A Decade of Gaming

[ccesarano]

For the next week or two I'll be doing my own little retrospective of the past decade. I have pretty much been displeased with every "top games of the decade" list out there because they are usually limited to just ten, and it feels to me that this leaves out a lot of games worth mentioning. I mean, look back on the 90's and tell me there are only ten games that make you think "wow...that was awesome".

So I'll be covering each year step by step. The forums will simply contain the list for each year, but a link will be provided for a more in-depth analysis.

Note this is both a series of games that I find notable both personally as well as critically. Not all games are the cream of the crop, but there is something in there that has spoken to me personally as a gamer. If your favorite game didn't make the list, sorry, but I either didn't play it or don't find it to be that special. But that's what forums are for!

Foreword (+ Games I wish I had played)

2000
- Release of the Playstation 2
- Microsoft acquired Bungie
- Final Fantasy IX
- Deus Ex
- Shogun: Total War

2001
- Release of Xbox and GameCube
- Release of GameBoy Advance
- Halo: Combat Evolved
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Silent Hill 2
- Metal Gear Solid 2
- Aliens vs. Predator 2

2002
- G4 is launched on television
- The fusion of Squenix
- Starcraft: Ghost is announced
- Resident Evil Remake
- Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind
- Metroid Prime
- MechAssault
- Kingdom Hearts
- Steel Battalion
- Maximo

2003
- N-Gage Goes Retail
- Interplay Closes Black Isle
- Child's Play is Founded
- Xenosaga
- Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
- Manhunt
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
- Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
- Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
- Planetside
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

2004
- Nintendo DS Released, Revolution Announced
- XNA Announced as Direct X Successor
- Acclaim Declares Bankruptcy
- Year of the Sequels (Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Doom 3, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)
- Metroid: Zero Mission
- Unreal Tournament 2004
- Fable
- Dead or Alive Ultimate
- Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay
- World of Warcraft

2005
- Xbox 360 releases
- WARNING: Coffee May Be Hot
- Swingin' Ape Studios Swallowed by Blizzard
- Resident Evil 4
- Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
- God of War
- Psychonauts
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Star Wars: Republic Commando
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
- Guitar Hero
- Battalion Wars

2006
- PS3 Releases
- Wii Would Like to Play
- The Great Fanboy Wars
- StarCraft: Ghost is Canceled
- Mother 3
- Prey
- Dead Rising
- Gears of War

2007
- EA Swallows Pandemic and Bioware
- Expo Explosion
- Bioshock
- Halo 3
- Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Assassin's Creed
- Mass Effect
- Super Paper Mario
- Sam & Max: Season One
- Portal
- Shadowrun

2008
- No More Heroes
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Penny-Arcade: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness
- Castle Crashers
- Too Human
- Dead Space
- Fallout 3
- Mirror's Edge
- Left 4 Dead

2009
- Acquisitions and Closed Doors
- Star Ocean: The Last Hope
- Resident Evil 5
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Shadow Complex
- Brutal Legend
- Knights in the Nightmare
- Dragon Age: Origins

[EarthViper]

Since I'm a bit late to reply to the first article separately I'll just add "Games I didn't get to play that I'd like to" to each year individually.

2000

Some games I played and loved:

Perfect Dark:
Still one of the best FPS games I've ever played, IMO better than the teams more famous game Goldeneye. Honestly my pick for the best weapon lineup in any shooter I've ever played, an interesting cast of characters and a totally kickass multiplayer. I think most people who know me today know I pretty much ignore competitive multiplayer in games, especially shooters, yet back when PD came out I couldn't stop playing it, the options available dwarf most competitive shooters of today.

The Sims:
Say what you will as I know many 'gamers' have developed a personal hatred of this franchise over the years but I still played this game a ton and loved every minute of it. Granted I spent most of my time just shutting off the in game clock, putting in codes and building cool houses to my hearts content but the fact remains there really wasn't anything out there like it at the time and it capitalized on the creative angle of games instead of the competitive one.

Resident Evil Code Veronica:
I see this game as the franchise kind of 'getting back on track' as RE3 had ventured far from the creepy atmosphere and intentionally slow pace of the first two games in the franchise. Granted the series story only continued to get more and more convoluted with each installment but everything that drew me to the franchise in the first place was well in place for Code Veronica.

