Coming on the back of 2007, which saw the release of two of the biggest hits ever in the shooter genre - Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, 2008 had a tough act to follow. While gamers were spoiled for choice with a slew of top notch shooters this year, the quality and staying power of most of them remain to be seen. Let us run through the long list.
Gears of War 2
The sequel to one of the Xbox 360’s most beloved exclusives released to excellent reviews and astounding sales. Epic Games had one catch phrase to promote the sequel, “Bigger, Better and more Badass”, and they delivered on this promise in spades. Epic focused on refining and improving the proven “cover shooter” mechanics of the original Gears of War and using the latest version of Unreal Engine 3, Gears of War 2 had it all; spell binding graphics, thumping sound, tight gameplay and fun multiplayer, including the ability to play out the whole campaign with a friend over Xbox LIVE or splitscreen on the same console. In addition to all this, they also managed to squeeze in a semblance of a storyline and an unexpected, but welcome dose of emotion into the single player campaign. Improved gameplay mechanics like chainsaw duels, meat shields, crawling when downed, and portable shields, coupled with new weapons like the flamethrower, gorgon pistol, mortar and minigun as well as the unbelievably fun new multiplayer game mode called Horde have ensured that Gears of War 2 has firmly stamped its name on 2008.
The Academy of Animation and Gaming in NOIDA and E-Sportz are together organising the AAG Gaming Championship ‘09 in early January, giving competitive gamers the opportunity to showcase the skills against the best in the country across three games – Counter-Strike, FIFA 09, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
We’re almost at the end of 2008, but there’s just enough left for us to squeeze in another GI Offer. Being Christmas time and the end of the year and all that, Excel Interactive, distributors for PC games from EA and Disney in India, have come up with a bundle offer just for GamingIndians members.
With Xbox LIVE, PSN, and Steam becoming more and more popular with gamers, both independent developers and big publishers have embraced digital distribution of their games. As a result, we have been treated to a long list of enjoyable downloadable titles, which include both rehashed classics as well as innovative new IPs. Here are the nominees for GamingIndians’ Best Downloadable Game of 2008:
