how did this not make it? it was even in gta4 . this and the passenger are iggy's greatest moments . oh well wonder if i can *promote it? lets find out

Yeah, my car in GTA4 looked just like that too after playing "The Puerto Rican Connection"

Eh, sure it's clichéd, lacks a novel storyline or particularly relatable characters. Perhaps it's also a clone of the original FEAR, I never really played much of it so I can't judge. But it's still damn well fun, to the point, and reasonably well structured and paced FPS action.

Far more fun than spending unbeknownstly protracted times wandering around the Fallout 3 countryside completing only slightly more generic objectives than in Oblivion with a slightly less horrible combat mechanic, or playing GTA4, which is the equivalent of the FEAR franchise if it ever reaches numero 4.

Wjolson, in relation to my previous comment, you can't expect Yahtzee to enjoy MGS4 as much as you perhaps did. It's easy to see why he enjoyed Saints Row 2 over MGS4, and that's because he plays video games for the fun aspect. We know this about Yahtzee already, so I wouldn't be so shocked that he doesn't accept a video game that's designed as if it were a movie with brief interaction. Not that there's anything wrong with a game like that, it's just not the preference of a lot of gamers.

And Hive13, it's funny Saints Row 2 got mentioned because I just rented it last week and beat the campaign last night, so it's good to have this game fresh in my head when speaking about it. But I honestly disagree with people saying it's better than GTA4, even from a fun aspect. It -would- be better if they fixed a few things.
For example, I absolutely love how customizable everything is, like cars, for example. However, what takes away the fun of the customization is that it's hard driving anywhere without running into an invisible bump in rough texture that crashes into your car. GTA4 had this too, but not as painfully often as Saints Row 2. It happens all the bloody time, and really took away some of the fun of the game.
As far as the missions go, while they were trying to be somewhat innovative with the missions, most of them consisted of purely run-and-gun, as you mow down TONS of gangsters while running through uninteresting buildings that all sorta looked the same. It got ridiculously repetitive after a while. GTA4 had a lot more variations with their missions, and when it was run-and-gun, they were usually placed in interesting terrain that made things feel a bit different.
All in all, I felt Saints Row 2 was good, but incomparable to GTA4, because they took it a much different direction. While Rock* stream-lined the game, and polished the hell out of it, Saint's Row 2 took a different route. Instead of polishing what already proved to work, they added tons and tons more content on top of what was already there, and left it buggy, yet still fun. More than anything, I think it's fair to compare SR2 to San Andreas over GTA4, since the two games are pretty much the exact same thing.
/endrant

Sorry about that.

First GTA4 and now Watchmen rape the soundtrack to Koyaanisqasti making both weaker.

Nice to see Rorschach's face warp still in place, but why make them so bloody obvious, since it was cool finding them changing frame to frame in the original graphical novel.

How is it that no one has said Smash Bros Brawl yet?

Smash Bros Brawl
Bioshock
GTA4
MGS4
fallout 3

That is just to name a few though, there are many more games that could have been named...

Here's to 2009!

this *has* to be fake. I dont believe americans are that bad yet this looks like a gta4 commercial its so heavy in satire.

Rockstar needs to make GTA4: Europe (London/Paris/Rome/Venice/Swiss Alps/Amsterdam and the mountain from Sound of Music). GTA4: Asia would be cool too.

1. Dead Space - This game didn't get it's due. Excellent production and easily the scariest game I've ever played. This is a game to be played at night with the lights off.

2. Fallout 3 - See my screenname. Beautiful environments, plenty to explore and Bethesda actually figured out how to make combat fun.

3. GTA4 - All around great game. Not sure why so many bashed it. Sure, your cousin calls too much, but the game only requires you to take a couple of the man-date missions.

4. Braid - A mini masterpiece with a bunch of fresh and sophisticated ideas. We need more games like this.

5. Little Big Planet - The game that keeps on giving. The level editor is massive, powerfull and intimidating. If I ever finish a level, I'll post the details here.

Honorable Mention:
No More Heroes - Avant garde games are rare. This is a good one.
Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village - Cool story/animation and fun logic puzzles.
Gears of War 2 - Great game with much variety. They pulled out all the stops.
Left 4 Dead - Great multiplayer fun, but a bit skimpy on levels.

Not to mention the high profile games that I haven't played yet (Mirror's Edge, World of Goo, Far Cry 2, BanjoKazooee, Prince of Persia, MGS4, Spore).

My problem is that I've not played many of the marquee games of 2008 yet.

So far, MGS4, GTA4, and WOTLK are the top I've played.

However, I have not yet taken Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, or Resistance 2 out for a spin, and I suspect all of them will vie for my Top 5 (seeing how lots of pro reviewers gave these best of the year awards of one type or another).

I may need to try LittleBigPlanet, though the idea of creating my own platforming levels doesn't sound like my bag (or sack, as the case may be).

But I did not play many games in 2008. It's almost like my time was consumed by some sort of non-gaming activity for much of 2008...

Anyone know of something hot to look forward to in the world of games for 2009? None of the titles I'm seriously salivating for have release dates (or years) attached yet.

(For those who're curious, that'd be God of War 3, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and the full version of Gran Turismo 5)

GTA4 was one of the best games I've ever played. Aside from that? Meh. I enjoyed few others enough to compare to GTA4.

2008 games I enjoyed immensely, consider unique, polished pieces of work and I'd recommend to everyone:
Dead Space
Witcher: Enhanced Edition

Honorable mentions:
Audiosurf
Mass Effect for PC (technically a 2007 game)

I can't for the love of me call any more 2008 games 'excellent' though.
For me, all other "AAA" titles were sub par (at times extremely so) in terms of quality that was advertised or I'd expected. Prominent examples include:

GTA4 (a letdown on pretty much all fronts except mini-games or mini-distractions),
Fallout 3 (lame story, complete lack of identification with the protagonist and shitty narrative & voice acting by decent actors bugged me the fock out),
Prince of Persia (cakewalk platforming, random-button-blocking-combat and those FUCKING QTE POWERPLATE SEQUENCES),
Crysis: Warhead & Far Cry 2 & Cod5-World at War all had god-awful storylines, terribly idiotic AIs, and conveyed the feeling that Crytek, Ubi and Treyarch had a competition scoreboard trying to see how many cliches they could squeeze into their games.

I guess I'm hard to please. I keep hoping it'll apply to me in bed some day

I wonder how long Rockstar are going to be able to get away with being able to release essentially the same game with a new coat of paint. Not to mention atrociously optimizing it for PC. GTA4 was essentially Andreas, with better graphics, better voice acting, somewhat more relatable story and a couple of other minor touches. Other than that it was basically the same, drive here, kill these people, rinse, repeat gameplay that's been stale and unvaried for years.

the girl playing GTA4 is a gangster, theres nothing she hasn't seen.

That girl playing GTA4 is kinda scary, reminds me of the girl from the ring!