We all love those lists at this time of the year, most magazines will feature them plentiful. 2007 was (again) the year of the sequel, when it comes to computer games. Most game studios prefer to take the easy route, when a game has established a decent name, and is played by enough people to provide a steady cash flow; just make version two, three, or four. Another way to squeeze more coins out of the gamer's purses is with expansion packs, many of those have been released in 2007 as well.
This year was supposed to be the year of the new “big scale” MMOs, Age of Conan and Warhammer to name just a few of the highly anticipated titles that would beat the World of Warcraft monster. Unfortunately their release dates were all pushed to 2008. The only MMO title that has been released is The Lord of the Rings Online - a good MMO, but hardly a game that renews the genre.
Among all the sequels and expansion packs there were a few innovative games released this year. A short list of the most remarkable games, in game design, game play or just graphically; games that really added something new to the gaming world, the most precious games of 2007.
Portal
A game released within a bundle package, The Orange Box, together with Half-life 2 and Team Fortress 2 (did I mention the sequel route?). Portal is a mixture of first-person action and a puzzle game, which pretty much stands on it's own in terms of game play. You solve a series of puzzles by using a portal device, a "portal gun." A nice take on the genre, and a great experiment in the FPS genre. Valve's Kim Swift talks about the design of Portal on Joystiq
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