This weekend marks the midway point of 2008, a milestone which has either come very slowly or out of nowhere, depending on your perception of time and space. I find myself in the latter group, stuck in a state of mind where it's March or April, largely out of desperation for some warm weather. Most of my recent time has been spent wrestling a Metal Gear Solid 4 review, which you'll see on the site soon, and the new Alone in the Dark game, which has some promising concepts destroyed by wretched controls and a multitude of glitches.

With the midway point reached, I thought I'd take the time this week to look back at the major events and releases of the first six months of the year.

The Halfway Point

More than ten million suckers addicts subscribers. Yikes.

2008 began on something of a sour note, with the Xbox Live service collapsing under increased demand over the Christmas and New Year break. Microsoft offered an olive branch to gamers in the form of a free Xbox Live Arcade title which initially had gamers excited, until they discovered that said game was the unimpressive Undertow. The PSP's capabilities were expanded with Skype support added to the newer Slim & Light model, allowing for Internet telephony on the move. Two major acquisitions were made in January, with Mafia developer Illusion Softworks joining the house of Take Two under the new name of 2K Czech, while Turtle Rock, developer of the upcoming Left4Dead was absorbed into the ever expanding Valve empire. Valve continued to expand the services available on Steam with Steamworks, a freely available development and publishing suite which allows the use of Steam's auto-update, game statistics and multiplayer capabilities.

Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft had gained its 10 millionth subscriber, with the ever expanding MMO showing no signs of slowing down. EA revealed its ad-supported Battlefield Heroes, a new entry in the Battlefield series with a style based heavily upon that of Team Fortress 2, and upset local fans when they revealed that the game would only be officially supported in North America and Europe. January continued its tradition of being a quiet month for releases, though the DS saw a couple of high profile titles in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and Advance Wars: Dark Conflict. Burnout Paradise crashed its way onto the PS3 and Xbox 360, but the open world style proved divisive amongst fans of the series. High profile MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea sailed into stores, but experienced little success.

The HD stood for "Helplessly Doomed"

February saw an end to the HD format war; HD DVD backer Toshiba announced that it would discontinue production of its own players after many major blows were dealt to the format, particularly the decision made by Warner Brothers to end its HD DVD support. The news triggered run out sales of HD DVD players and movies, with the HD DVD add-on for the 360 slashed to $50, and most movies being offloaded by retailers for as little as $7. It was a busy month on the PC front; nVidia acquired PhysX card manufacturer AGEIA and announced plans to integrate PhysX into its CUDA initiative, several publishers banded together to form the new PC Gaming Alliance to promote the development of games for the format and combat piracy, while digital distribution platform Steam announced that the number of accounts on the service had passed 15 million.

Further positive news on the PC front came from the announcement of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, and the locking down of a release date for Will Wright's ambitious Spore. The R rating debate was reignited by the OFLC assigning RC status to Xbox Original Ninja Gaiden Black and multiformat release Dark Sector in the period of a week. The debate was taken to the annual meeting of the Attorneys General, where it was decided they would accept input from the public before making a final decision. The spectacularly average column The Warp Pipe made its debut in February, drawing yawns and groans from the public before being promptly ignored. February was a little more active on the release front than usual with the release of Suda51's brutally violent No More Heroes, the 4X strategy game Sins of a Solar Empire, Capcom's point and click adventure Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, the stylish yet remarkably cheesy Devil May Cry 4, the peak oil simulator Frontlines: Fuel of War, the highly addictive Audiosurf, and the horrid and largely incoherent Lost: Via Domus.

No doubt rolling 20s in the afterlife

March began on a rather sad note with the passing of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, a man considered to be one of the founding fathers of the tabletop game. The Cyberathlete Professional League closed its doors after 11 years, citing fragmentation of the sport and competing leagues as its main reasons. It was not all bad news for the third month of the year, with 2K Games announcing that development on BioShock 2 was under way, while EA revealed that The Sims 3 would be released in 2009. The PlayStation Store saw a much needed facelift, making the service easier to navigate, though a little slower. On the hardware front, AMD revealed their latest range of processors, the quad core Phenom X4 and triple core Phenom X3. Electronic Arts made a rather generous takeover offer to Take Two Interactive. The offer caused a 60% rise in Take Two's share price, but the studio refused to play ball, claiming that EA had undervalued the company - the saga continues to this day. Finally, the Game On exhibition opened at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, showcasing the history of interactive entertainment.

It was a typical March in terms of releases lead by the re-issue of Rockstar's Bully under the new guise of Bully: Scholarship Edition. Sega was a very busy bee with Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Viking: Battle For Asgard and Sega Superstar Tennis. Strategy fans were treated to new expansions for Dawn of War and Command & Conquer Three, while the more action oriented gamer found enjoyment in the tactical shooter Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Kratos' first portable effort in God of War: Chains of Olympus and the PMC-friendly shooter Army of Two. The puzzling Professor Layton and the Curious Village also provided some unconventional brain teasing fun on the Nintendo DS.

A hundred million well spent?

