Gamespy's games of the year

[Margalis]

Is it just me or is the 360 list kind of the same as the PS3 list?

Wii Top 10 Games of the Year
1. Super Mario Galaxy
2. Metroid Prime 3 Corruption
3. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
4. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
6. Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
7. Mario Strikers Charged
8. WarioWare: Smooth Moves
9. Super Paper Mario
10. LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga


Xbox 360 Top 10 Games of the Year
1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
2. BioShock
3. The Orange Box
4. Rock Band
5. Mass Effect
6. Halo 3
7. Virtua Fighter 5 Online
8. skate.
9. Forza MotorSport 2
10. Crackdown

PS3 Top 10 Games of the Year
1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
2. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
3. Warhawk
4. Rock Band
5. skate.
6. Virtua Fighter 5
7. R&C: Tools of Destruction
8. Ninja Gaiden Sigma
9. MotorStorm
10. FIFA Soccer 08

[Rasix]

Is it just me or is the 360 list kind of the same as the PS3 list?

Not shocking.  CoD4 was reviewed really well all over the place. skate was an amazing game from my perspective. I didn't care much for VF5 or Rock Band though.  All cross platform games that the Wii didn't get 

Not to bag on the Wii but Guitar Hero 3, Lego Star Wars and a port of a game released in Jan. 2005? 

Anyhoo, it's Gamespy     Didn't know people still went there for anything other than FilePlanet.

[Margalis]

I'm not commenting on the quality of the lists, just the fact that you have to squint to see what the differences are. Kind of makes you wonder why the world needs both the 360 and the PS3.

[Prospero]

What would people have pointless bitchfests about? Mac vs Windows is already overdone.

[Sky]

Isn't Gamespy a pc matchmaking software?

Where's the fucking pc game list?

 

[Riggswolfe]

Isn't Gamespy a pc matchmaking software?

Where's the fucking pc game list?

 

did anything unique and exciting get released on the PC besides the Witcher?

[stray]

Supreme Commander
Bioshock, Portal, TF2, COD4 if you want to count cross platform shit

[Sky]

Well, lots of cross-platform things, as mentioned. Also, Crysis.

And Lolgate: London (or Salisbury if you download new stuff). But you said exciting. There's a lot on those lists that doesn't seem all the exciting and new.

I suppose I should just have at myself with a 5lb hammer and get it over with, so I can finally embrace console gaming.

[stray]

They're just games on another machine. Ain't gonna kill ya.

[Riggswolfe]

So, the PC list would be console ports, Supreme Commander, and the Witcher. There you go.

This, BTW, is why most gaming stores barely carry any PC games now.

ETA: I bought probably 20 games or more this year, easily. And one of those was a PC game.

[Yegolev]

There actually is a PC list.  #2 is "The Orange Box" and #1 is CoD4.

The real crime here is that the PS2 only gets a Top 5.
#5 - Fire Pro Wrestling
#4 - Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007
#3 - Rogue Galaxy
#2 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
#1 - God of War II

[Sky]

So, the PC list would be console ports, Supreme Commander, and the Witcher. There you go.

This, BTW, is why most gaming stores barely carry any PC games now.

ETA: I bought probably 20 games or more this year, easily. And one of those was a PC game.

Fuckin A for you then, hoss. What's your point? Half the games are on both 360 and PS3, are you bitching about PS3 ports on the 360, too? Console port is what Mass Effect will be, the Orange Box, CoD, Guitar Hero 3, Bioshock were all developed for multiple platforms. And I guess you missed Crysis, I'll mention it again. More expansions you can shake a stick at. EQ2 Kunark, New FEAR, HoMaM V, AoE3, NWN2, Civ4 TONS of good expansions, can't even list them all (cough WoW:BC). Also UT3, Overlord, RE4 (hey, it's on the wii list), ArmA, UFO:Afterlight, LotRO, TR, C&C3, STALKER, Jade Empire, EU III, the list goes on.

