’ve been higher
and yes brawl was probably my game of the year too