Game of the Year

My arguement was that there weren’t any blockbuster games in 2005. Personally I liked RE4 and God of War, but I don’t think there were any really huge “this game will make top ten lists for years to come” type games. I am talking about games like GTA3, Wind Waker, World of Warcraft, Half Life, FF7, Goldeneye. Games that people still talk about and still play 5 years, 10 years later. None of the games on that list really stood out as monumental.

RC is right, there were no “blockbuster” games this year. But I think that the game of the year would be Nintendogs. A game of the year should break bounds, explore new ground, invent and reinvent. Nintendogs is the only title that did this in my view. God of War? Done before. RE4? Seen it. Everything just has better graphics, and that doesn’t make a game of the year.

Nintendogs… The Raj’s pick for Game of the Year.

The way you feel about Nintendogs is the way I feel about Lumines. After playing a few times I feel like of I have done all there is to do. I wanted to like it because everyone else raved about it but it just seemed like another Tetris knockoff with better music.

Let’s run through this list and pick out all the games that are NOT:
1) A sequel
2) Based on a movie
3) Based on something that’s been popular in the past….

(Looking through the bolded only)
We come up with:

Phantom Dust (XBox)
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
Trauma Center: Under the Knife (DS)

3 games…. I’m sure there are more unbolded ones BUT those are good but not great based on the original author of the list.
Nintendogs is based on Tamagotchi, a large majority of the list are fps’s, Guild Wars is trying to get the fame of all the other MMO’s, Lumines and Meteos are cool but are just revised tetris clones… Most of the games are just blah….

My must have game was prolly Animal Crossing: Wild World but I keep failing to see the point in the game…. What would I have picked as a game of the year? Maybe Taiko No Tatsujin for PSP as it is a rhythm game for the system with no peripherals, or possibly guitar hero as it adds another flav to the any special controllers I have…. or maybe even We

I’m totally going to pick up Guitar Hero after Christmas sometime. That game looks fun as hell.

But anyways, good conversation so far guys. But I want to visit the idea of Lumines/Meteos being Tetris clones. I’m trying really hard to figure out when its going to be okay to make a puzzle game that isn’t accused of being a Tetris clone. It holds in common with tetris that you are attempting to make a whole from the parts, but does that make it diricitive? (really, I’m asking)

I feel Lumines/Meteos hold more in common with Super Puzzle fighter than Tetris. You really couldn’t skillfully clear an entire screen on Tetris vanilla(I can’t speak to the different versions that came out later), so much as you might occasionally get lucky and things fall right. So how are they clones except in the sense that they use blocks?

Here is something of my perspective, I don’t think that a lot of the games that came out this year are dirivitive and here is why: a lot of the games that came out went in new directions. When you create a piece of art, you don’t draw/paint/whatever something different to make it different, you create something different so its not what people expect. Thats the line that gets drawn between mediocre dirivitive art, movies, books, etc and the exceptional ones. For instance, forget everything you know about Kirby for the DS. Lets say it comes out tomorrow and you know nothing about it. So you form expectations in your head. You expect a little pink puff ball floating around swallowing things, and you expect the touch screen to come into play somehow. It becomes a question in your head of how do we fit the Kirby we know into the DS? Then Kirby’s Canvas Curse comes out with the unique and unprecendented gameplay and it’s completly different than what you expected. The fact that Kirby is an established franchise really isn’t the point. What they do with it next is the point, and as long as it keeps surprising you its still a great game.

The same holds true for the unbridled bloody rampage of God of War. Its an action game in its purest form, and there are probably very few games of its kind that are on par with it. Except maybe Shadow of the Colossus. Here is an action game and you have expectations of a bunch of little shits and bunch of big bads. Then you get in and its like “Fuck that noise” and gives you JUST the Big Bads. There’s something cinematic about that kind of gameplay. When you watch a movie how often do the main characters spend on little random guys way below their power level? Very little, the characters are constantly being challenged in ways that take all of their wit, skill and strength. Such is Shadow of the Colosus. I can defniitly see these two games being played 5 to 10 years down the road. (Or in Goz’s case, he’ll have finished level 2 of God of War in 5-10 years)

Yes, DevryGuy is right. Handheld was the way to be this year. I would say I had more fun with DS/GBA games then anything that the Gamecube.PS3/XBox offered.

Hell… I’ll even throw Lumines in my top five games of this year. Hell, I think it will make top 3!

But my personall top games are not the reflection of the business and of the community. Nintendogs wouldn’t be on my top 3, and maybe not even on my top 5, but I understand the impact that game had on how games are played and precieved so I gave it nod for game of the year.

My Top 5:

1 - Resident Evil 4
2 - God of War
3 - Indigo Prophacy
4 - Warioware Twisted
5 - Mario Kart DS