2007: The Year in Games

Join us as we take a look back at all the big stories that made 2007 one of the most exciting yet for games.

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December

If you're interested in games for more than just entertainment reasons then 2007 was by far one of the most fascinating in recent history. That fact was underlined by the consolidation that was everywhere, culminating in one of the biggest deals yet. In early December, Activision and Vivendi announced that they would be coming together, forming a new company called Activision Blizzard. Blizzard was quick to assuage fears that its games would be released under a different name, essentially saying that for the most part it was business as usual for them.

The merger announcement was interesting for other reasons too, not least because it revealed some of the games in development already. While a new Guitar Hero is no surprise, what did catch some off guard was that there was a new Call of Duty coming already. Rumours later in the month went even further, suggesting that this game would be made by Call of Duty 3 developer Treyarch and would be again set during World War II.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was one of the most popular games of the year. In December, publishers sang the praises of some of their other games. Microsoft said that Halo 3 had sold 5 million copies, a sales figure Ubisoft was predicting for Assassin's Creed, too, after revealing that the Crusades game had already sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide since its release in November.

Xbox 360 owners were finally invited in December to do something Americans have been able to do with their consoles for over a year: watch movies. Early in the month Microsoft launched its download-to-rent video store, with box office hits such as 300 leading the way.

Rockstar looked like it had finally put the Manhunt 2 story to bed in December when the Video Appeals Committee came down in the company's favour, saying that the game should be allowed a rating in the UK. But the British Board of Film Classification hit back, saying that it would not rate the game and would instead take the matter to the High Court.

Despite this, Rockstar made its many fans happy by releasing the third official trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV. There's still no firm release date for the game, but all signs point to the game being in a better state than it was around the time the game was supposed to come out, in late October.

EA and Activision got into a bizarre spate at the end of the year over the cross-compatibility of guitars in the PS3 versions of their music games. Activision, it seems, was blocking a patch that would have allowed PS3 owners to share guitars between Rock Band and Guitar Hero III - something Xbox 360 owners can already do. According to reports, Activision wanted compensation for allowing the patch.

Will the disagreement be taken care of by the time Rock Band comes out in the UK next year? For that and much more, we'll have to wait until 2008.

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