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Contributors: Joe Markert, Jose Otero

Celebrate good times (c’mon), or just celebrate a great holiday filled with awesome games.  Whatever your reasons may be 2007 isn’t over yet, but it’s produced some of the most original concepts this industry has ever seen. So many in fact that we’re sure you’re perplexed just staring down the shelf at your local game shop.  To make the decision making process a wee bit easier we thought we’d share what we felt are the top must haves for your holiday shopping list.

We kick things off below with our top picks for you PC gamers out there - we got your back

PC

It’s been a tough year for PC gamers.  With the arrival of Vista and DX10 – and all the promises of how this would improve our gaming experience – not much of that promise has been realized.  Sure, we’ve seen some pretty titles like Crysis hit the scene – unabashedly shoving in your face visuals your paltry little water-cooled gaming rig couldn’t dare generate without boiling over.  But in the end, the promise of Vista has fizzled so far with XP-based systems continually outperforming equally configured Vista rigs. With SP1 here it remains to be seen if this will right all the wrongs – but after a recent discussion with Michael Wolf, head of the Games for Windows initiative at Microsoft – I’m not convinced. Not one question I asked could be answered – and well, that’s fine.  I don’t need answers – just show me the money Microsoft!

Luckily, Vista foibles, aside, it has been a decent year for PC games and we’ve got a couple for you to put right at the top of your wishlist.

Bioshock

Rapture, in all its beautiful horror, is place you’ll not soon wish to leave.  Rather, you’ll find yourself wanting to remain long after your journey has come to an end – simply to wander its halls – like the forbidden realms that lie behind the façade at Disneyland. Like trying to keep your grasp on that tiny granule of magic sand in the bottom of your pocket as you wake from a dream, only to find it’s not there.  You can check-out – but you’ll never want to leave. Shooter and Adventure fans need look no further for their holiday prize.

Call of Duty 4

Infinity Ward is back on the case and reviving the franchise with a gripping and emotional (yes, I said emotional) ride through one of the most satisfying, and visually impressive, shooters to date.  When the story’s history the included MMO Warfare package they call multiplayer will hook you by the bootstraps and keep you fragging long into the wee morning hours. Its brilliant combination of MMO-like persistent upgrades, the ability to customise classes and load outs for various situations and in-game battlefield upgrades – like airstrikes or Blackhawk cover – make Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare the only shooter you’ll need to have this holiday.

The Orange Box

The old AM/PM tagline “too much good stuff” encapsulates how we feel about The Orange Box in one truthful phrase.  For the cost of a couple large pizzas and a ‘twelver’ of beer you’ve just bought yourself the latest Episode(Two that is) to the continuing saga of our favorite crowbar swinging hero, Gordon Freeman (Half-Life 2: Episode Two), the long anticipated follow-up of one of the most popular multiplayer class-based shooters ever made (Team Fortress 2) and a surprise smash hit that has already quietly slipped right into our pop-culture DNA (Portal) – don’t believe us – just ‘google’ Fuzzy Companion Cube.  Never played Half-Life 2?  No worries – the original game as well as Episode One are thrown in for good measure. Already played Half-Life 2 – well, it is that time of year – gift it to a friend.  What more can you ask for?

Gears of War

Take Gears, toss in a new multiplayer mode (King of the Hill), some exclusive maps, a few new chapters in the campaign and integrated LIVE support and you’ve got the best version yet. Gears of War for PC is is quite simply gorgeous, linear, controlled shooter action at it’s very best –the inclusion of the professional Game Editor simply seals the deal.