GAMES OF THE GENERATION General Thread

[odessasteps]

Well I didnt feel right submitting one since I had never played PS3 stuff

That changes THIS WEEK

Burying the lead

[SirSmUgly]

Question: I know you give eligible consoles, so does that lock out PC-only games from the generation? I wanted to give Civ 4 or 5 a shout-out if possible. 

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

That does lock out PC-only games, since there is no such thing as a "generation" for PC games. Hardware changes are incremental and constant on PC, and that's the opposite of the the key characteristic between console generations (new, better hardware). So as a result, with PC games you can do something like "best of the decade," which would be a much harder proposition with console games.

[SirSmUgly]

That does lock out PC-only games, since there is no such thing as a "generation" for PC games. Hardware changes are incremental and constant on PC, and that's the opposite of the the key characteristic between console generations (new, better hardware). So as a result, with PC games you can do something like "best of the decade," which would be a much harder proposition with console games.

 

Whoops, I think I sent a ballot with Civ V on it. I meant to just save draft, but that's my fault. I'll revise that list and bump it, then. Thanks for the swift reply.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

finals are trying to kill me, so, congratulations, moving the date back to JANUARY 10th.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

psst. it's January 7th.

 

I successfully obtained a second ballot in the intervening time between the last deadline and this coming one.

 

Is this even real still?

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I guess not.

 

 

Congratulations to Red Dead Redemption, the Official DVDVR Game of the Generation*. The runners up** are Burnout Paradise, Batman Arkham City, and Alpha Protocol.

 

*on account of being the only game in the top 20 of all three ballots (my 13th, raziel's 7th, smelly's 6th). 

**the first place games of the only three ballots

 

 

what's weird is that even through a uselessly limited sample size I think that's a pretty good representative group of this generation. Cover shooting, open world fetish, the influence of parkour on platforming, stories that were trying even harder to be action movies, RPG elements baked into action game mechanics, and widespread online multiplayer.

[Raziel]

Well, I know that with 3 ballots we won't get a countdown, but I'd like to see what we had on our lists.

 

I also regret not submitting a revised list since I've played the Dead Space Series, Prototype 2, Rainbow Moon, and Kingdoms of Amalur since submitting my original list.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Here's my 50.

 

1. Burnout Paradise

2. Cave Story
3. Rock Band
4. Gears of War
5. The Orange Box
6. Dark Souls
7. Rayman Origins
8. Spec Ops: The Line
9. Saints Row: the Third
10. Super Mario Galaxy
11. Monaco
12. Mass Effect 2
13. RDRedemption
14. XCOM
15. AC Brotherhood
16. Skate 2
17. Mario Kart DS
18. Left 4 Dead
19. Pac-Man CE DX
20. Braid
21. CoD4
22. New Super Mario Wii
23. Mortal Kombat
24. Street Fighter IV
25. Gears of War 2
26. Picross 3D
27. Rhythm Heaven
28. Virtua Fighter 5
29. NHL 09
30. NFL Blitz
31. Wii Sports
32. Divekick
33. Portal 2
34. Lumines
35. Trials Evolution
36. Bastion
37. The Dishwasher
38. Dynasty Warriors 7
39. Viva Pinata
40. Mega Man 9
41. UFC 2009
42. Dirt 2
43. Tomb Raider
44. DmC: Devil May Cry
45. Sleeping Dogs
46. LA Noire
47. Geometry Wars 2
48. Trine
49. Pixeljunk Shooter
50. Far Cry 2

[Salads]

I still haven't played enough Gen7 to feel guilty about not submitting my ballot, but thanks to those that did.

 

I'll attempt some commentary to try and get some more discussion out of this thread/project (without hyper-critiquing individual lists): After completing DVDVR's GOTG I scored it 5/10, which is a great deal better than the typical gaming website's 5/10 but still ultimately a not-good one, so that will be my courageous dissenting opinion of the day. I have Paradise in my backlog and am Interested to see it do so well as after playing Takedown I picked up a GC copy of Burnout 2 predicting it to be the pinnacle of the series. City better than Asylum confirmed? Might pick it up on Wii U for the same reason I did Human Revolution - so that I can get enough of a taste of touchscreen inventory management to ruin all games from now until the end of time that won't have it. Alpha Protocol is a name that keeps popping up but I'm still unconvinced for some reason.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Oh shit, I totally had a thing to say about this but I blanked and forgot to get back to it.

