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The Finest Moments in 2007 Gaming
Stephen Totilo, as he did last year and the year before, has put together a piece looking at the finest gaming moments to be had in 2007. From the high-jumps of Portal to the Colossus battle in God of War 2, he's got a lot of gaming goodness packed into this one article. My favorite moment (the end of Mass Effect) isn't on there, but this is a close second: "Late in the much-praised first-person shooter BioShock, the player is required to don the outfit of another character in the game. Saying much more about this moment would ruin the effect. But rest assured, this transformative sequence changes the way every character in the world reacts to the player's presence. Plus, it might just give a BioShock player some pause about what they had been doing for the dozen hours that preceded the moment. Saying anything more would be a spoiler."
I'd argue saying much more wouldn't be much more of a spoiler than what was already said in the summary.
That said, I agree.
The release of UT3 proves that UT2004 still RULES!
Portal: Not the end, but the first time you find one of the rooms where "others" had dwelled before you. Insanity.
Assassin's Creed: When the main character acquires the 'eagle vision' near the end.
Bioshock: Any time you're walking around and you hear a Big Daddy, was a truly great moment. Sadly, this game was ruined for my by the last boss battle, which seemed to take everything the game stood for, and threw it away in the name of a Turok: The Dinosaur Hunter final boss battle. (loved Turok, for the record)
Mass Effect: I really cannot pinpoint any spot that was a 'finest moment'. Great game, one of the best this year. Maybe it's 'finest moment' can be the fight with Matriarch Benezia. The only battle I had any actual trouble with.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Overall, many great memories from this year of gaming...nothing will compare to the summer of 2004 for gaming memories for me (closed beta of WoW, 15 friends, an empty house, a lot of water pipes, and half the summer taken off from work), but I would have to say these were my top 5 from the year (in no particular order):
1. Opening 15 minutes of BioShock. This was done with 5 friends around the couch, all of us huddled close together...home theater setup was turned way up high, my Tannoy PS 110-B sub rattling the floor, a gorgeous image on my HDTV...honestly, one of the most tense 15 minutes of gaming I have ever experienced.
2. First time I played a Wii. This was at a friends house way back in February. There were a total of 7 of us taking turns playing Wii sports...considering how often we host gaming parties or LAN parties, I knew the instant I started watching and playing that I had to get one.
3. Experiencing the story of Mass Effect. In my opinion, the greatest sci-fi universe ever conceived...buy the art book, amazing! I was actually a little frustrated when it ended primarily because I wasn't ready to finish it yet! Cannot wait for the second one...
4. Rainbow Six: Vegas on Live. Spent 16 straight hours (taking breaks every 4-5 hours to get food and goto the bathroom, of course) playing it the weekend I get my HDTV. I likely gained 20 pounds that weekend, but it was definitely a weekend to remember.
5. Playing through the Orange Box...Half-Life 2 is one of my all time favourite games, and I hadn't played it since early 2005. Seeing it on a big HDTV with an awesome surround system, coupled together with playing through Episode 1 and 2 to further the storyline (and yes, of course, playing Portal) was amazing. Ravenholm is absolutely terrifying at night with all the lights out and the system cranked!
So there they are, my top 5 gaming moments of 2007. There were plenty other great ones, to be sure, but these were the most memorable for me. A man chooses, a slave eats cake!
Living With a Nerd
For me it has to be the little scene when I first saved a Little Sister. It was a beautiful moment in my opinion. The Swell of the music, the brilliant light, her vain struggle and finally ending with a simple Thank you. One of the few moments in gaming I felt like a real hero.
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS"
Seriously, end of Portal (which I finished last night, actually) is deffinitely up there, in my book. And the credits song is in the running for best video game song of all time, up there with Homeworld.
MARIO GALAXY had a couple of dousies too:
- Intro with the Airships and Mario 3 theme, I shit myself.
- *spoiler* Point in the storybook where the "girl" suddenly comes to terms with the death of her mother. The cute music stops, the somber strings swell, and it's one of the most poignient moments I've ever seen in a game.
Also, am I the only one who found the end of Bioshock increadibly beautiful and well-done. Sure it was probably the shortest ending since Donkey Kong, but it was more powerful than most 30 minute endings.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
So you rule out games simply because they're presented from a first-person perspective? If so, you missed possibly the best game of the year, Portal. You also missed Bioshock and Metroid Prime 3, as well as Halo 3 (I wasn't going to mention this, but I couldn't help myself :).
Aside from that, there were some great non-FPS games out this year. Assassin's Creed was fun, if a little repetitive. Mass Effect was great in the Bioware RPG tradition, perhaps even better than the prior KOTOR games because it was not restricted to the existing Star Wars mythos. Forza 2 is perhaps the best console racing simulator to date, and although GT5 will look prettier Forza 2 still has a much better physics simulation (it updates 360 times per second, modelling all four wheels across three separate points on the contact patch). Ratchet and Clank almost made me buy a PS3 (still holding off on that), and I'm really considering dusting off my WiiMote and picking up Super Mario Galaxy.
What exactly are you looking for from games?
So I ask again, what exactly are you looking for from games? From a broad perspective, there's nothing new in games. Even something novel like Guitar Hero (itself suffering from sequelitis) was nothing really new. DDR with a guitar, yawn. But wait, not even DDR was unique! NES Track and Field but with dancing, yawn.
There's value in doing things well even if you're not ground-breaking. For example, Halo 3 is a very solid shooter with fun online play and a conclusion to a story that many of us have been following for 6 years. It may not add anything to the FPS genre directly, but that doesn't mean it's not worth playing. As another example, compare Oblivion (valid because the Game of the Year edition released this year) and Two Worlds. On the surface, they're pretty much identical -- medievel-ish PC-style RPGs with wide open worlds. Oblivion, despite being a sequel (4th of the Elder Scrolls RPGs), was great. It ran well, felt solid, had a great story, and truly benefited from the Elder Scrolls mythos. Two Worlds, on the other hand, was essentially a piece of crap (didn't stop me from enjoying it, though :). It had massive performance issues, quest-breaking bugs, horrible voice acting, and flawed controls. If you're just looking superficially, you'll dismiss both because they're just "Ultima with a modern graphical veneer, yawn," and in the process you'd miss out on the excellent game that was Oblivion. Of course you'd also miss out on the crapfest of Two Worlds, so that's not too bad :).
Obviously you're not the target audience for Forza or Gran Turismo, and that's fine. I take it you enjoy more arcade-style racers, in which case it'd be a shame for you to write of game series like Wipeout just because F-Zero did it first.