Games 2008

Here's what to look for in the next 12 months:


Left4Dead from Valve (4 player co-op against fast zombies)

Fallout3 from Bethesda (post apocalytic RPG from makers of Morrowind and Oblivion)

Far Cry 2 from whoever bought the rights to Far Cry IP (They've modeled 32 square miles of Africa. Wildlife and everything. Your job is to find and pacify an arms dealer who has gone insane. Like a modern day Heart Of Darkness.)

Rage from id Software (I guess they still make games or something.)

Most of these are due this fall.

In addition, here are a few games from 2007:

Two Worlds was an Oblivion wanna-be, made by some small Polish developer which held my attention and love much longer than Oblivion. I actually finished this game. The combat was funner, the scenery more varied and extreme. The monsters were bigger and scarier, there was much more loot and no stupid annoying oblivion gates popping up to interrupt every road trip. The voice acting was thick was cheese and the ui layouts were frustrating at times. A game has to be excellent to make up for all that.

Crysis fucking rocked. Even the boring parts rocked. It was sorta linear, though this linearity was well hidden.

Bioshock was stupid and horrible. No RPG. Far from it. It was a bland corridor shooter, much closer to Blake Stone and the Aliens of Gold from 15 years ago. Overhyped, stupid, creepy, foolish. FUCK Bioshock.

Unreal Tournament 3. I love and hate this game simultaneously. I hate it because I bought it. I paid money for this piece of shit software that overheats my machine to give extra compute cycles to its bots which then rail me instantly across the map. Fucking bots. I can't believe I bought a bot game. This game is a tourrettes fit of frags, gibs and those WTF moments. Probably the best game ever made - if played in 5 minute doses.

Portal. OMG Portal. This was so good. It came with Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2 Episode2 - Team Fortress 2 was fun, well executed. HL2Ep2 - to be honest, it was very samey, even boring. It's just like HL2. You've played it already - even if you haven't played it, you've played it, know what I'm sayin'?

It's a series of rooms that go like this: enter room, kill baddies, solve puzzle, pick up loot, locate door, exit room, repeat. After HL2, Lost Coast, Episode 1... after all that, they still think they have something to say with an Episode 2? This is like Boston's fourth album. You'd already heard it before they even wrote it.

But this is about Portal. There's nothing I can say to adequately describe it. It was the freshest FPS experience I've ever had. Portal briefly elevated gaming from its own cheap, hokey, noiresque culture-casket and told a story. I walked away full, still curious, satisfied, engaged.

Portal is worth the money, especially if you are a casual gamer.

I may have forgotten a couple... I'll come back later and fill out this list.