What Is Your Game of the Year? 477
It's that time of year again. Last year's response to our Game of the Year post was so enthusiastic that I thought it would be worthwhile to give it another go. So, once again, some of the Slashdot folks have come together to offer up our 'games of the year'. Scuttlemonkey, Scott Collins, Chris Brown, CmdrTaco, and myself have all put together quick blurbs about the games we couldn't get enough of this year. When you're through reading those, it's your turn to speak up. What was the game you couldn't put down? The next-gen consoles really came into their own this year; was it one of those games, or something for the PC? In your opinion, what was the best game of the year?
Slashdot Engineer Chris Brown: If you read game sites at all, by now you've probably had more than your fill of cake and Weighted Companion Cube jokes. But Portal remains one of the best games to come out this year, well worth the price of the entire Orange Box just by itself. It's a darkly funny genre-bender of a game, and every minute of it is enjoyable. The only thing a reasonable person could still wish for is more of it - it's a short game by anyone's standards. And Ellen McLain's brilliant voice acting as GLaDOS makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.
My only regret is not experiencing the game on my PC. The Xbox 360's controls are awkward and the general ambiance of the environments seemed pretty drab and washed out.
Slashdot Engineer Scott Collins:
My favorite game this year (outside of WoW, I'm required to admit) was something of a surprise. It started at a chili-dinner party when a friend pulled a deck of cards out and said "Let's play Fluxx." Everyone else seemed to know what was going on, so I didn't require any convincing. It turns out to be a pretty fast-paced card game where you play: 'Action' cards, such as 'Pick a card at random from another player's hand'; 'Keeper' cards which are assets you collect to win, like 'The Brain', 'The Toaster', 'Dreams', 'The Rocket', et al; 'New Rule' cards that change play, like 'Draw 4' which changes the initial game of "draw 1, play 1" to "draw 4, play 1"; and 'Goals', like 'Milk and Cookies' meaning that while that is the current goal, the player who has played both the Milk and Cookies Keepers immediately wins. It ends up being a very strange and fun mix, something like Nomic combined with Uno. But that's not the end of the story.
The game was so much fun that when I got home I looked up the maker, Looney Labs, to buy a Fluxx deck for myself. There I discovered Zombie Fluxx.Zombie Fluxx adds a new kind of anti-Keeper: the Creeper; while the Keepers are things like 'The Chainsaw', 'The Can of Gasoline', 'The Shotgun'; the Goals are things like 'I alone survived', where if you have a Friend (Keeper), and the Car, and no zombies --- and everyone else has at least one zombie, you win. I managed to play Zombie Fluxx with all of my kids at once. At Thanksgiving, we had a game with three generations playing (just regular Fluxx though; I don't think Grandma and Grampa are ready for Zombies). The decks are designed so you can easily combine regular Fluxx and Zombie Fluxx for an even bigger game (and easily separate them again).
Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry:
This year saw a rather violent shift in my gaming appetites, as I decided it was time to kick the World of Warcraft habit.Any game that required too much of my time was avoided like the plague.That being said, the Wii's Mario Galaxy turned out to be my perfect game this year. So long have I been engrossed in the massive "pretty factor" of games (Quake, Doom, F.E.A.R., Warcraft, EVE, Empire at War, etc) that try to impress users with graphics, huge storylines, or tons of options that I forgot how great it could be just to find a simple game that offers a little bit of distraction and fun. Mario Galaxy really is the ultimate realization of the Mario franchise so far. It offers all of the glory of a platformer while offering several new twists.The first major expansion beyond the normal Mario world was their use of 3D and gravity. Many surfaces in the game acted as their own planet, complete with gravity well and the ability to traverse all sides of the object. There are also many fun manipulations of gravity throughout the game.Mario Galaxy also takes advantage of many unique controls available on the Wii to really make the gameplay interesting, without being overly hard.
