Chris

Gamespot's Best/Worst of 2004

Recommended Posts

I kind of like Gamespot's year-end awards. After all, as I mention as often as I possibly can, in 1998 when everyone was giving awards to Half-Life and Thief and StarCraft and Unreal and Rainbow Six and Baldur's Gate and all the other ridiculously good games that came out that year, Gamespot gave their Game of the Year award to Grim Fucking Fandango. That pretty much rules. So I like the Gamespot awards.

Anyway, the obvious games topped the list: Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3 with 7 nominations each, GTA with 9, and friggin Chronicles of Riddick with an amazing 13, but you know what the next-highest game is? Katamari Fucking Damacy with 5. That is, it's the highest of the "mortal" games that everyone didn't already expect to get a million awards. Wooo! That's a tie, though, with a couple other games such as Paper Fucking Mario 2, which I am likewise pleased about. I hope a lot of people played that game, because it was awesome, but I don't hear it talked about very much.

Prince of Persia was nominated for the "Most Baditude" award and I can only hope that's an ironic award and not actually saying the game is badass or awesome. In their review of the game they were pretty critical of the Prince's new image, though, so hopefully that's a good sign.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Prince of Persia was nominated for the "Most Baditude" award and I can only hope that's an ironic award and not actually saying the game is badass or awesome. In their review of the game they were pretty critical of the Prince's new image, though, so hopefully that's a good sign.

Well, it was listed under the DUBIOUS HONORS...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Heh. Look what else they got there...

Most Disappointing Delay

...

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (PC)

I thought it was good they pushed it away from the Christmas season. And then they pushed it further to polish their AI system.

Most Light Bloom

Def Jam: Fight for NY (Xbox, GC, PS2)

Fable (Xbox)

Hitman: Contracts (PC, Xbox, PS2)

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders (Xbox)

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (PC, Xbox, GC, PS2)

Biggest Disappointment

Driver 3 (Xbox, PS2)

Doom 3 (PC)

Halo 2 (Xbox)

Fable (Xbox)

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (Xbox, GC, PS2)

War of the Year

Vietnam

[The War] on Terror

..........

Best Shooter

Half-Life 2 (PC)

Halo 2 (Xbox)

Far Cry (PC)

Painkiller (PC)

Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC)

Hahaha. No Doom3.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I find it funny that Halo 2 is a candidate for Best Shooter and most Disappointing Game.

Also, didn't they invent a Most Pretentious Game category last year? I think they like to slam specific games just by making up one-time categories (like the Baditude thing).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I only wonder why HL2 wasn't in for most inovative and best game mechanic for the gravity gun and those physics. They did seem to be too hard on it in their review, but oh well.

Also note that Madden did not get onto best traditional sports. I love these guys!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh, wow. Chronicles of Riddick got almost twice as many nominations as HL2. I guess it's (almost) twice as good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Oh, wow. Chronicles of Riddick got almost twice as many nominations as HL2. I guess it's (almost) twice as good.

Well, to be fair, it's on two platforms, which gave it an extra nomination, and several of its nominations were in categories HL2 couldn't reasonably expect to get, such as Best Original Music and the like.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Biggest Disappointment

Driver 3 (Xbox, PS2)

Doom 3 (PC)

Halo 2 (Xbox)

Fable (Xbox)

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (Xbox, GC, PS2)

I laugh and smile at the inclusion of Doom 3 here, but am surprised by Rogue Agent's presence. Surely everyone should have already realised that, as an in-house development at EA, and as an EA Bonds game, it was always going to suck? I mean, come on, who actually thought that it was going to be any good?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think it was mainly that it was a followup to a great game, and while people might not have expected greatness they were still disappointed with such a poor successor to a classic.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Katamary Damashii only got "Most Innovative Game" of Special Achievements...

On a related note, I that song from the flash thing has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it. I hope I'll get to play the game someday, too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The video comments that they have about the winners are a pretty good idea. Although every time you want to watch one you have to sit through a motor oil ad. :fart:

Worst game: Big Rig Racing... man you got to see that video!

Most Baditude: Warrior Within

Most Bloom: Fable... the video is pretty funny. Glowing chickeens...

Best game noone played: Silent Storm... you know I had completely forgotten this one. I played the demo and it really did seem great, except it was fucking too hard for me. Or too slow-paced. Or maybe I just suck.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Best game noone played: Silent Storm... you know I had completely forgotten this one. I played the demo and it really did seem great, except it was fucking too hard for me. Or too slow-paced. Or maybe I just suck.

I don't really get the hype around this game - I think people are just happy that someone made a turn-based tactical game, so they don't pay much attention to the quality. It's decent, but nothing special at all. This is by far my favourite game genre as well, I still play X-Com pretty regularly, so I really wanted it to be good. I actually bought it, then returned it a few days later because I simply wasn't having fun. ;(

FWIW, I preferred UFO:Aftermath, for all its flaws, just because it was actually trying to do something new. Silent Storm seemed perfectly happy to try and recreate Jagged Alliance 2 (by no means a perfect game, regardless of what some people would have you believe) in 3D. Eh, I'm just rambling now. :shifty:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I never really played all those other tactical turn-based games. Only the first couple of levels of Fallout: Tactics I think.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Katamary Damashii only got "Most Innovative Game" of Special Achievements...

Yeah, but it was nominated for a bunch of other stuff (and won a few, too).

PoP won "most baditude" which makes sense, I suppose, although I was kinda hoping my game would win.

This is the best though:

http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day3w_12.html

In short, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is the worst game ever made anywhere, for any platform, and the fact that we gave it the lowest score in the history of GameSpot reflects this. This whole fiasco is clearly the work of some evil force, hell-bent on taking your money and using it to fund Russian Mob ventures of varying degrees of illicitness. What is perhaps most disgusting of all is that this game actually sold copies. More copies, in fact, than more than half of our finalists in the Best Game No One Played category. With news like that, it's hard not to lose all faith in humanity--which, incidentally, is another thing we're pretty sure the developers of this game wanted. Well, congratulations Big Rigs, Stellar Stone, and whoever else may have been involved in this evil endeavor: You're winner.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
PoP won "most baditude" which makes sense, I suppose, although I was kinda hoping my game would win.
Heh you wanted it to get a dubious honor?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
No such thing as bad publicity.

Well yeah, there is...but I think Outlaw Golf 2 winning that award wouldn't have been quite as damning as PoP. OG2 is supposed to be goofy and over the top. PoP is supposed to be taken seriously.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Most Light Bloom

Def Jam: Fight for NY (Xbox, GC, PS2)

Fable (Xbox)

Hitman: Contracts (PC, Xbox, PS2)

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders (Xbox)

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (PC, Xbox, GC, PS2)

Where's Burnout 3 in this? Surely they can't have missed the uber-bloom on the European "winter" levels?! :nuts:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Grim Fucking Fandango

...

Katamari Fucking Damacy

...

Paper Fucking Mario 2

...

The US titles must differ a little from the European titles or something, huh?

Gamespot gave their Game of the Year award to Grim Fucking Fandango. That pretty much rules. So I like the Gamespot awards.

Man, it is not hard to win you over.

I don't get how Driver 3 is in the 'biggest disappointment' category. The first two sucked. What, are they disappointed that it didn't suck less than the first two?!?

That's like saying, gadzooks man, I'm mega disappointed with Dino Crisis 3!!! Or Dino Fucking Crisis 3 as it is probably known in the US.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.