50,000 people use to live here…
As we approach the time when the gaming world would normally be waiting with bated breath for E3, absorbing, analysing and arguing over every leak and tidbit that found its way to the social cesspit that begins with., I thought it would be nice to take a trip down memory lane and remember some of the amazing games that came out in 2007, from Super Mario Galaxy to Halo 3. From Bioshock to Uncharted and many other games that have turned into great franchises, some still great, others lacking direction and past their sell by date.
In 2007 the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) held its 11th annual conference, the freshly named Media and Business Summit at Barker Hanger, Santa Monica. A summit/conference downsized to roughly 10,000 attendees because of worry that the majority of attendees were bloggers and other individuals deemed not of professional standards that had somehow gained access previously? COMDEX, Computer Dealer’s Exhibition failings/woes, was a major concern and altering factor for vendors to pull rank and get the venue relocated/resized.
The Media and Business Summit for Sony began with Jack Tretton walking the walk with his PlayStation Home avatar and talking God of War 2 on Playstation 2 and how many copies it had sold, over 2 million. The mighty PlayStation Portable and upcoming games like Socom: Tactical Strike, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, Silent Hill: Origins, Wipeout Pulse and other gems, such as Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles.
Chewbacca came on stage and roared about Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, exclusivity! Phil Harrison and Echochrome, insert sad face. Over the course of the 45-minute show trailers were shown for Haze, Metal Gear Solid 4 and games like Uncharted got revealed, and what a great franchise that became, the adventures that we have undertook with Nathan Drake – sublime.
Microsoft and Xbox on the other hand pumped its chest out with a 4-minute Halo violin instrumental intro and then Peter Moore showed up and rattled on about first this, first that and the greatest line up in video game history. Fair enough, Mass Effect, Bioshock and Lost Odyssey (4 DVD’s worth) turned out to be great. If you liked the thought of being a Rock Star, Rock Band hit the right notes and for speed freaks, Forza 2 had miles of fun in front of it.
Crysis, the PC destroying juggernaut from Crytek, Assassin’s Creed, The Orange Box and Portal, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, 50,000 people used to live here. Even though Nintendo had convinced everyone’s mother and grandmother to play Wii Sports, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Resident Evil 4 and Super Paper Mario delivered for the late great Satoru Iwata. The Nintendo DS on the other had was another beast – Pokemon Pearl or Diamond, Contra 4, Bleach: Blade of Fate and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
2007 for gaming was a stellar year – new franchises were born and no matter what piece of plastic gamer’s bashed buttons on, there was something for everyone to get stuck into – a time of Xbox Live Points and Nvidia GeForce 8 series graphic cards.
Overall, my biggest memory from 2007 me was being swayed by Bioshock and purchasing an Xbox 360 Elite console, as my PC was almost ready for the scrapyard. That was my turning point from PC to console for many years, although I still dabbled with the PC, chatting with mates on TeamSpeak and the odd game of Counter Strike Source.
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