I'd watch out about the Wii U Arkham City. The frame rate from that looked brutal back when Giant Bomb played it at the Wii U launch, and since the combat is timing based that might ruin the whole experience.

 

I think Burnout Paradise is completely amazing, but it's worth keeping in mind that I didn't really play the other Burnouts for an extended period of time. The thing that makes Burnout great is since the level distribution is done through the open world and since they have incentivized exploring and wandering from mission to mission in the ways that it has, there is never a point where I'm playing Burnout Paradise and not engaged- either curious about the world, or wide eyed and fully into the racing. The driving feels great in a way that makes the new cars you get very, very individual. Plus, the way you unlock cars (finish enough missions and the car will start roaming the city, so you have to chase it down and take it down) gets you a unique kind of rivalry experience with certain harder cars. The soundtrack isn't awesome, but you can turn tracks off individually, so I end up turning the music to the orchestral part of the soundtrack and turning up the car sounds (which are also great). Bottom line, Burnout Paradise is aptly named.

 

I've got no opinion on Alpha Protocol, and bad mean opinons about Batman which I never share here because I understand I'm totally in the minority. The best summary is "If you're going to make Batman a kung fu movie, make it a Jackie Chan one because Bruce Lee movies are fucking boring."

[Salads]

Funny you mentioning the soundtrack as one of my hype pluses for Burnout 2 was the idea of Burnout with a pre-EA soundtrack. I've read almost nothing about the game and the whole open world racing idea is slightly odd to me, though the only Burnout I've properly played is 3 and that did have layers and layers of stuff that could've been tied together in a more involving way than just progressively unlocking menus so sure. In contrast I didn't think Arkham Asylum was that great but could see it translating better than most to the 'let's make it open world!' developer pitch.

[SirSmUgly]

I just did a top thirty on my ballot.

 

1. Alpha Protocol (360, PS3)

2. Sonic Generations (360, PS3)

3. Saints Row 2 (360, PS3)

4. Fallout 3 (PS3, 360)

5. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360, PS3)

6. Red Dead Redemption (360, PS3)

7. Fallout: New Vegas (360, PS3)

8. The Walking Dead: Season One (360, PS3, Vita)

9. Costume Quest (360, PS3)

10. BioShock (360, PS3)

11. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)

12. Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (PS3)

13. Rayman Origins (Wii, PS3, 360)

14. Plants vs. Zombies (360, PS3, DS)

15. Saints Row The Third (360, PS3)

16. Iron Brigade (360) 

17. Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)

18. Crackdown (360)

19. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)

20. Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS)

21. Sonic Colors (Wii)

22. Bastion (360, PS3)

23. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (360, PS3)

24. All-Pro Football 2K8 (360, PS3)

25. Tropico 4 (360)

26. Injustice: Gods Among Us (360, PS3)

27. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

28. Stacking (360)

29. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (Wii)

30. Wii Sports (Wii)

 

I have only one regret: I played Rayman Legends on PS4 and it totally slipped my mind that it got 360 and PS3 releases as well (even if it was optimized for WiiU). If I were to place that game on this list, I'd have it either third or fourth. In any case, since the WiiU is the optimal version, I'll feel comfortable placing it on a Gen8 best-of list, and I would definitely rank it on any Gen8 ballot I do (and right now, I'd have it at #1 on that list). 

[The Natural]

My ballot would be something like this:

 

1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)

2. Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360)

3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)

4. EA Sports MMA (Xbox 360)

5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

6. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

7. Lego Marvel Super Heroes (Xbox 360)

8. WWE ‘13 (Xbox 360)

9. FIFA ’12 (Xbox 360)

10. Wii Sports (Wii)

11. Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)

12. Assassins Creed II (Xbox 360)

13. Saints Row: The Third (Xbox 360)

14. de Blob (Wii)

15. WWE 2K14 (Xbox 360)

16. UFC Undisputed 3 (Xbox 360)

17. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360)

18. LEGO Batman: The Video Game (Wii)

19. FIFA ‘10 (Xbox 360)

20. Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘10 (Xbox 360)