Many games I have played recently really required a great deal of time to hone your skills to that "expert" level, and while that may be fine for a game with the scope of World of Warcraft, I shouldn't need that level of dedication for a simple platformer and Mario Galaxy delivers spectacularly. There were just enough challenges in the game to make it interesting but it was easy enough I could just pick it up and put it down whenever I felt like it without getting frustrated. The other major advancement Mario Galaxy has made was in cooperative gameplay. The new "co-star" mode makes it possible for you to include even the most staunch non-gamers in the Mario Galaxy experience. The co-star is given a cursor on the screen with which they can pick up power-ups, halt incoming enemies or enemy attacks, assist with stronger jumps, and even stun enemies for easy dispatch. Keep in mind that while all of these things are helpful if you happen to have a co-star, the game doesn't require you to have one, so that helpful individual can come and go as they please.
This makes it ideal for friends who drop by or loved ones that don't want to really jump in with both feet. All in all Mario Galaxy is a great casual game that can provide entertainment for just about any gaming appetite, definitely worth a look.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda:
My entry for game of the year is almost more about multiplayer gameplay. From fighters to first person shooters, there are just so many games out where I can invite a friend to join me, and then one of us crushes the other. Don't get me wrong, this is fun, but in many of those games, the person with the superior skill is bored while the less experienced player is defeated over and over again. It can get old.
Enter Rock Band. It might be the perfect party game. Someone drums, another plays bass, another lead guitar. And the most daring of any you takes up the USB microphone and goes nuts karaoke style. Instead of competing, you are a team. When one person fails out, another can bring them back by pulling off an overdrive move. And with the multiple difficulty settings, I can play on hard, while a friend plays on easy, and we can both be challenged and entertained.
It's hours of fun. It has problems: too many cords, not enough songs that everyone agrees on, and finding a spare guitar right now seems to be impossible. But each of those problems is addressable and doesn't take away from the fact that everyone can rock out for a few minutes. Everyone can be equals with a common goal and be challenged (well, maybe not people who have mastered expert mode, but I have no sympathy for you ;) It's got a steep price tag, but if you have 3 friends, it's worth it.
Michael "Zonk" Zenke:
My game of the year 2007 was decided during the 2006 E3 event.Mass Effect, at that point, was nothing more than a trailer about some space marine talking to an alien bartender. Years of patient waiting culminated for me in a 45 minute drive to the K-Mart in Portage, WI. Being able to buy a game a full week and a half before it releases generally is a special treat - moreso for me because of the chance to review the game before it came out. With a review in mind, I spent a full week leisurely exploring the world of Commander Shepherd, trying to stop Saren from carrying out his mad plot.
Over the course of that week, I was deeply, fully in love with the game. Yes, it's got some major flaws. The game's UI ranges from barely passable to amateur hour, and there are some honest frustrations to be voiced about character AI. Just the same, I was hooked, happily using the conversation wheel and Paragoning my way through the game's endless content. In some ways it reminded me a lot of Oblivion, my pick for last year's GOTY, in that the story fully drew me in. I've played Mass Effect quite a bit less than Oblivion; the exploration elements are just not as engaging.
But quality easily makes up for quantity, and my time with Mass Effect has been amazing. The moment that cemented this title in my personal hall of fame was actually the climax. Oblivion's ending is something of a 'whatever' - the joy there is in the journey. With Mass Effect, Shepherd's final confrontation with Saren is easily one of the most memorable gaming moments I've ever experienced. It's an incredibly fitting cap to the game's epic story and (somehow) actually makes me want to play through the whole thing over again.
Blemishes and all, Mass Effect is my game of the year for 2007. It reaffirmed for me the storytelling potential of western-style RPGs, and let me put to rest a burning anticipation I've had for quite some time. And, of course, now I can get ready for the next chapter in the series. When do you think Mass Effect 2 will be out?
nethack (Score:2, Informative)
Mass Effect (Score:4, Informative)
This year Mass Effect has similarly strong competition from Bioshock, Halo 3, and Mario Galaxy (as far as "regular," non-Guitar Hero-type games go), but it managed to really draw me in the way Oblivion did. I haven't been this into a game since Gears of War and FFXII, and it's been a year since then ^^
Mass Effect's story is decent enough on the surface (your character is badass and everyone knows it so you are sent to take out another badass -- simple but cool) and it really shines in the details. Very real character development takes place. You get attached to them. I do wish they had a bit more "presence" during combat, the way your teammates in Gears do, but that's a small complaint.
