Vote Now for Best Video Game of 2008: An Old Fashioned Ballot Poll (By Gum It's Been Awhile)

Hey all, I'm volunteering to take this one on.

Please submit your ballot via email to me at
forksclovetofu at gmail dot com
in Pazz and Jop style vote/point format: You'll have 100 points to divide among your Top 10 games released in 2008, with each entry receiving no more than 30 points or less than 5 points. If you'd rather not rank individually, just assign 10 points per game. I'll list the top 50 games of '08 in the final results, presuming I get enough entries.

Additionally, please include the single game released this year that was your biggest disappointment. This can mean it didn't live up to your expectations, flat out sucked, didn't quite get it right... whatever "biggest disappointment" means to you. I'll list the top ten biggest disappointments.

Please note your username on the ballot and the system you personally played each game on. If you have the time and inclination, write a little bit about why you're voting for each game and I'll include some of the best comments with the winners. I may ask for comment writers in this thread once the ball gets rolling.

DEADLINE FOR ENTRY IS JANUARY 25th; I'll try to have the final results posted by February 1st. I

Pointless obsessive rules:

1) One entry per person.

2) If you don't assign points to your picks, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you do assign points but they add up as either more or less than a hundred, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you assign over 30 or under 5 points to any individual game, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you list more than ten games, I'll just take the top ten on your list. If you include a game that clearly didn't come out in 2008, it won't be counted. Ask on this thread if you want to check to see if your pick is valid; you can also check this thread: Last Chance to Nominate: Best Video Games of 2008

3) Flash games, art games, MMORPGs, video card and party games are all entirely valid choices as long as they were released in '08.
I will also accept any game that has been re-released this year in a new format/console. That means Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Mother 3, even Zapper for the XBox DLC are legit picks. Here's the catch though: I do ask that you keep in the spirit of the thing and only vote for reissues if you played them THIS YEAR on the new format/system they were released in ONLY... in other words, I won't vote for Bioshock on PS3, even though it's probably the best game I played this year, because I didn't play it on the PS3. Similarly, if you played an emulation of Chrono Trigger this year, don't vote for the DS version.

Things that shouldn't be nominated: fantasy sports, board games, card games, puzzles, table rpgs, etc. Just keep it to video games, please.

Make sense? Then VOTE!

aaaaaand, clearly I mean best game of 2008. It's late. I'm going to bed.

Since it deserves to place, I'd like to recommend everyone play the very enjoyable, and fairly short Violet: A Distraction.

The client to play it is either WINDOWS or MAC - and you can download the game here.

Highly recommend! Everyone play! Rate it highly!

neither Yakuza 2 nor Crash Commando is on the list - can they be added?

Both were released in the US in '08, so sure.

just sent mine in, sorry about the long long biggest disappointment rant at the end, but i feel much better now (and could have gone on more, but why do that to you?)

I edited it up nice and tight and angry.

awesome

I'll probably vote for Violet - I thought it was cute, although it left me a bit cold - actually I spent 20% of my time playing kind of outraged how this genuine first-time-author game was so much better implemented than any other IF I'd played - it sort of confirmed to me that when standard IF doesn't understand me it's the culture being wicked insular rather than some technical inability to do so?

I don't think your impression is wrong at all. I think IF games have a certain "language" they're written in, and they expect you to speak in that language to play them. And that's definitely one thing I loved about Violet - how outside that "language" the game seems to exist.

My unspoken goal for this thing is to get at least a hundred ballots and really generate a broad cross-section. That means we need some lurkers... and maybe another board to contribute? In any case, get your significant game playing others to vote!
We're at six as of today! Vote or Die!

you really fucked up at that unspoken bit

although "this plan is going to take some lurkers" A++++

I'll settle for fifty?

Two weeks people! Get your votes in early so's I can get this ready in short order! Still only six ballots cast thus far; let's aim for (at the very least) all the ILG regulars so there's not moanin' and bitchin' when Fallout3/MGS4/LBP/yourfavegameher is in 33rd place.

so every game has to get more than 30 points?

What? Don't understand the question.

like, each?

tofu I emailed you at bbking.

poly: cool got it.
S1ocks: no, you can only assign a maximum of 30 points or a minimum of five to a game. there's a whole bunch in the top fifty right now with only five points.

I like that you established the rule about having had to play the game this year, so it'll reflect games that were actually played more than other lists would. It also made me realize that while I've played a ton of games this year, a relatively small percentage actually came out this year. Just sent off my ballot...

Got it! Nine votes and counting; pretty much every ballot is rearranging the top ten right now.

hey forx (fct?) if u want i can get some coworkers and maybe some other game designer dudes 2 contribute obv they dont post to ilx but it might help give you a couple more data pts

Oh hai I don' play so many games last year, my ballot jus' be GTA and GRID and some other crap I forgot and maybe that flash cricket game if it was made last year, prob not. Shd I bother?

Lamp, that would be great. I'm looking for broadest response.
Ledge, I'll take whatever. If all you played was three games this year, you're a gamer.

Eleven ballots in... I know we got more people on this board than that!

who is this forksclovetofu guy and why does he keep insisting people send him multiple-thousand-word essays on video games?

