best-of-2007
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Joystiq's Games of the Year 2006-2008
Those who don't learn from their past are doomed to replay it again and again. In the case of these games from Joystiq's "Best Of" lists from 2006 through 2008, that's not really a bad thing. As we celebrate our decade of existence, it seemed like the right time to look back at the games we thought were the greatest in their respective launch years. (The 2004 and 2005 lists remain classified.) In some cases, our selections are part of franchises that have stood the test of generations, while others are like trying to recall what happened after that fourth Red Bull with a Mountain Dew chaser. Here are our selections and links to explanations to the best ghosts of Joystiq's past.
Best 360 Games of 2007: Richard's picks
Just to get this out of the way, we're not doing an official Xbox 360 Fanboy Game of the Year Award or anything like that. There are only two of us on this site -- though we have the combined physical strength of 2.5 men -- and that would make voting a little silly. Thus, we will instead post our own individual takes on the best games of 2007 and why we picked them. Naturally, we'll stick to 360 titles, though we do occasionally play other consoles (I'm particularly enamored with Super Mario Galaxy at the moment, for example). So, read on for my personal picks for the best titles of 2007 (I'll leave the worst title for Dustin to decide).
BBC judges love Super Mario Galaxy
Nintendo games just don't always seem to rake in the high scores bestowed upon games on other systems, but one Wii title this year ran away with all sorts of accolades -- and the year isn't over yet. This time, it's the panel of experts (their words, not ours; your opinions may vary) selected at BBC news weighing in with the top games of the year, and Super Mario Galaxy shows up on three of the four top-three lists. While many of the games we expect appear on the lists (Halo 3, Bioshock, The Orange Box), there are a few surprises as well ... but it's Super Mario Galaxy that shows up most often. Score one for us.[Via NeoGAF]
Playboy: Crush one of '07's most innovative games
There is perhaps no other PSP title as innovative and quirky as Zoe Mode's Crush, a puzzler that successfully implemented 2D and 3D gameplay like we've never seen before. And although the game never sold as well as it should have (Boo Sega's marketing department!), it has received the proper recognition from the critics that it deserves. To add one more accolade to the list, Playboy has chosen Crush as one of its runners-up for 2007's most innovative game. Being included among such wonderful games as Rock Band, Portal, Super Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed is no joke ... well, maybe the joke is that Assassin's Creed actually made the list in the first place. Nevertheless, it's great to see one of our favorite PSP titles getting a little more love. If you still have yet to play Crush, then shame on you. However, there's still time to rectify this gross oversight by picking it up today and experiencing one of the most original games ever to grace a handheld.
Playboy: Heavenly Sword has 'Best Jiggle Factor'
There are some awards our favorite games receive that make us happy they get the recognition they deserve, and there are some that leave us ... well, scratching our heads. Take Playboy's Best of Games of 2007 awards for instance as it awarded Heavenly Sword the "Best Jiggle Factor" award. We're not really sure what it means, but we're pretty sure it's a compliment. Here's what they had to say about the game: "This game has more than a few rough edges, but we loved its compelling scenario and character design. Nariko is gorgeous but also strong, angry and vulnerable. By the end, you don't just want to date her, you want to marry her." It beat out other scandalous and lewd games such as Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Conan and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary. With this well-deserved recognition, could it mean that Nariko could have a future spread in Playboy's Girl's of Gaming?
Amazon best of 2007 lists include MBP, iPod Nano & Leopard
It's Amazon Day and nobody told me -- more news from Big Beige concerning Apple products, as the annual Best Of Amazon list was announced earlier. The MacBook & MacBook Pro topped two computer lists, as the most-gifted and most-loved computers respectively; meanwhile, the iPod Nano was the top electronics product both gifted and wished-for -- some karma alignment at work there. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard made the most-loved list as the top software product evoking an emotional connection with users; this is unsurprising, although the relationship of some users to Leopard might be described by Dr. Phil as passive-aggressive.Interestingly, Apple products were absent from the actual best-sellers list (top software: Office 2007 Students & Teachers; top DVDs, Planet Earth complete series) despite the love-list and wishlist smackdown. Weirdly, the top computer item by total units sold for 2007 was the Nokia tablet, not exactly a computer (unless you count the iPhone too) and having a bit of sales leverage for being available 11 months out of the year.[via Engadget]
Critics' top 10: 2007 vs. kittens
2007 is almost over, and the end of the year brings joyous tidings of List Season. It's the time for taking stock of the last 12 months of gaming, and trying to make sense of it by putting things in numerical order. Join DS Fanboy for our best-ofs, worst-ofs, and other categories-ofs. When determining the best games of the year, it's a good idea to go at it from different angles: by referencing our own history of reviews, obviously, but we must also look to the wider journalism community. Our reviews, while insightful and entertaining, were not comprehensive. We just didn't play everything. In addition, one reviewer's opinion is simply not sufficient data to make definitive conclusions, even if that one reviewer is me. So we turned to everyone else in aggregate to see what they thought of this year's releases. We've gathered the top 10 DS games of 2007 according to their Metacritic ranking. Keep in mind that many of these games tied in Metascore, meaning that if we were to rank the games, there would be fewer than ten positions. It's still sequential, but with a lot of tie scores. We then carefully applied science to these games in order to convert the Metacritic numbers into a rubric we feel more accurately conveys the quality of these games. Head past the post break for Metacritic's top ten DS games of 2007, graded on a scale from adorable kitten video to unbelievably adorable kitten video.
