232w ago - Another year has passed and in 2009 promises an amazing round of games from each platform and we are likely to see mobile phone gaming finally crack the North American market (whether it is through a Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile, Apple, or Andriod powered phone), but before we can look to 2009 we have to evaluate 2008 and see how it matches up to the so-called Best Year of Gaming; 2007.

2007 was a year where there was no shortage of quality on any platform. With the DS sporting heavy hitters like Zelda, Puzzle Quest, Hotel Dusk, and Contra 4, the PC reclaimed top honors with amazing experiences like Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, and Crysis, but the Xbox 360 was the platform that took the crown with some of the PC offerings as well as it crown jewel, Halo 3.

Not to be discounted, the Sony platforms could not be forgotten either with titles like Uncharted, God of War 2 and Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow. With such a heavy field of courter vying for our attention, who could deny that 2007 WAS the "Best Year in Gaming" however, 2008 was not to be out done.
2008 was touted as "The Year of the PS3".

Sony's flagship console bared all with Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Turismo 5 Prologue, Resistance 2, SOCOM (aka SO-CRACK): Confrontation, and LittleBigPlanet as well as the shared titles with the Xbox...

256w ago - HBJ5, a member on FinalFantasy-xiii.net Forums (linked above), has found a leaked version of the Final Fantasy Versus XIII Trailer shown at Jump Festa 2007 which has never seen public eyes outside of Square-Enix's evil Closed Mega Theater.

To quote: We're not sure where this video has been leaked from, but we can only thank the Photobucket user a thousand times for uploading it for us. Thank God they have a good quality camera.

From what we can tell, this isn't the complete trailer, but is a good portion of it. The music is apparently from the final boss battle in Lost Oddyssey but I don't remember it. This trailer like all the rest is 100% CG.

Video is available from idStarfleets via YouTube below:

274w ago - Shown publicly at E3 2007, Echochrome garnered buzz with its simple look and unique presentation. Echochrome is a puzzle game, but with a unique twist: each level has players controlling the level's perspective.

Although this gameplay mechanic is hard to describe in words, it's visually understandable in seconds. Basically, imagine an M.C. Escher drawing that players can rotate and pitch, thereby altering the optical illusion to solve the riddle (e.g. making "up" suddenly become "down" to navigate your avatar through each maze).

Players have basic control over the avatar and level perspective, with the ability to change direction, run and think (pause). Recently released on the Japanese PlayStation Network, the Echochrome demo gave those of us in the DailyGame bunker some hands-on time with the unique puzzle game, and we're happy to report that everything you've read about the game is pretty much true.

One of the first impressions with Echochrome is the game's elegant minimalism, with its stark black-and-white background that helps accent the levels, enabling players to chose their next move much more easily. You'll actually thank the game for this minimalism too, as any more detail would increase its difficulty factor immensely. Fortunately, the soft classical string track in the background...

285w ago - 2007 was a rough year for the PS3. It was slow getting out the gate and a lot of awesome titles were pushed back to late 07 and 08. Even after being hammered by the competition in the beginning of the year, the black box just refused to stay down and ended up finishing 2007 a lot stronger than most of us anticipated.

If you're a PS3 owner, here's the Must Have games of the year. (No, Lair isn't on the list. Neither is Kane and Lynch since Eidos doesn't want to pony up the money.)

Motorstorm

For the first 6 months of the PS3's life we experienced a dearth of quality titles as the system was plagued with terrible ports and with more movie based games than any carbon life form should have to endure. There were only games worth owning was Resistance and Motorstorm. Motorstorm was the first racing game, outside of Mario Kart, that I actually purchased at full price and, at the time, it was somewhat expensive for what you got. You could count the number of tracks available on two hands and there was no split-screen multi player whatsoever (Inexcusable). However the online was fun, assuming you had friends with PS3s. But these past few months, we've seen a lot of Motorstorm content that sure to please fans. Lets just hope that when the second game rolls out in 09 and there's more content...

286w ago - We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas 2007 today!

Have a safe and happy holidays all!