Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2008: 20-11 Comments by Eurogamer staff

@Mr Brown: "but they have to take into account quality and when a game is clearly technically and critically better then it should be placed higher regardless of EG personal preference."

No, sorry but you're flat out wrong here. If you want a list of games that are "clearly technically and critically better" then just look at the damn reviews that have happened this year and check the scores. That's where you get an impartial (as much as humanly possible anyway) view taking all that stuff into account. Basing a top x of the year on those criteria is what far too many sites do and is utterly worthless as we already know all that stuff and the top ten (or more) are seperated by such small degrees that it's more-or-less pointless. What EG are doing here are giving you the staff picks based on what they ENJOY playing. Remember that whole 'games are fun' factor? Example - last year I'd have placed Assasins Creed in my own personal top three. It was flawed as hell and if I was reviewing it I'd have given it maybe 7/10. But there was something that for me, personally, just made it fun and made me want to get to the end. Same thing with Crackdown actually.

Basically, the list here is what a bunch of normal people enjoyed playing. They've given you their professional opinion throughout the year and this is their personal one. And I for one am very glad they do it that way as it makes what's normally an utterly pointless exercise a worthwhile read for reasons other than fanboy bragging rights which, let's face it, are all most such lists actually are.

Given the apparent randomness of this list I'm willing to bet PixelJunk Eden gets the top spot : )

Not played Dead Space yet but very tempted to get it. I think EG may well have it in the top 10, but not the top 5. Even though the reviewer did not rate it that highly it looks like all the staff get a say and could well bring it in fairly high. If it makes their top 5 I think I will have to buy it.

Just buy Dead Space anyway, it's great!

And +1,000,000 to what BOFH_UK said.

Agreed. Dead Space is great and one of the positive surprises in 2008 :)

"but they have to take into account quality and when a game is clearly technically and critically better then it should be placed higher regardless of EG personal preference" ARGH! ARGH! ARGH!

Mr_Brown
30-Dec-08 11:02:32
Yes opinions are different, but has someone has mentioned EG's opinion seems to be completley different from it's readers and all of their peers (by a long way). Some of their choices are the equivelent to a respected football pundit stating Stoke will win the premier league because he likes red and White and come from Stoke. Fair enough if you personally like a game and by all means score it extra, but they have to take into account quality and when a game is clearly technically and critically better then it should be placed higher regardless of EG personal preference. The simple fact is that this list will come under scrutiny by others and regardless whether for some reason EG enjoyed barbie goes shopping more than any other game, putting it number one for personal reasons would damage the integrity of the site (just like some of the choices made here). That's my view anyway.

You're having some trouble grasping this whole concept aren't you?

This list is entirely about what they 'personally like'. It is being compiled by gamers, not reviewers - they've switched off their professional mode and they are now spouting which games made them wet themselves with glee, not necessarily which games are the most technically accomplished. It's pretty much identical to the way the Readers' Top 50 list worked, only it's only including the votes of EG staff. Not only have they repeatedly said as much, in greater detail and eloquence than I ever could, but so has everybody else in the comments thread!

To use your analogy, it's like a football commentator who's finished for the day, and now he's talking about football with his mates down at the pub. He can believe whichever team he wants is going to win, because his mates asked for his personal opinion.

The integrity of the site is going to remain perfectly intact, not only because most people understand that different folks have different strokes, but also because they've explained exactly what this list is and how it works.

its a bit wrong to see a game that gets 7 say tomb raider significantly higher than a game that gets 8 (mgs4)

eurogamer once again proves that review scores are meaningless. abolish them and then your writers would have to actually start taking notice about how critical a tone their reviews are written in. getting tired of reading your reviewers say they wish they wrote their reviews differently in these charts...

I'm not a massive MGS fan, nor a big defender of Playstation and/or Sony. But - I struggle to see how most of these games are better than MGS4. That's all.

The list overall is pretty appalling. That's my opinion, which I am entitled too. Etc etc.

@ dunkel dog... press circle (I think) and it gives you an idea of where you need to go... now if you cant figure it out from there...

LBP GOTY?

Braid, Fallout 3 and World of Goo will be the top three. In which order, I do not know. LBP and GTA will likely make up the top five, then Left 4 Dead, FIFA, No More Heroes, TWEWY, Fable II, Sins of a Solar Empire, Dead Space and Guitar Hero World Tour will fight over the remainder, with three of those games undeservedly missing the cut completely. (Probably Dead Space, FIFA and TWEWY.)

Jesus there are some retards making comments about the order of the list.

The order of the list depends on how many votes the games get, and in which positions in each voter's top 10.

There are bound to be odd game positions. For example, MGS4 wouldn't be in my top 10, as I've not played it to be able to judge its quality. Therefore it'd have no vote, whereas SSFIITHDR would have a decent position, as would Braid & GTA IV, in my list.

Popular & high quality games are going to be clustered up towards the top of the list, and many quirky or surprise gems are going to beat niche or 'cult' hits in a list put together by reviewers.

MGS4 is a marmite game, so it will definitely suffer in this type of list. I don't expect to see SSFIITHDR up there, because many people have had enough of SFII and therefore don't think enough of it to place it in their top 10.