Gaming stores hardly carry pc games because pc gamers have fucking pcs. Amazon.com? Hello?

Good for your gaming purchases, you're a console gamer. Sorry you missed out on a lot of solid pc gaming.

[stray]

Oookay. That was funny.

[Riggswolfe]

Good for your gaming purchases, you're a console gamer. Sorry you missed out on a lot of solid pc gaming.

Actually I didn't. I just played most of the games:

1) Earlier, sometimes 6 months to a year earlier
2) On a HDTV
3) With full surround sound
4) Without spending 6 hours hunting forums to figure out a mysterious CTD, driver issue, etc...

Out of the rest of the solid PC gaming you listed:

Expansions....
MMOs...

I did forget Civ IV (not sure how) so that's 2 PC games. NWN2 is barely worth mentioning though I hear its expansion is good.

[Soukyan]

2) On a HDTV
3) With full surround sound

You must not be familiar with Sky's PC gaming setup.

[Morfiend]

Crysis and The Witcher are good enough to say this was a good year for the PC, add in Orange Box (For SHAME if you bought this for console) and we have a damn good year. I also just bought CoD4 from Steam, but its not done DLing yet.

[Sky]

Actually I didn't. I just played most of the games:

1) Earlier, sometimes 6 months to a year earlier
2) On a HDTV
3) With full surround sound
4) Without spending 6 hours hunting forums to figure out a mysterious CTD, driver issue, etc...

Out of the rest of the solid PC gaming you listed:

Expansions....
MMOs...

I did forget Civ IV (not sure how) so that's 2 PC games. NWN2 is barely worth mentioning though I hear its expansion is good.

1) Ok, you're impatient.
2) See Soukyan's post
3) And again
4) Six hours? Sure, there are a couple games that don't play nice with widescreen. I found that out in five minutes. If you're spending six hours troubleshooting CTD problems, fix your fucking computer.

Expansions and MMO are games, dipshit. Sometimes GREAT games, like the BtS expansion (which is why I mentioned Civ4, which came out before this year) or the WoW expansion (a toofer).

You're reaching. At least I'm honest and irrationally so in my anti-console bias. I just don't like them, but they're great for most people. The balls. I bust them.

[Hoax]

The great thing is, no matter what games come out any given year/month/decade/in X genre/on what platform...

I never have to explain why I own a computer.

P.S.  Riggs is a flaming asshole.  This is not new.  Have a cup of stfu bitchcakes.

[Samwise]

Calling the Orange Box a "console port" is a whole new level of  .

[Riggswolfe]

You're reaching. At least I'm honest and irrationally so in my anti-console bias. I just don't like them, but they're great for most people. The balls. I bust them.

I don't really have an anti-PC bias. I just find less and less really compelling in PC Gaming that isn't already out on a console. I  my PC but find it used more for internet and productivity these days than gaming. And to respond to your point to point responses:

1) Yeah, I'm impatient. And this has been known to screw me a time or two. If I get excited about a game I have to have it now.
2&3) Since I know nothing about your setup I'm not sure how this is relevant. You've got a cool setup. Ok.
4) That hasn't happened in a long time to be honest and usually when it does it turns out to be something like "you have to install the video drivers from 8 months ago and tweak this setting to get the game to work." Still, it does happen often enough to be highly annoying especially when you know it's happening to lots of other people and the fix is something you have to search forums for to find the guy with the patience to figure it all out.

P.S.  Riggs is a flaming asshole.  This is not new.  Have a cup of stfu bitchcakes.

Hmmm....I don't remember pissing in your wheaties but apparently I did. I'm trying really hard to get worked up about it but I can't even get a crocodile tear. Hell, your angst doesn't even register on my give-a-shit-meter.

[Litigator]

PC gaming seems to have cycles. When the consoles come out, then the console games tend to look better than PC games because PC games have to scale downward and the console games do not. But the console is closed technology and as that ages, possibilities opened up by PC hardware's shorter product lifecycles ultimately enable high-end PCs to do more than the consoles can do, and PC games tend to be higher profile among gamers when the console generation is mature or late in its product cycle.

