Okay, I am massively backlogged with posts due to my hiatus from blogging, and I intend to play some catching up with some of the eventful things that happened over the last 2 months. However before I get started, one of the chief things occupying my time away from my beloved blog was none other than PC Gaming.. 
Since I got my new PC, I’ve dived right back in to all the TOP games of 2007 that I missed. At the time of posting this, I’ve completed/won 6 games which are:
Bioshock
I heard so much about this when I wasn’t gaming, the hype nearly killed it for me. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would - it wasn’t as scary as its predecessor System Shock, and the graphics although good, just didn’t impress me all that much on my new system.
In fact, I realized midway that the game got wayyyy too easy on Normal difficulty, and I actually restarted on Hard just so that I could enjoy the experience better.
All that aside however, I must admit that this game rocked otherwise. The art direction and the dystopian underwater world of Rapture is amazing. The plot was very well thought out and original. It even had a surprise twist that caught me off guard! In fact, it’s the way the story unfolded that gave this game it’s strength. A story that makes you feel by questioning your moral principles (that lead to different endings), and a story revolving around philosophical ideas about society is not something thats common in the Western gaming world.
No surprise that this was the game that won the MOST awards and accolades in 2007. Now would you kindly go and grab a copy and experience interactive story telling at its finest?
Call of Duty 4
Oh man, been playing this so much at the cybercafes with the gang, I was glad to finally be given the chance to try out the single player campaign mode.
Having breezed through Bioshock on Hard difficulty, and having the COD4 practice in multiplayer, I decided to tackle this on Veteran difficulty (harder than Hard) at the exhortation of my brothers. It was a mistake. The game became about as tedious as an imbalanced multiplayer fragfest. I’d end up dying 200 times just to get to the next save point, and then repeating the whole dying process again until I’m lucky enough to figure out how to proceed.. It totally ruined the whole cinematic gaming experience for me.
Which was why I restarted the game in Normal, and won it in 2 nights after that, with a lot less stress and hair pulling. Which is a good thing, because this game’s cinematic experience was awesome! Music was composed by one of my all time favorites - Harry Gregson Williams, which added a lot to the atmosphere and the graphics, especially for individual characters, was amazing in its detail. The best thing was that this game wasn’t even really system intensive.
Assaulting enemy strongholds in full action Delta Force style with helicopter assaults, ground pounding with the latest modern weaponry in a fast paced tactical environment was quite an experience. And the ending - whoa. No surprise that this game won Gamespy’s Game of The Year award for 2007.
Crysis
Supposedly the most graphics intensive game to grace the PC EVER (and it still is). They weren’t kidding. You will have to catch your jaw dropping more than once if you play this. The realism in terms of graphic quality is unsurpassed. I could actually sit at my PC staring at the computer generated sunset at the beach without moving. By the way, if you don’t have a cutting edge PC, don’t bother.
As a super soldier, wearing a multi million dollar ‘nano suit’ capable of superhuman strength, speed, damage absorption and invisibility (though not all at once), your team was sent to an island in North Korea to investigate the excavations of some strange extraterrestrial technology. I can’t stress enough how cool this suit is. And the open ended game play as with the original Far Cry was a bonus as well. Plan on how you want to take on that enemy encampment, go stealth and pick them off one by one with your trusty precision rifle, or go in guns blazing with your suit’s abilities (although the latter will get you killed mostly).
It had a cliffhanger ending though, but sequels are reportedly already in the making. I simply can’t wait for them. 
Company of Heroes : Opposing Fronts
The original Company of Heroes was a groundbreaking game taking Real Time Strategy to a whole new level of realism. I remembered all the ‘oohs‘ and ‘ahhs‘ when we first saw Company of Heroes in action, but since then, the awe and elation has subsided somewhat especially when the game didn’t quite pick up in the multiplayer cybercafe scene.
Opposing Fronts is a standalone expansion pack with 2 new armies and 2 new campaigns. The British 2nd Army in its Liberation of Caen, and the German Panzer Elite during their defense against Operation Market Garden. It’s the first time that I’ve seen the German side being depicted in a single player campaign mode (that means they allowed players to play as Germans in WW2 through their eyes, storyline and all!) - kudos to the developers for daring to pull something like this off. It was done quite tastefully though, without any Nazi subplots thankfully.
Gameplay is the same as before, although it supposedly boast new graphics and dynamic weather implementation. DX10 version didn’t impress me much, so I turned it back to DX9 for better frame rates. The new armies takes some getting used to, and could be challenging to beginners - but nothing a little smart gaming can’t fix.
Not too bad, and is still a quality expansion overall - well worth it to any fans of the original.
F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate
This is the 2nd expansion pack to the F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) FPS shooter that was released a few years ago. After installing and running this, I suddenly realized how far we’ve come in terms of graphic realism, because this game’s graphics just didn’t cut it anymore (despite being amongst the best during its time).
I played through this mostly for the story than for anything else, and even then, the story was quite weak since you aren’t playing the original character in F.E.A.R. Rather, you’re this other guy in this other squad approaching the events in the first game from this other direction. Nothing much original, nothing really exciting, and the story didn’t progress anywhere.
But the creepy atmosphere was carried over from the first game, and Perseus Mandate still managed to scare me outright in a few places. It’s still amongst the scariest games ever made for the PC without a doubt. The AI for the enemies is still as impressive as before (they flank, communicate with each other, find cover, lob grenades, leap through windows, etc.) helping to add realism to an otherwise bland game environment. A bit short and condensed as I managed to breeze through this in just 2 days. If you haven’t played the original F.E.A.R. yet, I highly recommend that you start there.
Hellgate : London
I’ve been itching for a GOOD traditional single player hack and slash RPG ever since I got off my Diablo 2 addiction so many years ago. True there were a few good ones that came along such as Dungeon Siege and Titan Quest but they couldn’t match the pure addiction that D2 provided.
Then Hellgate : London came along - brainchild of some former developers of the original D2. It was plagued to death with bugs (but most of which was fixed via patches later) and received at best a mediocre rating. I picked it up anyway and boy was I hooked!
It can be played either as a FPS or you can pull out and play from a 3rd person perspective. You can choose to wield close combat weapons / magic against the demon-spawn just like in the good old days, or you can opt for the more modern approach - big guns galore. Items are randomly generated and range from common stuff to rare, legendary and unique items. Decking your vain character out with hard earned items have never been more fun. Despite the highly repetitive gameplay, or the fact that the campaign dialog is just plain campy, or that the side quests could NEVER get any more boring, this game still struck the D2 formula smack on the head for me.
Hellgate will remain on my PC for awhile, as it’s something fun to dive into when I’ve got nothing else better to do. I’ve won Normal mode and am now on Nightmare difficulty trying to max my character level.. Hmm, I wonder what game should I get next..
