I played 16 PC and other miscellaneous games for fun in 2008 and finished three of them.

As I did last year, I’ve compiled a list of the games that I played for fun in 2008. One list per major gaming platform.

(Check out the rest of my 2008 Gaming Playlists for other platforms, updated daily until New Year’s.)

Today’s entry is all about the games that didn’t fit into my other posts. These are the PC games, the one iPod game, a GameCube game and other odds and ends.

What did I play? And which three games did I finish?

Take a look below: Read more…

Yesterday I reported that Microsoft sent me a Christmas card that waspromoting a logo for something called the Windows Gaming eXperience instead of the expected Games for Windows mark.

I had figured out that WGX is an internal group, but still wondered what it meant that Microsoft was showing the logo in the card.

A spokesperson for the company has notified me that I shouldn’t over-think it. The company is not re-branding Games for Windows:

“Windows Gaming eXperience (WGX) is an internal Microsoft group encompassing all of Microsoft’s Windows gaming efforts, including Games for Windows, Games for Windows – LIVE, MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger Games. While Games for Windows falls under WGX, WGX is strictly an internal group, and in no way a rebranding of Games for Windows.”

So much for news being broken via Christmas cards.

Related Posts:
Holiday Card Surprise: What Is Microsoft’s ‘Windows Gaming eXperience’?

Do companies ever break news in their Christmas cards?

Did Microsoft just do so to me?

Here’s the Happy Holidays card I just got from Microsoft, which includes a nice greeting from John Schappert, Microsoft corporate v.p. of Xbox Live, Software and services. From the outside, nothing, other than an appropriate use of snowmobiles, appears to be amiss:

But then, if you open the card … news appears to be lurking inside: Read more…

When news broke yesterday that Atari is acquiring MMO developer Cryptic Studios, we wondered how this would affect their upcoming titles “Star Trek Online” and “Champions Online.”

In a statement made to MTV Multiplayer, Cryptic’s Chief Creative Officer Jack Emmert said, “This deal allows Cryptic to put its full focus on both games, as opposed to trying to do that and steer the boat of [business development]… Atari has been awesome. They’ve made it clear that they bought Cryptic for who we are and what we do. I’ve asked for as much feedback as they can handle, while Atari has made it clear they trust us to make these titles great.”

When we asked if it was more likely to see the company’s MMOs on consoles given Atari’s console background, he said, “I’m afraid I’ll just need to answer this one, well, cryptically. We’ve built ‘Champions’ to run on the Xbox 360 and there’s absolutely no technical limitations there. As for the PS3, we haven’t announced anything.”

And as for how this will affect the current publishing deal for “Champions Online,” which is being published by 2K Games next year, Emmert declined to comment on those details.

“It’s been a great high for the last couple of weeks,” Daniel Suarez, Activision’s executive producer for “Call of Duty: World At War” told me in an interview last week. Happy is any man whose game has launched so well that it topped — his words — the “bajillion pound gorilla” that is “World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King” in sales in the U.K in its launch week.

Suarez and I talked about a number of things during out interview, some of which I’ve covered here on Multiplayer this week — plans for upcoming DLC for the game and where the game’s surprising Nazi Zombie mode came from.

The first topic of my interview, however, was how the development team at Treyarch dealt with making a game in the shadow of “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.” That was the bajillion-pound gorilla as far as I was concerned.

It’s not every year that a development team puts out a game that so many critics don’t expect to be better than last year’s installment. How do you deal with that pressure? Read more…

If you were jumping up and down about yesterday’s “Dungeon Keeper” MMO announcement, you might want to read this.

The franchise had been dormant since “Dungeon Keeper 2″ was released in 1999, but rights holder Electronic Arts recently granted the license to Chinese MMO developer NetDragon for a “Dungeon Keeper” MMO specifically targeted at the Asian market.

Obviously, fans were excited. But when asked by MTV Multiplayer whether EA would consider the “Dungeon Keeper” MMO over here, the publisher was quiet.

“That release was targeted for China but went out in English because our agreement with NetDragon includes the possibility of publishing in other markets in the region,” said an EA spokesperson in an e-mailed statement. “As for the West, we’re very aware of ‘Dungeon Keeper’’s intense fan base, but we’re not making any announcements related to publishing the game in North America or Europe.”

