Bits bit-tech's Top 10 Games of 2007

@ Cupboard > Well that's the beauty of Crysis, you can play it however you like for a large part, even I had some gung ho moments while generally I prefer to soak up the atmosphere with stealthy tatics... And FYI I loved the demo but the full game blows it out of the water, it's the only game i've played in recent years that just keeps getting better and better as you play, the next 'wow' moment or awesome thing is always around the corner and is better than the last. The demo was like Far Cry but the full game is far far more (and better). The only downside (if you can all it that) is that it gets more like a normal FPS towards the end quarter of the game, more linear and a bit more of a faster pace, very cinematic though (like Cod4 etc) but all that beautiful full immersion gaming for hours and hours before then is not to be overlooked... (and it can take hours if you don't just run to the neareset checkpoint - do all the subtasks and explore everywhere it's amazingly immersive and plain fun, it reminds you of being a child running around wastelands and forests playing soldiers or whatever, because it 'feels' so real it brings back those childhood feelings that few games managed to capture and that is why it's so good, you just feel empowered and immersed, it's close to dream like in what it allows a willing player to feel like while playing.

So don't judge it just on the demo and don't judge it on a poor system, sure be unhappy that it can't run as good as you'd like but remember there are people who do run it very nicely and the game itself is amazing then and all this negative crap we here about it is so unjustified, Crytek have bust a gut to provide state of the art immersive technology and layered on an easily above average game too and the combination is jaw dropping, but some people just refuse to let themselves enjoy it or hate it because of the hype or the 'it's all about gfx' BS.

 

I didn't want to moan more than I already had, and to clarify, since most of my criticism can be written off as subjective anyway. Any game (in the first person shooter genre) which has auto aim doesn't deserve to be near any list. I don't care if the game is for console or not, it's not acceptable and it's the reason why this game isn't played competitively outside of America.

ET:QW has one of the most balanced multi players of any game released this year, and it's far above the likes of Halo 3 and UT3 (which still has bugs from previous incarnations, spanning back years), one of the reasons why it flopped so badly, even compared to Quake 4's low selling standards.

I mean in your reviews, you gave UT3 a 9 and recommended it. You have CoD4 a 9 and recommended it. Yet you only spent half a page on its multi player (CoD4). It was very clear, at least to me, that on the vast number of occasions, where you've reviewed a game which is famed for its multi player aspects, someone who has next to no experience with the game or any of the previous incarnations (your ET:QW review springs to mind) reviews it making vague and trivial comments, ultimately settling and basing his conclusions on how it looks.

I dislike this culture of PC gamers who play games so briefly, yet throw around such hyperbole and high scores like it was their god given right. I know people who're still playing Starcraft or Counter Strike 1.6 competitively, despite the game being close to ten years old. Your way of thinking and reviewing is completely shallow and seemingly a smack in the face of those who actually play these games properly.

"Popular taste, is bad taste, as any honest man with experience will agree." - Kenneth Clark

 

not bad

 

Sam & Max.

Supreme Commander.

I just thought they needed a mention.

 

You might be elitist regarding auto-aim and multiplayer, but you make good points on how reviews (from anywhere) tend to be shallow and are hit or miss for the more important innovation and outright longevity qualities.

 

I'm very, very familiar with the workings of QW actually. Even if I hadn't played the original ET to death and even if I wasn't intimately familiar with the history of id, their tech, focus and games, then I still got walked through the game at various stages of development by the lead designers from both id and Splash Damage. It's derivative, boring and ultimately nothing spectacular. Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament 3 and COD4 all have MP which it away. The reason so little focus was put on COD4 MP was because the game had been in public MP beta, so many people already knew all about it, and we have to weigh up the focus of our game reviews carefully. If you actually look at the review then there's only a page on SP too, with one on gameplay which is applicable to both at least a little, a few on graphics and then one split on MP and conlusions. That feels like a balanced review to me and a fair one considering that I certainly didn't play it briefly.

That said, I always welcome constructive critiscism so drop me and email at Joe.martin@ bit - tech.net if you want to discuss it further.

 

Try playing CoD4 on the hardest difficulty setting, the game lasts a lot longer that way, in fact most games will last a lot longer if you turn the difficulty right up, besides they spent ages programming the AI to be really evil and people go and dumb it down by playing on "Normal".

If you've played a few FPS games before that you should really be cranking the difficulty settings up a bit to challenge yourself and get better value as you end up playing the game for longer.

 

Sorry, I forgot to say well done on the top 10 list guys!

