2007 was a big year for games. So big that something happened every month of the year, if you can believe it. So here's a month-by-month breakdown of what was big in the world of video gaming this year.
January
Releases
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition was released on the XBox 360. The game was successful, partially due to the fact that its title was changed at the last minute from the less appealing and entirely generic Extreme Planet: Lost Condition.
The expansion pak World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade became available to PC gamers who just needed that extra little piece of game to waste away their entire lives. Several jokes were made about how players once experienced a burning crusade of their own one time (in their pants), and each of these was patently false.
Mario Kart 64 came out on Wii Virtual Console. Players became intimately aware once again that Wario was a-gonna win and that Luigi was, in fact, a-number one.
News
The year started out much like it ended, with the console wars raging between Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. PlayStation 3 and Wii systems were going for into the thousands on eBay. Buyers could be content to know that they would soon be able to play games far prettier than the ones they were playing last year, and only for the price of a kidney.
February
Releases
The game Wii Play came out, with the added bonus of including an additional Wii Remote. To replicate its success Nintendo plans next year to release Wii Activity, which will include 20 AA batteries and a reasonably well-made coin flipping simulator.
Crackdown, a game created by the same creator as Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings, was released on the Xbox 360. As could be expected, the game was about a silent protagonist who kills hookers while giving small mammals parachutes.
Virtua Fighter 5 was the first big-name exclusive title for the PS3 this year. So of course in October it was released on the Xbox 360. When asked if Metal Gear Solid 4 would see a similar exclusivity change, an exclamation mark appeared above game director Hideo Kojima's head before he comically ran away.
News
Sony Computer Entertainment of America President Jack Tretton told Electronic Gaming Monthly that he would give 1,200 dollars to anyone who could find a PS3 for sale that had been on the shelves for more than five minutes. Never one to go back on his word, Tretton then immediately went to every Best Buy and Gamestop in the country, each of which had several systems for sale, and stole all their shelves.
March
Releases
Motorstorm was released for the PS3, much to the enjoyment of people who love to buy games they have played in and can only identify from store demos.
The PlayStation 2 boasted one of the year's biggest releases in God of War II. When asked why it couldn't be more like its older brother and have similarly awesome games, the PlayStation 3 kind of shrugged and said "I dunno, I'm just different," and locked itself in its room.
The Shivering Isles, an expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released for PC, raising the estimated playing time to finish the game from infinity to infinity-plus-one.
News
Retailer Gamestop reported $5.3 billion in sales for 2006, their biggest year ever. Noting the success of the store's business model, stockholders bought shares for a few bucks each then sold them back for $5 less than retail.
April
Releases
Made Man, the story of a Mafioso working his way up the ranks, was released on PC and the PS2, to horrible reviews. The unfriendly critical reception surprised developers, who had never before seen a bad game based on mobsters.
Nintendo released Super Paper Mario, the third game in the series, for the Wii. In this avant-garde and innovative sequel, Mario is an actual piece of paper, and therefore cannot move or speak. In response, many critics said they could finally regard games as art.
Punch-Out!! became available on the Wii's Virtual Console, allowing kids who didn't play the game when they were growing up to finally experience the wonder of getting your ass handed to you by a white-haired guy who flexes his pecs in his spare time.
News
A British teen killed a grandmother after playing Grand Theft Auto. He was also a paranoid schizophrenic and was high on skunk weed at the time, but clearly those are unnecessary details.
May
Releases
The best game of 2005, Resident Evil 4, was released on PC, about 28 months after its GameCube release. Next up, Capcom has scheduled the PC release of one of its other well-remembered games from a few years ago, Mega Man 2.
Microsoft released Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista, and for the first time ever gamers could play online between platforms. When asked what they thought the innovation meant for them, online gamers responded by calling survey takers "fags" and quitting before the interview was over.
Mario Party 8 was released on the Wii. In this installment, Mario coyly asks everyone if they're having a good time while Peach kind of stands off in a corner silently because they had an argument just before it started. Donkey Kong drinks Southern Comfort until he falls asleep on the couch, and Toad pukes while Yoshi holds back his mushroom.
News
Nintendo held a summit to discuss their future. Predictably, the summit consisted of executives throwing money at each other while laughing hysterically.
June
Releases
A whole bunch of games came out over the summer to promote big-name blockbuster movies like Fantastic 4 and Transformers. According to the movie studios, the games were a huge success, because they managed to make Michael Bay and the director of the Fantastic 4 movie look competent by comparison.
The Darkness, based on a late-90s comic book of the same name, was released. Its release makes me hopeful that one day a video game will be made of my 1990s comic book property, DarkDeathBloodStormBloodSquad.
A remake of the original Final Fantasy came out on the PSP. Luckily, you can still play the game my preferred way, which is to annoy hardcore Final Fantasy fans by creating a party of nothing but fighters, only buying the "sleep" spell and trying to die as quickly as possible.
News
The ESRB gave Manhunt 2 an "Adults Only" rating, meaning retailers wouldn't sell the game and Nintendo and Sony wouldn't allow the game on its systems. Meanwhile, the British game ratings board banned the game altogether. The game's developer, Rockstar, told the ratings boards that if there's a world where you cant make a game where you vividly castrate a man while making the motions of doing so, they don't want to live in it.
July
Releases
Tecmo released an updated version of Ninja Gaiden on the PS3. In this version, players can throw their controllers in frustration after getting the hell killed out of them and the controller will sense the motion! Neat.
A Deal or No Deal game was released for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance. Now you too can enjoy the excitement of choosing numbers at random on the hand-held system of your choice!
