That Was The News 2007
Part 2: July to December.
October
Sony announced it was about to introduce a new 40GB PlayStation 3 priced at GBP 299.
It won't have backwards compatibility, said Sony. WHAT, said everyone. No, wait, it's to make it cheaper and no one uses it anyway, said SCE UK boss Ray Maguire. And sorry but we've run out of free tellies.
At the videogame BAFTAs (like the proper BAFTAs, but instead of Sir Ian McKellen you get Max out of Hollyoaks) BioShock won best game while Wii Sports scooped six trophies. Will Wright won a lifetime achievement award and later gave a lovely speech about how games are the new books.
The Church of England wasn't happy to learn Resistance: Fall of Man was nominated for a BAFTA. But it didn't win anyway.
The Halo 3 juggernaut rolled on. It was declared as the second-fastest selling game in UK chart history, with one in three Xbox 360 owners snapping up a copy. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is still in first place, so doubtless we'll see a lot more dead prostitutes in Halo 4.
In self-indulgent Eurogamer-related news we launched Eurogamer.fr, a special videogames website made by French people, for French people. And we won three shiny perspex rectangles at the Games Media Awards. Actually "we" won two and Tom won the third one, for being the best person ever to do typing on the Internet. He's really precious about it actually and won't let anyone stub fags on it or Tippex his name out or carve ELLIE on the front.
It was a good month for great games, with The Orange Box, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Metroid Prime 3 all getting high scores from Tom and Kristan. Ellie got to interview Alan Hansen and Keith Chegwin.
November
Microsoft celebrated five years of Xbox Live by offering downloadable Xbox 1 titles and free gifts. Sadly these did not include towels.
Super Mario Galaxy was released and the crowd went wild, as did our reviewer.
Activision promised more Bond games. Daniel Craig's appearance was not officially confirmed, but they can always take a rope to his bollocks like they did last time.
Sierra/Vivendi announced the forthcoming arrival of a new Ghostbusters game starring the original cast members and everything. A Eurogamer staff member pledged to perform a sexual act on Bill Murray "out of respect" in exchange for an interview opportunity.
Warner Bros. Bought LEGO Star Wars developer TT Games. They promised LEGO Batman and LEGO Indiana Jones are still on the way, but refused to comment on rumours of LEGO Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer.
A right old furore kicked off after Gamespot's Jeff Gerstmann left the company. Did he fall or was he pushed? He was pushed, by most accounts, but was it by Eidos for saying nasty things about Kane and Lynch? By the way, you should click on that banner on the right, best game of the year.
October's big releases included Hellgate London, which turned out all right, as did Assassin's Creed. Even better were Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, not to mention Tabula Rasa. PlayStation 3 owners had reasons to be cheerful in the shape of Uncharted, the new Ratchet and Clank and SingStar PS3. And let's not forget Mass Effect and Guitar Hero III, either.
Highlights in Eurogamer's features section included the latest PS3 versus 360 face-off, live text interviews with Naughty Dog's Evan Wells and Sir Peter of Molyneux plus this thing about tits. And it's not even Christmas!
December
The month kicked off with the announcement that Activision, Vivendi and Blizzard are merging to form a giant supercompany specialising in games about skateboards, guitars, elves and bandicoots. But what will the new company be called, everyone wondered amusingly? Vivendivision? Actiblizzard? Or perhaps our favourite, which came from an insider at one of the aforementioned firms: Blactivision.
The Video Appeals Committee decided Manhunt 2 wasn't that bad after all and should be allowed to go on sale. What nonsense, said the BBFC, who called for a judicial review. Industry watchers have suggested the judge will give the game six out of ten.
Blu-ray for the W1n said Michael Bay, director of the Transformers movie. And Microsoft can do one as far as I'm concerned, he added. Each to their own, responded Microsoft's Stephen McGill.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer caused a row when he declared PS3 offers "infinitely more fun" than the Wii. It's certainly infinitely more available in shops.
Harmonix blamed Activision for blocking a patch that would allow Guitar Hero PS3 guitars to work with Rock Band. Activision blamed Harmonix right back, prompting rumours the two companies will appear on Jeremy Kyle to sort it all out.
In other news, the Wii can cure brain damage. Hopefully the kind you get from being forced to play endless mini-game collections on it.
This month's live text special starred Bungie's Jonty Barnes and Frank O'Connor. Kieron Gillen offered us a defence of BioShock and Tom said Rock Band rocks. The PS3 version of The Orange Box turned out all right, though it was a bit touch and go.
So that was 2007. Here's to 2008 and Mario Kart Wii, LittleBigPlanet, GTA IV, Spore, Wii Fit, Haze, Resident Evil 5, Ghostbusters...Maybe even Manhunt 2, who knows. Happy new year!