But each product cycle, that becomes less and less the case. Now that console games do high resolutions, it's going to be harder for PC graphics to eclipse console graphics. Also, console gaming has really expanded as a market, and PC gaming has lagged behind. XBox Live is a real killer app in terms of streamlining competitive play over multiple games into one extremely user-friendly front-end. I think Live does for online gaming what iTunes did for MP3s.

Meanwhile, there aren't reasons outside of gaming for people to justify upgrading their computers. Back when suping up the graphics card or adding extra RAM was just an incremental addition to an upgrade that was necessary to keep in line with current software, there was a much narrower band of machines that game devs expected their markets to have. But, for example, Windows XP had a six year product lifecycle and most XP capable computers have the juice to run Vista. So without evolving applications demanding more and more horsepower, a lot of people are upgrading their machines less often, which means that PC games have to accommodate five or six generations of hardware instead of two or three, or else they risk segmenting their market. Plus a lot of PC gamers have grown tired of constantly upgrading hardware and are playing on consoles now, and MMOs mean that a lot of PC gamers will just play one game for a couple of years anyway.

The result is that, when something like Crysis comes out a lot of people don't have the hardware to run it. Maybe Starcraft 2 will be the galvanizing event that moves five million GeForce 10ks.

[Rendakor]

Given Blactivision's (shameless excuse to use that  ) track record, SC2 probably won't require dx10.

[Riggswolfe]

You know, this thread made me realize something. My gaming habits are changing as I age. My girlfriend and daughter both like games and I find myself getting console games so we can play them together. A PC game really has to be spectacular (the Witcher, Civ IV) for me to get it over a console game.

That said I do still watch PC games and find myself having very little interest in most of what comes out. It's just so much easier to get it on a console when I can and most PC exclusive stuff these days seem to be MMOs and the occasional strategy sim like Civ IV. Consoles are also cheaper in the long run since a PS3 or XBOX 360 costs about as much as a top of the line graphics card and a Wii costs substantially less.

[Prospero]

I can't say I'm shocked that games in the top 10 are generally available on all platforms. If you're going to spend 2-8 years working on a project that you know it is going to kick ass in the marketplace, why limit it to one platform? This whole stigma against multi-platform games need to die now. Except when they dumb my games down for console tards, that's still hate worthy.

[Rendakor]

I can't say I'm shocked that games in the top 10 are generally available on all platforms. If you're going to spend 2-8 years working on a project that you know it is going to kick ass in the marketplace, why limit it to one platform? This whole stigma against multi-platform games need to die now. Except when they dumb my games down for console tards, that's still hate worthy.

Agreed. Exclusive games can die in a fire.

[Riggswolfe]

I've noticed this generation seems to have alot less exclusive games than previous ones did and most of those are first party titles. I think this can be mostly attritubuted to MS being more agressive at getting games and Sony being stupid in how they handled things.

[Yegolev]

I will blame Sony as well, since most 360 games should be ported to PC as part of Microsoft's business plan.  Sony not getting more PS3 exclusives means most of them went to 360.

[Rendakor]

M$ doing better this generation in general helps out. I imagine they tried last time, but everyone had a PS2 so devs could go exclusive without risk of losing any sales.

[Yegolev]

Microsoft also has the benefit of not being Nintendo.

[schild]

Nothing is hurting the PS3 more than (well, the price) and the lack of a major Square title in the first year.

[Litigator]

Given Blactivision's (shameless excuse to use that  ) track record, SC2 probably won't require dx10.

"Exploiting the properties" notwithstanding, I kind of trust that Blizzard's people will retain the same level of creative control they had under Vivendi. I think to a significant degree, the top talent at Blizzard, and the talent they can attract to work on their projects, is the company's primary and most valuable asset. The IP is secondary and the Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo brands are only as good as the reputation for quality that is associated with them. If Activision had competent lawyers who did proper due diligence, and if Activision's business guys did a proper merger analysis, Activision should already be amply aware of this.

If I were their lawyers, I would have advised Activision very strongly to get agreements from the key Blizzard creative people to stay with the company for some substantial period after the merger, to alleviate the risk that the talent would flee the merged company, leaving the purchaser with an overpriced shell of a company. Of course Blizzard's creative talent would have their own conditions for any formal agreement to stay with the merged company and creative control of their games and freedom from pressure regarding game design decisions from management or imposed deadlines would probably be one of those conditions. So when Blizzard announces that nothing there will change and they'll retain their level of independence and creative control, I am inclined to believe that, and I am inclined to believe that it is formalized in the contracts.

Either Activision made a collossally stupid decision to waste its money, and drives off the talent and squanders the goodwill associated with Blizzard and its IPs, or Activision is careful enough to continue to give the Blizzard talent the space to make the kinds of games that have made them so valuable in the first place. Vivendi is a big-ass conglomerate, that's probably more focused on bottom lines and less focused on games than Activision, and, if anything, Blizzard is a much bigger planet in the Activision galaxy than it ever was in Vivendi's.

One thing Activision seems likely to do is to get other studios to make games using Blizzard's IPs, so we'll have the Starcraft/Warcraft equivalents of Call of Duty 3. To the extent that it tarnishes the reputation of the property, I don't see that as my problem; I can tell the genuine article from the fake.

[Litigator]

Microsoft also has the benefit of not being Nintendo.

You know, it's fucking amazing how well Nintendo is doing, considering it's the only one afflicted with that particular handicap.

[Riggswolfe]

Nothing is hurting the PS3 more than (well, the price) and the lack of a major Square title in the first year.

Price and lack of good exclusives period. At least in decent numbers. As much as people bitch about exclusives they sell systems.

[schild]

The PS3 list has 5 exclusives.
The 360 list has 5 exclusives.

Not really the same. The cross platform games really are fantastic titles though. Other than Rock Band. You can't forgive that piece of shit Guitar, so sorry.

[Rendakor]

Given Blactivision's (shameless excuse to use that  ) track record, SC2 probably won't require dx10.

"Exploiting the properties" notwithstanding, I kind of trust that Blizzard's people will retain the same level of creative control they had under Vivendi. I think to a significant degree, the top talent at Blizzard, and the talent they can attract to work on their projects, is the company's primary and most valuable asset. The IP is secondary and the Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo brands are only as good as the reputation for quality that is associated with them. If Activision had competent lawyers who did proper due diligence, and if Activision's business guys did a proper merger analysis, Activision should already be amply aware of this.

If I were their lawyers, I would have advised Activision very strongly to get agreements from the key Blizzard creative people to stay with the company for some substantial period after the merger, to alleviate the risk that the talent would flee the merged company, leaving the purchaser with an overpriced shell of a company. Of course Blizzard's creative talent would have their own conditions for any formal agreement to stay with the merged company and creative control of their games and freedom from pressure regarding game design decisions from management or imposed deadlines would probably be one of those conditions. So when Blizzard announces that nothing there will change and they'll retain their level of independence and creative control, I am inclined to believe that, and I am inclined to believe that it is formalized in the contracts.

Either Activision made a collossally stupid decision to waste its money, and drives off the talent and squanders the goodwill associated with Blizzard and its IPs, or Activision is careful enough to continue to give the Blizzard talent the space to make the kinds of games that have made them so valuable in the first place. Vivendi is a big-ass conglomerate, that's probably more focused on bottom lines and less focused on games than Activision, and, if anything, Blizzard is a much bigger planet in the Activision galaxy than it ever was in Vivendi's.

One thing Activision seems likely to do is to get other studios to make games using Blizzard's IPs, so we'll have the Starcraft/Warcraft equivalents of Call of Duty 3. To the extent that it tarnishes the reputation of the property, I don't see that as my problem; I can tell the genuine article from the fake.

I'm so confused. What does this have to do with my post?