1) Naughty Dog- Out of all of the devs this generation, Naughty Dog have proven to be the most capable. For starters, they have created one of the most beautiful, and graphically intense games released this generation with a sequal following this year that looks even better then the Heralded Killzone 2 and with a much smaller production budget and smaller team. In addition to this, their work is exclusively on a console that has been attacked for being hard to develope for by other devs because it's unique architecture, and not only has Naughty Dog conquered the PS3 but it has been revealed that they help other devs get the most out of the PS3 as well. Because of this overall, Naughty Dog has proven, at least imo, to be the most skilled dev of this generation.
2) Insomniac- Insomniac, again is a developer who exclusively does work with the PS3, which again has been attacked for being extremely hard to develope for. While some may question the quality of some of their games such as Resistance 1 and 2, it can't be overlooked that this is a small developer who somehow has the capablility to push out a new game every single year of a quality that is equal to or greater then any most games on the market, many of which take anywhere from 2-3 years to release. Resistance 1 was possibly one of the greatest games to be published during the release of a console which is even more impressive when talking about a console that is as hard to develope for as the PS3. While it obviously wasn't anywhere near the greatest shooter ever released it was a highly capable and unique shooter that carved it's own identity through unique weapons, a unique story, and horror elements. In addition to Resistance 1, Resistance 2 saw release only a couple of months ago and while not revolutionary, it improved apon the original in every single way one could imagine including upping the number of players in a competitive match to an unprecidented 60 players for a console game and introducing an even more impressive 8 person co-op that was both addicting and fun. The single player was both short and uninspired but managed to put many enemies with inteligent AI on screen at once, huge boss encounters and much of the game looked absolutely beautiful with many of the textures looking unchated-like in detail. Of course the game was huge and suffered because of this ambition with much dull and almost non-existant texture work in some areas. Either way, it's hard to believe that such a small developer could push out such a huge ambitious title within the time frame that they did. Even more impressive however is the level of quality shown in the Ratchet and Clank games developed this gen by Insomniac. The graphics are increadible, the game full of polish, and again the games are released only a year aftert a previous insomniac game. In addition to all of this, Insomniac also released a Ratchet and Clank PSN game this past year with all of the graphical power, polish and shine found in a full retail Ratchet and Clank game. While insomniac's titles are not my favorite games of this gen, the developer has more then gained my respect.
3) Epic- What Epic has done that has amazed me is push the graphic capabilities available on the 360 to new levels in addition to creating one of my newest favorite gaming series of this generation. While it can be argued that they took shortcuts in doing so, it's hard to argue that the final product of Epic's Gears of War titles are anything less then amazing. In addition to the increadible graphics of the Gears of War titles, Epic also released Unreal Tournament 3, which was again, another amazing looking game to come from the developer. In addition to this, Epic also outsources it's Unreal engine for other developers to use, but none can come to the amazing level of graphics that Epic can squeeze out of their engine. A few things do turn me away from Epic however, so much that I almost didn't put them on my list. For one their games have bad pop in, in addition to almost every game made with their engine. Secondly, Gears of War 2's multiplayer is broken, to this day even months after release I can't play online which is just absurd and I will surely remember this fact when thinking of purchasing future Epic games. Furthermore, Cliffy B is just a huge dick who can't shut his mouth, but that doesn't really reflect the developer as a whole. Still, at the end of the day, Epic has impressed me more then any other developer on the 360 and surely deserves a spot on the list.
Runner Up:
Kojima Productions- The reason why Kojima Productions doesn't make the list isn't due to the quality of their games. In fact, their games are perhaps the most polished, bug and glitch free games I've ever played. The reason why they don't make the list is because they are a much larger developer then the ones I mentioned. Over 200 employees worked on MGS4, and the title also required a huge production budget. While I find their final product is top notch in terms of graphics and polish, the resources they required to reach that final product are much larger then the smaller developers for whom I mentioned above.
So, now that you know my favorites, feel free to post your own. And please, do your best to explain why. ;)
