In no particular order, my top 5 of 2008:
- Dead Space
- Mario Kart Wii
- Professor Layton and the Curious Village
- Saint's Row 2
- Left 4 Dead
(Honorable mentions: de Blob, Rock Band 2, Fallout 3, Mega Man 9)
This was an odd year. I went into 2008 with high expectations for a ton of high profile games... and I'm sad to say that when I really thought about it, many of them disappointed me. Fable is, was, and always will be my number one game EVER, so I was insanely excited about Fable 2. I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but I didn't LOVE it. The 'Fable problem', for me, is the essence of my issues with the games of 2008... they weren't terrible, but not enough of them delivered fully on their potential. It's why three out of the five I listed were new IPs that surprised the hell out of me this year. More importantly, I chose games that were FUN. Was Mario Kart Wii a great step forward in innovation? Dear god, no... not in the least. What it WAS, however, was a damn good time. It still gets more play than anything else on the Wii.
Ultimately, I'm very sad that my list doesn't consist of the things I was looking forward to... Fable 2, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Silent Hill Homecoming, Grand Theft Auto 4, Gears of War 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl... it's a sizeable list. As I said, none of them are BAD, they were just *missing* something that captivated me the way the respective series previously had.
My top 5 were games that I just had the most fun with, and the honorable mentions are games that innovated to a point that I couldn't *not* mention them.