entropia

Games released in the months prior to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time:

• Half-Life
• Grim Fandango
• Fallout 2
• Metal Gear Solid
• Unreal
• Starcraft
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6

Games released in the months prior to Grand Theft Auto 4:

• Generic Shooter Part 3
• Generic Brawler Part 3
• Other Generic Shooter Part 4
• Super Mario Galaxy

1998 reads like a Top Games of All Time list¹. 2008 hadn’t had anything memorable until GTA4. Sure, Smash Brothers Brawl was huge for fans of the series, but it’s nothing new like MGS or Rainbow 6. You have to go back to last year for Unreal 3 and Call of Duty 4, and they’re nothing compared to Half-Life, which is still on almost everyone’s top 10 list².

I’m sure GTA4 is great. Not as fresh as the previous versions, but maybe more fun. But I believe its place as the highest ranking game of all time according to GameRankings.com is inflated due to the complete lack of anything else.

And here’s something else I thought was interesting. The user rating for GTA4 is around 8.0. The user ratings for the other top games on GameRankings are must higher, mostly around 9.0. I’m not sure what that means.

1. Not my list, not by a long shot [↩]
2. Except mine [↩]