Best of 2007: Games that remind me of your mother
I have fond memories of your mother -- yes, all of your mothers. Up until now, I've kept those memories separate from Wii Fanboy, mostly out of professional courtesy. After seeing how most of you ignored Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, however, I have thrown civility out the window. The gloves are off now, and good riddance, as it'd be difficult to type about the games that remind me of your mom while wearing those restrictive mittens.
Best of 2007: Worst attempt at a cash-in
During 2007, lots of companies realized that the Wii was doing good. Perhaps, too good. So, they scrambled to make games that they could port or "enhance" for the Wii, or other games that were made to take advantage of the console's adopters who were new to gaming and thus susceptible to spending money on crap games the unique capabilities of the Wii's controls scheme, causing a slew of cash-ins on the console that didn't necessarily bring anything new to the Wii other than another game sitting on the shelf. So, let's look at those games and you tell us what the most shameless and useless game of the lot is.
Best of 2007: First-party games [update]
With the end of 2007 approaching at near lightning-fast speed, we thought it would be nice to check out what you, the excellent reader, thought about the games of this year. First up, we have the obvious: first-party games. We have a good idea which game you're going to say, but in the name of healthy debate, check out all of the choices past the break.
GuildCafe seeking nominations for Espresso Awards
Sam from Uberguilds sent us word of nominations opening up for GuildCafe's Espresso awards (they're the same company now, remember?). They're looking for your ideas on choosing the best of the year in a number of different categories, including everything from "best gaming blog" to "best user-interface mod" and "best player-written guide."Unfortunately, there's two problems here-- despite coming from GuildCafe, the awards don't seem to be aimed just at MMOs. They have a "player-created map" category, and unless they're talking about Second Life sims, that's not really MMO-centric. And they have strange qualifications for the fansite and gaming blog categories-- in my mind, getting fairly compensated for writing about games doesn't make your work meaningless. (Disclaimer: everyone who writes for Massively gets paid for their work by Weblogs, Inc, which is a division of AOL.)But hey, it's their awards, their rules. You readers are smart folks-- go put some good nominations in there and we'll see what GuildCafe comes up with.
PC World 100 Best of 2007 honors Parallels, Tiger
When a leading computer publication has a revolving-door editor-in-chief hiring policy, it can make other weird editorial decisions look sane and prudent by comparison. Exhibit A: the annual PC World "100 Best" feature, which presents the 100 best products of 2007... online in May, and in print for July. Not even half the year has gone by, but the farsighted crew at PCW has already figured out the best of the bunch! Might as well take the rest of the year off, then...The real reasons that the 100 Best comes out mid-year (covering the end of 2006 and the start of 2007) are detailed in a post from once-and-current big kahuna Harry McCracken. It comes down to legacy scheduling of the product awards around the June date of the no-longer-extant PC Expo trade show. That's a relief; I was worried that we were changing the calendar again.Anyway, more to the point: the list is top-heavy with some big Mac products, including TUAW darling Parallels Desktop at #6 (the top-ranked application on any desktop platform, not counting #1 Google Apps Premier Edition), Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger at #9 and AppleTV at #11. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor that powers new Macs is a top pick at #2. Noticeably absent from the top 100 was the latest hotness from Redmond, which may correlate with PC World's comment on the Tiger ranking: "Name a good Vista feature that goes beyond what's in Tiger. Yeah, we can't either." Brrrrr.
Next Gen's 360 picks for 2007
It's the first week of a new year, and predictions are the order of the day. Next Gen chimes in with its list of the 360 games to watch in 2007. If you follow the 360, then you know what games are on that list (we picked most of them, too) but the enormity of the full list is very impressive. To say that the 360 will have a wealth of games this year would be putting it very mildly. We've taken the liberty of organizing Next Gen's picks into a categorized list. Check it out after the break. Don't forget to add your picks, too.
Xbox 360: The Best of 2007
2006 was a great year for the Xbox 360. We saw tons of great games -- Oblivion, Gears of War, and Dead Rising just to name a few -- Xbox Live Arcade showed signs of maturity, Xbox Live grew by leaps and bounds, and overall 360 sales are closing in on the 10 million mark. Yes, it was a good time to be a gamer if you had a 360. What about the future? What does 2007 hold for the Xbox 360? Read on and join the discussion.