“Dungeon Keeper” is one of “Fable” creator Peter Molyneux’s most cherished classics; a game that flipped RPG conventions. Instead of raiding the dungeon as the hero, you protected it as the villain in a strategy setting.

Even if the “Dungeon Keeper” MMO doesn’t show up here, its mere existence as a concept should bring hope to series fans. EA remembers “Dungeon Keeper” has fans, and that’s one step closer to a new game than we were before.

Get ready for a twist, “Call of Duty” fans.

Even though the new “Call of Duty: World At War” is succeeding with consumers and critics by sticking to the successful adrenaline-fueled formula of its franchise predecessor, new downloadable content coming to the game in 2009 will represent a break from 2007’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.”

How much of a break from the “Modern Warfare” DLC will it be? Read more…

My MTV News colleague Jennifer Vineyard recently got on the phone with comics writer Geoff Johns and was kind enough to ask him some questions about writing the upcoming Sony Online Entertainment massively multiplayer online PC/PS3 game “DC Universe Online.”

Johns gave her the basics of how he’s approaching the game:

“Lots of gamers create their own characters. Everyone knows Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, but this game gets you more entrenched in the universe. You meet the Metal Men, or Doom Patrol, and everyone gets a chance to embody something different. I like the idea that your secret identity is really outside the computer. You’re a normal guy, and then when you log on to the game, you become the superhero.”

Good enough. But that was the easy part. How about a weirder question? Read more…

Last week, MMO website TenTonHammer confirmed layoffs at Funcom’s U.S. branch.

The Norway-based developer of “Age of Conan” acknowledged the “staffing cuts,” which reportedly affected 70% of the U.S. branch in the Customer Service and Quality Assurance departments, as “part of our ongoing cost based efficiency and performance initiatives that are vital to any business.”

We followed up with Funcom about how the cuts would affect “Age of Conan” and to check on the status of Xbox 360 version of the game in development. Product manager Erling Ellingsen told us via e-mail:

“Our aim is for this to not affect development of ‘Age of Conan,’ or any of our other games, at all. We are sticking firmly to our plans. The Xbox 360 version of the game is still in production, but as before we are not committing to any specific dates. I wish I could give you more information, but I can’t at the time being.”

“Age of Conan” was released in May and the Xbox 360 version was slated for 2009.

Related Posts:
Funcom Defends ‘Age of Conan,’ Unfurls Plans To Improve Game
Funcom: Departure Of ‘Age Of Conan’ Game Director Will Make MMO More ‘Player-Centric’
Sitcom Audience Finds ‘Age Of Conan’ Hilarious

Last week the first retail expansion for “The Lord of the Rings Online” titled “Mines of Moria” was released.

But hot on the heels of the “World of Warcraft” expansion “Wrath of the Lich King,” would “LotRO” still be “the one game to rule them all” for its playerbase?

Right before the game’s launch, I spoke with executive producer Jeffrey Steefel about competing with “WoW” and “Warhammer Online” and what Turbine’s future plans are for “LotRO.” Read more…

Despite suggestions from elsewhere in Electronic Arts, the game developers at DICE who made “Mirror’s Edge” refused to even prototype a third-person version of their daring new game.

They declined to do many of the things people might have expected from the creators of the violent and successful “Battlefield” series.

Instead, by sticking to their guns, they created one of the freshest-feeling games of 2008. They did so by creating a first-person platforming game whose protagonist literally doesn’t stick to her guns.

I recently interviewed Sweden-based “Mirror’s Edge” producer Tom Farrer by phone to talk about the risks taken in this most unusual EA game. It turns out that his team changed quite a few things. And they considered leaving guns out altogether: Read more…

Are you not sure what game to buy? Perhaps we here at Multiplayer can help.

Since August, I have played through:

• Too Human
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
• Spore
• LEGO Batman
• Lock’s Quest
• Bothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway
• Dead Space
• Fable II
• Gears of War 2
• Resistance 2
• Mirror’s Edge
• Call of Duty: World At War

And I have played several hours of:

• Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise
• Wario Land: Shake It
• Wii Music
• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
• LittleBigPlanet
• Fallout 3
• Left 4 Dead
• Tomb Raider: Underworld
• MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
• de Blob
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Plus, Patrick and Tracey have played a ton of games, even those music ones!

So… what do you need to know to make your shopping decisions easier? We can help.

Photo: Brad Barket/Getty Images