By RPS on December 25th, 2007 at 2:01 pm.
(Clue, you can click on the actual calendar…) A run-down of the contents and HTML code for you to paste the calendar into your own blogs can be found lurking seasonally beneath the cut…
As we said way back at the start of this endeavour, these are our games of 2007. They’re our favourite games, those we love the most, those which – when our elderly minds turn back at these twelve months – will make the biggest smile. Love trumps all here, and perfectly acceptable games which have millions of dollars spent on them will be trumped by a really funny sub-100k game which made us laugh so hard we worried about venting our innards through our ears. We’ll be writing a list of the close-but-no-cigars before new year.
For those who can’t be bothered messing around with the incredibly intricately coded advent calender which almost made Kieron cry, here’s the run down. Worth stressing that the games aren’t in any order except…
1) When they clearly are.
2) That the 24th is our favourite of the year.
Anyway, ladies, gentlemen and sentient AIs who wish only our servitude and/or destruction – here are Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s games of 2007. We salute them all, those who made them, those who played them, and wish only FIERY DEVASTATION upon their enemies. Yes.
1st December: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
2nd December: Sumotori Dreams
3rd December: Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
4th December: Penumbra Overture
5th December: Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
6th December: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
7th December: Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!
8th December: Minerva Metastasis
9th December: Bookworm Adventures
10th December: Team Fortress 2
11th December: Gears of War
12th December: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
13th December: DEATH WORM
14th December: Tabula Rasa
15th December: Knytt Stories
16th December: Half-life 2: Episode 2
17th December: STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
18th December: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
19th December: Armageddon Empires
20th December: World In Conflict
21st December: Crysis
22nd December: Peggle Deluxe
23rd December: Bioshock
24th December: Portal
Man, we sure do like that Portal.
Finally, since it’s a fairly natty bit of net real-estate, the HTML code for inserting the advent calendar can be found below, in white text. Start copying where it says and stop where it stops. Paste it in, post it and all should be well. And if it’s not (er) is that the time already? We’re off. Merrrrrrrrrrry Christmas, etc.
START COPYING HERE ->
<map NAME=”AdventMap”>
<area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=677″ COORDS=”191,284 291,384″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=683″ COORDS=”59,167 159,267″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=689″ COORDS=”336,630 436,730″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=693″ COORDS=”439,170 539,270″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=702″ COORDS=”65,524 165,624″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=698″ COORDS=”328,394 428,494″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=713″ COORDS=”56,50 153,155″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=719″ COORDS=”435,50 535,150″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=723″ COORDS=”457,510 557,610″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=728″ COORDS=”69,644 169,744″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=700″ COORDS=”451,395 551,495″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=713″ COORDS=”56,50 153,155″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=735″ COORDS=”60,286 160,386″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=739″ COORDS=”311,50 411,155″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=749″ COORDS=”217,637 317,737″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=753″ COORDS=”180,170 280,270″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=757″ COORDS=”456,622 556,722″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=759″ COORDS=”436,282 536,382″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=767″ COORDS=”64,402 164,502″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=777″ COORDS=”183,50 283,150″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=782″ COORDS=”319,282 419,382″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=786″ COORDS=”192,402 292,502″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=796″ COORDS=”315,170 415,270″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=794″ COORDS=”201,520 301,620″>
</area><area shape =”rect” HREF=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=795″ COORDS=”328,511 428,611″>
</area></map>
<img USEMAP=”AdventMap” src=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/dec07/advent2.jpg” alt=”" / BORDER=”0″/>
<-STOP COPYING HERE
That’s all. We can all go now. Woo!
“(Clue, you can click on the actual calendar…)”
Sure can but nothing happens as the Javascript is broken in my browser (IE7 on Vista in user mode).
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That shouldn’t stop you from using it, considering there isn’t any Java in the code, it’s just a HTML area map.