Final Fantasy IX:
Undoubtedly the end of an era as this game pretty much marks the end of the relevance of the entire franchise in my book. Having gone back to play it and many other FF's recently I can clearly see the decline in Square's storytelling abilities as IX's interesting and well written story turned to mush in the last quarter of the game. Aside from that though the game holds up to many of the earlier/better games in the franchise and it was a breath of fresh air to see the return to the fantasy/storybook settings and art style.

Grandia II:
The story and characters weren't spectacular and the linear nature of the game was a downer but everything else about Grandia II was top notch. It was easily the best looking JRPG I'd ever seen but with tons of customization and an awesome battle system it's quality definitely wasn't skin deep. Easily my favorite DC game it alone gave me back more than my investment on the system.

The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask:
Easily the most unusual console Zelda game, at least since Adventure's of Link, Nintendo took a pretty big risk following up Ocarina with such an unorthodox title. A slap in the face to everyone who has ever said Nintendo just rehashes what works, MM was awesomely unique not just for a Zelda game but any game. Not that originality was the games only strength as it still retained the great gameplay mechanics that make every Zelda game an instant classic. Oh and Tingle, how can you not love the game that introduced Tingle?

Pokemon Gold/Silver:
It's regarded by many as the 'best' generation of Pokemon games, which for the additions it made to the basic formula I suppose it's understandable how it's maintained such notoriety. Regardless, on the surface it just looked like Pokemon R/B with more of everything but the seemingly minor adjustments and additions went a long way to making Pokemon the huge PvP franchise that it is today. I probably spent more time playing this than any of the games listed above as the franchises trademark addictiveness had me hooked from day 1. The inclusion of day/night cycles, Pokemon who moved from region to region, breeding, shiny Pokemon and more all made this game a juggernaut of replay value even if you never bothered with competitive play. It just clicked with my addictive personality and obsession with collecting stuff and much like the original and all the subsequent games sucked up hundreds of hours of my life.

Some games I didn't play but wish I had:

American McGee's Alice:
The theme and setting of this game are right up my alley, it's a shame I didn't know of the game when it was new. Today it's one of the old PC games I'd most like to play so hopefully it's not too hard to find.

Deus Ex:
I'm anything but a Sci-Fi fan and WRPG's that appeal to me are about as rare as solid gold Unicorns yet I've heard so much raving about this game over the years I figure one day I'll have to try it and see what all the fuss is about.

Thief II The Metal Age:
Yet again a game belonging to a genre that I'm not traditionally a fan of however in this case the theme/setting are a bit more to my liking. Again though I don't think I even knew about it when it came out so here's hoping getting my hands on it today won't be too difficult.

Some games I didn't play and I'm glad I didn't:
(I won't always have this category, just seems appropriate for this one instance)

Skies of Arcadia:
To be fair, I did play the game...or rather it's 2002 GameCube port, however I was never able to fully enjoy the otherwise quality game thanks to one fatal flaw; the WORST encounter rate I'd ever seen in an RPG. So why am I glad I never played the DC original? Well apparently they actually toned down the horrid encounter rate for the GC version.......Honestly I can't imagine how it could have been worse, you get attacked every damn step in the BETTER VERSION? WTF!

Some games that just didn't cut it:

Banjo-Tooie:
Rare Developer: "I know guys. Let's take the best 3D platformer of all time put it in a convoluted and unnecessarily overcomplicated game world, add heaps of irritating and needless backtracking and...oh yeah, drop the framerate too, folks love that!"
Rare execs: "Hurrah, great idea!!!"

Chrono Cross:
Speaking of convoluted, this games battle system is a veritable disaster. Anyone who thinks this game is shunned simply for not living up to it's predecessor obviously hasn't played it. This game could have tied in perfectly to Trigger for all I knew/cared, I couldn't get past the first few hours because the battle system is a C O M P L E T E mess.

