And my game of the year is...

Posted by Victor Godinez

12:33 AM, December 29, 2007

...available in my year-end wrap-up running in the paper today.

Gee, you didn't think I was going to give up the goods that easily, did you?

Okay, my top 10 list is also available after the jump.

I wrote this list over a week ago, and my only regret is that I'm only just now playing through Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on the PS3.

What a game. Superb graphics, solid gameplay and catchy sounds are all present and accounted for, but I was (and still am) stunned by the general presentation of the game. Smart, snappy dialog delivered by the best voice actors I have ever heard in a video game make Uncharted a flat-out revelation.

I know we're all supposed to be snobbishly pretending that games shouldn't want to be like movies, but, man, Uncharted is like the blockbuster Indiana Jones flick that Harrison Ford never got around to making.

I'd definitely put this game in my top five now, if I could, but I'm sure there are plenty of other games released in 2007 that I would have loved if I'd had time to play them.

Anyway, feel free to share your vote for your favorite games of 2007.

1 Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Nintendo DS) – Simply the most fun I had with a video game in 2007. Critics like to complain that big-budget titles are repetitive and timid, but CoD4 proved that there's plenty of innovation left in the first-person shooter genre.

2 Rock Band (Xbox 360, PS3 and PS2) – My wife has only been captivated (ever) by three games: the original Halo, Soul Calibur and now Rock Band. Even if you've never played a video game, this musical extravaganza lets you pick up an instrument and start rocking with your friends within minutes.

3 BioShock (Xbox 360 and PC) – Games that try to be smart ("message" games) generally end up being neither intelligent nor entertaining. But BioShock's underwater utopia gone nightmarishly wrong is a treat for those who like to take their action with a grain of thought.

4 Kane & Lynch: Dead Man (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC) – This pedestrian shooter got appropriately vanilla reviews but set off a firestorm when publisher Eidos reportedly pressured Gamespot.com into firing a reviewer who bestowed a bad score. The truth about the episode may never be fully revealed, but it triggered long-overdue questions about the influence game advertising has on game reviews.

5 Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) – Mario is the Will Smith of video games: the most bankable star in the industry. Running and jumping may be old hat, but the glorious 3D, interplanetary jaunts in Galaxy made Mario shine like never before.

6 Crackdown (Xbox 360) – Once dismissed merely as the game that included a free demo of Halo 3, Crackdown turned out be an ingeniously structured, free-roaming romp where you can upgrade your cop into a building-leaping superhero. Too bad that a sequel isn't even close.

7 The Orange Box (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC) – Five top-notch games in one standard-priced package would be enough to make Orange Box a worthy investment. But one of those games – the puzzler Portal – turned out to be an unexpected sensation.

8 Halo 3 (Xbox 360) – Doesn't all the Halo hype seem so long ago? Nevertheless, while Halo 3 didn't set the world on fire, the single player campaign was a fun experience, and the technical innovations in the multiplayer mode – such as being able to record video of your matches – raised the bar for the entire industry.

9 Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3) – This PlayStation 3 exclusive was a welcome omen for the console. Beautiful graphics and solid controls make this adventure game a must-buy for PS3 fans.

10 Super Stardust HD (PS3) – I had a brief, tempestuous fling with this Space Invaders clone set around the spherical orbits of a variety of planets and moons. This downloadable-only title was also part of a growing trend of cutting out the retail middleman, and it will be interesting to see how far that trend proceeds.