The character models are fantastic, and the visual design of the game in general is quite good. The ligthing and shadows are sometimes very bad, and texture loading is very noticeably slow, but that rarely distracts, which is important.
The flow of one mission to another, the way subquests are introduced and progressed -- it's all quite immersive.
In short, Mass Effect is the closest I've come to feeling like I'm controlling a movie or miniseries. (Oblivion felt like I was playing a spinoff of Hercules The Legendary Journeys, which was sweet, hehe.)
Oh, also the "world" Mass Effect introduces is cool and easily one of my favorite in sci-fi now.
Mario Galaxy hands down (Score:5, Informative)
I just sincerely hope this won't be the last actual 'traditional' (platformer) Mario game we'll be seeing on the Wii. Mario Sunshine was pretty much the only one on the Gamecube, Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64, and Mario World for the SNES, but NES got SMB 1, 2, and 3. I realize it takes a lot to put out one of these games, but I really don't want to be playing any Princess Peach, Wario, or Luigi games or any of these knock-offs. They're great in their own right, but really you wish you were playing a new Mario game. I realize too much could water down the franchise, but it definitely won't get tired if there's a new one every 2 or 1.5 years. Come on, Nintendo! I want as much Mario as I can get!
Re:Super Mario Bros. 3 (Score:2, Informative)
This is definately one of the most informative posts I have read all day. You must have played a dizzying amount of games this year to come up with the conclusion that Super Mario Bros. 3 is the best game ever.
Your backup choice for Game of the Year is equally inspired. Whatever Wii game you played at the mall is an unforgetable classic that will be played for years to come.
My choice for Game of the Year is Super Mario Galaxy [wikipedia.org]. The number of mindblowingly cool levels and awesome game play put this game in a class of its own.
Half-Life 2: Ep. 2 (Score:2, Informative)
The witcher (Score:5, Informative)
Scott, dude ... check out Stoner Fluxx... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rock Band (Score:4, Informative)
And I agree that Rock Band is the game of the year... I've had the game going multiple times with a crowd of friends over, and there are constantly four people playing it. They've definitely taken the music game genre to a new level.
Re:My Games of the Moment... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Bioshock [SPOILERS] (Score:4, Informative)
Unless you've played System Shock 2, that is. Ken Levine can use the phrase "spiritual successor" all he wants, but the story was System Shock 2.1.
Warning: Here Be Spoilers
There are so many elements that are almost directly parallel between the games:
That said, I still enjoyed the game, because it was fun and well-executed. The art direction provides an incredible sense of place, with its underwater setting, Art Deco architecture, and Junkyard Wars improvised weapons. The root conflict is certainly more interesting. Ryan and Fontaine are both megalomaniacs at heart, regardless of their faux-religious veneers. (Notice how Fontaine countered Ryan's escalating Ayn Rand-like rhetoric by smuggling in bibles and rosaries to help recruit the disillusioned working class?) That's a better hook than SHODAN's scheming to get the Von Braun to the remains of Citadel. They did add new game play elements, like the Big Sister/Little Daddy dynamic, crafting, and photography research. And who can forget Sander Cohen?
But that still doesn't do anything for my disappointment in the similarities. I saw the Atlas/Fontaine switch coming from a mile away, because I remembered Polito and SHODAN. I was hoping that Levine would surprise us old SS2 fans with a different plot twist. (I will give him credit for tricking us into thinking that Atlas' "wife" and "son" would be parallels of Suarez and Siddons from SS2.)
Desktop Tower Defense (Score:5, Informative)
And it got worse, when they released the Multiplayer version at http://www.casualcollective.com/ [casualcollective.com].
Super Mario Galaxy (Score:5, Informative)