My personal Game of the Year:

Diablo II:
Easily my game of 2000 and possibly my game of the decade. I said before that WRPG's that appeal to me are beyond rare but I guess when they do they really, really do. Diablo II was everything I want in a game like this including literally millions of items, weapons and armors; hundreds of different skills and abilities and countless ways to customize your own character to play the game any way you wanted. Of course a theme and setting that tantalized my interests, characters and plot with enough development and backstory to be interesting without interfering with people who just wanted to play (or were going through for the thousandth time) were all just icing on the cake. It's a testament to the depth and content provided by this game that now, 10 years later, I still play it daily after having bought literally hundreds of games since I bought it. In those 10 years I've already played it more than any other game clocking in well over 5000 hours yet there's still so much I've never done. On top of it all Blizzard still supports the game with server maintenance and content updates for the thousands of people who still play it with a brand new patch scheduled for release in the early part of 2010.

[ccesarano]

Thank you for choosing to contribute after all!

And sorry I've been bad on updating this series. New Years + other business have screwed me all up. I'll have 2001 up tomorrow and hopefully will be continuing the rest of the decade as usual.

It really is a shame, though, even after being more in-depth with 2001 there were plenty of games worth noting, but either there wasn't enough to discuss or not enough to play. The beginning of this decade was so jam-packed with stuff it's incredible. It also really does make this past generation look like nothing more than a glut of mediocrity, which is funny as I've been having more of a blast this generation than the previous.

On Perfect Dark, I tried to get it so I could see what the big deal was after I had a PS2 and Xbox. Didn't work. I just couldn't go back and learn it. However, I've heard so many good things of the multiplayer from my friends for one simple reason: proximity bombs. Basically, from the sounds of it, they'd have matches of nothing but careful proximity bomb placement and it was a blast.

Of course, pre-Internet, multiplayer was always done with friends, so I think no matter what multiplayer has declined over the past decade since the focus is online play rather than in the same room. Nintendo is at least good for that, though.

[Nolan]

American McGee's Alice:
The theme and setting of this game are right up my alley, it's a shame I didn't know of the game when it was new. Today it's one of the old PC games I'd most like to play so hopefully it's not too hard to find.

It may interest you to know that there is a follow up being made. Oh, and Alice is a great game.

[ccesarano]

Ah, forgot to comment on that. A friend of mine had been playing Alice during College a couple years ago and I watched. I would like to play it as well, but by God is that writing on drugs. I think it is intentionally written to not make sense. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the game is designed to be enjoyed more on acid.

I was disappointed that Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland looks to have the similar "Alice travels back to Wonderland" plot, considering they've been trying to do a film of Alice for a while. Which, honestly, will probably be more interesting. That is, as long as the dialogue makes sense.

[Nolan]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-teaser-return-of/58475

Teaser for Return of Alice. Also a return to wonderland take.

[ccesarano]

Turns out that is actually a fan-made trailer, not an official one.

[scampers]

A couple things I noticed that I wanted to comment on...

Final Fantasy IX:
Excellent game! I was a huge Final Fantasy freak during its NES and SNES days. VII was good, but by VIII I was pretty much convinced the series that I had known and loved for the majority of my life was done and over with. IX was a breath of fresh air, and even though the storyline wasn't as "epic" as previous installments, it was enjoyable and the gameplay was solid. Considering the games that have been released since Final Fantasy IX, I consider it to be the last decent Final Fantasy games. Others have been fun, but they don't have that "Final Fantasy" feel to them. For me, anyway.

Multiplayer gaming:
I agree 100% that online gaming is nowhere near the same as playing against people in the same room. You can play Modern Warfare 2 online with a bunch of punk kids you don't know all day, but it will never match the experience of having a few friends over to play a few matches of Mario Kart or Halo.

[ccesarano]

Just a warning ahead of time that I will not be discussing The Wind Waker in 2002, as the only thing I'd be able to say about it is how much everyone hated the graphics at the time. Otherwise, I've said enough about Zelda games at length on this site that I think it's time for a breather.

[EarthViper]

I'm writing my 2001 response now but I wanted to let you know that you made two MONUMENTAL oversights in your 2002 writeup. I won't tell you what they are, I think it better justice that it fester in your mind for awhile in order to punish you for this atrocity. When you figure them out I'll accept a front page apology and nothing less.

