Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2008: 30-21 Comments by Eurogamer staff

DONT LOOK, MGS IS NOT REALLY THERE, IT WAS JUST A DREAM

Oh EG.., You know your going to hell for that :)



I bet it was worth it.

/awaits MGS fans

This is going to end in tears.

I'm guessing that EG is trying to be extra controversial with this list. I don't agree with it at all, but hey, it's their list.

Oh. My. God.
30. MGS4
You know what you've done now don't you? You've just set up another 2000 posts.

/takes cover before the storm arrives

I personally dont care what order they put things in... its their list... but for me personally long cut scenes are a total put off, and I didnt like the MGS at all. If I had played more games this year then perhaps then it would have been lower in the list for me :)

I reckon most of the MGS diehards quit forevers after Oli's sober review anyway!

How the hell is MGS4 so low in the list?!?!?!?!

....shit

Hey, we got our own top 50 list, now EG gets theirs. Our time for arbitrarily ordering our favourite games into pointless lists has long since passed!

If I were them I'd create a 'Top 50 MGS4 Cut-Scenes 2008' article to keep the MGS4 fans happy.

"Kristan Reed: Lovely game world, solid gameplay, soulless characters. Coming to this after Fallout 3 was a massive comedown, but I'm determined to come back to it."
lolololol

Far Cry 2 > Fallout 3 by miles and miles and miles of rolling African savannah.

Aaah, over-enthusiastic punctuation. A sure sign of an addled mind.

Is Kieron Gillen still alive?

How quaint.

And unfortunate.

God it would be so funny if they had just put it one place higher at 31 :D

MGS4 deserves its position. What a waste of time and money.

Fallout 3 has clearly won the thing. Shirley?

I'm surprised people are still in disagreement with the Oli's review. Ignore the score; even on hindsight, his words still ring true.

Its the same sort of bitterness that people seem to hold against ex-girlfriends who slepts with your mate and wee'd on your cat

well you definitely put metal gear in its... hehe... place

Wii Music for #1, you know it makes sense.

"On one hand I'm actually quite pleased that EG has stuck to its guns over this one, on the other you have to admit that it clearly demonstrates how badly out-of-touch the reviewing staff here are compared to public and (broadly speaking) global critical opinion."

Uh, no. Sorry but no. Assuming you're talking about MGS4 the review was bang on. It's a decent game, high quality and offering an interesting experience. BUT it's also a real marmite game where the majority either love it to death or hate it. The public opinion is difficult to judge as a lot, possibly even the majority, of PS3 owners are in the love it category and therefore it made decent sales figures, at least when launched. But the majority of the gaming world haven't played it and ongoing sales don't seem to have been very good (although the Xmas figures will be interesting).

The sad fact is that EG got the MGS4 review RIGHT. They gave an objective review without resorting to the salavating rubbish that most sites did and also steering clear of a real slating that would have happened if they gave it to someone who just doesn't like that sort of game. There are design decisions (chief amongst them cut scenes) made in MGS4 that are either the best thing since sliced bread to existing fans or horrible downsides for newcomers. EG did a good job at expressing these problems and marked accordingly. Those that scream about bias, or demand that it should be recognised as the best game ever, are not reviewing the game objectivley and would be awful sources on which to base a purchasing decision.

Now this Site is officially in Kojima's black list.

...and Kojima is really f***ing frightening.

Persona 3 needs to be higher :P Such a class RPG with one hell of a soundtrack.

Wii Fit > Metal Gear Solid 4

Far Cry 2 above MGS4? Really?

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney > MGS4

The big issue with MGS reviews is that it's reviewed as being a game, when it's not just a game. It's a game and a cgi movie intertwined and it's never pretended any different.

If people don't like the story then that's fair enough, but people who slaight it for the cut scenes being too long has missed the point. The is a big difference between somthing being bad and something that you personally don't like.

So if the consept of a game (in this case long cut scenes) doesn't appeal to a reviewer before they've even started to play it then they should consider that they're maybe not the best person to be reviewing. It's like someone reviewing a racing game when they hate racers and are rubbish at them.

Gl3n: "Fallout 3 has clearly won the thing. Shirley?"

Sssh! You'll jinx it!

oh my god its started again...

Ah, you MGS kids will realise that all that plot isn't up to much when you get past the age of 23.

/ducks thrown shoe

I didn't like Olis review because I din't like the words. If it'd ended 10/10, I'd have still hated it. If it had 1/10, I'd have hated it. If it had no score, I'd have hated it. If Oli came around to my house and brought a delicious Steak and Cheese pizza from Asda, with a freshly printed copy of the review, and a bribe of £50 to just nod along and say it's good instead of gaive my honest opinion, I'd stil have said "What the heck are you doing at my house?", followed by "I don't really like this review."

Agree with it's place on the list though. As much as I loved it, there's a whole lot I loved more this year.

I love all these so far.

The coup de grace would be no Gears of War 2 in the top 50 at all, but that's just too far fetched and delicious to be possible.

/ grabs popcorn

/ settles in for the fun.

I heard only shabby bespectacled child molesters with bears play MGS4.

Calling MGS fans immature is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on this site.
Not because I agree or disagree with it, but because it is unprofessional.

You are biting the hand that feeds you.

Oh shut up, you dimwit. The hand that feeds EG is advertisers, who want lots of traffic, which is generated by provoking debate. Or in your case, just unthinking retards.