(said by antexit to me)

just busting your balls forks

still working on my ballot during downtime at work. short version: Yakuza 2 FTW.

http://gizmondohomeworld.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/835918_Ball_Buster_banner.237190000_std.jpg
Caught with hand in the cookiejar: I'm reselling these essays on the lucrative video game blog circuit.

tell antexit to go back on xbox live sometime, he's alphabetically the top of my friends and he has no avatar. UGLYING UP THE JOINT.

actually probably make it less ugly. why are avatar hands as long as the rest of their arms euuuuuughguhghghg :(

i think he got kicked off

for being a bad-ass.

I deleted antexit from my xbl list a long time ago; ur next brilliam

cozwn, I think you and I are the most often online XBOXers. We totally have to game together.

I don't think we have any of the same games dude!! are you getting SFIV?

Nope. ;_;

Let me compare our games.

I think I've only XBOXed w/dan m, jimd and mpx4a : /

how do i love thee? let me compare our games.

If I get L4D, we can play together.

forks is on a bunch but he's all netflixing n stuff

Oh, we both have Fable!

nah I sold tht when they delayed the DLC o_O

Uh ohs.

Catan??

just forget it dude!! it isn't meant to be

You have 1000 more achievement points than me. :( :( :(

i'm always netflixin or fallout these days.
I've played L4D like TWICE and need to fire that thing up.

Writers Guild of America Nominations for Best Game Writing

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA). Writer: Haris Orkin. Story Producer: Mical Pedriana.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! (Mousechief). Writing: Keith Nemitz. Additional Writing: Adrianne Ambrose.

Fallout 3 (Bethesda). Lead Writer: Emil Pagliarulo. Quest Writing: Erik J. Caponi, Brian Chapin, Jon Paul Duvall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Alan Nanes, Bruce Nesmith, and Fred Zeleny. Additional Quest Writing: Nate Ellis, William Killeen, Mark Nelson, and Justin McSweeney.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts). Writers: Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.

Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos). Story: Eric Lindstrom and Toby Guard. Screenplay: Eric Lindstrom.

I'm amazed that they got 2 of my favorite games of 2008 -- and suddenly I realize I fucked up my ballot.

ALL OF YOU VOTE FOR DANGEROUS HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS IN TROUBLE

I woulda been hassling more on this thread for votes but I've been in the ER and hospital on and off for the past six days and couldn't.
SO VOTE NOW! Last chance is the 25th! Only about sixteen votes so far! I'm lookin' at you!

I have sent a vote email now. :)

Wha happen, forks?!

was the controllerectomy successful

I webmailed my ballot, let me know if you didn't get it. ps get well soon.

incapacitating stomach cramps and intense nausea. three emergency room visits and a two day stay in hospital in the past week. Doctors thought it was diverticulitis but ultimately couldn't diagnose. I had a 48 hour period of no food/water and got pumped full of antibiotics.
Things i cannot recommend: St. Vincent's ER, morphine, hospitalization, liquid synthetic penicillin, whatever the fuck I had.
Things i can recommend: having enough free (though painful) time to get to dracula on Castlevania: Delicatessen

Craig and Ledge: gotcha ballots.

Twenty ballots in; there's some interesting trends. At this point, any one vote could break a game into the top ten and less than fifty points separates number 2 from number 11. Number one is starting to look like a runaway.

Number one is starting to look like a runaway.

Fallout3ahemahemcoughcough

It's in the top ten, but don't be so sure!

I have a hard time imagining another runaway #1, tho.

Unless OMG DANGEROUS GIRLS IN TROUBLE RUNAWAY NUMBER 1 ????

get well soon forks!!!

Shit man, isn't St. Vincent's the one that Bringing Out the Dead was based on? I know a friend who had a stay there once, he said it was pretty awful. Get well soon!

hey tombot email me your aim name willya

Last chance to vote during the workweek proper!
Waste the end of your Friday sending me a ballot goddammit!
22 thus far; let's get it to 50!
Votes received from Mitch Krpata and Iroquois Pliskin!

Hah, I remember Mitch when he was just some guy who posted on the Pitchfork forums. Now he's nerd-famous!

i voted

and yer vote is counted jeff!

I got kicked off XBLA, it's true. Sorry guyz :(

What happened?

They don't give you a reason, but if I had to guess it was probably all the piracy.

What kind of piracy can you engage in on XBLA?

I mean kicked off XBL.

What did you pirate?

You mean besides all the video games?

Last day tomorrow folks! Get me them ballots please so's I can try and post this on February 1.

Final Day! Post your stuff on this thread or mail it to me ASAP please.

still working on mine; I had to work both days this weekend so I haven't gotten a chance to finish up my eternal comments. what's the final final final deadline time?

Monday afternoon will be fine if you can't get to a computer. I'd say anything past Monday is done.

Last call for ballots.

sent last night

hm. didn't get it! wanna remail?

just sent it again - did it go through this time?

um. no! Wanna post it here and we'll call this thing closed?

Awesome, got it. Thanks.

is ilx poster forksclovetofu still alive????

I'll check CNN but it doesn't look good

First batch of winners to be announced tonight. Keep the flame burning.

this would have been really awkward if you had come back to post that you were ded.

It'll happen sooner or later.
Have any of the known ILX stalwarts died when they were actively posting? Or is this board still too young?

yes. no.

listen some of us have dinner plans and boring jobs okay

i'm a ghost btw