Best Games of 2007

all the ones people bought tons of

There's still at least one new game I'm planning to buy this year (possible three, depending on money / time)

Tombot is such a video-game poptimist.

KANE AND LYNCH

the previous message was brought to you by Eidos.

If I had to pick one, I'd pick five - for me, the orange box was the best new game I bought this year - especially because I'd never played though any of content on the disc before. My only slight gripes would be that TF2 is still too laggy and still locks-up (though I still played a ton of it anyway - also felt like it could have used a few more maps and gametypes), and that the frequent loading screens throughout the rest of the games felt a bit awkward & that they were only there out of laziness (there had to be a better solution).

Portal. Episode 2. Witcher, maybe. Haven't played Bioshock yet.

surely games I havent played like Mass Effect and Mario Galaxy.

Mario Galaxy. Guit Hero III. God of War II. Kororinpa. Puzzle Quest.

Would've liked to have played a few xbox games.

mario, zelda, metroid prime.

bioshock, portal.

FM2008

portal

to be fair it's only game (inc orange box) i bought this year.

New York Times Crosswords DS

I don't think I actually enjoyed any of the games I bought as new releases this year that much. I got too many people that need presents this year, I'm not spending on myself until 2008.

New York Times Crosswords DS

I almost bought a DS just for this.

I wish the interface was just a little better, but it's probably the best it can be under the circumstances.

Still WoW.

I'll agree on crosswords.

call of duty 4 and english fire pro

BUSHIDO BLADE FOR PS1

I'm with Tracer Hand except I'm going to have to put Rogue Galaxy and Excite Truck over BB

surprised at no noms for Zelda DS or Halo 3

bioshock, portal.

also I keep reading this in the tone of "no shit, sherlock."

or "for real, n****"

Portal, BioShock, Kane & Lynch (seriously!), Uncharted, Fire Pro, Persona 3, Odin Sphere, Hotel Dusk, Eternal Sonata, GrimGrimoire, Heavenly Sword, CoD4, WarTech: Senko no Ronde, Bullet Witch, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, R&C Future, Stranglehold...

u a rich mang

nah just don't have much else to spend money on right now. I forgot Folklore, Ar tonelico and Tomb Raider Anniversary. :D

Can ILG nominate games of the year, and then vote on them, like ILM does with albums and singles and whatever else? We could even run it on ILE, so people would pay attention to it, and just post the results here...

Call of duty 4.

We can call our poll Coint and Plick instead of Pazz and Jop!

Haha, yeah!

Anyway, as of today, my top 25 of the year... (i only have a 360, ds, crappy pc, and ps2. i have never even seen a ps3 in real life. i've seen psps, but never played one. so, keep that in mind, i guess.)

1. Mass Effect
2. Call of Duty 4
3. Pac-Man C.E.
4. The Orange Box
5. Football Manager 2008
6. Picross DS
7. New York Times Crossword
8. Pokemon Pearl
9. EXIT
10. Persona 3
11. Bioshock
12. Stranglehold
13. Puzzle Fighter
14. Every Extend Extra Extreme
15. Hotel Dusk Room 215
16. Glory Days 2
17. Front Mission
18. Luminous Arc
19. Halo 3
20. Beautiful Katamari
21. Skate.
22. Odin Sphere
23. (placeheld)
24. (placeheld)
25. (placeheld)

The last three I haven't decided yet, and won't decide until I see Sensible World of Soccer, Crackdown, Assassin's Creed, Omega Five, NHL 08, Senko no Ronde, N+, Eternal Sonata, and Rez HD (...or the year ends, whichever comes first).

In theory, I really like Pacman C.E., in practice, I found it was just too hard to control with the xbox joystick (possible just because pacman goes so fast) - almost every time I died in that game was becuase of the pacman moving wrong (me pushing up, him going straight, etc).

Also - Beautiful Katamari doesn't belong on a top 1000 list

Is this what you meant by Puzzle Fighter?
http://welcomeconsumer.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/puzzle_fighter_screen.jpg

Weird, Pacman CE works just fine for me.

1. Portal
2. skate
3. Watching other people play Bioshock, COD 4, Halo, Half-Life 2, etc.
4. WarioWare: Smooth Moves
5. Pac Man CE
6. God of War II
7. Rock Band
8. Madden 08 (haha, I'm pathetic)
9. Lost Planet (If I'm being honest, I'd probably put this even higher)
10. Space Giraffe
10a. Worms for the XBLA

I wish I'd played more Wii games but didn't have much of a chance this year.

I'm glad to see Space Giraffe make it onto the list. A very misunderstood game. Definitely one of my favorites of the year (though since they reset the leaderboards, it seems to have gotten a little harder too, if that's possible - maybe they tweaked the difficulty?).

Sensible World of Soccer, Crackdown, Assassin's Creed, Omega Five, NHL 08, Senko no Ronde, N+, Eternal Sonata, and Rez HD

Out of all that, based on the rest of your list I'd say you should try Eternal Sonata next. Crackdown and Assassin's Creed are basically the same game so pick the one with the setting you like best.

