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RPS Time Capsule: the games worth saving from 2007We list our favourite games from 2007, and why they deserve to be preserved above everything else
We list our favourite games from 2007, and why they deserve to be preserved above everything else
Earlier this month,RPS turned 15 years old, so it only seemed right that this month’sTime Capsuleentry should be the year of our birth: 2007. Looking back, it was a good year for PC gaming, with the release of Valve’s Orange Box alone giving us three new stone-cold classics to enjoy. But what other games from the year of our Horace deserve to be preserved and saved above everything else? Find out which games made the cut below.
PC Game Music Quiz | Can You Guess PC Classics From The Music?Watch on YouTube
PC Game Music Quiz | Can You Guess PC Classics From The Music?
Team Fortress 2
Liam:Considering it’s a shooter, I love how the most compelling bits ofTeam Fortress 2don’t involve guns at all. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of brilliant firearms to play around with here. The heavy’s minigun, for instance, is an exercise in tension that leaves you extremely vulnerable as its barrel groans into life, gradually building into a devastating flurry of lead that cuts through everything in its path. The instantaneous crack of the Sniper’s rifle removes enemies with pixel perfect precision, bullet drop be damned. Even the shotgun, reserved as a secondary weapon for most classes, is pleasantly understated, more accurate than you’d expect and equipped with a reload sound that’s as comforting as a nice hot bath.
They are, however, insignificant when compared to the Engineer’s mighty wrench. I spent countless hours squeezed in between a dispenser and a fully upgraded sentry, desperately repairing my metallic offspring as it rattled and chewed through hundreds of adversaries attempting capture the final control point. Pulling a trigger is easy. A great engie must instead consider things like geometry and lines of sight, and is happy to hunker down for literal hours for the sake of protecting a single floating briefcase.
But it’s The Spy who stole my heart 15 years ago. Decades beforeAmong Us, here was a class built entirely around the concept of social deduction, boasting combat mechanics that traded bullets for lies. My tactic was airtight: I’d helplessly shout for a medic’s aid to appear trustworthy, exploiting the kindness of strangers before sinking my butterfly knife into their freshly exposed back. There’s no feeling in the world like hearing the critical hit ding after tricking an enemy Sniper that you’re just a harmless Scout. It’s a high I’ve been chasing ever since.
BioShock
Image credit:2K
Rebecca:I’m really trying not to overstuff these Time Capsules with multiple entries from favourite franchises; but if ever there was a duology that deserves to be preserved entwined for all time like one of those Italian skeleton couples, it’sBioShockandBioShock 2. (Just don’t get me started onBioShock Infinite: my feelings are… complicated.)
There’s reams of writing out there singing the praises of BioShock’s story and world-building, and you know what? I’m inclined to agree. BioShock was one of the games that got me back into gaming more widely, after several years of hibernating among my massive Sims collection while rarely trying anything new. My obsession with exploring every inch of this underwater city and uncovering the secrets of its inhabitants turned out to be my gateway into the immersive sim genre. Also, my fascination with this game is what led me to read Atlas Shrugged, but I don’t hold that against it.
There was a remaster in 2016 and I can recommend that as well if you want to marvel at how pretty Rapture looks when the water outside no longer acts as a shield for restricted draw distance. But I highly recommend playing the original first, mainly because some environmental puzzles come pre-completed in the remaster, defanging some iconic scary moments in the process. Players on PC get both versions bundled together now anyway; don’t take those spooks away from yourself.
Portal
Take the puzzling itself. Portal’s inputs are simple - you can only move, jump, and shoot two portals at a time – but with cleverly designed test chambers and the steady introduction of mechanical twists, there’s always a fresh challenge to outthink. Between this well-judged complexity and a relatively high sense of kineticism, especially once inter-portal momentum comes into play, Portal’s puzzles don’t just bank on the pleasure of a single “Eureka” moment – they’re compelling from start to finish.
It helps that Portal’s script is Valve at their most endearingly deadpan. Out-of-game references to duplicitous confectionary were excessive, it’s true, but don’t let that mask how rare it was to successfully pull off a comedy game in 2007. Hell, it’s 15 years later and hardly anyone has done it since. It doesn’t hurt to try, though – a huge part of Portal’s legacy is showing that experiments can pay off, and pay off big.
Supreme Commander
The best part was when you progressed to the experimental super-weapons at the end of the tech tree. It was a colossal undertaking, building even one of your nation’s experimental units, but it was so worth it to see a gigantic spider mech stomping over the enemy’s tanks, or a screen-filling mothership let loose its Independence Day laser beam to splinter the opponent’s strongest defences in seconds. Glorious stuff.
