ActionTrip's 2007 Game of the Year voting poll registered 10673 participants. 1809 registered users voted for Call of Duty 4, 1279 for Halo 3, 1192 for Assassin's Creed, 837 for "None of the Above", 716 for BioShock, 710 for Crysis, 627 for The Orange Box, and so on. The rest of the results can be viewed in ActionTrip's voting poll section.

¿ People's Choice: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
¿ Runners-up: Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box

¿ Game of the Year (ActionTrip Staff): Portal
¿ Runners-up: Mass Effect, Halo 3, BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Witcher

¿ Best Action Game: Halo 3
¿ Runners-up: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, God of War II, BioShock, Crysis

¿ Best Strategy Game: World in Conflict
¿ Runners-up: Supreme Commander, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

¿ Best RPG: Mass Effect
¿ Runners-up: The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer

¿ Best Sports Game: FIFA 08
¿ Runners-up: SSX Blur, NHL 08, Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008

¿ Best MMOG: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
¿ Runners-up: Tabula Rasa, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

¿ Best Rhythm/Music Game: Rock Band
¿ Runners-up: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

¿ Babe of the Year: Joanna Krupa
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The Bitbag editor picks the winners for:

¿ Best 3D Action Game
¿ Best Racing Game
¿ Best RPG
¿ Best Fighter
¿ Best FPS
¿ Best Strategy Game
¿ Best Sports Game
¿ Best War Game
¿ Best Mecha Game
¿ Achievement In Excellence
¿ Best Handheld Game
¿ Best Graphics
¿ Best Sound
¿ Best Online Multiplayer
¿ Developer Of The Year
¿ Game Of The Year
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What makes a good video game? Strong visuals are important. Good controls are essential. A well-crafted concept helps too. These days, most games can boast at least two-thirds of that criteria.

So, then what makes a game great? Feeling. Emotion. Surprise. Interaction. Even addiction. It's a magical feeling when a game offers all these elements.

Here are the titles L.A. Times deemed the best experiences of 2007. Admittedly, they didn't play everything (because that would probably be impossible), but of the titles that did cross their paths, these are the ones that resonated most. Their favorites in order:

Best of the Year:
¿ BioShock
¿ Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
¿ Assassin's Creed
¿ Super Mario Galaxy
¿ The Orange Box

Honorable Mention:
¿ Halo 3
¿ Rock Band
¿ Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
¿ Cooking Mama: Cook Off
¿ Lost Planet

Worst of the Year:
¿ Lair

Dishonorable Mention:
¿ Fusion Frenzy 2
¿ 300: March to Glory
¿ Tenchu Z

[ By Pete Metzger, December 21, 2007 ]
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The decision is in and the staff of G4 X-Play has named its Game of the Year!
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Here are some observations issued by NPD analyst Anita Frazier, on total industry sales and the performances of Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Guitar Hero III, Rock Band, the 360 HD-DVD add-on, and Wii accessories.
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Everybody's favourite Italian plumber Mario has blasted his way to number one in the overall Australian game chart, according to data trackers GfK Australia.

Top 10 Full-Priced Games
1. Super Mario Galaxy, Wii
2. Need for Speed ProStreet, PlayStation 2
3. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008, PlayStation 2
4. The Simpsons Game, PlayStation 2
5. Assassin's Creed, Xbox 360
6. Need for Speed ProStreet, Xbox 360
7. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Wii
8. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?, Nintendo DS
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle, PlayStation 2
10. Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree bundle
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From Official Bethesda Blog:
"Week after week, folks at the office were picking up the latest "AAA" titles to play, and as a result, I'm guessing most everyone now has a pile of games to play. Luckily, most of the big releases are now out, so we can put away our wallets and focus on the games we've got.

Here's what you'll see our team playing over the weekend."
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Kotaku's Brian Crecente has a leaked copy of the National Institute on Media and the Family's annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, set to be officially released tomorrow. This year's report card is broken into five parts:

¿ The MediaWise Video Game Report Card
¿ The Buying Guide
¿ The ESRB Rating System and Ratings Education Efforts
¿ The Retailer Ratings Education and Enforcement Surveys
¿ Annual MediaWise-Harris Interactive Poll of Kids and Parents

Kotaku gives a quick summary for each part.
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Penny Arcade's Gabe writes: "I guess some guy at IGN is mad at me and he lays into me on their podcast. [...] Basically some IGN guy is super pissed because I said I didn't agree with the bad reviews of Assassin's Creed. I'm actually of the opinion that if we're pissing off IGN we must be doing something right.

Honestly my main concern was to make sure people didn't avoid the game based on some of the poor reviews."

"The IGN thing is just sort of silly. He says I should leave reviewers alone because I 'just do things and write things as a freaking comic artist.' I'm not sure how to respond to that. I think he's trying to insult me but everything he said there is true.

The sad thing is I wasn't even talking about their review. I was talking about the 7.0 from 1UP. No one actually pays any attention to IGN or their 7-10 review scale."
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David Seymour, Design Director of Slant Six Games writes:

"Happy Thanksgiving from Slant Six! While we celebrated our Canadian turkey day earlier in October, we hope that you all have a great holiday. I have actually taken the week off to spend time with family and to play some games. I finally have some time to dig into my fearsome PS3 backlog, including Uncharted, Assassin's Creed and Motorstorm Devil's Weekend".
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LOVEFiLM, Europe's number one online DVD rental service, expects Assassin's Creed to top sales and rentals this holiday season.

