Your top 10 games of 2007 - from any year
This isn't the top 10 best games released this year, or your all-time 10 favourite games.
Quite simply, it's the 10 games you enjoyed the most, played the most and spent the most time on in 2007. So if you liked Halo 3 but honestly got more time and/or enjoyment out of Doom, list it here. If you thought Mass Effect was great but when it was finished went back to Nethack or rediscovered Diablo II, list it here. If 3rd Strike was your first love this year while Lost Planet was just something you did on the side, list it here. And of course, if you thought Super Mario Galaxy was better than any of that stuff, list it here.
I don't like to overshadow the other top 10 thread, but I've done this one a couple of times over the years and I find it a more interesting barometer of what people actually enjoyed this year, and what's stood the test of time.
In other words, this is what TNL was really playing in 2007.
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My list:
1. Virtua Fighter 5 (Version C) - This was my favourite release of 2007. When you're buffering 3 different throw escapes into a sidestep leading into a dash-to-attack-fake all designed to unbalance your opponent and set up landing a single move, you realize there isn't another game like this in any genre, never mind fighting. I've always been a 2d fighting game guy first, but I really think this surpasses anything in the fighting genre so far, flat or otherwise. 3rd Strike is great, but at the end of the day everybody's got 5 moves and 4 combos worth learning. With VF5 you can have 4 people using the same character in completely different ways. Is Goh a throw character, a trick-move guy or a slam-your-ass-around pressure character like Akira? Or all three? It's really up to you and what you find effective for your style of play; you rarely come across players using the exact same move sets as the next guy. And there are always new things within the game's fundamental gameplay to learn & master, you could basically play this forever. Too bad I'm brutally awful at it :lol:
2. Gears of War (Xbox 360) - Played it for the first time last New Year's, enjoyed it throughout most of the winter. This game's so fratboy I'm sure there'll be a hardcore backlash coming for it down the road, but for the moment I'll say I think it's really one of the most well designed games I've ever played. Yeah, they ripped off all their ideas from RE4 & Kill.Switch, but they put it together in a package that's better than either of them. The direction, camera work, the impact of the characters as they move and slam into cover, all these things draw you into the game as well as any piece of software ever has. And the whole thing feels like a war broke out at the most awesome heavy metal concert ever.
3. Fatal Frame II: Director's Cut (Xbox) - I can't sing this game's praises enough, it's up there with Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 4 at the pinnacle of the survival horror genre. The atmosphere, the art, the controls and the mind-warping plot add up to one of the best horror games I've ever played. They really nailed the whole eerie-side-of-Shinto aesthetic, the dreamlike atmosphere keeps you guessing as to what's really going on, while the super smooth controls and combo based gameplay keep you playing. Seriously, this is better than 99.9% of the horror movies I've ever seen.
4. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI (Playstation 2) - Sang this game's praises in the other top 10 thread. Now every city is together on one continuous 3d map, so you can scroll around and see all the town development and wars going on elsewhere. Add in an unintentionally hilarious debate mini game where you deal damage to other characters by quoting Chinese philosophical classics and you have a winner.
5. Resident Evil 4 (Playstation 2) - Started this for the first time this year. You've all played it, you know the deal. And if you haven't, go get it, it's fantastic. The art direction is so good it looks better than most current gen games, its camera found the happy medium between first-person immersion and 3rd person hey-you-get-to-see-your-cool-characterness, it has some truly epic boss fights and is so good it basically makes the entire rest of the franchise look like 5/10 material. And the best part? I haven't done the "extra" missions yet so I've still got more to play.
6. Suikoden V (Playstation 2) - this is probably the second best game in the Suikoden series after II, and redeemed the franchise after III & IV (I liked III, but nobody else seemed to). An epic plot that feels like it could've taken place over a trilogy, likable characters, the series' trademark fast, fun fights, infinite party combinations and a world you really get to know kept me playing for 80+ hours. And I love the fact that all the games in this series take place in a continuous world so you get to see what happens to the characters over multiple games. The graphics suck though - the characters are detailed and colourful, but the environments often look like a high res PS1 game. And too bad they did this annoying thing where you can only get certain characters in obscure places at certain times in the game, and if you miss just one you get the bad ending. On the other hand, that ending ticked me off enough to go through it again on new game+, so who knows, this might show up on my list again next year.
7. Shin Megami Tensei (Super Famicom) - Discovered this for the first time over the summer and holy crap, what an amazing game this is. It's downright criminal it never saw a western release, it's a better cyberpunk game than any of the 16-bit Shadowruns. I understand why it never happened though, NoA no doubt looked at the Christian references and said forget it. Still, this stands out as one of the best 16 bit rpgs for me; fully first person, dark and interesting with an awesome plot and great art design.
8. Ridge Racer 6 (Xbox 360) - I started off being unimpressed with this game, but it wound up being one of my favourites in the series, and arguably the best. I love how it revels in the Namco arcade feel, with the Pac Man bleeps & Galaga tunes mixed into the soundtrack while you launch off bridges in Ridge City in cars named Mitsurugi & Galaxian. The first half is pretty slow & braindead easy, but by the time you get to the third car class the intensity is up there with any of the other games in the series, and by the end it's hands down the fastest.
9. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360, Playstation 3) - Its world isn't as cool as Morrowind's, but the gameplay's a step up. After my 360 died I got the PS3 version, and it definitely looks a bit nicer. After playing this game for about a year I think it's great, but still in need of balancing - really, the game's pace is far more enjoyable playing as a tank despite what some dirty liars on TNL will tell you about how they "never died" playing as a naked guy armed with a twig or some other such nonsense. I'm really curious to see how Bethesda goes from this to Fallout; that's a dark horse for next year's GOTY for me.
10. Final Fantasy XII - I didn't like this combat system much at all in KoTOR, but Square managed to tweak it to where it became a lot of fun lounging around on the couch watching Captain Basch Von Ronsenberg kick everything's ass for you. Definitely one of the better entries in the series, and got me excited about it again. After X I thought it was heading down a dark road into feather-haired teen drama, but the way XII sidelined Vaan & Penelo gave me hope that Square's going to make the experience more customizable for the future. And the FF Tactics-esque politically oriented plot was more interesting to me than:
"your dead abusive redneck underwater pro-dodgeball star dad is a giant furry monster-whale from a dream world that kills the entire planet all the time. Also, some gay dude is trying to steal your girlfriend."
Still have yet to finish it though, I think I'm going to go and do that right now.
