Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2008: 40-31 Article

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33. King's Bounty: The Legend

1C Company / Katauri / PC

Kieron Gillen: This is a fascinating trend - ancient PC licences bought up and given to East European and Russian developers to play with. And while we wait to see what 1C: Ino-Co does with Majesty, the finest example so far is Katauri Interactive's King's Bounty: The Legend. Originally developed as Battle Lord before the licence arrived from heaven, it's an imaginative, deeply funny RPG/exploration/strategy game from some of the minds of the equally bizarre and glorious Space Rangers 2. But where Space Rangers 2 just swapped enthusiasm and insanity for polish, King's Bounty is as intricately designed and beautiful as anything that's come out this year. And still good-mental. Oh, you'll have to forgive the translation a little but compared to Space Rangers 2 it's Proust.

John Walker: You know what? I went to this game's website, interested in buying it because I'd seen so much enthusiasm and decided I was going to overcome my strategyphobia to play it, and there was not a single thing on the site to tell be where it could be bought. So I didn't.

Jim Rossignol: Mad, Russian, thoroughly entertaining. This was one of those PC games that stamps validity on the platform. Awesome.

Alec Meer: My favourite game of the year, and if I'd have managed to get my votes in on time it would have been a lot higher in this chart. I feel really, genuinely bad about that, as it's a game that's been under-promoted and mis-described all over the shop, and desperately needs to reach a wider audience. Mad as a grasshopper in a bowtie while simultaneously as layered as even the most sober strategy game, it's quintessentially PC in a way that leaves all the negative stereotypes behind. Also, I married (and later divorced) a zombie and fought a war inside my own belt. You don't get that in Fallout 3.

Tom Bramwell: Or character animation. Just throwing it out there. And yeah, if Alec's votes had been in on time, this would be in the top 20. Lesson here, 'bay.

32. Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

SEGA / ChunSoft / DS

Kieron Gillen: What an awesome title.

John Walker: I think it might be the blue background for the text that puts me off JRPGs. Too much damage was done by trying to sit through more than ten minutes of a Final Fantasy, and the identical boxes in every damned game makes me reel in horror.

Simon Parkin: There's something extraordinary in the fact a tough old, cranky Roguelike could place so highly in a list of this sort. But perhaps this is the logical conclusion for a game that somehow managed to find a wider audience than beardy D&D players. The bright visuals, cute humour and slim, fast flow of play no doubt make Shiren slip down where its bloated cousins would stick in the throat. I think Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, despite the super-saccharine tone, is the better game, but Shiren's portability makes it a more reasonable prospect for many players.

31. Audiosurf

Dylan Fitterer / PC

Dan Whitehead: I felt a little grinchy giving this just 7/10, but I still feel that it's more proof of concept than a cohesive game in its own right.

Kieron Gillen: Yes, it's a simple idea. But so's oral sex, and that's still awesome. It's fascinating on many levels - at the moment I like thinking of it as a device that allows you to re-imagine your music collection as the biggest game universe in history. When you play an MP3, as long as you've got a little variety in your collections, it's likely that the level you visit will never have been seen by anyone else before. As "Ooh - I wonder what's over that hill" is to an MMO, "Oooh - I wonder what that Young Marble Giant B-side collection would play like" is to Audiosurf. But that's only how I currently think of it - previously it's been everything from a device to amplify the experience of music to just a really neat little arcade game. It's the only game which made me give back a fiver to someone who didn't like it. It's the only game that's made me cry this year. It's the only game that's exactly like Audiosurf, and for that I adore it totally. There's a saying that music is the artform which all other art aspires to - that is, it moves people without meaning. Some noises which provoke emotion directly rather than through what they signify. Which makes music a beautiful thing. And if that's true, Audiosurf is videogames' love poem to music. I wish I'd written it.

Alec Meer: Anyone who moans "but it's just a crappy match-3 game" clearly only listens to The Coldplays and The Keanes. If they actually enjoyed music, they would love Audiosurf.

John Walker: File me under "Don't Get It". I almost get it. But I don't understand how anyone can play this without thinking, "Wow, this would have been a really good game if only he'd [insert any of about three hundred different ideas here]." It's the template for a fun time without the fun time added yet.