[Kotzu]

I'm writing my 2001 response now but I wanted to let you know that you made two MONUMENTAL oversights in your 2002 writeup. I won't tell you what they are, I think it better justice that it fester in your mind for awhile in order to punish you for this atrocity. When you figure them out I'll accept a front page apology and nothing less.

Star Fox Adventures?

[ccesarano]

After a deliberation on Skype, it was Eternal Darkness (which I feel super bad about) and Suikoden 3.

[EarthViper]

It's a darn shame Wikipedia is so bare-bones on the so called 'notable' releases of a given year, mostly because as insufficient as their list is I have yet to find one with any more. I know I'm missing and will miss many games that I'd kick myself for not mentioning but alas, all these years later it's hard to remember what came out when and I'll be damned if I'm going to search the release dates for every relevant game one by one. Anyways:

2001

Some games I played and loved:

Castlevania Circle of the Moon:
There seem to be two dominant camps amongst Castlevania fans, those who think the series began with SotN and those who think it died with SotN. Circle of the Moon seems to be a bit of a rare breed that slips between both the traditional style and the Metroidvania style and as a result seems to have gotten a great deal of hate from both sides. Personally I like both styles of CV games and not coincidentally loved Circle of the Moon, sadly I wasn't able to fully appreciate the game until the GBA SP was released. Honestly, a Castlevania game had to be the WORST idea for a GBA launch title as that infamously hard to see screen + a dark game was just a recipe for disaster. Fortunately going back to play it with the SP, GBA player or DS allows one to fully appreciate the awesomeness of this game.

Onimusha Warlords:
Resident Evil + Feudal Japan + Demons = awesome. As much as I loved the RE franchise Onimusha was just so much more up my alley in terms of theme and setting and the awkward controls and fixed camera angles seemed to (perhaps surprisingly) work better with melee combat than trying to aim guns at off-screen enemies. Shame that the series kind of withered up and died; I guess RE and DMC proved to be more marketable and Capcom decided two action/horror franchises was enough, the bastards.

Halo:
I certainly don't hold this game in as high regard as many do but nonetheless I did very much enjoy it. The story/characters never captivated me and all the 'little things' that Halo fans get giddy about went over my head I guess, but I'm a sucker for a good coop game and Halo was a must-play for years whenever I had friends over.

Dragon Quest VII:
Honestly, Enix refusal to evolve the Dragon Quest series was getting a bit tiring by this point. I respected them for not prostituting the franchise to the mainstream like Square had done with FF but the fact that DQ's interface still felt like something that belonged on the NES was ridiculous. However the games traditionally (painfully) slow pace and cumbersome menu's weren't enough to ruin an otherwise superb JRPG that served to remind that you didn't need FMV's, voice acting, three dimensions or state of the art visuals to tell one hell of a story.

Super Monkey Ball:
Most people assume I'm taking a cheap shot when I say that Super Monkey Ball was the best launch title for the GC, although most who think that probably didn't play it. I'll admit it doesn't look like much, let alone a killer app, but honestly this has got to be in my top 5 launch games ever. I think it's just one of those games you can't really appreciate unless you've played but I for one was thoroughly addicted and consider it to be one of the greatest sleeper hits of all time.

Devil May Cry/GTAIII:
It may seem odd to pair these two games together but bear with me. In short, IMO these two games set a basic archetype for a great deal of games in the industry today; The third person sandbox game and the cinematic/acrobatic action-shooter. The thing is, while being highly critical of almost every game like them today I loved these two games. They aren't really any better than the current gen equivalents yet I was far less capable of enjoying this generations installments as the newness factor was wearing off. All the acrobatic combat of DMC was, at least to me, new in DMC so I forgave it for it's shortcomings; similarly the expansive sandbox city in GTAIII was new, at least to me, so I forgave it for it's shortcomings. Today most of these things are old hat, leaving the mechanical flaws exposed and leaving me to wonder how 10 years and leaps and bounds of advancements in technology has left these games and their spawn nearly identical. But I digress, if I went back and played them today I'd probably rant about the usual stuff so I think I'll just remember them fondly for if nothing else, a fresh experience.

