Quarterlies 2007
TomChick - Features - Comments - 12/20/07
10. Portal
 The actual gameplay didn't do much for me. It mainly made my head hurt. But that was a relatively minor part of Portal. This is instead the story of a dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship between a rogue AI and her subject. Portal is about their break up. As such, it's an example of how videogames are growing up, treating narrative as something other than the cutscenes you shoehorn between the levels.
From my review, to be posted on a site launching in January: GLadDOS is no mere plot device. Instead of the stereotypical rogue AI, she is reimagined as an insecure and spoiled child who really wants you to love her. She doesn't need Hal's logical loophole or SHODAN's homicidal cunning. Her insecurity is driven by fear, longing, and ultimately the suggestion of loneliness. This is expressed through a combination of text and subtext, presented brilliantly in the collaboration between writer Erik Wolpaw and voice actress Ellen McLane. Jonathan Coulton's song over the credit sequence, Still Alive, rounds out GLaDOS as one of videogaming's most memorable characters.
9. STALKER
 Here at last is a haunted house game that's broken free of the confines of its haunted house. It's got a little Oblivion, a little Deus Ex, and some System Shock, but it feels very much like its own game, with its own place and style.
From my review in Sci Fi magazine: This pocket apocalypse is one of the most evocative and original settings you’ll find in a computer game. It was made in Russia, which partly explains the aesthetic of run-down industrial parks and abandoned military installations. But these also recall the sets of all those low-budget cheesy apocalypse movies since Damnation Alley or A Boy and His Dog. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the setting is given an eerie half-life, with mutants lurking in dark corners, wild dogs roaming the countryside, and even the air itself threatening to come alive to kill you.
8. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
 It was a tough year to be a team-based online shooter. Team Fortress 2, Warhawk, Unreal Tournament 3 are quite good at what they do. But my own personal favorite was Quake Wars, for its brave asymmetry, its thorough and competent offline play, its mix of the familiar and the alien, and its willingness to provide a focused experience rather than pandering to the hegemony of fashionable free-roaming.
From my review in Games for Windows: Quake Wars is dropping into the middle of a competitive genre; enemy territory, indeed. When it comes to teaming up and shooting other people online, there are plenty of good games. Even a middling game comes alive when you play with other people. But when a game is built as carefully as Quake Wars -- for play online and offline, for new players and veterans, for quick thrills and long learning curves, for hyper action and careful tactics -- this is as good as it gets.
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