I found Crackdown totally addicting and fun, especially playing it co-op. It's the definition of a shallow game, but the world they created, the way you power up your character not only through your actions but through collecting various orbs scattered around the cities, give the game plenty of life.

Has the price come down yet?

It is one of those games though - where once you've done the missions (most of which can be beaten in a couple of minutes), and powered up your character, it's not very replayable & you probably wouldn't want to start a save over from scratch

Yeah, I feel that AC is much the same way. They give you this big open world to play around in, but when it comes down to actually doing the things required to advance in the game, there's not much to it. Both are pretty fun for what they are, though.

Yeah, I meant the Super Puzzle Fighter HD Remix... I recognize that it isn't "really" a 2007 game, just a prettied-up older game, but I feel it got juuuust enoguh of a facelift for me to include it. Plus, most people I know had no way to play it (other than ps1 emulators) until it came out there, so I only got the versus experience w/ the xbla release.

as far as space giraffe... i started getting into it, and actually really enjoyed the game mechanics, but i find it EXCEEDINGLY difficult to get past the UI (or, I guess, the graphics). it looks like something the somethingawful guys would make as a joke on shitty flash games. i'd hardly call myself a graphics whore, but some games are just so powerfully ugly that i can't see past that exterior.

been looking for E. Sonata on craigslist... hopefully i'll get a crack at it before the year's out. crackdown, as well. i dunno it it had an official price drop but i saw it a couple of times on CL for cheap-ish. To be honest though, I'm not really all about games with a huge amt of replay value... if it delivers an exciting and inspiring first playthrough, I'm happy. Like Mass Effect, which, despite all of its flaws, really inspired the shit outta me.

I'm actually really loving Assassin's Creed, although I was hell-bent on selling it back until I got to the first actual assassination (the frame story is quite possibly the most charmlessly inexplicable story in a videogame since the 8-bit days, and I am usually adamantly not someone who gives even one fuck about stories in videogames). It's an outstanding game to just futz around in, though - there's a ton of shit to do, the control setup is immersive in a completely unexpected way (basically it controls like Burnout), and the graphical horsepower on display really is quite commendable.

The TIME list:

1. Halo 3
2. The Orange Box
3. Rock Band
4. Super Mario Galaxy
5. BioShock
6. Call of Duty 4
7. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
8. Mass Effect
9. Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
10. God of War 2

According to ILG sources, Front Mission sucked ballz.

am i the last nerd on earth who doesn't get guitar hero/rockband

no

It's not for everyone, but those games (especially Guitar Hero 1) has the most satisfying learning curve of any video game I've ever played. Every time I thought I had peaked as a player, I would come back and just sort of magically be a little bit better. I guess a lot of people enjoy it as a party game, and it's great for that I guess, but the real joy for me was just sitting down and really problem-solving my coordination problems and trying catch up to the speed of the game.

-has +have

1. Portal
2. skate
3. Watching other people play Bioshock, COD 4, Halo, Half-Life 2, etc.
4. WarioWare: Smooth Moves
5. Pac Man CE
6. God of War II
7. Rock Band
8. Madden 08 (haha, I'm pathetic)
9. Lost Planet (If I'm being honest, I'd probably put this even higher)
10. Space Giraffe
10a. Worms for the XBLA

Uh, this is my list, basically. Drop God of War, cos I never finished the first, slide everything down and stick Stranglehold at the top and swap Rock band for GH3, cos it isn't out over here yet. Swap Madden for PES.

That sounds like a lot of changes, but it isn't really. Everything else is spot on (especially the bit about watching other people playing first person shooters). Agreed with Lost Planet too.

Oh, I didn't notice that Worms was 10a, either! Switch that with Space Giraffe, cos we play it more :)

Shit, I feel pathetic for rearranging an internet list :(

I play Worms more than Space Giraffe but I don't feel like they updated it enough to make it a top 10 of 2007 game. It would certainly be in the top 10 of the year it was released for the PC, back when I played it to death.

Passage is probably going to displace some stuff on my list.

Desktop Tower Defense replaced Space Giraffe on my list as of last night.

Yah, Desktop TD should totally make my list! Although I would never have thought of adding it until Totilo did. I'm so uncool.

Oh, and Peggle!

Peggle was this year?

Did anyone play that Half-Life Peggle they put out?

I _thought_ peggle was this year. Wikipedia agrees, but no guarantee there.

Eurogamer's top 50 list has been going up ten at a time (they've just hit number 21). I'm really enjoying it so far, because its not just some dumb press release style list, but they're still debating the merits of the games. So far though, the results do feel a bit random (I assume they're using an average from all their reviewer votes to place the games?)

i got half life peggle yes, a sort of demo that came with the orange box. Thought it was great.

I finally tried out Peggle a few days ago (was too lazy to get it when it was download-only). Damn you, Popcap, for stop making small changes to old game formulas and making it still work!! (I'm looking at you, Rocket Mania) But yeah, that is a pretty awesome game. I also laugh at the completely unnecessary unicorn mascot.

