My Favorite Games of 2007
My favorite games of 2007, in order. Once again, this is simply a list of the ten games I enjoyed the most, not the ten best games.
List items
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I think it's better than Call of Duty 4. It has a better single player campaign and a better multiplayer mode. I think Call of Duty 4 has a larger appeal, and that's fine. But to me, Halo 3 is better. And it obviously takes the top spot on this list given how many dozens of hours I sunk into it over the past two years. It fixes the broken Halo 2 campaign by creating a great story complete with an excellent ending and some really fantastic moments along the way. Halo 3 also boasts an incredible amount of multiplayer options, along with a preposterously detailed level editor and a first-of-its-kind replay system that works almost as well as you want it to.
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It's a tossup between this and Halo 3 for the 2007 Game of the Year. I could go either way. Super Mario Galaxy certainly came in with high expectations, and longtime fans like me were definitely concerned about Nintendo's track record since it had been over a DECADE since the last truly great Mario game. But this game delivers. The concept of Mario-in-space is perfectly thought out and almost perfectly delivered. Its only weaknesses were a lack of camera control and those goddamn purple comet levels - seriously guys, that was so 2003.
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Seemed to get critically overlooked, which I thought was a crime. Balanced the difficult task of having to complete an excellent trilogy and transition a franchise to a new system with completely different controls. I thought it passed both tests with flying colors, offering excellent closure and excellent gameplay. You couldn't have asked for a better effort. I'm not sure why this didn't get into the Game of the Year discussion.
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When I finished this game, I felt then (and still feel) that I don't need any more lawyer games to be made. This one should have concluded the Phoenix Wright universe and the genre but unfortunately we got the mediocre Apollo Justice game a few months later and now have to deal with some sort of Edgeworth game in early 2010. The writers (and translators) for the Phoenix Wright game should be getting paid millions of dollars in the soap opera business and kick Days of Their Lives or whatever off the idiot box. These games do such a great job of roping you in and making you care about the characters that you almost feel like a fool at the end.
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This game got an insane amount of good press in the months leading up to its release, but reviews for some reason varied wildly. I was and still am completely puzzled by the low scores - this is an excellent game. Repetitive, sure, and a bit less challenging than one would like, yes but I never tired of it. Made by some of the same folks who made the excellent Prince of Persia trilogy recently, Assassin's Creed alters the formula a bit. Altair, the main character, doesn't platform so much as he climbs. And he doesn't sword fight so much as he guts you. Plus the whole sifting through the crowd thing was pretty cool. The story is very solid, though not amazing, but it's bizarre flashback system is well done and bodes extremely well for a sequel. Fantastic voice acting, fantastic graphics, excellent environments, and great gameplay. What more can you ask for?
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Fuck yes. THIS is a game that accomplishes EVERYTHING it set out to do and makes ZERO apologies to anyone. It is preposterously, brutally hard but is not one ounce harder than it should be or was designed to be. It takes the original NES version of Contra and injects it with steroids and mutates it into something that you should have to carry a license to play. Contra 4 kicks your fat ass to the curb, steals your lunch money, and then uses that money to go buy brass knuckles so it can come back and finish you off. This game obviously is not for everyone... in fact, you should have your head examined for going anywhere near it. But it truly excels at what it tries to do and is one of the greatest homages to an NES game that you will ever see. There were several times when I played this game when I died on a boss fight and said, joyfully, "Thank you sir, may I have another!" a la Kevin Bacon in Animal House. On the last level, right at the beginning, you're handed the two best weapons in the game right away. In most games I would either be grateful or disappointed because I knew the last boss fight would be reasonably easier or too easy. Not Contra 4. When I received the two best weapons in Contra 4 at the end I was terrified, and for good reason. This was nothing but an excellent excuse to ramp up the difficulty another 6 or 7 notches (but who's counting) on the way to one of the most satisfying final boss fights I can remember.
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Ugh. My favorite game of all-time translated into Farsi, back into its original Japanese, and then translated back into English and then into French and then back into English. In 1994, the best sword in the game was called Atma Weapon. Now it's called Ultimate Weapon. Why? You tell me. I would sing the game's praises for improving the Opera Scene and adding in some entertaining and tough extra content, but I'm just depressed and feel like moving on.
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I have been a diehard fan of this series since the first brilliant iteration on the Game Boy Advance 5 years ago. This one definitely is the most creative, but it's probably the least funny. Oh well. The fact that it has a legitimately great single player and multiplayer component is well worth noting, and it's one of the best party games out there. On a system marked by its minigames, Wario Ware stands out as the best by far.
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The last great Playstation 2 game butchers Greek mythology, but not nearly as much as it butchers the poor enemies that are placed in your path. This game is so preposterously violent that it will leave even the most hardened people murmuring "Jesus Christ" 5-10 times. Even though the story isn't all that great, the game still has all the production value of a movie and the gameplay holds up really well. Belay those "button mashing" cries. This is fantastic, vintage action gameplay.
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I had very high expectations for this game going in. And while they weren't completely met, it's hard to point out anything this game does wrong. It's an incredibly atmospheric, somewhat repetitive, B level first person shooter at its core. It has a really well-told story that reminded me very much of Metroid Prime (and ANY comparison to the game of the decade is a good comparison). It has maybe the best immediate introduction of any game I've ever played, as you escape a plane crash and end up swimming onto a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. You walk in, and it's pitch black inside... and then the lights come on, and you see a giant banner: "No gods, no kings. Only man." Goosebumps.
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