The Geek Thinker: 2008 PC GAMES REVIEW

These are the PC Games that got my attention in 2008.

Sins of a Solar Empire
» Score: 8,0
» The Good: very interesting and original solutions for the RTS genre; great co-op gameplay.
» The Bad: no campaign (no background or story to link the levels).

Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath
» Score: 7,5
» The Good: the Global Conquest mode, the different factions.
» The Bad: weak campaign; no multiplayer or setting flexibility for the Global Conquest mode.

Assassin’s Creed
» Score: 8,0
» The Good: interesting story; great freedom.
» The Bad: buggy; lack of more RPG elements.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
» Score: 9,0
» The Good: total multiplayer support; good campaign and game modes; challenging AI (but just in Terrorist Hunt); simplified gameplay; amazing arsenal; the Terrorist Hunt mode is great, especially on co-op.
» The Bad: too similar to Vegas 1; weapons should be better configured, based on their real properties; campaign too easy and with weak ending; lacks of more tactical factor from the old R6 games; poor mod support.

Dawn of War: Soulstorm
» Score: 7,5
» The Good: well balanced new races, flying units, better meta-map game.
» The Bad: lower quality (story and especially graphics), if you compare with Dark Crusade. And… Sisters of Battle?!

Mass Effect
» Score: 9,5
» The Good: amazing graphics, levels, story, combat system…
» The Bad: confusing inventory; low replay factor; and the unforgiving: no multiplayer!

Spore
» Score: 6,5
» The Good: the first 2 phases, although too simple, are very charming. The creature creation tool is very impressive.
» The Bad: disappointing. The Tribal and Civilization Phases are ridiculous (RTS for babies?). The Space Phase is deeper but very confusing and endless (boring). Instead of really improving the gameplay, there will be dozens of useless add-ons. Massive Single-Player? Come on!

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization
» Score: 6,0
» The Good: it holds interest in the beginning.
» The Bad: much more limited than the other Civs. In terms of graphics and gameplay this game could be released 10 years ago and make no difference.

Guitar Hero Aerosmith
» Score: 5,0
» hmmm... well, the menu art is still very stylish and nice.
» The Bad: poor music selection (or it’s just the band?); no innovation in gameplay or new features (they even kept the same 3d art); few content… Would only fit as an expansion, not a full game. Totally dispensable if you have GH3.

Bully: Scholarship Edition
» Score: 7,0
» The Good: teenager’s life in hell: the first chapter is very cool.
» The Bad: some places in the map are terribly modeled; most of the mini-games are stupid; the game loses all the interest in the middle of the 2nd chapter.

King’s Bounty: The Legend
» Score: 6,5
» The Good: a beautiful clone of the Heroes of Might & Magic.
» The Bad: badly balanced: even when you win a battle you end up weaker than before.

World of Goo
» Score: 9,5
» The Good: surprising creative, addictive, clever and gorgeous. It proves you don’t need millions to make an amazing game.
» The Bad: we want more difficult levels!

Dead Space
» Score: 8,0
» The Good: the film-like atmosphere, the visual impact.
» The Bad: repetitive. At some point you start to get annoyed with the same enemies and places. As a horror third person game, it’s as not good and tense as the first Alone in the Dark (probably the best third person game I ever played).

Fallout 3
» Score: 9,0
» The Good: another amazing first person RPG from Bethesda, with a huge area to explore, beautiful graphics, great story, many interaction options and side quests, charming and clever design (“You are S.P.E.C.I.A.L”).
» The Bad: lack of enemy variety, low replay factor, badly balanced weapons, lack of multiplayer. Could work much better as a FPS (just by increasing the damage of the weapons).

Far Cry 2
» Score: 9,0
» The Good: great freedom, huge environment, nice in-game graphics and menu art, surprising AI, destructible environment, fun with fire!
» The Bad: limited multiplayer (what about a co-op?); at some point the game becomes very repetitive. You kill more people in Africa than a plague, which gets boring – the guard posts shouldn’t always refill with enemies. More unique quests would improve a lot the “campaign”.

Red Alert 3
» Score: 8,5
» The Good: high quality movies, campaign and design; naval combat; incredible support for co-op (including in campaign). And an astonishing vision: Gemma Atkinson.
» The Bad: too much fantasy; limited unit and tactical upgrades. Enough of this time traveling stuff. Generals is still the best C&C game.

Call of Duty: World at War
» Score: 8,0
» The Good: dark and gory; great multiplayer support, including co-op for the campaign.
» The Bad: your AI allies are useless and depend entirely on you to kill the enemies or to reach the checkpoints; the campaign is terribly linear; after 3 Call of Duties in WW2, the formula isn’t fresh anymore.

Left 4 Dead
» Score: 8,5
» The Good: the randomness; scary; well balanced weapons; fantastic multiplayer.
» The Bad: few levels; few weapons; the zombies should be more aggressive (sometimes they just wait for a bullet in their head); the difficulty increases (a little) too much in the ending of the levels.