There's a great "making of Peggle" article here: http://www.popcap.com/extras/makingpeggle/big_idea.php

By the way, all Popcap games bought through their website are half price (usually $10) until Jan 3.

Eorogamer gets to their top ten...
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=89793

I'm very happy to see S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in there, which I've just recently started, and have so far been impressed by for its unique feel

B.O.R.I.N.G.

after the fact, but fire emblem for the wii is AWESOME

tell me more dude! I got doubles for Lego SW AND mario sonic olympics so I want to know what I should exchange for

Basically, it's Final Fantasy Tactics on steroids. Crazy depth and customizing; I've got twelve hours logged in game time (more like twenty in real time, given how often I have to reload after losing an "expendable" guy) and I've just gotten past 'Part 1'. A quick peek at gamefaq suggests there's four parts; I'm being pretty thorough and expect this to last me through March.
Control is regressive in the extreme (you could play this game on an nes controller), graphics are pretty eh... not even great for a gamecube. None of that matters: the plot is engaging, the dialogue is way better than most RPGs and the characters are fun. All of which is to say it's more poorly written than your average superhero comic, but leagues ahead of the teen angst in FFLIX: Rebirth of the Hair Gel.
Combat is nicely adjustable to allow for great flexibility in engagement; you can fight each individual battle or put it mostly on autopilot. It's my first Fire Emblem game, so I don't know if it's emblematic (ahem) of the series or if I just caught on; I do think (based on your other comments on this board) that you'd love it.

I started playing the Gamecube Fire Emblem while visiting my parents/siblings for xmas, and I am so bummed that I can't finish it, because it really, really is awesome.

Anyway, my year end lists for the consoles I played enough games on to make a decision...

Top 5 360:
- Mass Effect
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- The Orange Box
- skate.
- Stranglehold

Top 5 360 Arcade:
- Pac-Man C.E.
- EXIT
- Every Extend Extra Extreme
- Sensible World of Soccer
- Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Remix

Top 5 Nintendo DS:

- Dementium: The Ward
- Front Mission
- Glory Days 2
- Picross DS
- Hotel Dusk Room 215

Top 3 PS2:

- Persona 3
- Odin Sphere
- GrimGrimoire

Top 2 PC:

- Football Manager 2008
- Desktop Tower Defense

I forgot to put the DS games in order. It'd go Picross, Front Mission, Hotel Dusk, Glory Days 2, Dementium (although I'd switch it for NYT Crosswords easily)

I haven't heard of Dementium, Front Mission or Glory Days 2.

Dementium is a survival horror game for the DS that doesn't really do anything new for the genre except introduce the handheld format to it, which is awesomely effective if you play it at dark with loud headphones. it is spoooooky. i bet silent hill origins is as good or better for the psp, but i have no psp.

front mission is an old squaresoft turn-based robot strategy game for the SNES that they ported to DS, and added an entirely new campaign to. i loved the old one (played a hacked translation on my copmuter about 6 years ago), and am loving the new campaign (which you can play immediately, without playing the first campaign... a nice gesture to those of us who played their first one illegally)

glory days 2 is... really fucked up. it's like a WWII shmup controlled by the stylus. it's really, really fun and innovative and cool and hard in later levels. it also has a B42-type mechanic where having more bases = they lose guys more quickly, but you can also just take out their dudes to drop their numbers.

I'm not sure I like portal guys

it's cool n all but it's not very fun

You obviously weren't as high as I was when I played it.

I wish people could be that honest on ILM!

I don't even look at ILM anymore.

Dude OMG how can u say you don't like Pand aBear he's a genius omg you suck you should go listen to our limp bizket albums tool.

Speaking of things that are great when you're high...

I really really drank the koolaid on portal but then it might as well have been made for me.
I'm sadface that I never beat Fire Emblem.

how far in are you cozwn ?

I completed it

Oh.

I thought it was pretty cool, although doesn't really have a replay factor for me.

I liked the puzzles, and I liked the adroableness. It's no saviour to mankind or anything like peopel said, but it's intensely... likeable?

I just thought it was an amazing application of game physics, and very funny and well-written.

yeah, I don't want to come across all challops and it was definitely very charming and I loved how they managed to inject some real warmth into the sterility of the design but the gameplay ultimately left me a little cold
: /

was it that you didn't like the portal mechanic, or the application of it?

like.. if the portal gun was worked into half-life 2 in a good way would it be awesome or meh?

I love the portal gun and if they worked that into HL officially it wd be rad (there's already an unofficial mod isn't there?)

I think my problem is maybe that I have very conservative views when it comes to first-person games; it's cool tht they innovated and all but I think there's pt of me tht doesn't want innovation here;

I dunno tht seems a weird thing to say; especially when i. it really is quite a fresh take on the first person (and has in its way had immediate influence cf. mirrors edge) and ii. the game is so slight to be innoffensive

gawd any of tht make sense? basically I just didn't want to load it up

basically you don't want to play any game that doesn't involve shooting people in the head

not true; crotch is fine too