It looks like you've divided opinion quite well there however IMO you've compiled a very accurate reflection of the best games released in 2007, yeah I might have changed the order around slightly but everyone's going to have a different opinion about their favorite games as people are different., Oh, and pointing no fingers to previous posts here when I repeat "Best games of 2007" not best games of all time, although that would be comment-fest of an article if you were ever to publish that

Cheers guys, Merry Christmas (or happy holidays if you don't do X-mas) and keep up the good work next year!

 

I never understood the appeal of COD4. It's a decent game but it's just a reskinned COD. There are some pretty awesome WTF moments in the game but aside from those, it was pretty banal - shooting the same enemies over and over again with no real sense of direction or accomplishment.

Bioshock was fun, but I don't get how the story is really that deep - but it's definitely is a cut above many. I suppose it had its twists and philosophical underpinnings. Being a Valve/Half Life fanboy, I'll agree that the Orange Box was one of the best games this year, but I think Crysis was much more fun gameplay-wise than HL2 ep2. I loved the open sandbox style of play - I tended to play stealthily - something many FPSes don't allow you to do. Of course, HL2 still deserves the award for best presentation - the way they present their game is just amazing.

Haven't played HALO 3 yet, but I never got the appeal of HALO. I guess I never played the multiplayer, but I can't see how it could beat innovative MPs like Wolfenstein or classics like Counterstrike/Unreal. The story behind the first two HALOs were never that engaging, the character and set design was never that superb, and the presentation was never any different from your standard FPS.

 

Scq > Well Said, HL2 and Crysis are both amazing but Crysis is more fun overall than any FPS i've ever played. See my 'essay' on incrysis forums for my reasons, if you have an hour spare to read it.

 

i can't go on inCrysis, Ticali broadband is the worst ever! i always gets timed out
care to quote it here?

 

oh it's too long and would bore most people Suffice to say it's more about the future than just this mere 'game', the devs like Crytek should be encouraged not punished and games like crysis are just the begining of 'true immersion' that is still a long way off, they are bringing the future closer quicker.

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=296333#p296333 is the location (scroll down a bit), sorry you can't access it but if you like crysis you probably already feel the same way as I do anyway so no need to read it.

 

i finished with the hardest within 5-half hr and still think it's short. COD4 is still a good fun. But AI wise, i think FarCry and Crysis have more width, probably better... imho of course.

maybe i initially played it after BioShock which was epic long, imho too long...

 

IMO Mario should have been number 1 really. How Nintendo continue to bring the series forward and add more magic to the formula I'll never know. A truly spectacular game.

Bioshock was great and all but the 2nd half of the game was a collect this. goto Y. collect that.
Also the big daddies are the games most amazing enemy. so why

Spoiler

is the process of your guy becoming a big Daddy not de-humanising/horrifying and just putting on some boots and making yourself smell?

Orange box... Well It was definately one of the best deals for your money and Portal was truly a masterpiece. couldn't get into HL2 myself though and I can't stand Team Fortress 2 much
You're complaining about most choices but you're not saying what you think should have been there. whats the point in that?

My top 10 of 2007
1) Super mario galaxy
2) Halo 3
3) Zelda phantom hourglass
4) Assassins creed
5) Orange box
6) Bioshock
7) Call of duty 4
8) Crackdown
9) Super paper mario
10) guitar hero 3

 

Nice list, good choices.

Just FYI, a couple of technical errors with the Mass Effect part. It's Shepard, not Shepherd, and the SPECTREs are not a secret military organization, they're extremely public figures.

 

I'm sure it was fun trying to fish 10 titles out of that sea of great games from 2007. I would have included Supreme Commander in a top 10 of 2007 due to the genius user interface. Even with 1000's of units on screen, you don't have to "fight the controls" to organise them. The map view and how it blend seemlessly into the game is a real step forward for Epic scale RTS, hopefully to be seen in many more titles to come.
Agree with another posters comments about Quakewars. The game was pretty much balanced to perfection out of the box and provides some of the most intense multiplayer of any title released in 2007.
A bit cheeky having a games compilation as the number one "game" of 2007 but there's no denying the depth of quality in them titles.
I personally wouldn't have included Crysis in the top 10, as my hardware cannot do the game just. Eye candy wise it's no doubt 10/10 but gameplay (and hence enjoyment) suffers because of the hardware limitations. Look forward to playing it as it was intended sometime in 2008 when Ihave a rig to do it justice.

 

It really wasn't that fun - hours and hours of meetings spent with Tim and I arguing where BioShock placed, whether Zelda should be on the list and what about SupCom. Bindi sat in the corner, lamenting how he didn't have time to play most of the games mentioned, and Riyad periodically came in to diss our list.

Quake Wars? Pfft.

 

Yes, that is 100% correct! How many people plays more houres per day any oder game than cod4 ? No1.Cod4 k:

 

I'll leave it to Jamie to disagree with you there

 

Jamie is clearly wrong