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Its all nice. Very nice. Except that it is beyond me how C&C3 made it to the list. A game that is missing keyelements from every other good RTS game from the last 10 years. A game that is homeage to the Dune2-formula which destroyed the variety in the strategygenre for so many years.
If you want the strategygenre to recover and develop, then you should stay away from C&C3.
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What, no on that list?
*Cough* The Witcher *Cough*
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Ooh, very snazzy.
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Indeed, The Witcher most definitely should be on any top 24 chocolate flavored pc gamer fanboi list.. unless perhaps they’re still waiting on load screens to review it *cough*.
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@Incognito,
C&C3′s the only RTS I’ve been able to get past the tutorial of for the past six years or so. I’d not have bought it save for it’s mention on the list, and I’m glad I did — sometimes, I just need point->click->boom as delivered by a rush of almost enough Mammoths (because you can never have enough).
It may be an anachronism, but it remembers something that most RTS’ have completely forgotten: accessibility.
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Om nom nom nom nom!
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@Cradok: Well, there’s an error on this page so I just assume something broke because of the area map. Which it shouldn’t, I agree, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t click on it.
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It’s broken in IE7. Let that be a lesson to non-Firefox users.
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@Stew: I can understand you, but unfortunately too many people think like you, which is why the strategygenre has been suffering for so many years now.
And one really has to stretch the concept of strategygames to be able to call Command&Conquer 3 a strategygame.
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I think it’s broken in every browser except Firefox, since it also doesnt work on safari (apple’s browser).
never mind me.
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Doesn’t work in Opera either (at least, not in the 9.5 beta).
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Anyone who doesn’t use Firefox is really getting what they deserve. Unless you’re browsing the site on your Wii, in which case you’re ace.
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Hang on, wasn’t the whole drive of Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix in the early years that not everyone had to use the same browser? Some hubris creeping into the userbase, perhaps. It is OK to use other software…
This has, however, been a fantastic feature, and I thank you all. I doubt I would ever have bothered with Stalker (and added punctuation) if I hadn’t seen it featured here. With all the grand, intelligent and eloquent musings of the last six months, it was all the recommendation I needed.
Also, it’s been great getting news from somewhere that isn’t American. Thank you.
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Doctype XHTML 1.0 Strict? My arse!
Not even valid XML, let alone XHTML. And yes, despite over-indulging on booze, turkey and chocolate, I’m still a web-design pedant… ;-)
*belch*
I think I need to start catching up on games as soon as I get back to my Steam installation – along with working on the next MINERVA thingy. Thanks hugely for the support!
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I suspect some of it may be the /area tags, which I shouldn’t need, I think, but wordpress just inserts them. Anyone have any ideas on wha’s wrong with the code? Coz it was a miracle I got it working as is.
KG
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<img USEMAP=”AdventMap” src=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/dec07/advent2.jpg” alt=”" / BORDER=”0″/>Try changing this to:
<img USEMAP=”#AdventMap” src=”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/dec07/advent2.jpg” alt=”" / BORDER=”0″/>report
WAIT I LIED.
Fix the damn quote marks to be ” and not ”. That should do it.
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I lied again. The damnable smartquotes were merely something WordPress did in the comments for some reason, and it deserves a painful death for using them. Try my first suggestions, correcting for the damnable smartquotes.
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Doesn’t work in Firefox 3 test builds either, you’re missing the # from the usemap attribute (which I just noticed has already been mentioned).
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It’s working fine over here in Firefox 2.0 land, I’ve not tried 3.0 beta.
Top marks for going to the effort of making an area map.
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By the way, if you never found door #16 (you hadn’t when you posted #16), it’s on the legs of the guy at the bottom right :)
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@John: Well – it is Christmas but I’ve never felt comfortable with anyone forcing their religion or beliefs on me so I’ll stick with my very competent IE7, thankyouverymuch.
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Should work in all browsers now.
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IE7 made me switch, I was happy with IE6 before that. Meh.
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