So I've been replaying the F.E.A.R. games lately, and I've been musing as to why I like them as much as I do. I mean, in my Video Game Awards for 2007 I had F.E.A.R. Files in the honorable mentions page. But really, they have a lot of flaws, so why do I like them so much?

For those who don't know, F.E.A.R. was developed by Monolith, whose pedigree includes such classics as Condemned, Tron 2.0 and the legendary No One Lives Forever. F.E.A.R. has two expansions: Extraction Point, which takes place immediately after the first game ends and has the same characters, and Perseus Mandate, which follows a new team in events parallel to the original game as well as Extraction Point.

F.E.A.R. is a very by-the-book FPS with a survival horror theme to it. The levels tend to be rather linear, very rarely do you really have much freedom in how you can accomplish any goal. The series' gameplay can accurately be described as "Go from point A to point B killing all the enemies in your path, rinse, repeat". Furthermore, the graphic engine (Lithtech) hasn't aged as well as many of its contemporaries. This means that, graphically, the games tend to be rather blasé with boxy environments filled with hard-edged objects. This is made worse by the fact that most of the series (F.E.A.R. and Perseus Mandate) takes place in office buildings and warehouses.

The series has one major gimmick to it, the ability to slow time, but this isn't wholly original (we've seen it in games since Max Payne). Otherwise, the gunplay tends to be pedestrian and there's little in terms of modern FPS elements to be found in the games.

So what makes them so damned compelling?

I know in my Sam's Video Game Awards '07 I gave the 360 props for a solid year in 2007. While I'm not about to recant that, I am about to revise that...

See, the 360's solid year in 2007 apparently got Microsoft a lot of success. So much in fact that they apparently sold more 360s and Live accounts this last holiday season than their Live service can handle. The end result is that connection issues have plagued Live for the last two weeks or so, and it's become nigh impossible to actually enjoy an online game on the 360.

Marc Whitten, Xbox Live general manager, acknowledged the issue here, saying:

As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance.

"Some" of us are experiencing problems? Not as near as I can tell. Of the twenty or so people on my friend list and the thirty or so people I know who aren't every last one has experienced major problems in the last two weeks. From the complaints I've seen online, I'd wager that there hasn't been a single Live user in the last two weeks who hasn't had problems. Long story short, Marc, me thinks you're downplaying how big of a problem this is....

2007 was a great year to be a gamer. In fact, it may have been the greatest year ever as we've managed to have hit after hit after hit.

But, in this sea of stellar titles, what games stand out from the rest? Well, I have the answers to that question as well as many others in this year's Sam's Video Game Awards.

Read on for the full poop...

Having just finished Mass Effect, BioWare's epic new action-RPG for the Xbox 360, I felt I really had to get on my site and rave about it. This is one spectacular RPG, easily one of the greatest RPGs ever and definitely tied with Oblivion for best RPG on the 360. If you own a 360 and have even a passing interest in RPGs, you should get this title without delay.

For those who don't know, Mass Effect is a galaxy-sprawling action-RPG from the creators of the legendary Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series for the original Xbox. In it you will find a rather sizable universe, replete with entire worlds to explore and aliens to meet. You'll have a mountain of content in the form of side-quests, exploration and resource location (such as finding mineable metals on planets or identifying gas giants with harvestable fuels). And you'll see gorgeous graphics rendering intricate and beautiful alien worlds.

The bottom line is this game is great. However, it's not perfect, and does have some problems. Read on for all the great things this game has to offer as well as some of the nitpicky problems it does have.

Everything else that was great this year

Presented in no particular order...

• Call of Duty 4

  Xbox 360

  The COD franchise is a popular one, and COD4 was the grand return to fan-favorite developer "Infinity Ward". The problem with the COD series previously was that it was stuck in the now cliched World War II shooter genre, and thus, moderately predictable. COD4 shook things up by fast-fowarding the action to more of a modern setting, thus breathing new life in what had become a somewhat stale series.

I realize it's not yet the end of the year, but I don't think it's too early to state that 2007 will likely be remembered as the Year of the Shooter. This year there will have been released some of the greatest (if not, the greatest) first person shooters of all time.

This past year we've simply had some incredible FPSes. Let's take a look at them (in no particular order)....

Chances are, if you're reading this you've heard about my Xbox 360 hardware troubles. About a year ago I had the infamous Red Ring of Death problem. I had to send in my 360 for repairs. I remember it being quite painful as my 360 was out of warranty and I had to cough up the money ($140) to fix it.

A couple of months later, Microsoft extended their warranty from 90-days to 1 year and then 3 years. This warranty was apparently done retroactively and covered my 360. As a result, I was sent a refund for my $140 that I had spent on my system and a new warranty was tacked on to my system from the date when the console was returned to me. All of this was surely done to avoid (or maybe just to stave off) any hardware related lawsuits.

So a year goes by, my 360 is running fine and I'm enjoying all the amazing games that have come out for it.

Then, at the start of this last summer, some strange things started to happen...

Well, I just officially ended ClanAM FFXI over at... erm... ClanAM FFXI.

This has been a long time coming, it's been something that I've been thinking about for a while now. Basically, around 6(ish) months ago I stopped being interested in leading up events over there. Couple this with the fact that ClanAM's success was kind of hampering my enjoyment of the game (every time I'd log in, I'd get a billion people sending me /tells or otherwise making a big deal out of me being there... it's flattering to be sure, but it also gets tiresome really quick) and you can see why I've needed a good break.

Well, my break came in the form of my 360 breaking down... again. If you recall, last year I had a RRoD that cost me my 360 for around a month while it was in for repairs. Well, I've got another problem with it. This time, it's not any RRoD issues, but what I am getting are glitches and crashes whenever any XMA audio-file is played. Basically, whenever I play games like Bioshock or Burnout Revenge my system starts glitching out and will eventually crash.

Anyway, being without my 360 and unable to play FFXI has made me realize it was a good time to make a break... So I did.

So in my recent move I've bought a new HDTV. I had some very specific needs; I play a lot of games and can't have *any* lag, burn-in, etc. regardless of which system I'm playing; I want to be able to watch normal TV and VHS inputs lag-free as well; and I needed something not very expensive.

After a lot of research, I finally settled on one. Specifically, I purchased the "Sony KDF-E50A10Grand WEGA 50" LCD Projection TV", which was reported as lag-free at numerous sources. I managed to get it very inexpensively, and thus far I've been absolutely thrilled with it. I can plug in my old Atari 2600 and the games are lag-free. It's awesome.

However, there's one problem, and that problem is with the one game I play the most: Final Fantasy XI.