My Favorite Games of 2007

Ah well, I have to disagree on Supreme Commander. It’s a weak game with massive system requirements which abandoned many of the features which made TA effective (elevation, non R/P/S gameplay, etc.) and was nearly impossible to seriously mod.

As for Super Mario Galaxy? I CANNOT believe they went with that box art. Seriously, wtf?

Anyway…

Mass Effect ++
(The Sins of a Solar Empire beta too…)

You don’t have slopes as in TA - it’s either passable or impassable with no solid effect beyond that on unit movement (and it’s a nightmare making it all passable sometimes).

Moreover, standing on a slope is actually very, very bad. Yes, it extends range by a tiny factor. However, the unit targeting *does not take this into account*. Units on slopes miss considerably more than units on flat ground, and furthermore many units target from a very low point and will consistantly hit the ground (hello, Cybran tanks) where there are any bumps on the terrain.

Heck, sight isn’t blocked by terrain, mountains and such. It’s just… simply nowhere near total annihilation’s feature list and it’s not a worthy successor. Unfortunately.

Mm. I went..deeply into TA’s engine. In fact, it’s the game which got me into the industry. My final work for TA, Dark Suns, (a space total conversion) does some amazing things with a powerful and data-driven engine.

SupCom is a buggy, horrible mess to mod (non-coders need not try), it lacks a lot of what makes TA great and most of my friends from the TA dyas can’t even run it given its system specs.

As for balance, the issues with the economy, with the fact it is purely based on CPM rather than strategy, and so on… well, It’s no coincidence I like games like Space Empires (4, 5 is horrible :/) and Sins of a Solar Empire… Anyway, sorry to hijack the comment thread.

OH I love TA! My system is not powerful enough to run SupCom, but TA flies on my old PII400 .

The only problem I had with TA (and one reason I stopped playing it finally) is the surprising turn of AI after the departure of TA’s top programmer. TA version 1.x has the best AI I have every seen, rival of Blizzards. However after their head programmer (forget the name sorry, too long ago) left, the AI immediately sucked. Yes I can still PVP but I don’t always have the time.

Since generally my system is only used to run zMud, I haven’t upgraded to be able to play SupCom, although the demo I managed to play on low res and graphics was fun. It was definitely TA-ish, but I’d have to agree that I somehow enjoyed TA better, even though every unit from Arm was also in Core and it was mostly just model differences. Also, Dark Suns was awesome and my favorite mod, so cheers on that, Andrew!

I agree with Portal and Puzzle quest as well, although I’d add Mass Effect and possibly Assassin’s Creed and/or Super Paper Mario.

And where the hell do you get off not mentioning Bioshock?

Ah, gotcha.

Paper Mario is extremely enjoyable, in that you get the RPG elements, but you don’t have to do the turn-based fighting that you had to sit through in 1000 year door. You jump on guys just like in original mario, but you can augment attacks with items, etc.

I’ve been play Assassin’s Creed all this week and while people are right in that it gets somewhat repetitive, the sheer beauty of it, and then fun of climbing anywhere you want and jumping around rooftops makes up for it.

Pentharian - Thanks! I’ve never had a massive amount of feedback on TA:DS, given it was so late in TA’s day, but it was certainly interesting to make (university final project, did it in 7 weeks with only a bit of help…) and I think the way I balanced it was quite successful

hrmm, well Im new to the xbox 360, which before i got it, was pretty sure it was the next coolest game device to come out ever, and after i got it, i definitely confirmed that, at least in my mind.

So My Fav. Games From 07 are pretty much all xbox 360 games, and xbox live arcade games.

Right now one of my favorite games on xbox live Arcade:

Root Beer Tapper, just check it out, the demo is free, simple, yet keeps my attention, i always feel like i could be serving root beer’s a little faster and better.

Doom:
How can you not love this all time FPS classic? especially, with the new xbox live multiplayer features? nobody is ever on though. But i enjoy finally mastering the game, n getting 100% secrets if i can find em all, n fuckin sailing through the levels at top speed murdering large demons with my 12 gauge double barrel. demo also free, purchase for 5 bux what a buy.

Gears of War xbox live,
again what an awsome game and multiplayer arena, 8 players standard, and what game has a better bomb throwing feature?, very acurate, and your gun has a freakin chain saw, right on it so you can rip your enemys in half when they get too close. run feature, and hide feature also very cool, i think one of the best games of the year.

Beautiful Katamari:
Spun off From the original Katamari Damacy, this game is an awsome xbox adaption, i never get tired of rolling people up into my ball, and eventually, destroying cities, and picking up everything in the entire city, lol.
demo also available for free.

Other Fun Xbox Live arcade games worth mentioning:
Mortal Kombat 3, Street Fighter 2, Contra, Castle Vania Symphony, Geometry Wars.

Guitar Hero 3:
big fan of this series, ps2
would love to play all the other versions of this game, and rock band seems pretty cool as well, start your own rock band rock band? that sounds cool to me.

~Chad Bling