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1. Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios, Xbox 360/PS3/PC)
Perhaps the greatest argument to date that games are about more than wish fulfillment -- for who'd wish to be a vault exile in an expansive, exhausting wasteland? And yet Bethesda's vision of the American dream languishing in nuclear post-apocalypse is as compelling as it is haunting.
The bar was high for Bethesda after the much-vaunted Oblivion, lauded for its freedom of choice -- and Fallout 3 topped it, offering an unprecedentedly exhausting array of options and a rarely-seen level of subtlety.
There's just so much to do and see that Fallout 3 becomes that rare game that asks the player to wonder what life would feel like in such ruthless circumstances, offering an impressive level of immersion and placing the burden of careful thought -- and, sometimes, emotion -- behind every tactical selection and progression decision.
 Bethesda's Fallout 3
Despite its flaws, the larger swath of experiences to be had throughout dwarfs the main storyline, and the vast wasteland begs to be lived in.
Staff Picks
The individual staff of Gamasutra and its sister publication, Game Developer magazine, each chose our personal favorite titles that didn't make our team top 10.
Leigh Alexander (News Director, Gamasutra)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Konami, PS3) Tying up all those loose ends was a feat in and of itself, while so many moments of gameplay brilliance went overlooked because of the format.
PixelJunk Eden (Q Games, PS3) Compelling, frustrating, utterly satisfying audiovisual genius.
Chrono Trigger DS (Square Enix, DS) The RPG genre's most venerated installment gets perhaps the best remake ever seen on DS.
Eric Caoili (Associate News Editor, Gamasutra)
Space Invaders Extreme (Taito/Gulti, DS/PSP) An arcade classic with new mechanics, new audio and visuals, and new life breathed into it.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (Chunsoft, DS) Only for gamers who love a challenge, Shiren the Wanderer is the finest Eastern-developed roguelike, finally brought to the West after 13 years of dungeon crawling in Japan.
I Wish I Were The Moon (Daniel Benmergui, Flash) "I still look for her as soon as the first sliver appears in the sky, and the more it waxes, the more clearly I imagine I can see her..." from Italo Calvino's "The Distance of the Moon," the short story that inspired I Wish I Were The Moon.
Simon Carless (Publisher, Gamasutra)
Fable II (Lionhead, Xbox 360) A wonderfully realized living game world, with plenty of quirks, but even more heart.
N+ (Metanet/Slick, Xbox 360) Delightfully pixel-perfect retro action, with super-addictive online scoreboards.
Pure (Black Rock, Xbox 360/PS3/PC) Marauding into the ATV-drivin' genre and showing its predecessors the super-addictive gameplay they missed.
Jeffrey Fleming (Production Editor, Game Developer magazine)
Korg DS-10 Synthesizer (AQ Interactive, DS) Cheaper and more powerful than the original all-analog Korg MS-10 (circa 1978) and thankfully free from any "gameplay".
Lost Odyssey (Mistwalker, Xbox 360) Delivers the same shivering intermingling of wonderment and melancholy that we remember from the old days without pandering to childish nostalgia.
Siren: Blood Curse (SCE Japan, PS3) The reduced difficulty level and Americanized presentation of Blood Curse makes it easier for the uninitiated to discover what the rest of us already know: Siren is the raw horror of seeing our own tangled neural pathways externalized.
Christian Nutt (Features Editor, Gamasutra):
Yakuza 2 (Sega, PS2) The underrated and overlooked gem of Sega's current development efforts returns with another compellingly adult and sophisticated tale -- with visceral punchy-kicky and unmatched verisimilitude, particularly for a PS2 title.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (Square Enix, PSP) You say fan service, we say "brand extension done right" -- a compelling prelude to the original game, and, perhaps more importantly, gameplay design that's perfectly tailored to the PSP platform.
Gears of War 2 (Epic, Xbox 360) More of the same? More or less. Expanded in scope, and with expert polish and great gusto, boldly reminding us the value of dialing in your focus and embellishing only what you know you can get right.
Chris Remo (Editor At Large, Gamasutra)
Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, Xbox 360/PS3/PC) Its gameplay can be unfriendly at times, but Far Cry 2's design is appealingly risky, and the experience pays off player investment in spades.
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North, Xbox 360/PS3/PC) It's not revolutionary after its last-gen predecessors, but Rockstar North's latest provided plenty of sandbox fun, a compelling plot, and heroic attention to detail.
Sins of a Solar Empire (Ironclad Games, PC) With its debut effort, Ironclad successfully balanced RTS and 4X gameplay to make a game that is both of massive scale and eminently playable -- no mean feat.
Brandon Sheffield (Editor-in-Chief, Game Developer magazine)
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (Nintendo, DS) Slickly presented, this iteration finally took its audience into account, aged up a few years and maintained the same precise gameplay -- with a hint of luck -- that the series is known for.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Backbone, Xbox 360/PS3) Unattractive looks aside, the heart of SSFIIT is beating stronger than ever.
Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe (Midway, Xbox 360/PS3) I never considered Mortal Kombat a "real" fighting series, but the system differentiates from existing 2D-oriented fighter -- and this game in particular emphasizes arcade-style fun over everything else.
You said:
Jeff Beaudoin: "From the list, it is obvious that Gamasutra prizes innovation over series extension. I am glad they aren't afraid to go in this direction, rather than making another cookie cutter list that consists of some arrangement of GTA4, GOW2, MGS4, Fable 2, and Fallout 3. Having the staff picks was a good way to showcase these games while avoiding having to give them one of the top 10 spots."
