Ethan Kennerly

Great choices! I agree with the hypocrisy you mentioned with regard to BioShock... amusingly, Andrew Ryan was my favorite character in the game by far. I actually liked him, even more than my own character. Pretty strange.

I'm also glad you enjoyed Galaxy so much! I was worried at first that you weren't going to play it, as you seemed skeptical the first time I mentioned how much I was looking forward to it. Later I was happy to realize you had fun with it as I did.

My own favorite game moments:

5) Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - Loved the timed dungeon, loved the use of the stylus for everything. Truly a great experience and a showcase for the DS.

4) Phoenix Wright - This was the first year I really played these games and I was hooked as a pre-bedtime experience. Fun and humorous.

3) Portal - Still haven't finished it, in fact all I've played was at your house! But that alone was some of the most fun I've had with a game. Very inventive.

2) Rock Band - An amazing experience from the moment you open the box to when you ship off your faulty guitar, which really is a great excuse to just focus on your drumming.

1) Mario Galaxy - The game that truly expresses joy. I don't use the words "lovingly crafted" all that often, but this game evokes that phrase from me. The finely-tuned gameplay, combined with the most captivating score I've heard this year makes this my favorite moment of the year.

Tough question!

I'm not far afield from the lists I've seen thus far...

5) Puzzle Quest - A fantastic blending of the puzzle and Role-Playing genres, this got me to play Bejewelled like I was a 40-year old woman again.

4) Alhambra - A fantastic board game that I discovered JUST before the new year... as good as Catan, complex yet strangely intuitive.

3) Bioshock - Despite my previous whining, this WAS a really well-done, interesting game.

2) Portal - Portal is so damn lovable, so smart.

1) Mario Galaxy - But I agree with RJ, nothing gave me the sheer joy of Galaxy.

And yet, I have this Oscar-esque feeling that I'm forgetting a whole slew of games, games that came BEFORE November. Ah well. On to '08 and the sweet joy of Smash Brothers.

I remembered! Forget Alhambra, and bump Bioshock to #4... spot #3 belongs to the Flash game Desktop Tower Defense. This game is totally addictive and beautifully balanced, with the perfect amount of annoying sound effects. I spent most of the summer toiling over strategies for this game.

I personally feel that this year was a pretty exceptional year for videogames. The stuff posted already is an excellent chronicle of the best games of the year, but i thought i should mention a few more that might have gone unnoticed:

Hotel Dusk: a gorgeous point and click mystery for the DS. From the innovative control scheme to the impressive graphics engine, this game is an excellent successor to Trace Memory.

The Darkness: Starbreeze does not disappoint, both in graphics and emotional reaction. There are several innovations that bear noting, from the ambient interactivity of the television, to Mike Patton's amazing vocal work (undoubtably the best voiceover i have come across)

Calling All Cars: A throwback game that manages to be a ton of fun, and with a great sense of style as well.

Warhark: Probably the best multi-player experience on the PS3, and an excellent demonstration of the possibilities offered in DLC

skate: EA did an amazing job of reimagining the entire interface for skateboarding, and put the venerable Tony Hawk franchise to shame

I've heard (and seen) great things about The Darkness.... but I must disagree with you on Hotel Dusk. It was gutsy and I wanted to love it, but the spacing and execution of the puzzles (and the action-to-text ratio) killed my patience after two hours.

Trackback: http://softcore-gamer.com/blog/2008/01/happy-new-year.html

This was a great idea, Ethan. More in the post but, to summarize, here were my top five.

5. Once Upon a Time - Story-building card game I played for the first time this Christmas.
4. Elite Beat Agents - I don't know what it is. I just can't get enough of those guys.
3. Mass Effect - I had such high expectations of this game, it's amazing that I ended up feeling so satisfied by it.
2. The Baron - A short interactive fiction project that has a surprising amount of depth and is really quite beautiful.
1. Portal - It's not good for me to gush, but there's pretty much nothing I don't love about Portal.