Best of the Rest: Kyle's picks for 2007
Take Risk. Simplify the rules and create a bunch of new maps. Add an intuitive web-based interface and a complex worldwide ranking system. Make the game entirely free to play and attract a solid stable of online players, available at all hours of the day. The result is one of the most addictive strategy games you've probably never heard of.
Sure, it just the same old third-person shootfest at its core, but the incredible, organic environments, impressive character animation and the amazing sense of jump-where-you-want freedom kept me playing. The year's best script and voice-acting this side of Portal didn't hurt either.
Sudoku is dead, as far as I'm concerned. The new reigning champion for game-to-play-while-watching-a-horrible-TV-show-in-the-background is now officially Picross DS. While the concept isn't exactly new, the interface and wide variety of puzzles on offer in the DS version makes it a winner. Plus you get a cute picture at the end, instead of Sudoku's random jumble of numbers. Beat that!
Note to whoever developed Defender for the PS2... this is how you do a classic remake. Equal parts old and new, Pac-Man Championship Edition was instantly familiar and instantly intriguing at the same time. The high-speed action and constantly changing environments combine to create a uniquely smooth experience -- the whole thing just flows better than any game since Geometry Wars. Now, if only there were a mode without the time-limit ...
Yeah, the constant flipping got kind of annoying, and the 3D puzzles were often obvious and/or gimmicky, and the game fell apart a bit at the end. It's hard to care, though, when you're hopping on enemies and stringing together mid-air bouncing combos like it was still 1985. And any game that so effectively makes fun of geeky game-player stereotypes is hi-technicaaaaaaaal in my book.
Forsooth! Verily, a game that dost try to be Oblivion but fails to have decent combat, a sensible story, or really anything at all interesting to do shalt hereby be declared the worst game of the year. And yes, all the characters do actually talk like that.
New Year's Resolution
Re-launch Games for Lunch and keep it updated daily.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason Axelrod @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:19PM
kdice looks like Tom Clancy's Ruthless.com
mcatrage @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:28PM
Anyone else think skate deserves some mention for hopefully bringing some life back into skateboarding video games?
kingalekz @ Jan 2nd 2008 5:06PM
Here, me too.
I sold all my Tony Hawk games, because after playing skate I will never be able to play any of this "button mashers" again.
AJ @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:32PM
Yeah ever heard of Dice Wars? It looks just like that kDice except it's one player vs. up to 7 computers and none of that online stuff which sounds cool. So since kDice seems more advanced than Dice Wars, I have a hunch that kDice copied dice wars. I could be wrong though. Here is the link:
http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html
buzzbean @ Jan 2nd 2008 3:02PM
Kdice says right on its page that it is based on dice wars.
AJ @ Jan 2nd 2008 3:16PM
i feel salty
Bucket @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:28PM
Uncharted is proof that games don't need to reinvent the wheel to be a great experience. It takes familiar elements and puts them together just right. At least it isn't a case of "been outdone by a game made 5 years ago" like some OTHER games on these top XX videogame lists.
Anam @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:58PM
Isn't Risk about as simple as a wargame could possibly be? How exactly could it be simplified?
I guess I'll have to play kdice to find out... good advertising Kyle, good advertising.
ThornedVenom @ Jan 2nd 2008 7:07PM
Dice are so last-gen.
buzzbean @ Jan 2nd 2008 3:12PM
Thanks for making me remember that Kdice existed. I thought I had weened myself off of that game. It is worse the desktop defender, at least as far as temporal black holes go.
Purple Haze @ Jan 2nd 2008 3:17PM
You better re-launch games for lunch. You skipped almost all of november and december and then came back from the biggest month of 07 with Mass Effect, Duck amuck, Killer 7 and Milons secret castle?
kingalekz @ Jan 2nd 2008 5:09PM
Wasn't Pac-Man Championship Edition supposed to be a sequel to Pac-Man and not just a remake?
Just askin'. Never played any of the two before.
Nguyen @ Jan 2nd 2008 5:44PM
OMG... I remember spending hours on Dice Wars against 7 computers... I'd never heard of KDice, but the thought of playing that game with other humans kinda scares me.. because that means there are 7 other people wasting as much time as I am. So so so much worse than any other time wasters (in the time wasting sense I mean, I loved that game....)
bluezy @ Jan 2nd 2008 7:49PM
Picross DS was my favourite DS game of 2007. I played it for months, and i can only hope for more.
cxm @ Jan 2nd 2008 8:50PM
Uncharted..."jump-where-you-want freedom"? Were we playing the same game? Drake was pretty much stuck to a linear path. If he wasn't supposed to go somewhere along the only path the game gives him, there's no way in hell he'd be able to get there.
The voice acting was great, the story was compelling, the characters were likeable, and the scenery was beautiful, but the game played like it was on rails...rails where throwing wave upon wave or "Pirates 'R' Us" rejects seemed like a good idea at the time.
I'm sorry, I enjoyed the game, but it wasn't anywhere as near as good as people keep saying it is. It copied elements of Gears of War and Tomb Raider/Prince of Persia, but did a mediocre job with each (Drake shimmying along a ledge like an over caffeinated monkey did amuse me to no end, though...nowhere as smooth as TR/PoP, but funny to watch). The great story/storytelling and beatiful scenery was the only thing that saved this game.