Paper Mario:
Nintendo has always been masterfully creative with the Mario franchise, it's one of the things that sets it apart and made nearly every major installment so unforgettable. Paper Mario is one of many fine examples of this creativity, from the gameplay to the writing and everything in between the game was just dripping with that characteristic Mario charm. Honestly I never would have thought of using the still relatively newfound power of 3D games to essentially parody 2D games by making the 2D images paper-thin in order to interact with the environments unlike anything else in any 2D or 3D game. The gameplay was clever, the writing was brilliant, the whole game was a spectacle of Nintendo's unmatched creativity and is something everyone should try someday.

Conkers Bad Fur Day:
Honestly, when it comes down to the basic elements of a 3D platformer I don't think Conker's Bad Fur Day was really all that superb, at least not by comparison to the masterpieces of the genre, most of which where also on the N64. Yet CBFD was really so much more than a 3D platformer even though you had to get more than halfway through the game to see all the crazy directions it started going in. However as outrageous and hilarious as the campaign was what I'll remember most about the game is the multiplayer modes, particularly the 'Beach' minigame. Honestly Beach has to be in my top 5 minigames of all time; it was so simple yet it provided endless entertainment. Riotously funny, cringingly taboo and horribly unbalanced to the point that it actually improved the mode, Beach alone could have given me my money's worth.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3:
I'd played the first two games in this series and even though I had zero interest in skateboarding, it's subculture or 'xtreme' sports in general I did really enjoy the games. They were easy to pick up and play yet offered a rewarding experience for people looking for depth but most of all they were just a lot of fun. I think THPS2 has often been heralded as the best of the series but IMO 3 was the best. It was the last one before they went all crazy with sandbox stages and roaming around looking for people to give you 'quests' so I feel it was the most polished and complete of the original design. The stages were great, the stage builder was great, there was a ton of hidden content and the controls were spot on. If you've never played one of these games and want to see what all the fuss was about, I'd definitely recommend trying 3.

Some games I didn't play but wish I had:

Phantasy Star Online:
Now, I technically DID play this game however having no internets hooked up to my Dreamcast I was only able to dabble in the skeletal offline mode so for all intents and purposes I never was able to really experience the game. Years later I would have a brief but overall enjoyable stint on Phantasy Star Universe but the whole time I played it all I ever heard was how inferior it was to PSO. I guess there's an online community that keeps up unofficial servers to play it on PC but who knows how well it runs. Sadly I've probably missed my chance to ever really see why this game was, if it was, so superior to PSU.

Empire Earth:
Again, this is kind of a half-truth as I did sort of play this game, in fact I own it and it's expansion. However the line is pretty clearly drawn in the sand that this is the point in time where PC games surpassed my PC because while I've played a 2000 PC game on my PC for nearly 10 years a 2001 PC game made the same PC cry. Anyways, I was pretty big on RTS games back then and a big fan of the fairly similar Age of Empires games so I really wanted to play this game, sadly it's yet another on the always growing stack of PC games to play once I finally get a decent computer...

Some games that just didn't cut it:

Pikmin:
I'm sorry, as much as I wanted to love this game that stupid 30 day limit just constantly hung over my head and prevented me from enjoying it. I'm the kind of guy who plays an RTS, corners the AI to where they literally can't do anything yet are still alive, punches in some infinite money codes and then builds an empire till I get bored and shut the game off. In games like this I'm far more often looking to be either creative or completionist, giving me a universal time limit that makes me feel panicked from the first moment I pick up the controller just kills whatever buzz I may get from anything else in the game. The sequel rectified this by allowing endless play and I loved it to death, but I just never could enjoy the original because of that one thing.

Mario Kart Super Circuit:
I was a huge fan of Mario Kart, still am for the most part, but I just couldn't tolerate playing this game. I know it's not so much the games fault in this case because I'd probably have loved it if it was on a console but for me handhelds were reserved for games that were slow paced or predominantly menu based. Trying to play a fast paced game like a racer and having to make frequent use of the shoulder buttons was just awkward as all hell so I eventually just gave up and put it on the shelf. I never picked it up again later when the GBA Player came out so that may have made it more enjoyable for me but at least at the time I simply couldn't enjoy the game no matter how much I wanted to.

