2008 - oh what a lovely year..or was it? Lets take a look at last year's gaming highlights.
FPS- or First Person Shooter.
Crysis Warhead - PC
For £15 this gem of a shooter incoperates standard FPS conventions and a measly 7-8hr gamplay on the single player mode. However the multiplayer mode comes with a large number of maps and will provide great gameplay for a while to come. Vehicles such as heli's and tanks play apart but this is no Battlefield 2. Crysis is fast and frantic and requires 1gb Ram and realistically a 512MB graphics card to keep up with the award winning graphics. Great value for money on a FPS, Crysis fits the bill. Available via Steam and Games For Windows now.
RPG
Two massive releases this year. One set in Washington the other in Liberty City, aka New York. The crucial difference lies with the settings. Post- Apocalyptic Washington provides the backdrop for Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3. Described as Oblivion with Guns, Fallout 3 provides around 80 hrs of gameplay. A massive world, a interesting shooting system and decent voice acting, including Donald Sutherland's. Fallout 3 is a lovely, well crafted RPG that again rasies the bar for RPG gaming. With a wonderful attention to detail the world created above and below ground bleeds atmosphere through the restricted colour palettes of the nculear wasteland. While not a perfect game it gets everything sufficiently right to mean you can spend 40 hrs of game time in the wasteland and never be bored.
Casual / Puzzle
There is only one possible contender for this prize. Simply because it has grabbed so many non gamers with its gameplay, art style and price. For £15 World Of Goo is the is simply, tricky but always logical. Think of it a Meccano meets Lemmings with an art style stolen The Nightmare Before Christmas. Good clean fun.
More coming up in my next post!
