2007 was a wonderful year for gamers, the year that gave us such gems as BioShock, Burning Crusade, Call of Duty 4 and Valve’s Orange Box; did any of 2008’s games strike similar chords? Here’s a few that I think deserve particular attention:
- Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots – Fans of the Metal Gear series and the of the PlayStation 3 alike had been waiting eagerly for this title to hit the streets. When it did, it was met with a variety of highly polarized impressions from the gaming press. Some considered it a masterpiece, others hated the quantity and length of its cut scenes; for my part I found it wonderfully refreshing to see what can be done when someone has a vision and is given the financial backing and the resources to bring that vision to reality, something of a rarity in these days of risk averse AAA games.
- Grand Theft Auto 4 – Another highly anticipated title; and one that a large portion of the gaming press awarded perfect or near-perfect review scores. With stunning visuals and a huge open world that bore a startling resemblance to New York City, and multi-player modes for the first time in the series, the engineer in me couldn’t help but be impressed from a technical perspective; game-play wise, not so much, I far preferred the series in its 2D incarnation under David Jones’ stewardship. Great job and utmost respect to all the folks at Rockstar North, very solid title, although for my money I’m not sure it deserved all the rabid praise from the press at launch.
- Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning – I’ve always been a fan of the massively multi-player genre, although predominantly casual in how I play them after feeling burnt out from a few years of hardcore raiding and guiding in Sony Online’s Everquest. I had spent a fair amount of time in it’s follow up, Everquest 2, I had worked through Star Wars Galaxies as well as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusade expansion, and there was one thing I was sure of: player-versus-player combat was just for the min/maxing hard-core, not for me; no fun to be had there. To that end I had been pretty dismissive of everything I had heard about EA/Mythic’s Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, even though, having spent most of my life in the UK, Warhammer and it’s lore were ingrained in my soul. A friend at work gave me an open beta key though, and having given up on the reputation grind within WoW, I logged in to take a peek at what it had to offer. What I found surprised me, pleasantly; hats off to Paul Barnett and his team on producing a player-versus-player, or realm-versus-realm experience I should say, that I really enjoy. More of a shock was the fact that my wife, another long-time MMO fan, but who is probably the most fervently anti-PvP person I know, could be found throwing herself into the PvP scenarios with abandon, delighting in every occasion in which she would be placed higher than me in the post-scenario leaderboards. Don’t get me wrong, the game’s not perfect and lacks some of the polish of Blizzard’s titles, but its a really fun game, and more complete and bug-free than most 3 month old MMOs tend to be.
- Fracture - I would be remiss to exclude the title that I poured so many hours of work into this year; any comments would be a little biased, but if you tried any of the game’s multi-player modes, feel free to leave a note with your thoughts on how well it performed on-line.
- Left 4 Dead - Valve rarely seem to make a mistake when it comes to PC titles, and this year was no exception. Left 4 Dead has to be one of the most compelling co-operative experiences I have ever had; even surpassing my memories of lazy summer days with three friends clustered around a Gauntlet arcade box. It’s characters, weapons, and missions all complement each other wonderfully. The enemies, together with the AI director and its unsettling ability to always pick just the right (or should that be ‘just the wrong’) moment at when to unleash them, together with a truly stunning mix of sound effects, character voices and music, result in the game maintaining just the right mix of tension and pacing throughout. I was initially dismissive of the game’s versus mode, but playing as the infected reveals an extra layer of fun, with a wholly different set of skills to master. With the Orange Box being my standout favorite game from 2007, and Team Fortress 2 being my favorite multi-player game of all time, and now Left 4 Dead proving to be one of the most outstanding co-operative games I have encountered, I think I am going to have to resign myself to life as a Valve fan boy.