Star Wars Rogue Squadron II Rogue Leader:
There were two stages in the original that I could play and I loved them, so I played them over and over and over again. They were stages where, hold on to your seats, you where tasked simply with flying around a stage, blowing up targets and trying not to die. The rest of the game I ignored. When the sequel came out it was clear that the developers did not share my feelings on what stages where fun and which ones sucked the big one. Apparently they thought making a game where every mission was an escort mission was a much better idea. Every damn mission some useless AI was completely incapable of fending for themselves for 5 freaking seconds, every damn mission ended in like 10 seconds unless you knew exactly where to fly and what to shoot before it even popped up on radar, every damn mission you had to worry about everything EXCEPT yourself, every damn mission you had to shoot exact targets specified by the game in order to progress and GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL if you DARE chase one tie fighter for two seconds and not pay attention to what WE want you to shoot. Seriously, the game should have been renamed Star Wars Babysitter, much more accurate.

Final Fantasy X:
It's pretty much beating a dead horse at this point, in this thread alone everyone who has weighed in on the subject has pretty much given the middle finger to Square and FF in general post VII (with moderate exception to IX) but what the heck. The MTV esque love story, the characters, the art style, the linear progression, pretty much everything about this game save the battle system itself was just horrid IMO. To be slightly positive the battle system was probably the most polished and fluid in the series and the sphere grid while presented poorly was a decent system....but really, that's about all I can say about this game that isn't negative. It's like Square tried three different styles with FF during the PS1 era and for some inconceivable reason decided to adopt the worst of them (VIII) into the next generation. At that point I realized IX wasn't a return to sensibility for Square, it was a last gasp of a dying franchise. R.I.P Final Fantasy, R.I.P.

My personal Game of the Year:

Super Smash Bros Brawl:
I won't mince any words here, I don't like fighting games, never have. A handful over the years have entertained me at a 'rental' level and honestly I didn't even like the original Smash Bros but from the first moment I played SSBM I was hooked for a solid year and despite popular opinion about the game I didn't need an ounce of multiplayer to get that kind of mileage out of it. I'm sure I never got particularly good as in being able to compete with 'No items, Final Destination" crowd but I got good enough to feed my obsession of getting as many trophies as I possibly could. The fan service content provided by the game was just staggering, the variety of play in the adventure mode set it apart from anything else that year, the huge cast of characters, the awesome interactive stages, the minigames, the collectibles...really, this game had it all. I'm sure if you're a hardcore fighting game elitists or someone who would gain no satisfaction from the Nintendo fanservice contained within then you probably don't get all the hype, but if you're just looking for some good ol' fashioned fun there are few games that can provide it like SSBM.

[ccesarano]

FYI, no 2003 for today. It takes over an hour to write these things and then the next day two hours to go over it, find images, resize them, put it all up on the web and spam it on Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon. So it'll be back on Monday.

The one thing I omitted about 2001 and the GBA was, since I had never played Castlevania and didn't want to take a risk on a new IP like Advance Wars, I grabbed the new GameBoy Color Zelda games. Man was that a mistake. I was hoping they'd grab some of what I loved about the original or A Link to the Past, but they really didn't. I should have gone with Castlevania instead, with or without the shitty no-back-light screen.

Actually, since Serious Sam HD isn't out this week, maybe I ought to grab SotN and get it over with? Eh, we'll wait and see what next week's arcade game is first.

I've always been interested in Onimusha, and the fact that #3 had Jean Reno was a beast, but I don't think it ever caught on in the West like it did in Japan. Considering Capcom is now looking to develop for a world market, it's doubtful you'll be seeing it again. :/

The story/characters never captivated me and all the 'little things' that Halo fans get giddy about went over my head I guess, but I'm a sucker for a good coop game and Halo was a must-play for years whenever I had friends over.

Dammit! All that I said about Halo and the ONE KEY INGREDIENT I forget to mention. I'm beginning to understand why D&D books always release pages of Erreta. It's so easy to overlook things that other people point out later.

Seriously, the first time I played it was with my friend James for the first two maps. Then my brother sat down that night to play and didn't go to sleep until like 2a.m. The next evening we did the same thing and beat the game. The night following we restarted on Legendary.

