This time I’ll be covering the month of November, 2007 - which means this will be a particularly length edition. As you all probably know, November was the month for many long-awaited releases and an armada of absolutely awesome games. Essentially we’ve had more than a years’ worth of awesome titles released in a single month! Of course this also results in some hefty gaming expenses, and some of you might not be able to buy every game they want - you might want to read on and see which ones you really should get.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Released early last month, Call of Duty 4 quickly racked up a wealth of overwhelmingly positive reviews. Ranging from ‘awesome graphics’ to ‘fantastic singleplayer experience’ most reviews

It’s checkpoint saving system alone should be enough to convince any FPS/singleplayer fan not to buy this game, but otherwise the horrendous difficulty scaling, the infinite enemy spawns, the dull “defend this spot for 10 minutes” sections, and so on… will do that anyway. As for multiplayer, I might not have tried it, but let’s just say that inbetween Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament 3, there is no way Call of Duty 4 can compete. Having played and liked both previous Call of Duty PC games, this was a disappointment… to say the least.

Download the demo, here. (1.37 GB)

Crysis

Who doesn’t know Crysis? It was touted as the most gorgeous game ever made - and the full version released this November certainly proved that statement. Personally I never much cared for it’s spiritual predecessor Far Cry and as such had anticipated a mediocre experience with nice graphics. Interestingly enough, this game turned out to be surprisingly good.

The singleplayer experience is fun, engaging and generally awesome - and the multiplayer experience is decent enough for a few games. Some reviewers have remarked that later levels were a tad disappointing, but I’d have to disagree. I thought the aliens were very cool and certainly no disappointment the likes of the mutants in Far Cry. Particularly the all-out everyone vs aliens fighting scenes were awesome.

All-in-all a very welcome surprise that instantly climbed up to my list of all-time favorite shooters.

Download the demo, here. (1.77 GB)

Empire Earth 3

The third installment in this popular strategy series looks gorgeous, but reviews indicate that everything else about this title is disappointing. Gameplay has been dumbed down to be more accessible to new players, effectively alienating it’s entire fanbase. Worth a mention for being a long-awaited title, but unfortunately so horribly disappointing that you’ll want to go out of your way to avoid wasting your money on it.

Download the demo, here. (1.63 GB)

Gears of War

Finally one of the most popular console shooters ever has made it’s way to the PC! The visuals have received major retouches all around and there are some new gameplay elements (multiplayer maps, singleplayer chapters, etc) introduced, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same game Xbox players had one year ago.

Unfortunately this ’similarity’ also extends to the controls, which are clearly console-oriented and indicate a direct port, rather than a PC-oriented game. This ‘rushed port‘ feeling further increases once you visit the official forums and notice the thousands of complaints and bug reports… Gears of War PC clearly wasn’t ready for release. That said, it’s a good game - and definitely worth buying if you think a peek-and-shoot shooter will be your kind of thing and you haven’t played it yet on the Xbox.

Hellgate: London

Diablo’s spiritual successor? Or an utter and complete failure? My opinion should be fairly clear to you, if you’ve read my hands-on report with the, underwhelmingly mediocre, demo. It has fairly decent hack&slash gameplay, but is that really all you need when the interface, graphics, sound, voices, quests, story, atmosphere, online support and vast array of bugs all exceed an air of ‘this could have used another 2 years of development time’ while a superior product is already on the shelves? I doubt it.

Download the demo, here… if you dare. (1.46 GB)

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

This game looked to be a fairly entertaining action game along the likes of a Max Payne. Truth be told, reviews so far suggest it fails to deliver, but is a decent game nonetheless. Perhaps more notable is the recent controversy surrounding Kane & Lynch reviews, advertisements, user-review-lockings and editor firings on GameSpot. Ah well, that’s just one more reason not to trust those big-name sites… their reviews are inacurrate oh-so-often and this just goes to show that they don’t mind skewing their scores a bit if they earn something from it.

Sam & Max: Ice Station Santa

Yes! Sam & Max! Season 2 has begun with this Ice Station Santa episode, so fans of the first season should go grab their credit cards and head over to the official site for their Sam & Max fix! As with previous episodes, Sam & Max: Ice Station Santa is receiving mostly favorable (more-so than Kane & Lynch or Hellgate: London for example) reviews and should be a part of your collection if you like adventure games. Truth be told I haven’t actually spent any time with this game or read much about it - but go give those reviews a look if you’re interested - user reviews have it up at 9.2!

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

The stand-alone expansion pack that Supreme Commander fans have been waiting for is finally here! Introducing a new race, singleplayer campaign, bigger maps and dozens upon dozens of units… this is one game you don’t want to miss. Well, if you liked Supreme Commander that is, because it’s mostly just more of the same, as you might expect of an expansion pack. Arguably the best aspect of this expansion is that it’s stand-alone, meaning you don’t need the original. So if you’ve had a hardware upgrade between then and now, this might be the best time to give your hardware a good run for it’s money and enjoy some amazing battles.

Download the demo, of the original game, here. (1.05 GB)

Unreal Tournament 3

Let’s get straight to the point: Unreal Tournament 3 is my Game of the Year 2007. The graphics are awesome, nearly on-par with Crysis at times, except this game runs at 90-120 frames per second with everything maxed. Mixing near-flawless weapon balance, awesome map design, fantastic gameplay and remixed classic musical themes… there is no way you can not love this game. Friends of mine who never were fans of UT have bought this game and/or tried it’s demo and loved it… meanwhile longtime UT veterans and professional gamers are returning in droves, most of them extremely positive about the new game.

And while the atmosphere, fun and gameplay are all there and awesome to the point of nearly surpassing every shooter in the history of man… there are some unfortunate flaws that need mentioning. Not the least of which is the horrible user interface. The game doesn’t even allow you to select a crosshair or edit your mouse sensitivity, let alone pick an announcer voice, properly admin your server in-game, search for servers with mutators enabled, respond to in-game messages… in-game, manage lists of favorite servers, etcetera.

That said, those are really just about all of my gripes with the game and they’re all being adressed in one way or another in the first official patch. Following that should be an influx of hundreds or thousands of new players who are waiting for an interface/server browser patch before heading in for real.

It’s hard not to be crazy about this game. After all, it’s what I’ve been waiting for since 1999!

You can download the demo, here. (741 MB)

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