Although it seems like 2008 may have been a good year for gaming, it was only a decent year for me. I did not buy many games this year, and of the games I played nothing was spectacular with the exception of Metal Gear Solid 4. No, I have not played Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, Crysis: Warhead, and many other games that people claim to be good. I guess you could say that I was unable to get into gaming this year. An explanation for this lack of interest could be that most of the big titles that people seem to love are not appealing to me anymore.

My lack of interest started somewhere around the end of 2007. All of the games that I anticipated were disappointments rather than totally ******* awesome like I expected them to be. Sure, my expectations may have been set too high that year, but out of all the potentially awesome games that came out, I was unable to find a single game that lasted me into 2008. Also, I read countless tales from the PC boards (among others) about how some game was the second coming of Christ and formed purchasing decisions based off of these personal testimonies rather than relying on my personal instincts that told me to stay away. Obviously, the betrayal of my instincts only led to further disappointment.

This year I decided to take a conservative approach to games. In most cases, I relied on my instincts rather than others' opinions of games. I did not buy a game unless I absolutely wanted to play it the day that it came out. This approach has served me well. As I mentioned before, I had a lot of fun with Metal Gear Solid 4; however, this year was not without its disappointments. Gears of War 2 was a big let down.

The first few days that I was playing Gears of War 2, I was talking about it in a very positive tone. But, after playing the game for more than a month, I can now tell you that it is not as amazing as I previously believed. I think this "over enjoyment" is bound to happen to us at one point in time and it is not limited to just games. Sometimes you buy something and you are not willing to face up to the fact that it is not as good as you expected and you end up overstating your enjoyment. Anyway, I would like to go into depth explaining why Gears of War 2 just doesn't do it for me. First, I will start with my opinion of the single player.

I was happy with Gears 2 for a while, then I realized I shouldn't be too happy.

Gears of War 2 is not a horrible game, just over-hyped and ultimately more of an expansion pack rather than an actual sequel. The single player component (I played it cooperatively) has received some major improvements. For example, the increase in the number of enemies you fight at one time and the large environments greatly supplement the action and pacing of the game. The action in general is just balls to the wall insane when you compare it to the rather slow-paced original. The problem is that with this insanity comes an unbelievably easy game. I can think of only one moment where the game challenged me on "Hardcore" difficulty. In contrast, Gears of War provided plenty of challenge the first time through and even more of a challenge on insane. No, I do not expect my games to be too challenging otherwise they are not fun, just annoying as hell. But I expect to die a few times and I did not die a whole lot in Gears 2. Along with the great pacing, Gears 2 receives a boost in visuals. The graphics in general are not ten times as superior as the visuals in the original, but I loved the environments in this game. The underground Locust architecture was especially grand. The problem with Gears of War 2 and the presentation of the visuals is that it never goes the distance. Meaning, although the architecture of the underground caverns is impressive, the direction of the visuals never captures me and causes me to say "wow, that's totally original and disgusting!" When given the brutality of the game, I expected something more reminiscent of hell; instead, Epic gave me something too humane for my tastes. So, although the visuals are impressive, none of them totally blew me away.

Gears of War did not feature a particularly memorable story and neither does Gears of War 2. Gears of War 2 tries hard to make a meaningful storyline through emphasis on characters and fails miserably. The characters in Gears of War were over-the-top macho men, so when the characters start to show emotions out of the blue it does not fit well. I remember hearing Dom's first "emotional" lines in Gears of War 2 and laughing. I am not suggesting that they should be stone cold killers, but there should be an apparent catalyst for the abrupt increase in emotion. Perhaps the death of an important character would have been more fitting, either that or an intense battle that ultimately results in retreat rather than victory. Dom only mentioned his wife once or twice in Gears of War, so asking me to care about this obscure relationship between two boring characters is asking too much. And since a large portion of the storyline focuses on this relationship and the search for Maria the story fails for me. Gears of War 2 also introduces some new, potentially interesting, characters, but their relevance to the story is short lived. Even though the original characters are not very interesting, they are more interesting than before, so I guess Epic is taking a step in the right direction. Still, I believe that they would have been far more successful with a great introduction sequence.

The love story between Dom and Maria is only a part of the story. The light-mass bomb failed and now the humans must rely on their last standing stronghold for survival. Like in Gears of War, this portion of the storyline drives the action and the characters face numerous sequences, which imitate great action movies. The problem I had with these action sequences is that I never felt intimidated by them. As I mentioned before, the difficulty in this game does not provide a challenge. So, having a giant worm thing attack me may sound crazy, but I never felt threatened; therefore, the intensity was non-existent. The presentation of these sequences could have been a lot better too. Epic had the right ideas, but they never executed them properly.

I do not want to ramble on and on about Gears of War 2, so I will move on to the multiplayer. Simply put, the multiplayer in Gears of War 2 is broken. If you have been reading about this game or playing it, then you are probably aware of these problems. Weird shotgun, long waits in match making (now improved, but not perfect), annoying flash grenades, people quitting after getting their asses kicked so you cannot rank up, and the list goes on. I have been talking with my brother about this game and we agree, Epic added too much things that do not fit the gameplay well. We actually went back and played Gears of War online and it was a lot better. The design of the maps and balancing of the weapons fits the gameplay perfectly in my opinion. Gears of War 2 screws everything up. Along with the standard multiplayer experience, there is a new game mode called Horde. A lot of people say that Horde mode alone is worth the $60, but I disagree. In Horde mode, you fight endless hordes of enemies with up to five friends online. Yes, this mode is very fun at first, but eventually it wares off. If Epic took the time to design maps specifically for Horde mode than it would have been a lot better. Imagine fighting tons of enemies in a much wider and more appropriate battlefield. Maps specifically designed for Horde mode would also allow the bigger enemies such as the Brumak into madness. Once again, Epic has the right idea, but the execution is weak.

Ultimately, Gears of War 2 feels more like an expansion pack rather than a sequel. I have talked about sequels not needing to reinvent the wheel every time, but I feel that the evolution from Gears of War to Gears of War 2 is almost not substantial enough to justify its label as a sequel. Maybe the pace of the game was too fast and it caused me to feel that the experience was over in a blink of an eye. Whatever the case is, I do not feel that Gears of War 2 had as big of an impact as the original.

Ok, that's enough with Gears 2. Now it is time for my game of the year! Metal Gear Solid 4 receives that award. This game is not perfect and I feel that I may have watched it more than played it, but in the end I was greatly entertained and that is what matters the most. On a side note, I just started to play Dead Space and I like that game a lot, so I'm not sure if MGS4 is set in stone, but for now it is my game of the year.

So, what do I expect to see in 2009? Well, lately my interest in PC gaming has diminished, but 2009 seems like the year to change my lack of interest. Assuming my PC will run the games that I want to play, it looks like a golden year for PC gaming. I do not follow games in depth anymore, so my expectations are not going to be set too high like they were in 2007. However, games like FEAR 2, Dawn of War 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 (please!), and Empire: Total War among countless others have all gotten my attention. My instincts tell me that these games are going to be solid titles. Now I can only hope that they deliver experiences that are notably superior to the originals. As for my Xbox 360, I do not expect to use it often next year. I cannot think of any Xbox 360 games to look forward to, and the PS3 looks like it is catching up in terms of quality. Hopefully games like Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 deliver the goods.

Anyway, I'm finished with this topic for now. I hope you folks had a great Christmas, holiday, day, whatever. And how was your year as far as gaming goes? Was it the best year ever or just decent like mine?