43. ...And to all a Good Game

It’s been a good year, eh? Now that it’s over I’m not sure it ended up being better than last year but it was still pretty great. Games such as Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Prince of Persia and Fallout 3 have kept me up late many a night and I’m looking forward to spending much more quality time with them (especially Fallout 3) over my Christmas vacation later this month.

I managed to stomach almost an hour of the Spike TV VGAs (winners) last night before I turned it off in disgust.  The entire thing is such a joke and the worst part is that I knew it going in.  I was watching the webcast which was abysmal in it’s quality.  I’ve seen amateur’s do WAY better.  In fact, if you want to see how multi-view should really be done then I suggest you check out this awesome episode of Diggnation.  GAH!  I just want to erase the entire event from my brain!  Next time we meet up with Geoff Keighley I’m going to give him a piece of my mind…

If you didn’t watch them, then maybe you don’t know that Rockstar’s GTA4 ended up taking Game of the Year.  It was a good game, for sure, but I can tell you that it didn’t make it into my personal top five experiences of the year.  I’m going to hold back my winners for a potential future comic later this month, but I am very curious as to what other people’s top three games of 2008 are (any platform, not just 360).  Leave a note in the comments below.

Cliff Bleszinski from Epic Games

X08 is pretty different for me than it is for most.  Typically, attendees fall into two different groups; people who are showing off their games and the people who are there to play them.  Myself? I’m there pretty much to meet people and network.  Yes it’s true, for me the games are secondary.

In fact, X08 marks the first X0 event where I’ve even picked up a controller.  I made it a point to get there early enough that I’d have time to play games in between conversations and I’m very glad I did because X08 was, by far, the best in the entire series.  No contest.  I guess the high-lights would be:

• Meeting everyone that I met! Fans, friends, gamers… they were all awesome.
• Meeting Cliff from Epic Games
  
• Meeting Donna from Electric Playground
  (I still feel bad because our camera was a little screwy and we had to take three pictures before it worked right!)
• Getting interviewed by Jake for I.X.
• Going to dinner afterward with the community

Of course, an X0 wouldn’t be complete without a few games. Read on, my friends.  Read on.