My brother and I had tried playing multiplayer games before, but most of what was available were fighting games like Soul Calibur, Rival Schools, X-Men vs. Street Fighter (I can't believe how gimped it was on the PSX), etc. I was never "huge" into fighting games, but I was able to enjoy them with my brother and his College friends and managed to hold my own pretty well.

But playing Halo was like jumping all the way back to the days of Contra or Ninja Turtles games. I had forgotten how great co-op was, and couldn't fathom why no one hopped on it earlier. Thank God it's pretty much standard now, even though the amount of polish that goes into it is questionable for some games.


On Super Monkey Ball, it was sort of a Trojan Horse of fun. It looked dumb and simple, but it was fun anyway. I think you're right, it's probably the best GameCube launch title (I never played much past Hoth in Rogue Leader myself, partly because I could never get the fucking toe cable around the AT-AT's leg; never got to play Luigi's Mansion), but I think it's success also helped cement people's expectations of the GameCube audience.

On Tony Hawk, I don't think I ever played 3 but when my brother and I grabbed a used Dreamcast during my GameStop stay, one of the titles we grabbed was Tony Hawk 2. I was skeptical but he insisted it was fun. Hot damn was he right. I found myself addicted to a video game about a sport I had no interest in.

Interesting that the series has taken such a traumatic nose dive. I mean, I thought Tony Hawk's Underground and shit was bad, but now everything I've read about Ride is...well...seriously, who's in charge of that franchise?

Finally, Mario Kart Super Circuit. Honestly, not missing much. Despite the success of the DS one, I just can't get into the series on a handheld. I don't know why, but it doesn't work as well. The maps themselves aren't as interesting.

Then again, I actually find Double Dash!! to be the best in the series, which totally throws my opinions on the franchise away for most gamers. Either Mario Kart 64 is the best or Mario Kart Wii is it seems. Poor Double Dash!! is hated for...God, I don't even know, to be honest.

[EarthViper]

The one thing I omitted about 2001 and the GBA was, since I had never played Castlevania and didn't want to take a risk on a new IP like Advance Wars, I grabbed the new GameBoy Color Zelda games.

You do know Advance Wars wasn't a new IP right?

Anyways I wanted to say something about that game in my writeup as I did really enjoy it but that section was already getting so long I decided to cut it off. Great game though.

[Nolan]

For anyone interested, http://www.schtserv.com/download.php for PSO free, you can go the DC route or get Blue Burst for free on PC(which apparently the US version isn't any more).

About Super Monkey Ball...I hated it. I just didn have fun with it, too frustrating for me.

[ccesarano]

You do know Advance Wars wasn't a new IP right?

Anyways I wanted to say something about that game in my writeup as I did really enjoy it but that section was already getting so long I decided to cut it off. Great game though.

Seriously? What came before it?

[EarthViper]

You do know Advance Wars wasn't a new IP right?

Anyways I wanted to say something about that game in my writeup as I did really enjoy it but that section was already getting so long I decided to cut it off. Great game though.

Seriously? What came before it?

This link is retarded because for some reason the ) insists on breaking off from the link so when you click it just click the (Did you mean ______) where the link takes you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_(series)

A strategy game series developed by Intelligent Systems and Published by Nintendo. Installments in the series date back to the original Famicom (NES) however no games in the series where released outside Japan until the Game Boy Advance. Ever since every installment has been released worldwide.

^ This exact statement is interchangeable between the Wars series and the Fire Emblem series; kind of interesting.

[ccesarano]

Ah. I wasn't aware, I thought Advance Wars was the first of its kind. I can see more why people assumed Battalion Wars was a new iteration in the franchise, though Kuju insisted it was not.

[EarthViper]

BTW I forgot to put Shenmue under "Games that just didn't cut it" in my 2000 post. *runs and hides

Seriously though, this severe lack of a decent list of games released per year is just annoying me more and more every time I remember something that I missed. Someone with nothing but free time and a love for making lists really should rectify this...

Also I should ask, why does wearing your grandmas glasses and sporting a goatee make one an 'Uber Geek'? And has anyone ever used that emoticon?

Somebody's gotta do it.