"Assassins Creed will definitely be up there; our audience have already heavily pre-ordered this and the sure scale of the experience is very cinematic, so will prove popular amongst film fans," Chris Bird, head of marketing services for LOVEFiLM, told GamesIndustry.biz.

"Kane and Lynch will also do well, as will Call of Duty 4. FIFA 08 and PES will also be 'must buy' for anyone getting a new console over Christmas."
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Ubisoft UK boss Rob Cooper has been celebrating the sales success of Assassin's Creed ¿ and stated that it proves new IP can still shift serious numbers at retail.

"I think the success worldwide of Assassin's Creed absolutely proves that new IP can live and prosper within the sequel and licensed based competition," he told MCV. "The industry is crying out for new and compelling content and we're delighted that AC has lived up to its expectations."

"The launch of Assassin's has been a huge global success. There are a number of factors for this in the UK. One is that the game has gripped a nation of gaming consumers. With licensed or sequel based titles, it's easier to know what to expect, but with Assassin's Creed there has been a ground swell of excitement since we first showed it at E3 06."
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Any doubts about Assassin's Creed can now be put to rest, as the game's sell-through sales have already topped the record level of 1 million units.
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Ahead of Ubisoft's fiscal 2008 first half results expected November 20th, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has predicted the company will announce full year sales estimates of €825 million ($1.21 billion), as Assassin's Creed, Haze and its casual lineup lead a strong holiday lineup.
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Ubisoft's legal counsel has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the webmaster of SomethingAwful.com via email and express mail. Here is an abstract:

"Ubisoft has recently learned that the extremely offensive pornographic image (the "Image") accessible at [WaffleImages.com] is being used on your website located at http://www.somethingawful.com [and/or] http://forums.somethingawful.com..."

"...the Image's blatant, vile, and unauthorized misappropriation of Ms. Raymond's name and likeness, and your conduct in using the Image on your Site, have caused immeasurable harm to Ms. Raymond's reputation and career, and constitute an egregious infringement of Ms. Raymond's personal rights and privacy rights..."

"Ubisoft hereby demands that you immediately: (1) permanently remove the Image from your Site, databases and servers and prevent any further uploading or display thereof; (2) permanently cease and desist all unauthorized use and hosting of images using the ASSASSIN'S CREED mark and Ms. Raymond's name and/or likeness; (3) provide us with the name and contact information of the person who originally created and/or posted the Image; and (4) complete, execute, and return to me the enclosed Declaration by November 16, 2007 to confirm that you are complying with Ubisoft's demand."

Ubisoft have prepared a declaration for the webmaster of SomethingAwful.com to sign. The full cease-and-desist letter and attached declaration are available at the source.
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From an email Surfer Girl received

Here's how Ubisoft deals with criticism:

A certain British gaming website had praised Assassin's Creed since it was announced. They'd run previews, interviews, did a lot to hype the game. When they played the final built, they finally realized it wasn't that great, so it got a 7/10. But instead of acknowledging AC's mistakes, Ubisoft got furious, pulled all ads from the site and cancelled all placed orders (mid five figures) indefinitely. A planned live interview with Jade Raymond isn't going to happen either. According to Ubisoft everything would have been fine though, if the site had just put an 8 instead of a 7 under the same text.
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Pacific Crest Securities' Evan Wilson says new version of Nintendo's portable complete; holiday release torrent creating retail woes.

Wilson notes that not all games will be affected by insufficient retail space. "Clearly, the end-of-year squeeze creates limited space at retail, which limits the size of initial orders of games with less publicity and reorders of games with lower quality." He anticipates games with high preorder rates such as Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4, Assassins' Creed, Mass Effect, WWE, and Rock Band to be less affected by insufficient retail space. "Titles that could be at risk of getting squeezed," he continues, "include Haze, Kane & Lynch, and Uncharted."
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Mysterious industry "insider" Surfer Girl reveals more "trainwrecks" and/or "nightmares" hidden behind the closed door of Ubisoft:

¿ How the editorials at Ubisoft have power of life or death over any project in the company.

¿ How Martin Tremblay, former CEO of Ubisoft Montreal, was "asked to resign" because a certain then senior producer named Yannis Mallat could not stand him. (Mallat has connection to the the Guillemot family that owns Ubisoft; After Tremblay's departure, Mallat was promptly promoted to CEO.)

¿ How Mallat influenced the editorials to kill an unannounced "AAA" HUDless FPS.

¿ The early troubled development of Assassin's Creed, and its secret sci-fi twist.

¿ Tom Clancy's connection (or lack of) to Ubisoft Montreal and Splinter Cell Conviction.
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Super Mario Galaxy, Assasin's Creed and Crysis lead the pack of new releases for the week of November 12, 2007!
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Yes, The Game Of The Year (GOTY) discussion is already beginning! Spike is hosting its 5th annual Video Game Awards this December in Las Vegas, and this morning the nominees were released on Spike.com. What's in contention for Game of the Year? Orange Box, Halo 3, BioShock, and Mass Effect.
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