What's up Dtoiders, happy holidays!

It's been awhile -_- But work is finally reached a point where I have free time again, so hopefully I can finally get around to finishing that painting I owe Conrad (I haven't forgotten man!). Ive only been occasionally commenting the past few months. It'e been so long that I took me a while to remember how to write a post due to some format changes (which are nice btw).

Anyway, I thought I post a quick lightning review of the games I played in 2008. This isn't all the games I acquired this year, just the stuff that was released in 08. I felt it unnecessarily to list the backlog of pre 08 games I acquired this year cause that would be a really long ass post.

Games that I had high expectations for that turned out to be utter shit
Alone in the Dark 360 - Buggy piece of shit.
Infinite Undiscovery - Lame Story, Lame Characters, Crappy Animation, Boring Gameplay
The Last Remnant - Lame Story, Lame Characters, Crappy Animation, Boring Gameplay, and Buggy and Unfinished

Games that I had high expectations for that turned out to be rather disappointing
Army of Two - Turned out to be not that fun. Co op gameplay left something to be desired.
Eternal Sonata - Very standard feeling RPG, slow, unnecessary, and long ass cutscenes.

Games that kinda sucked
Viking: Battle for Asgard - generic hack and slash.
Silent Hill: Origins - wtf is this?
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon - Harvest moon games are either really good or really bad. This was really bad.

Games that I wanted to enjoy, lied to myself and said I enjoyed while playing, only to realize that I didn't enjoy it at all after playing it
Fable II - I want my 15 hours back.

Games that were ok
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - I guess it was cool to get some more story angles on the FFVII world. it was just an average game.
Culdcept SAGA - ok for a card game I guess. Gets really old after awhile.

Games that I bought and barely played
Phantasy Star Portable (jp) - just wanted to get a preview because I'm excited about the US version. Seems good so far.
Eternal Poison - Slow paced, lots of lot loading. I shelved this.
PixelJunk Eden - pretty
Soulcalibur IV - not a big fan of fighters. I bought it just because.
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - I fell asleep.
echochrome - unique.
Warhawk - Operation: Broken Mirror - I think I've played warhawk like....twice.
Warhawk - Operation: Omega Dawn - I don't even know why I bought these.
Arcana Heart - school girl version of street fighter or kof.
Ikaruga - one of the hardest games ever. kicked my ass.
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword - some one gave me this, never played it.
Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection - I bought this just cause I was missing the original games.
Wild ARMs XF - didn't play this yet. probably sucks.
Triggerheart Exelica - I have no idea how to play this.
N+ - I haven't played this yet.
Sins of a Solar Empire - I played like one tutorial level and gave up.
PixelJunk Monsters - your basic tower defense game.
Omega Five - I suck at this
Crash Commando - not sure what I'm playing here.
Castlevania Chronicles - haven't played this yet.

Games I let other people play for me because I didn't feel like playing it myself
Battlefield: Bad Company - stuff blows up
Dark Sector - you get some sorta sharp thingy on your arm.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - people die

Flawed games that were still fun
Operation Darkness - this game is ugly, has a crap camera, but when you get a hang of the game play, it's actually quite fun. if only it were on valkyria chronicles level of quality, this game would of been amazing.

Games that were fun while it lasted
Mirror's Edge - Some of the levels really give you a rush. Pretty exciting, very short. Parkour is fun, fighting is not.
Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice - I never liked disgaea but I found this to be alot of fun. If you like tactical games, give this a shot.
SIREN: Blood Curse - pretty creepy. Challenging, but not frustrating like the Siren that came out on ps2.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - Cutscenes are long as shit. I enjoyed this the 2nd time through when I was able to skip all the freaking cutscenes.
Grand Theft Auto IV - Honestly, I never liked GTA that much, but I found this game to be far deeper then the rest of series. Nico was a rather likable character.
Patapon - pon pon pata pon!

Games that caught me by surprise in how fun they were
Valkyria Chronicles - I had really low expecations for this game. However, this is one of the best strategy games I've played this year. It was really lovely and involving. Beautiful pastoral color palette.
Dead Space - I never liked over the shoulder shooters, but I played through this 3 times. Beautifully lit, nice animation, smooth frame rate, well paced. All in all excellent craftmanship in the making of this game.
Silent Hill: Homecoming - I was apprehensive since this was made stateside, but I found myself very satisfied with this iteration of the series. Creepy. Great sound design and lighting.
Tales of Vesperia - Tales is another series that I've always been pretty neutral towards. It's very much like other tales games, but they killed a small amount of the suffocating cutesyness (now it's just bareably cute), which made it much more fun.
Lost Odyssey - I had really low expecations for this, but this by far trumps any Square Enix game I've played this year.
Burnout Paradise - most fun I've ever had in a driving game.

Games that I highly enjoyed
Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon - I think the rune factory branch off is my favorite of the harvest moon series. if you like harvest moon, you should like this. Starts really slow though.
Left 4 Dead - Dear god this is alot of fun with friends.
LittleBigPlanet - I don't think I need to mention how cool this game is.
Castle Crashers - Quirky, fun, and fast
Bionic Commando Rearmed - Beautiful and nostalgic

If pants could get pregnant, I'd be having triplets games. none of these games need descriptions. they're just flat out amazing.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Fallout 3
Mega Man 9
Braid

That was my lightning review. Hope everyone's having a merry christmas and happy new yeardespite the economy and the world going to utter shit this year! Hopefully I won't get piled with work in 09 so I can get some cool new paintings done for you guys.

also, bonus if you recognize what my new headphones are from.