Forget the split decision. Little Mac has knocked out the critics.

With an average review score of 8.9 out of 10 on Metacritic, Punch-Out!! has nudged the newly released Boom Blox Bash Party and cult classic Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure out of their spots among the Wii’s ten most critically acclaimed games of all-time.

Metacritic aggregates reviews from Web and print media for average scores. As of today, the Punch-Out!! rating is based on 23 reviews.

An overdue revival of Nintendo’s revered NES and SNES franchise, Punch-Out!! released to retail this week and we’ve absolutely loved it. Now we’re asking you—does Punch-Out!! belong among Wii’s elite?

According to the collective group of video game critics, these are the best games of 2008:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (98 — 360, 98 — PS3)
2. LittleBigPlanet (95 — PS3)
3. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (94 — PS3)
4. BioShock (94 — PS3) and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (94 — PS2)
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (93 — Wii) and Gears of War 2 (93 — 360)
6. Chrono Trigger (93 — DS) and Braid (93 — 360)
7. World of Goo (94 — Wii, 91 — PC / AVERAGE: 92.5)
8. Fallout 3 (93 — 360, 92 — PS3, 92 — PC / AVERAGE: 92) and Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Armor (92 — PC)
9. Rock Band 2 (92 — 360, 91 — PS3 / AVERAGE: 91.5)
10. God of War: Chains of Olympus (91 — PSP) and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (91 — PC)

My thoughts: GTA IV is good (but I couldn’t play it past 20 hours for becoming monotonous), LPB is cute but boring, MGS4 is archaic, Bioshock is a good time, Brawl is fun but overrated (I’d rather play Mario Kart), Gears of War 2′s story makes me blush with embarrasment, I didn’t play Chrono Trigger, Braid is fun but overrated, World of Goo is tops (!), I didn’t play Fallout 3 but Jack gushes over it, Rock Band 2 is “fully awesome” (can you name the movie?), Chains of Olympus isn’t near as good as God of War 2, and I don’t play WoW. You?