Being an avid MGS die hard since its Playstation 1 days I have to say Eurogamer's review if taken without a score (i.e...if it was just read as an essay without a score) would probably be a very good neutral viewpoint of a very subjective game. However, I don't believe EG did the right thing by scoring MGS so controversially. Yes, MGS is a love it or hate it game and yes EG tried to rate it from a normal games's perspective and that is why i believe the score was flawed. In my Honest opinion games like MGS 4 who belong in their own genre(Tactical Espionage Action) should not be scored. They should just be reviewed, since their success/fun/playability are all subjective to the person playing it. Overall though I do have to say eurogamer have had a few stinkers in terms of reviews and they are not really held high in my regards. That'd be IGN and gamespot.

Hehe. Reading this, it seems EG were literally trying to set the site on fire: Singstar, WiiFit and Trials 2 all voted higher than MGS4.

Trials 2 is £1.49 on steam, so tempting despite it not really being my thing.

Ign and gamespot?

...

I've always recognised the positives and frailties of the MGS series and in that respect EG's negative review hits the right points for me. However, its epic cutscenes are a familiar bed-fellow, having been prevalent since the very first game. Despite sitting through the cutscenes there was no possible way I could ever stop playing until the game was finished. In Far Cry 2 (which would be in a personal list of Bottom 50 Games of 2008) by comparison, I managed about an hour's play through its painfully simple 'driver slash assassin' game design before trading the game back in. Different games of course, but a computer game is one that you should want to continue playing, deep into the early hours if need be. I would argue that it's testament to the quality of MGS4 in areas outside of its dreary cutscenes and incoherent plot, that the game is so highly rated by professional review sites and the playing public.

Moz makes a very strong point, too. I never saw the appeal to Fallout 3, as I found the constant wandering to be a monumental waste of time - so much so that I'd reload the game so one of my Speech/Charisma skills worked, allowing me to avoid a quest involving much wandering. As a result, I followed the main narrative, explored very little and, by completion, saw probably only a small percentage of what the game seemed to have to offer. Despite my opinion being just as important, I'd be a rubbish reviewer for such a title, as I recognise that it's not Fallout 3 the game I disliked, but the game dynamics of the RPG genre as a whole. I prefer games to flow quickly FPS-style, not something to sink 100s of hours of time I just do not have into. As I mentioned at the start, the cutscenes have been an 'issue' (depending on your perspective) since the very first instalment. The fact that the reviewer dwelled so chronically on them in light of this illustrated to me that he probably wasn't seeing much else, hence the interpretation of it being a negative review. Calling readers immature for having that interpretation is not just unprofessional (seriously, why actually submit this? It serves no purpose other than satiating a strange need for vengeance, and creates antagonism) but also laughably ironic.

Yes...I just believe their reviews are more subjective and this has nothing to do with scoring, they have scored badly as well but that is only because the whole scoring system is flawed. I accept low scores when and where they are deserved but if they are given due to a flaw in the system...that is what gets to me.

a.j2020, how is 8/10, equal by all accounts to 80%, which by extension is considered to be a pretty successful quantity, in any way controversial, aside from the fact that you're a fan and wanted it to get 100% regardless?

Look! It's more games that shouldn't be ahead of Wipeout HD...er, except for Persona 3.

No...believe me when i say this 8/10 is a very decent score and would not be considered controversial in most senses but when the game had been hyped to be 'PS3's Saviour' etc. and when most other reputable reviewers offered the tittle critical acclaim it does become controversial. But i wish to reiterate that i am not dissapointed by the level of the score. I just wouldn't like games like MGS scored. Simply because, yes, i believe its a 10/10 game but i am fully understanding if someone else comes to me and says i didnt like it and for them its a 5/10 game. What i wouldn't accept is if the game is given 8/10 because it has been looked at like an ordinary game which we all know MGS is anything but.

It really doesn't make sense that people aren't more angry about Apollo Justice not being higher. MSGwhatnow?

Glad to see Pure on the list, its easily the best racer on the 360 this year, well that ive played anyway.

I agree with you. Not on the notion that MGS4 is somehow excused from the same review process as other games because it's on some kind of different level to everything else, but on the idea that review scores in general shouldn't happen. Reading the review should be how one decides whether or not a game is for them. This is particularly true when scores on pretty much all sites often seem to be rather arbitrary these days.

Unfortunately, all game review websites have to give scores because that way they get themselves hooked into Metacritic, or even better, if they give a game a great score and a nice soundbite to go with it, they might even get their site listed on the box!

Besides, think of all the page impressions they'd lose out on if threads suddenly became devoid of 2,000-post score haggling!

"Calling MGS fans immature is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on this site.
Not because I agree or disagree with it, but because it is unprofessional"

Haha, yep.

It's pretty much a "fuck you" to the rabid fanboys.


MGS4 was by far the most memorable game of the year, a flawed game (the 8/10 review was fair) but its highs were higher than any other game.

I'm still taken aback by someone saying that IGN is better than EG

0_o

Did they not read the Footie Manager review and the ensuing debacle?
I love IGN's podcasts but their reviews. Not so much.

Aside from the suspiciously calculated positioning of MGS4 it's good to see some lesser known games getting some respect not just the AAA titles. If Too Human is in the top ten then i'll call shenanigans! :)