A collected edition of all six Sam & Max Season 1 episodes were released for PC. Those games were all fun, and I don't have anything snarky to say about them. Sorry.
News
This year's E3 convention was smaller and more restricted this year. After several years of increasing hugeness, promoters decided only let gaming press into this year's event. Now jobless, a number of women dressed in game characters' skimpy costumes roamed the streets outside the convention center, begging for change and for someone, anyone, to leer at them.
August
Releases
Like clockwork, EA released yet another Madden game this August. In this version, you control a helmeted man who throws a ball to another helmeted man. Then you control him. How developers came up with such an idea is unknown.
Game of the Year contender BioShock got rave reviews for its compelling story. Critics said it was akin to gaming's "Citizen Kane," if that pivotal film had been about a guy who could shoot bees out of his hands.
Metroid Prime 3 proved that the Wii could handle a first-person shooter, and make it good. The trilogy ended with a bang, too, as it was revealed that Prime's Samus had actually been Pit from Kid Icarus all along.
News
Gaming webcomic Penny Arcade once again held its annual PAX convention, which drew its biggest crowd ever. Strangely, ISSFest 07, which we held on the same dates and across the street, went largely unattended.
September
Releases
The John Woo-directed, young Chow Yun-Fat starring Stranglehold came out on multiple platforms. Much to the disappointment of classic rock fans, it did not include Ted Nugent as the final boss.
Two of the most anticipated PS3 releases of the year, Heavenly Sword and Lair, were released to a lukewarm or outright bad reception. In despair, the games' developers said they don't know what gamers want anymore if they don't dig games with dragons that control badly or mediocre games that happen to feature a hot female main character.
A modest and previously unknown game called Halo 3 hit shelves with little fanfare. Apparently it's about some sort of Master Chef, who I can only imagine makes a bang-up foie gras.
News
Actually, Halo 3 shattered sales records, with $170 million in its first day. Who are we to judge if people simply love virtually teabagging each other? It's just human nature.
October
Releases
Developer Valve released The Orange Box, which included Portal, a fun and hilarious little game the re-imagines the puzzle game as a first-person shooter. Faux intellectuals have since interpreted fact that the game uses oval-shaped portals as evidence that the game includes strong vaginal imagery. All I know is, if I could have come out of a vagina, jumped back in and been catapulted 15 stories into the air, birth would have been a lot more fun.
The Simpsons Game came out after months of promotion. While not Bart Vs. The Space Mutants terrible, it's was generally regarded as mediocre. Upon reading the reviews, Matt Groening sort of knowingly shook his head and went to sleep on a giant pile of money.
Activision put out the third game in the highly popular Guitar Hero series. Again proving their lack of musical taste, the publisher failed to include any songs by Seals and Crofts.
News
Nintendo announced that one of its most anticipated holiday releases, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, would be delayed until February. Developers said they needed extra time to dig through their archives to find more obscure Nintendo characters to include. Fingers crossed for the Duck Hunt dog, seriously.
Sony announced that it would be cutting the price of the PS3 and introducing a cheaper model that didn't include backwards compatibility. So now you can buy a system that can play Heavenly Sword but not God of War!?!?! Consider me sold!
November
Releases
The incredibly high-performance game Crysis came out for PC. Sales were somewhat low, because, what do you know, people didn't want to spend $1,400 to be able to run it. Go figure.
Super Mario Galaxy hit the Wii with some saying it is as good as or better than Super Mario 64. To settle the score once and for all, Wii Mario and Nintendo 64 Mario have planned a knife fight, out of which no mustache is sure to emerge unharmed.
Developer BioWare released Mass Effect, a game I am sure is very deep and involved, but honestly I haven't gotten past the fact that it features lesbian sex. Well played, BioWare.
News
Rockstar's Manhunt 2 hit shelves after months of controversy, only to see marginal sales. Upon learning the prospect that there may actually be such a thing as bad publicity, the company's executive staff now arrives to work and spends most of its day in the fetal position.
December
Releases
MTV's Rock Band proved to be a big holiday seller this year, despite its total snub of Air Supply.
Sega released another game in its revered NiGHTS series, this one for the Wii. In it, you play as some kind of flying jester guy with a funny hat and you collect stuff in some kind of dream world. If it's at all based on the types of dreams I have, there's sure to be one level with a bear riding a tricycle while I watch in my underwear. In which case, awesome.
Based on its title alone, Ultimate Duck Hunting for the Wii will soon put an end to all duck hunting.
News
Gamespot fired its editorial director, Jeff Gerstmann. Internet buzz claimed he had been fired over giving the game Kane and Lynch a 6.0 review, when the game happened to be the site's main sponsor. It was later revealed that Gerstmann asked to be let go after being forced to play Kane and Lynch.
KingOblivionPhD@the-iss.com
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Comments
I think it would be most effective if you would include links with all of your inside references. Not everyone has seen the $1400 setup to play Crisis on ultra-high, so many may not get that reference.
Posted by: Li Zhang | December 31, 2007 10:55 AM
You dare challenge King Oblivion? This seems like a self-flagellating offense.
Posted by: kingmonkey | January 2, 2008 1:06 PM
nice 360 hard on
Posted by: this site sucks | January 4, 2008 9:30 AM
Meh, I haven't seen the $1400 setup, but I still got all the jokes. The one's I didn't get I laughed even harder at so my friends wouldn't know I wasn't as "anti-cool" as them (it's the new cool, but not as much fun to drink as anti-freeze). Well, I say 'friends' they're more self-referential collections of thoughts and ideas fleshed out into quasi-independent imaginary companions.
Posted by: Xybyt | January 10, 2008 10:18 PM