2007 In Review (Part 2)

Ratchet and Clank Future

This was a fantastic game, beautifully executed with a great sense of humor and fantastic mechanics. Wonderful level design, not to mention one of the best looking games of the year. If it weren't for uncharted, I'd probably have made this my PS3 game of the year. It was a bunch of mindless fun, with tons of weapons and a great upgrade system. I'd never played a Ratchet and Clank game before, so this was a particularly good experience for me.

The story seemed a little disjointed, but I figure it's because I'm coming in late. The plot is very simple and straightforward. The dialog is pretty funny, though. Definitely kid's style game, and I wouldn't say it quite hits the Pixar mark of appealing to adults, also. But it didn't detract at all.

Graphically, it had a wonderful art style that ended up looking really good. Almost like a realtime cartoon CG movie. It didn't have a ton of graphical bells and whistles, but it had a nice, solid look. Definitely overall one of the better looking games of the year.

Definitely a very high quality game.

Rock Band

To put it simply, this is the game of the year for me. The game itself is executed perfectly. The songs are sequenced amazingly well, the drums feel incredible, and the new guitar (once I got a fixed version), is just fantastic. The track list is the best ever in any rhythm game, and the downloadable content is incredibly impressive (still waiting on those albums though).

Graphically, I think it's about perfect. Character creation is simple, but effective, and the show itself has impressive animations to go along with the song. The environments are simple, but effective, and the crowd rendering gets the job done. No one is going to give it an award for best graphics, but considering the screen is mostly covered in UI, it does fine. And watching it while you're not playing is still a fun experience.

The guitar is the best of these games, in my opinion. It hits exactly the right difficulty. The drums take some getting used to, but once you start to get it, it feels amazing. If anything it feels even more like you're playing the real instrument than it does on guitar. Singing is fine, I was hoping they'd figure out something a little better than Karaoke Revolution, and the star power section is just that, but it doesn't blow me away.

This game is great if you're alone, but if you don't play it with friends, you haven't really played it at all. Playing with a group of friends trading off instruments is one of the definitive gaming experiences of my lifetime, and the best part is, you don't even have to be a gamer to get into it. Everyone I know can enjoy something in rock band. Truly a remarkable experience.

The game isn't flawless, however, the online multiplayer feels something like an afterthought, which is somewhat understandable because the game shines much more with 4 players in one room than online. The menus in general are just terrible, however. Very very strange menu flow when changing instruments and if you want to reconfigure your band it's very very confusing. The largest flaw, and perhaps most unforgivable is the complete lack of an in-game store with which to purchase new downloadable content. This egregious flaw is probably keeping many more casual players from exploring the downloadable options, which at this point equal the number of songs in the game, or are damn near close.

Nitpicks and small flaws aside, this is truly one of the greatest games I've ever played.