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
It’s certainly a series high point, for sure, but I’d argue the real reason Episode 2 deserves to be Time Capsuled along with the 2004 original is because of that cliffhanger ending, mostly so future generations will know and appreciate the sheer agony we all endured in the years that followed. It would take Valve another 13 years to revisit theHalf-Lifeuniverse with VR entry Alyx, but even then it would only offer a tantalising glimpse at what could still be in Gordon Freeman’s future, rather than anything concrete. I’m not interested in reigniting the ‘why no Episode /Half-Life 3?’ debate. That doesn’t interest me in the slightest. But it’s a moment that should be remembered nonetheless - a lesson in the kind of rampant mythologising and runaway fan theories that can occur when a series goes dark for a bit. If nothing else, it should act as a warning to future game devs. Please. For the love of all that’s holy. Don’t leave us on this kind of cliffhanger ever again. Our fragile minds can’t take it.
Peggle
Peggle is just really nice. Pachinko meets pinball meets bagatelle, all wrapped up in colours and rainbows and fantasy friends. I reinstalled Peggle today (look, this is a new PC, okay) simply to take a screenshot for this post and before I knew it, I was popping pegs like the good old days. Peggle now is as good as Peggle was then, especially as this sort of friendly casual game mostly exists today as free-to-play games crammed full of gems and loot boxes and microtransactions and ads, or it would be a roguelikelike, or… I miss this sort of game. I cherish the few which exist. Peggle still exists. You can still play Peggle. You should still play Peggle. It runs on any PC still able to turn on, and the game up only takes one (1) Peggle of drive space.
World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
The Burning Crusade was almost universally loved, though. It had awell cool trailer, added big, lush fantastical scenery, and introduced the Draenei (sort of buff blue squid-goats, see above) and Blood Elf (big eyebrow pinup elf: orange flavour) starting races – along with the first raise to the level cap and new raids to boot. It’s arguably when World Of Warcraft began to really be World Of Warcraft. And when I say universally loved, I’m talking about a big universe: it was the biggest-selling PC game of 2007. In fact, it was the fastest-selling PC game inhistoryup to that point. It deserves a save.
Thrillville: Off the Rails
Thrillville Off The Rails Soundtrack - Rapscallion - Perfect DayWatch on YouTube
Thrillville Off The Rails Soundtrack - Rapscallion - Perfect Day
Hayden:ThrillVille: Off the Railswas Frontier’s midlife crisis between Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and Planet Coaster. As a theme parkmanagement game, it isn’t great. You run around and chat with guests to see what they like, plop down a few rides, and chat with them again to improve your thrill meter. Yawn. Just play Planet Coaster, it’s way better.
Stranglehold
Ed:John Woo’sStrangleholdis a third-person shooter and sequel to Woo’s ultra-violent film Hardboiled, in which you control Inspector “Tequila” Yuen and dive into the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong. Seriously, you really do dive into things, sometimes on your belly, sometimes on your back. Either way, you’ll whip out two silver pistols and channel Max Payne, riddling baddies with bullets in the most cinematic way possible.
We must save Stranglehold because it lets you run along a railing and light-up enemies in slow-mo, then dive onto a food cart and continue the process as chunks of melon sling across screen. You’re rewarded with points for your ‘investigative’ flair and the occasional Sniper Elite sequence where you steer a bullet into someone’s chestnuts. In a year of greats, Stranglehold must remain wedged between them all as this homage to cinematic silliness. And hey, if you ever rinsed the legendary 20-minute Xbox 360 demo back in the day, here’s to you - a real one.
Resident Evil 4
CJ:Resident Evil 4is god-tier for me, even though I hold the original trilogy and Code Veronica dear too. It chucks away the dread of the earlier games, instead embracing visceral panic, which changes things up so much. It’s pretty well known now that Resi 4 adapts to how good you are, to either smooth over the challenge or ramp things up. Thanks to the fairly steady pacing of enemy types, I’d say you never feel like you’re having an easy time whatever your skill level. At least not until you complete the game – then there’s Mercenaries to tackle afterwards. That was probably the most hectic thing I’d ever played back then, excepting Jeff Minter stuff such as Llamatron when I was about seven.
The action is sheer class, but Resi 4 is surprisingly well acted to boot. Paul Mercier manages to lend the necessary amount of swagger to Leon ‘The S is for Survival Horror’ Kennedy, selling the campy mood in a way the original three games just couldn’t. Mercier nails it with his work for the Merchant too – a character even people who’ve never played a Resident Evil game are aware of thanks to his astonishing quotability. So, yeah, almost a perfect game. I don’t think I’m the only person who finished their first playthrough and immediately started another, desperate to recapture the initial thrill. Not going to lie: my anticipation for theResident Evil 4 remakeis so low that it recently won a limbo competition. I’m not sure there’s anything to change about the original, but I’d welcome any surprises. “Your left hand comes off,” maybe?
Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock
Rachel:Every single day I pray to the rock gods to bless the PC with aGuitar Hero 3HD remake. It was the first rhythm game I properly got into (like, ‘staying up into the early hours of the morning’ got into) and introduced my young brain to so many incredible rock bands. Harmonix truly are the kings of revolutionary music games, and Guitar Hero was arguably their greatest creation. After the first two games, Activision spent an eye-watering $100 million (big money back in 2007) to acquire the franchise, and later that year the clouds parted, and Guitar Hero 3 was lowered from the heavens to the sounds of epic guitar wailing.
