Well, what about...

Film and videogames? If the last.fm post was concerned with 2008 and music, what about the other two forms of entertainment I partake in? The quick and dirty is this:

My favorite movies of 2008:
1) Wall-E
2) The Dark Knight
3) Forgetting Sarah Marshall

My favorite games of 2008:
1) Fallout 3
2) Tales of Vesperia
3) Metal Gear Solid 4

Now, what made me put Wall-E above the Dark Knight? I didn't give it much thought, actually. I just thought about how much better Wall-E made me feel and how much wonder it instilled in me as compared to the Dark Knight. While I was impressed with the Dark Knight, coming out of it, the two things I had on my mind where what villains could possibly be in the sequel and that it wasn't as good (to me) as Batman Begins. Wall-E on the other hand, made me want to dance.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall was probably my favorite comedy of this year, although Pineapple Express and Step Brothers deserve attention as well. However, to me, Forgetting Sarah Marshall surpasses those because of its heart.

If I were able to put BioShock as my game of the year again this year I totally would, but seeing as how that's unfair, I went with what I enjoyed the most. Fallout 3 may have missed the mark with the Fallout universe in a few important ways (humor, other solutions besides combat), but its world was so completely engaging that I couldn't help but fall in love.

Tales of Vesperia I was impressed with because it was the first great Japanese RPG of this hardware generation and it made me remember why I loved them so much in the SNES and PS1 days. While there are plenty of "better" games with more polish, Vesperia brought out the obsessive in me and made me spend more than 100 hours in its world, which should say all that needs to be said about it.

The Metal Gear Solids have always proven to be important landmarks in gaming, and Metal Gear Solid 4 was no different. The production value was stellar and it actually succeeded in making sense of the sordid and confusing Metal Gear plotline, which many thought to be impossible. I still like Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence better, but MGS4 has many merits of its own. Really the only complaint I have is that you can't install the entire game to the PS3's hard drive, only the current chapter you're on.

The saddest part of gaming in 2008 for me, however, was the downfall of the music game genre. Sure, sales will probably still be big for this year, but unfortunately, I think I'm completely over it. There's just too many SKUs (Guitar Hero disgustingly so) and too many new plastic instruments. If Rock Band where the only music platform out there, I'd probably be much happier. Rock Band 2 does lots of things right like having a "no fail mode" and being able to install Rock Band 1 to the hard drive, but the fatigue is still there. And let's not even talk about the embarrassing Wii Music or Rock Revolution...

Really, I'm a bit disappointed in 2008 for gaming in general. There were a lot of good games, but to me, there weren't a lot of great games. Or maybe if I stopped comparing everything to BioShock and how it blew my mind, I'd be having more fun. So I guess Ken Levine = slayer of happiness.