Top 10 PC Games of the Year 2008

Seven – Crysis: Warhead

Publisher: Electronic Arts
UK Price: £15.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $29.99 (ex. Tax)
Full Review Here

When the original Crysis was released it was a subject of much debate because, while the game definitely looked good and played OK, the steep hardware requirements meant that the definitive Crysis experience was off-limits for many.

Thankfully though a year later Crytek released Warhead – an optimised expansion pack that came out at a time when the market was just starting to catch up to Crysis’ demands. Crysis: Warhead was perfectly timed and fit into the market perfectly.

Borrowing an idea from other Electronic Arts partner Valve, Crysis: Warhead tells a parallel story to the original game, following the original plot and timeline but from a different viewpoint. Instead of playing through the eyes of Nomad, players take the role of Psycho – the less restrained Jason-Statham-alike of the original game.


Trapped on the other side of the island to Nomad, Psycho is pursuing objectives of his own as he evades aliens, kills Koreans and tries not to freeze to death in the flash-iced tropical island. It’s all south of FUBAR and all Psycho has is his stiff upper lip and an assault rifle.

Arguably better than the original game because it focuses on giving player more specifically memorable and explosive sections, Warhead is all about playing dirty with your nanosuit abilities and making big explosions. The original Crysis had its share of cool bits too, but the emphasis was always on trying to play your way. With Warhead though, Crytek showed that it understood how a linear, scripted experience can often be more powerful than an open sandbox one.

Six – Race Driver: GRID

Publisher: Codemasters
UK Price: £39.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $29.99 (ex. Tax)
Full Review Here

Race Driver: GRID looks like just any other racing game if you take it at face value. It’s got lots of narrow little street races, shiny cars and remarkably high polygon counts and a design which means you can’t really do very well until you’ve learned the tracks like the back of your hand.

So, really what’s to set GRID apart from any other racing game on the PC?


Well, to put it simply, it’s the huge amount of attention that has gone into every area of the game design. It isn’t just the cars that are shiny in GRID, the whole game practically sparkles because the entire thing has been polished to perfection.

GRID is sharper than your first lemon and slicker than the world's biggest water slide, with players zipping up and round the tracks faster than we can come up with witty analogies. The corners are tight, the competition fierce and the in-game physics so realistic that you’re lucky if you aren’t thrown out of your chair if you take a corner too hard.

If you do take a corner too hard then you’d better expect to feel the damage on your car too – the damage models are jaw dropping and you can come up with some truly fantastic crashes if you want to. Or if you’re just an awful driver like me. Either way, you can almost taste the burning metal as the gravel tears away the paint – that, combined with the accessible simulation-cum-arcade gameplay, makes Race Driver: GRID easily better than any other racing game we’ve seen this year.