Worst Xbox 360 Games of the Year
- With more success and popularity and good titles comes a flood of completely awful ones (hey, just look at 90% of the Wii lineup), so it isn’t a surprise the Xbox 360 had its fair share of stinkers this year. Facebreaker and Don King Presents: Prizefighter both tried to pick up where Fight Night Round 3 left off, but failed miserably. Seriously, why even bother releasing such awful “boxing” games when your main competitor is still going to be light years ahead of you? Rapala Fishing Frenzy 2009 is the single worst fishing game in history. Period. Rock Revolution would have been awesome five years ago, but in 2008 a music game full of covers, an awful interface, bland graphics, and bad song list just doesn’t cut it. And Jumper: Griffin’s Story is a terrible movie game based on a terrible movie. What a combination!
Developer of the Year
- Winner – Rare – All of the forum discussions about how Rareware isn’t as good as they used to be when they were with Nintendo need to stop. What more proof do you need that Rare is still great? All the Twycross, England studio did in 2008 was produce two of the absolute best games on the Xbox 360 as well as the nifty Avatars on the New Xbox Experience. Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts are two of the most creative, addictive, best looking, crazy awesome games of 2008, and it is about time Rare got the credit it deserves.
Publisher of the Year
- Winner –EA – In previous years, EA came across as a bit of “Quantity over quality” in it’s releases. In 2008, however, EA’s titles were pretty high quality across the board. Battlefield Bad Company, C&C3 Kane’s Wrath and C&C Red Alert 3, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Burnout Paradise, FIFA 09, Tiger Woods 09, NHL 09, Mirror’s Edge, Rock Band 2, etc. (see reviews for all of them here) were all great. EA was on a roll in 2008 with new franchises, great updates to old favorites, and a consistently high quality all around. Keep doing stuff like this, EA. We like the kinder, gentler you.
Biggest Industry Villain
- Winner – Activision – The flip side to EA’s turnaround is Activision. It does earn some bonus points for not cranking out another Tony Hawk title in 08, but it threw away any goodwill there could have been when it passed on Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend, and Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and left those titles in limbo after the acquisition of Vivendi. The tactic of releasing games on a schedule rather than when they are actually finished isn’t working too well either, as many of Activision’s big releases in 2008 could have used a little more time in the oven. We criticize because we love, Activision, so please get your act together in 2009.
Biggest Industry Hero
- Winner – Criterion Games – Honestly, we never thought we would see it, and certainly not from a developer under the EA Games banner (but EA is kinder and gentler now, remember) but Criterion not only fully supported Burnout Paradise throughout 2008 but all of that new content and updates were completely free. There is going to be some paid content in 2009, but we’ll be happy to pay for it as it was pretty hard not to get your full $60 (or less since the game had a fairly quick price drop) out of the game in 2008. Criterion, you are a shining example of DLC done right, and we salute you.
Most Overhyped
- Winner-Grand Theft Auto IV – Only one game immediately came to mind in this category, and boy is it a doozy. GTAIV was fun and quite good really, but far from Game of the Year as other outlets have awarded it. The appeal of previous GTA games wasn’t the story or characters or awful missions, but just goofing off and making your own fun. In GTAIV, they took away all of our toys, focused on a goofy story that basically falls apart in the second half, and repeated the same terrible “Drive here, kill people, chase the stragglers when they drive way, the end”-type missions through the whole game. We liked it, but we just didn’t love GTAIV. And, honestly, how can GTAIV be the best game of the year when it isn’t the best open world city game on the Xbox 360 (Crackdown) or even the best GTA-style game (Saints Row 2)? Bold opinions – We have them.
Most Under Appreciated
- Whether it was because of so-so review scores from a few outlets, bad word of mouth about glitches or difficulty, or whatever, some incredibly fun games in 2008 got a bum rap and we want to fix it. Operation Darkness is flawed, certainly, but for strategy-RPG fans it is great fun. Quantum of Solace is a solid shooter with great multiplayer, but is criminally short. Viking: Battle for Asgard was pretty flawed for a full price game, but for $20 or less, it is awesome. Gamers were skeptical of Bully because of reports of glitches, but we got our 1000/1000 Gamerscore out of it so it couldn’t be that bad. And Midnight Club: LA was hammered for being too hard, but a new patch that makes it easier (and maybe you don’t suck at racing games like other gamers and reviewers apparently do) make it an awesome racing game. At the very least give these titles a rental.
Best XBLA Game
- Winner - Braid – Without a doubt, the most creative and unique Xbox Live Arcade title was Johnathan Blow’s amazing platformer, Braid. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the game looks like a painting come to life and features some amazing music to go along with the incredible gameplay. Braid is a must-play XBLA game, and easily the best of the year.
See our reviews for all of the games mentioned in this article and more right here.