Seth Burnette: "I would say that Fallout 3 was my favorite this year by far and probably will continue to be on into '09. World of Goo was a fantastic surprise. Braid was another good one and while it could be a bit pretentious, it was a great way for Jonathan Blow to finally put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. I hope to see more successful 'uppity' indie game developers like him work at chipping away the status quo."
David Tarris: "Bethesda had the greatest burden of proof of any developer I've seen. They had to prove themselves to not only the fans of Oblivion who wondered if they could top their masterpiece, but the fans of Fallout as well. The bar was high, but they exceeded it."
Tom Newman: "Thanks for giving proper credit to Persona 4. This may be the best PS2 rpg, most certainly in the top 5. While many Japanese developers have been lacking in the innovation category, this game picks up the slack. Having the player form rather mundane relationships with other npc's in order to level up battlefield stats and gain new abilities turned out to provide an emotional attachment to the charachters in the game I have not felt since first playing FFVII on PS1. All the Shin Megami games are outstanding, but this is a gem among gems."
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My sources are:
* once upon atari episode 2 (http://www.onceuponatari.com)
* wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision)
* ign (http://games.ign.com/objects/025/025004.html)
If you've got any evidence to back up their goal of creative freedom, please let me know cause I really want to believe that statement. As far as I'm concerned Activision is worse than what EA used to be and I really hope Blizzard's not already been affected (http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/30/starcraft-ii-to-be-mom-friendly/ && http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/11/key-starcraft-ii-trilogy-details/).
If you can't then talking about this fictional past will only make the current situation look worse.
Here's to pitfall and desert strike...
the whole ending at the grave for about 4 hours of jumping from unrelated topic to unrelated topic in a meaningless and futile attempt to tie up a million loose ends. by the time the credits finally rolled i was bald from pulling my hair out.
one and two had very good stories, particularly two, but guns of the patriots had a story written by a 15 year old boy with ADHD.
>>>Bart Stewart: "Part of me wants to object that any game that was excluded for months from PC gamers should be excluded from this list. Is it helpful to reward a publisher with a 'best of' award or honorable mention for a game on a particular platform if that platform wasn't considered worthy of support at the game's launch?"
Bart may not realize that there is a growing trend of releasing the PC SKU of games months after the console SKUs. This has nothing to do with disrespecting the PC as a platform. Rather, it has to do with combating piracy.
By releasing the PC SKU well after the console versions have had a chance to sell through their peak period (1-3 months post-launch), publishers avoid having pirated PC copies cannibalize sales of the console SKUs. Also, anyone who *really* wants to get their hands on a particular title might be willing to purchase the console version rather than wait a few months for the PC one.
It's not a perfect solution, but it makes a fair bit of sense. After all, nobody benefits from PC piracy except the pirates and those who steal games, and our livelihood by doing so.
When we critically consider other forms of entertainment - for instance, literature, movies, and theater - we can focus on both the phenomenal experience of the thing, and on the formal quality of the thing being reviewed. It isn't a perfect approach, but it gets at the heart of the matter, which seems to be twofold: "is this thing well put together", and "will I be moved by this thing in some fashion?" It doesn't take a vast and complex understanding of the field to speak to those points, either - we all know that a review citing poor special effects and horribly mixed audio (arguably formal issues) suggests that even an exciting science fiction story (the experiential side of things) will come across poorly on film.
The interesting question, I think, is whether we should we approach games (be they electronic or otherwise) in the same way, and if so, whether the tools that we can borrow from other critics are sufficient?
What makes this a remarkable news item though, was that Sony reacted to a gamer's post on a forum, rather than a complaint by any organization. Muslim organizations didn't complain because it was in fact a hymn, but you saw a gamer stating his opinion, and Sony taking that as a representation of over 1.5 billion people. It seems from my limited research that Sony did little in making an effort to contact organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain...which would have saved them a lot of hassle in delaying the title, reprinting BluRay discs, and in affecting launch sales.
Am I to understand that Gamasutra thinks that make of Tris a tetris-like game for the IPhone is a thief? Cause he made an clone of Tetris?
1MGS4/MGO
2Fallout 3
3Lost Odyssey
4Last Remnant
5Soul Calibur 4
6Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
7Crisis Core
8Valkyrie Chronicles
9Resistance 2
10Farcry 2
Also an indie game not mentioned anywhere here is Passage. It's a very simple 2d experience that only lasts five minutes. Nevertheless I found that it had a profoundly emotional effect on me and is certainly worth checking out at least once.
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
How about "obtain illegally" rather than "steal"? Does that work for you? Call it what you like if it makes you satisfied.
I'd just ask readers to consider a couple of points.
1. The PC is hardly the only platform on which piracy occurs -- Gamasutra itself recently published an article on the massive, almost casual piracy of games for handheld devices in Asia. Singling out the PC for a delayed release may not be justifiable on piracy grounds alone.
2. The question I raised -- regarding the decision to reward publishers (with a mention in a "best of platform" category) despite excluding the gamers who prefer that platform by not initially launching the game on that platform -- I think stands on its own regardless of the reason for not launching on a particular platform. As I said in my original comments, it's not something I'm losing sleep over, but I do wonder whether it's a good principle generally for anyone who publishes widely-read judgements on games. That said, Chris's response satisfied me that some thought went into the decision to do so, so I have no serious complaints. As I said then, I thought the games that made it to Gamasutra's "best PC games" list were generally excellent... once they came out for the PC. :)