Some have said that 2007 is the new 1998, but I don't think that 2007 can really be hailed as a year that was as great as 1998, partly because not as many amazing games came out, and partly because most of those games are either direct or indirect(such as Crysis) sequels to other games, some of which came out in 1998. I remember a long time ago when Gamespot did a special with that one show on G4TV(forgot the name of which) about 1998 and how it was the greatest year in gaming, someone said that it was because virtually every genre in gaming was either defined or redefined. I think that as time goes on, we will be able to see if that holds true for 2007 games, as many games have certainly upped the ante for what to expect for a given genre, but I don't feel that all genres have really been improved upon to the degree that they were in 1998.

Any way, my top five picks would be:

Orange Box(PC)- all three games in my opinion are outstanding, I personally played through episode 2 about 5 times and plan on doing it again before I go back to school, and I played through portal about three times. Episode 2 starts off slow just like every other Half-Life game, but once it picks up it's pace, it becomes one of the single best single-player experiences to be had in gaming. It's hard to start playing the game and not wanting to just go ahead and finish it, partly because it's so damn well paced and fun, and partly because the end is literally just 3 or 4 hours away. Portal is pretty much the most unique game of the year that I've played. The game is unnaturaly funny, it's just so weird to have humor in a videogame, and it's also just damn fun to do the fling. But to me, the game I played more than any other game this year is most definantly Team Fortress 2 and TF2 is really my personal GoTY.

I was a little sketchy going into the game at first, but about 2 weeks after it came out I realized that "oh yeah, this is a Valve multiplayer game." Playing the game never gets old because every c.lass is so unique and although there are only 6 maps, they are each extremely well-designed and I have yet to get bored of any of them. The game's atmosphere is just so fun. All the characters are just fin to watch, which is very rare for a multiplayer shooter. The game is instantly accessible yet has extreme depth. Each c.lass takes hours of playing to master. The game is designed better than any other game in recent memory. Everything in the game is just perfect in my opinion. THe way that before going into each match, you are reminded of your personal bests, and given motivation to do better. The way that the game only tracks your points and not kills/deaths so that it encourages you to be a support role or just not be afraid to get killed. The way that an uber-charge can completely break a stalemate. The way that a player coming through a teleporter is marked so that the opposing team knows that there's a teleporter near by. The list just goes on and on. Valve has completely retook the position of best multiplayer FPS designers in my mind with TF2.

Crysis- The main reason I upgraded my PC this year (also the fact that my old one sort of broke , Crysis is the best looking game I ever played, but it is also in my opinion just about the best first-person shooting that can be had in a videogame for the first half of the game. Once you go into the alien ship however, it looses a lot of it's draw, but the sheer novelty of zero-gravity and fighting in a frozen jungle is enough to carry the game through the back half. It's a shame that the multiplayer doesn't have the things that make it so damn fun in the single-player though, such as the destructible environments and physics.
Crysis truly raises the bar for how the act of shooting a gun should be handled in a game far more than any other game in recent memory. It also brings the level of interactivity with the world much higher than any other shooter in the market. It's such a shame that it is selling so poorly, hopefully though as next year it becomes cheaper to get a PC that can properly run Crysis, it's sells will catch up.

World in Conflict- I was hooked on this game within about 20 minutes of playing the alpha of it back in May, and although I still have display driver problems with it running on DX10 and Vista (The only game I have installed that has problems), it is still a blast to play. The single-player was really fun I thought, and for a change, I thought that the narration and presentation of the story was very well done, and pretty much it was much, much more engrossing than any other strategy game on the market. It had a very believable and compelling story to tell coupled the fact that all the characters are very well developed. It managed to do Red Dawn without being Red Dawn, so to speak.
The multiplayer in the game is what got me hooked on it in the first place, and is pretty much the most unique online experience I've had this year, and pretty much second only to Team Fortress 2 to me. All the maps are very fun, and the way that teamwork is encouraged more than in any other strategy game on the market, where each player HAS to work with each other in order to win, and fill their roll, really makes this the funnest strategy game I've played online since StarCraft.