April was quiet while gamers across the world feverishly anticipated the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which would smash all industry records with its $500M opening week and unmatched, if slightly dubious critical reception. Early reports of content cut from the Australian release prompted many players to import, though it was later discovered that the things removed from the game were inconsequential. nVidia and ATI continued the battle for PC graphics supremacy, with the former releasing their new 9800GTX cards while the latter revealed its FireGL V7700, the first display port graphics card. Stormfront Studios shut their doors after 20 years, citing failure to secure publishing deals for their new projects as the final nail in the coffin. The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a report on the local game industry which revealed interesting figures including the total income of all local developers ($136M) and the exact male/female breakup of the industry (89.2% male). In more shocking news (sorry), Sony revealed that the price of their third generation DualShock would be a rather hefty $99.95. Finally, Midway shocked comic book fans around the world when they revealed that their latest Mortal Kombat game would see the world of Mortal Kombat collide with the world(s) of DC Comics. Outside of the behemoth that was GTA4, April saw the release of Nintendo's Mario Kart Wii, the second title in the series to feature online play, while EA released the unexpectedly good UEFA Euro 2008, which saw many claim that EA had finally topped Konami in the football genre.

With E3 moving to July last year, one would think May would be quiet, but the publishers of the world keep on announcing new games as though nothing had changed, with titles such as Prince of Persia, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts n Bolts, Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour being revealed. Id Software announced that they were starting work on Doom 4, and promptly began recruiting a new team for the project. Speaking of E3, a lot of criticism was directed towards ESA, the governing body of the game industry in North America, with Activision, Vivendi, LucasArts and id Software all leaving the group. On the other hand, Oddworld Inhabitants announced their return to the game industry, following a few years spent doing other things. May saw Nintendo expand their online services with Nintendo Channel, which allows players to watch videos on upcoming games, provide feedback on Wii games and try out demos of DS titles. They also unleashed their WiiWare service, which allows players to download small games developed specifically for the Wii. Microsoft, on the other hand, announced that they would be removing games from the Xbox Live Arcade service if they did not meet certain sales or quality criteria. More controversy was directed towards GTA4, but this time it also came from the actors involved in the game, who claimed the compensation for voice acting in games was unsatisfactory. The career of Jack Thompson, a rogue lawyer known for his role in various video game controversies, took a blow after he was found guilty of misconduct by the Bar Association of Florida, and was later disbarred for 10 years.

WiiWare blows. Literally.

May was a quiet month for game releases, with GTA4 and Mario Kart Wii continuing to dominate the charts. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures experienced a very successful launch, with over 400,000 players subscribing by the end of the first week, and a million copies shipped to stores within a month. Nintendo released the much anticipated Wii Fit, which was an outrageous success in spite of supply constraints. Other major releases included the disappointing Iron Man, the polarizing first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the unimpressive Haze on the PS3 and the underappreciated Boom Blox from EA and Steven Spielberg.

June was a month of anniversaries, with Second Life celebrating its fifth birthday, while Dragon's Lair celebrated its 25th. The Hot Coffee suit, filed over the hidden sex game in San Andreas, finally cooled off, with less than 2700 claims filed, costing Take Two a mere $30,000. The law was wielded in a number of other suits, including Ninja Gaiden/Dead or Alive director Tomonobu Itagaki suing Tecmo over unpaid bonuses, Nintendo suing Nyko for patent infringement, and the Puzo Estate suing EA and Paramount over unpaid royalties for The Godfather games. Legal action was also threatened by Atari when a number of European sites launched early negative reviews of Alone in the Dark, considered by many to be the company's last AAA hopeful. On the financial front, a report from Big 4 accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers revealed that they expect video game industry revenues to explode to $US68 billion in five years, tripling current figures, while Sony revealed they had lost over $3 billion to date on the PlayStation 3 project, due to having to subsidise the cost of hardware.

Ocelot quickly discovers the limited coverage of the Next G network

This month has also seen an unprecedented number of highly anticipated releases, including the hugely popular PS3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Nintendo all-star fighter Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Square's long awaited Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, the blocky adventures of Lego Indiana Jones, spy-thriller The Bourne Conspiracy, the unconventional Guitar Hero: On Tour, the simplified Civilization Revolution, the destructible action of Battlefield: Bad Company, and the last hope of Atari, Alone in the Dark.

2008 is an important year for the industry because it represents the first full year that all three consoles will be available across all major markets. The Wii has established a solid lead over the six months of the year, pushing ahead of the Xbox 360 in all major markets, despite the former's year head start. The PlayStation 3 has also recovered a lot ground, thanks to the slightly more affordable 40GB unit and the Bravia promotion. The Xbox 360 has lingered a little, with sales of the console slowing down in the early months, and big name titles failing to offer a significant boost. By the end of July, we'll have a clear view of what each house's plans are for the rest of the year, including the all important holiday season.

So without further ado, here's The Warp Pipe's Top 5 of 2008 (to date).    1: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots    2: Super Smash Bros. Brawl    3: Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure    4: Professor Layton and the Curious Village    5: Grand Theft Auto IV

Next Week

The next Warp Pipe will take a look at the Q3 2008 release schedule, and make fun of the games you are feverishly anticipating.