Dear everyone who came to Fidgit in the last few days,

Firstly, I'm sure my overlords at the Sci Fi Channel Corporate Office of Guys in Suits Studying Print-outs With Lots of Numbers will be pleased at all the traffic for the lists of most disappointing and most overrated games of 2008. But I promise you that had nothing to do with why I wrote them. Personally, I couldn't care less. I'm just a writer here. Unlike certain other blogs or link farms that steered many of you here, I don't get paid by the page view. It doesn't behoove me in the least to be crassly controversial, or misleading, or deliberately inflammatory. It's the job of other people at Sci Fi to care about the numbers, and until I hear from them that something's amiss, I'm just going to keep passing along things I hope you find interesting.

But based on some of the reactions to the lists, I realize that I owe many of you an apology.

I've written here and elsewhere -- and often at great length -- about many of the games I counted as disappointing or overrated. So it didn't occur to me how many new readers would take my remarks as dismissive or uninformed. I put a lot of thought into the lists of games I considered disappointing and overrated; but I confess I didn't put as much thought into actually writing those lists. Instead, I paid more attention to writing up my favorite games of the year, which is a far more interesting subject to me. Just as I'd rather read or listen to people talking about things they love, I'd rather write about things I love. I assume that's also true of you guys. So the other lists got short shrift, with only a few brief comments.

If you feel a game you like was slighted, I can hardly blame you. If you're gone forever, I can't do anything about that. But if you're back, and if you're reading this, I'm happy to provide more detail so you don't think your game was slighted unfairly. After the jump, I've included links to other things I've written about the games on the lists. I don't intend this as self-promotion, but as elaboration for the admittedly snippy comments I made in the lists of disappointing and overrated games. Feel free to check out the links.

And then, if you'd like to once again ask me to shut up, die, or perform fellatio, there's always the comments section below.

Regards,

Tom Chick

P.S. Read the gritty details after the jump. Just be aware they might make you even more mad!

For the ten titles on the list of most disappointing games, here is my review of Motorstorm: Pacific Rift. Two indicators of my early excitement about Civilization: Revolution are here and here. And here is my review, intended mostly for a non-gamer audience. You'll find a couple of more detailed comments I made about the AI here and here. Here is a sort of post-mortem I wrote after playing Mercenaries 2. Here are ten reasons not to play Age of Conan, which I used as a format to explain why I didn't like it. Here's a slightly more in-depth conversation, but it requires wading through a lot of in-jokes amongst people who know each other. Here is my review of No More Heroes.

Here is my review of Red Alert 3. You can read a bit here about me looking forward to Siren: Blood Curse, and then you can follow along from episode to episode as a write a series of game diaries while I play it from start to finish. The Siren game diaries begin here, with links at the bottom of every entry that will take you to the next entry. Here is my review of Too Human, and here's some goofing on the dialogue, which I think offers a bit of insight into how seriously the game take itself. Here is my review of Force Unleashed, which includes a begrudging respect for the story, also expressed briefly here. And finally, here is my review of Haze.

For my ten titles on the list of most overrated games, some of which I really liked, here is my review of Civilization IV: Colonization (note that I'm as guilty as anyone of singing its praises, but the review is very clear about the caveats that should go with it). My game diaries for Colonization detail the fourth and last game I played, in which I lost and realized I really have no idea how someone is supposed to actually beat this wonderful thing.

I haven't written a lot about Left 4 Dead, which is a fresh release, but I hope I made my mixed feelings about it clear. It's a wonderful design and a fresh perspective on multiplayer gaming. But I feel that the pace of Left 4 Dead is a bit overbearing, and although most of the experiences I've had with it are awesome, there's a sort of sameness to them. Left 4 Dead definitely has its place among the greatest multiplayer games, but not its place among the most remarkable games of 2008. Fortunately, my opinion will matter not one whit; it looks like Left 4 Dead will do very well for the developers Valve. I'm glad. I know some of the people who made it and I admire the creativity and talent that went into it. There are no games this year that I have a more personal interest in seeing succeed. So go, Left 4 Dead, go!

As for Burnout: Paradise, I have a long history with that series. Like nearly everyone, I adored the first two. As you can read here, my disappointment started to kick in with the third game. As the need for speed eclipsed the joy of wrecks, it got to be less and less like driving. Since I'm an erstwhile flight sim fan, I've always been a sucker for good physics. But Burnout became more like those bits in Looney Toons when Wile E. Coyote straps rockets onto rollerskates. Consider, too, how much I've always liked the Midnight Club series, which is the direction Burnout: Paradise took minus the emphasis on traffic, making for a lifeless and sterile city.

I haven't written a lot on Spore, simply because I haven't liked it very much. You can read a few specifics here, but calling Spore overrated is hardly a controversial thing to say. So let's move on.

My Wii Fit dig was the briefest cut of all. However, I've logged a solid two weeks of messing around with that horrid little program daily. Here is where it all started. I haven't written much about Mass Effect online (by the way, it was definitely a mistake on my part to include it with the 2008 releases; I was indeed thinking of the PC release). Here's a bit of me fumbling with the inventory and here's an excerpt from a print review for Sci Fi Magazine:

The creators of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games have set out to create their own Jedi-less universe. The result is certainly interesting, with a powerful Babylon Five vibe and enough back story crammed into their online encyclopedia to fuel a dozen more games...Unfortunately, there's a lot of middling and even confused gameplay along the way. There are bits that play like an clunky shooter, and bits that play like a clunky driving game. Planetary exploration is just dungeon crawling. The interface can be a huge hassle and the character development is poorly documented, so leveling up is like fumbling in the dark. But underneath all this, there's still that compelling story and the sorts of tough moral choices that made Knights of the Old Republic so memorable.

My main objection is how little it advanced the basic model Bioware's been using ever since the original Knights of the Old Republic. And while I realize it's hard to launch a new IP, there was nothing in the Mass Effect universe that really grabbed me. Consider, too, that I was playing it at the same time as Assassin's Creed, as noted here:

Assassin's Creed is ruining my experience with Mass Effect, a game built like any other BioWare game, assembled piecemeal from little rooms populated with a few desultory characters. I'm supposed to be in some grand space station at the center of the galaxy, with millions of inhabitants from dozens of alien races. Instead, I'm in a room with a couple of dudes over there, and my imagination has to fill in the rest. But it can't, because it's remembering Damascus.

Thanks Assassin's Creed, you jerk, for helping kill Mass Effect! But the point remains that I feel Bioware's way of doing RPGs is outdated, hence the long-in-the-tooth comment.

Here's is my Metal Gear Solid 4 review. There's nothing you fans can tell me that I haven't already heard, but feel free to let fly anyway. Just leave my mother out of it, please. Here are my comments on Braid. As with Left 4 Dead, I'm delighted this game is doing well for the strictly personal reason that I know the guy who made it. I honestly wish it all the success it's had, and then some.

Here is one of my final experiences with Little Big Planet, I game I kept trying to love. I don't intend to give up. I will probably try it every month or so, perennially reappreciating it as a wonderful conduit through which the work of creative people can be reduced to jumping challenges.

And finally, Grand Theft Auto IV. Ah, Niko. Niko, Niko. Here are my impressions after eight hours. Here are my impressions after fifty hours. Here is my review of the PC version. I adore this game. I truly do. But it's deeply flawed and I feel any conversation about Grand Theft Auto IV that doesn't take into account those flaws does gamers a disservice. Hence my choice of Grand Theft Auto IV as the most overrated game of 2008.