God of War 2- The original was my favorite game of 2005, and pretty much my favorite console game in modern gaming. The sequel in my opinion is even better. It's longer, more boss fights, a few new mechanics that add a lot of depth but keep it simple(such as the golden fleece), and a plethora of extras that kept me coming back longer than most games with multiplayer. This is also probably one of the only games that I played that had a huge cliffhanger ending(which there were PLENTY of this year), but still left me satisfied at the end (probably the best end boss fight of any game I've played this year, but then again, not a lot of end boss fights in games any more...). Definantly deserves the mantle it has as the last game that I'll play brand new on my PS2.

Bioshock- I too strongly forgot why it was that I liked this game so much back in August. I remember though that I had one particular time, I think the 2nd day that I was playing it, that I started a session at around 4:00 and when I stopped playing a bit to use the bathroom, it was 8:30. Bioshock is defiantly an engrossing game. I personally thought that the world created was incredible, but after I played through it, I couldn't help but wonder to myself, "what was the game about again?" I feel that the game had an incredible world, very good atmosphere(but not the best), but the story sort of falls apart when you meet Andrew Ryan. So I was his son? Why did Atlas have to speak in an accent if I had no memory of his true identity in the first place? Maybe I just need to pay more attention to the game, because I usually like a game with a good story, and I usually do my best to pay attention, but for some reason I just couldn't quite come to grip with the story until after beating it and then reading the plot outline on Wikipedia. Which is weird, because I'm able to follow the Metal Gear Solid storylines with little trouble (well, except for MGS2 .
In the end, even if it's my fault that I can't really appreciate the story as much as most, I consider this one of the top 5 mostly because it's extremely fun to fight Big Daddys. Easily one of the best enemies in a game. I just wish that the act of fighting enemies in the game was more fun as well, because there is a lot of potential in it. In the end, this passage about Bioshock that is probably too long is more of a rant on it's flaws despite the fact that I consider it to be the 5th best game of the year that I've played, which should be a good enough testament to it's well, goodness.

It should be noted that I have not played Super Mario Galaxy, partly because it's still impossible to find a Wii, partly because I'm pissed at Nintendo for it still being impossible to find a Wii, but mostly because I don't feel good about buying a Wii for just one game that I'll play.

Dissapointments:

Yeah, Assassin's Creed borders from pretty cool to total crap when you are on your like 7th pick-pocket mission, which is so insanely short and simple that it just makes me mad that it's in the game, but then it gets way hard just to get to the place to do it because every guard who sees you fall starts a chase sequence, which gets pretty boring after about 4 hours of the game. Comma-splice anyone?

STALKER- I wish it would be at least unbuggy enough to play through the game, but I got about six hours in and a bug happened where it would crash whenever I left a sector, and since the auto saving is so horrible, I would have to restart the whole game after it just started to get interesting. It is currently uninstalled.

Call of Duty 4- The campaign is pretty fun, although it is pretty much JUST like the other 2 from Infinity Ward except for different weapons. It did have a much better storyline(in that it had a storyline) and thankfully had very few vehicle missions(which were always the very low points of CoD games), and admittedly the one where you're up in a plane is pretty cool.
The multiplayer In my opinion was pretty lame. It basically plays identical to the original back in 2003, which was pretty fun back then, but I got tired of that gameplay back then as well. I don't really know what it is about it, but I just don't like the way it plays. The perks and ranks don't really affect the way the game plays at all, and in the end that is what really matters in a multiplayer FPS, not unlocking stuff. And to be fair, that has more to me not liking the pacing of CoD4's multiplayer than the game itself not being good.


Well that was a much longer post than expected, and I honestly don't know if I expect anyone to read it at all. I guess it's good that I put all my thoughts on the big games I played this year down somewhere though, I pretty much covered everything.

NOTE: the word c.lass is spelled with a . due to the restrictions on the site.