So many people just don't get it. These comment threads are like a car crash, seriously.

I wish I could get the time wasted reading them back, but sometimes I just feel compelled to read just to see how low we've sunk :(

Anyway, I certainly enjoyed the list - where's the top 10???

I've not played it (Dead Space) but everyone I know that's played it loves it to bits, so it's something on my 'games to play at SOME point' radar, certainly!

I'd honestly be surprised if it's not in the top 10 somewhere!

People do realise that Dead Space only got a 7/10 on here, right?

I reckon Dead Space will make it into the top 10

but speaking of this top 10, where is it?! I finish work for the day soon so need to read it to make it go faster!

"People do realise that Dead Space only got a 7/10 on here, right?"

I think people also realise that the Dead Space review was the opinion of one person, not the entire EG staff. So it still has a very good chance of making it into the top ten.

edit: Oh yeah, what not_luigi said :)

Right on about Condemned, Dan. Those games are poop.

If FIFA 09 doesn't feature I will burn EG Towers down myself.

I've recently bought pretty much all the current triple-A games and Dead Space has been the most enjoyable (surprisingly). I know it's a load of old sci-fi clichés rolled into a package that is a simplistic too-n-fro puzzle solving affair, but with the lights low and the sound high (it's got fantastic audio and soundtrack) the game is plain old action-driven fun and has made me 'jump' more than once (even when it's obvious that it's coming).

Astounding that it's from EA, I haven't bought one of their titles in years; especially on the PC.

tbh i think it would be a bit of a shame if dead space was not in the top 50 but i dont think it deserves a position higher then 10. I came back to PC gaming this year and went on a manic buying game blitz and whilst i could see this is a really good game it really didn't hold my attention for 2 long when other games were itching to be played

Valkyria Chronicles top 10?

Good job on giving Rez the credit it deserves, I'd rate it as my favourite game of the year without a doubt. In saying that, trying to sell Rez's merit to somebody who didn't enjoy the game is about as pointless a task as there ever was. Redstanza says

"'Rez' and 'you dont get it' seem to have appeared in the same sentence just too many times over the years."

and yet it's true that there are only two types of people in the world: Those who get Rez, and those who don't. I'd agree, it reeks of pretension when Rez fans stick their noses in the air and proclaim 'you just aren't getting the experience' but I'm afraid that is exactly what it comes down to. It's not a simple fact of being artistically open-minded or having the mentality to enjoy progressive trance music, either; many of my friends who love dance music hate Rez, and yet one of my colleagues in work who is diametrically opposed to all things electronica absolutely loves the game. Trying to figure out why some people enjoy it and others hate it is pointless, but I'd like to say that those of you who fall in to the latter category are seriously missing out.

Pardon my saying but I simply don't get the fuzz about Burnout Paradise... GRID was graphically better and Midnight Club L.A. is more stylish... and WTF do I have to drive around on the map to restart a race?

I never liked Burnout because of the stupid crashes which I always found disturbing and breaking the game flow. I was excited to hear that Burnout Paradise wanted to do what Test Drive Unlimited did so brilliantly... offer a truly open city map experience... but I'm so bored by this game.

I guess I have no taste, because all people score this game so high? I don't get it.

Condemned 2 if fucking terrible. The first was good, short fun, but the sequal is piss-poor with it's stupid horror cliche shit. I'll never trust another review from Krudster if he considers Condemned 2 to be a top 20 game.

"Precision and polised" used to describe Underworld? The game is pretty much the antithesis of those words. Its place on the list is justified, but a couple of the comments for it borderline nonsensical. I also completely disagree with the first two writers about the start, as I easily found diving down and seeing the ruins looming below and the very atmospheric "underpus" area some of best moments in the game (the entry to the boat sucked, good thing it was about ten minutes long maximum).

It's good to see Mirror's Edge getting a high place on the list, its replayability and execution of controls has made it my GOTY, but lists like this have to cover all players so I'm just glad it got as high a place as it has.

quick clarification for the staff:

most people don't hate Starship Troopers because of the "rah rah kill 'em all" message. They hate it because it's such a bastardization of a truly brilliant novel that it inspires a desire to hit whomever was responsible. When you get back from the bathroom and find somebody jerked off and splooged all over your sleeping grandmother, there's a natural desire to kill the offending party. Being unable to determine who did it (or in the case of ST being unable to make it past security with a baseball bat) just forces you to concentrate all your hatred at the visible injury, obvious though it may be.

I literally cried the day I walked past a theater and saw "Coming Soon!" posters for the movie -- didn't even realize it was being made until then. I was slightly concerned the poster had Rico wearing skateboard pads and a plastic helmet instead of his infantry Mobile Armor, but I was willing to give a bit of leeway . . . what's a little creative license to make it more palatable when they're bringing one of Heinlein's greatest works to the mass market? I mean really, there's only so much flexibility the social narrative will allow without making a complete mockery of of the entire work, and if they were going to do that they wouldn't have bothered licensing ST. It would be like making the Watchmen movie and casting Jack Black as the Comedian, and changing his costume to a clown suit. Really, even studio execs aren't that low. . .

*resumes surveillance outside production studios offices, softly caressing V.M.S., his Louisville Slugger . . .*