By now everyone has shared their “Games of the Year” (GOTY, of course) blog post and news articles. So, why should Bullet Points be any different? Except I’ll be doing things a bit differently because I don’t see why these sort of proclamations have to only fall within the one previous year. No one other than extreme hard cores and journos (thanks for the term Garnett) can play all the right games for the year to even make that kind of judgment. Even then they often don’t get to finish everything so how can we really know for sure. So for Bullet Points I’m talking about the top “Games I Played This Year” (GIPTY) instead. These are my personal games of the year because they had the biggest effect on me during 2007 but I won’t be taking into account their release dates. Forget about these arbitrary annual devisions. Go with the biggest games for you personally. Don’t let the tide of the larger group sway your decisions.
So, I won’t be talking about the same damn games that everyone else is. How can you argue with some of those top tens for 07 and why re-hash. In fact, in some cases, the games I’ll throw out there were not even top games in the year they did come out in. Could it be that another title for this post is “My Favorite 80% games of the Year?” So here we go…
HITMAN BLOOD MONEY
3BR (Three Bullet Review)
- HIT: Near perfect execution of Hitman fantasy fulfillment. (Yes, for some reason I have always wanted to be one.)
- HIT: Delivering a world with the right choices are given to the player and are always fun to discover and execute.
- MISS: The few mechanics conflicting with core goals (Such as rewarding the player with more guns when guns are not what the game is about at all.) keep the game from being an award winner for most.
Any game that lets you smuggle a live pistol into an opera rehearsal via the coat check and then go and take out one of the actors back stage to impersonate them by wearing their costume and then actually taking the stage during the rehearsal to use that same live gun on your target while he is singing on stage as the “fake” gun sound effect goes off in an opera about an execution is brilliant. Then you just walk away like nothing happened. And that is only one way to do it. There were too many unforgettable moments to be shared. Now why the hell is Agent 47 a clone again?
DEAD RISING
3BR
- HIT: Non-linear Survival Horror in a mall with unlimited Zombies to kill with nearly unlimited weapons. I mean, for anyone who was a fan of Dawn of the Dead, it is pretty much a done deal.
- HIT: Extremely compelling tension set up by the survivor mechanic (which also had its fair share of frustration, I’ll admit) which gave you a great sense of what it actually might be like to live through a Zombie apocalypse.
- MISS: Baffling design choices (only one save, promoting restarting the game multiple times, mutually exclusive events happening at the same time, and more) which either were lost in translation from being a Japanese developer trying to deliver a more Western game structure or someone was playing a joke on their audience.
I wrote a post awhile back about embracing bad design and used this game as one of the examples. I’ve been wanting to play this “type of game” for years and this one got the closest. Once you gave in to the choices they made then the game took on a whole new meaning and was extremely hard to put down.
LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE
3BR
- HIT: A fully realized Middle Earth (for as much as they have of it so far) where I, for the first time, actually felt like I was playing the books. Not the movies.
- HIT: If you can’t beat them, join them. WoW may hold the crown but LotRO cloned enough of WoW to seem familiar to new WoW players while still maintaining enough of its own identity (new class structures) so that it still feels like a new MMO experience in many ways.
- MISS: Suffers from some of the same things as WoW such as terribly boring quest activities and too much repetition.
I can’t say enough about this game if you are an MMO player and more specifically a WoW player. I guess it does help to be a Lord of the Rings fan as well, I’ll admit. It is stunningly beautiful for an MMO (takes a beefy machine) and has cracked the whole mismatched armor looking like crap issue that WoW still has in spades. You look good no matter what you wear (It’s important!). Also, the “single-player” aspect of the Epic quests complete with cutscenes and voice lines all along the way (from Gandalf!) makes you feel like you are right behind Frodo on his quest. I hope they stick around long enough to make it to Mordor. Even if I have to take the damn ring their myself! (Yes I’m playing a Hobbit.)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Mainly because I started these in 2007 and have not yet finished them. So they seem to be promising but I don’t want to say for sure yet.
- Beyond Good and Evil: As a full package it rivals Zelda for that “complete adventure” feel. Unlike Zelda though I actually care about the characters and what I’m doing. May be a hit for me.
- STALKER: This game might just hold me over while I wait for Fallout 3. It is also way too early to tell, but combining open-world with factions with a post-apocalyptic shooter is pushing all my buttons.
- Armageddon Empires: Developed by one fellow, this turn-based tactical card game with a hex board is a throw back to the good old days. I’m not too deep into this one yet but if I get the hang of it I can see some addiction happening.
So there you have it. I didn’t even mention any of the usual suspects for this year. You know the ones I mean. So let’s all cheer for the games that left their mark on us when we least expected it. I can’t argue with the amazing successes that 2007 brought us all. But I also can’t ignore the fact that some of my favorite games are the ones that are easily missed. Don’t let the good ones (for you) get away. And don’t let people give you crap for liking them.
P.S. Though it got some good press this year as well, I think it needs a bit more. Crackdown warmed my heart in a few ways (not being a GTA fan but wanting something like it) and I hope we get to see more iterations of that series because the sequel could really hit the target.
