By 2002 the debate as to when the new millenium actually begins had finally ended. You remember, don’t you? People clamoring that there was no 0 A.D. (or B.C.E. for you heathens) and so 2001 was the real beginning. Yes, people argued about such a thing seriously, and years later none of us care. A productive time, surely.

I had become firmly entrenched in my job at GameStop, used to seeing all the latest releases hitting the shelves, opening myself up to new things, and finally getting myself an Xbox a year after it had released. It also marks the beginning of my senior year of high school. As I was preparing to exit one stage of my life, I was losing my favoritism of the Playstation 2 brand.

Looking back, 2002 is probably one of the most notable years of my gaming life, in addition to the industry as a whole.

G4 is launched on television

Too bad not all notable things are good or beneficial. This was the year that G4 had unfurled itself upon the gaming masses. Most of us were naïve, believing it could not get any worse. How wrong we had been.

The channel began innocently enough. Two or three separate shows that covered news coverage and reviews, a reel of game trailers, a show featuring multiplayer competition and Icons, featuring stories of game studios, franchises and other aspects of industry history. The hosts actually seemed genuinely interested in covering games, not making bad jokes or having female hosts purely for sex appeal. The only problem was that there wasn’t enough to cover an entire day’s worth of time. It got boring. The channel needed more.

G4 later bought TechTV, a decent channel, and obliterated pretty much all of its original content except for X-Play and Attack of the Show. If either show was actually good at one point it is now impossible to tell. Yet for some reason G4 has actually expanded somehow, despite missing the mark not only on its own demographic, but of having any hope of entertaining non-gamers. In fact, I’m pretty sure the modern face of G4 would only turn people away from gaming.

Then again, maybe they have a demographic of apes and chimps after all.

The fusion of Squenix

The two greatest juggernauts of Japanese Role-Playing Games were finally merging together. What would this mean? Would the quality but less flashy Enix titles finally lend some good to Squaresoft’s deteriorating quality? Or would all the major titles of Enix get pumped out like gumballs and replaced with flashy high budget graphics and cinematics?

I’d definitely go with the latter.

Anyone that grew up playing either franchise’s games on the NES or SNES felt nothing but dread from this announcement. Squaresoft was beginning to lose sight of what had made them great, and now they were preparing to drag Enix down with them. Anyone that didn’t pick up a controller until Final Fantasy 7 or after didn’t even know who Enix was. In the end, it was just another sign of the changing times.

The JRPG as we had known it was dead, and while Atlus continues to push out some interesting titles here and there, nothing can bring back those good old days of unique plots, settings, art styles and gameplay. That is a time for the history books, and the Square-Enix logo is just another constant reminder of it.

Starcraft: Ghost announced

The legendary PC developer was going to take a step into console game development for the first time since The Lost Vikings. The announcement brought forth a mixture of praise and hatred from differing parties. Fanatics of Starcraft were endlessly frustrated, demanding a sequel to their beloved RTS instead. Console gamers were glad to have a new method of exploring this universe, blending stealth elements with gun-toting gameplay.

Yet this is only the beginning of a longer saga for me. I had interest in the title upon first announcement, certainly, but I was not totally sold on it yet. It merely looked pretty cool. It would only be later that I would come to desire this game greatly. Yet that is for another year.

Resident Evil Remake

It was not influential in any way, but the Resident Evil remake for the GameCube properly introduced me to the franchise. I had seen the film with my friends earlier that year, and while I found it to be decent it was my friends’ discussion on the franchise plot that had surprised me. I originally thought the game was just a variation on Doom in a different genre. Yet here my friends explained all of the puzzles and plot elements no one had ever informed me of!

So I reserved the remake, uncertain if I would really enjoy it all that much or not. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. I sucked at first, and it took time to get used to the controls, but the combination of puzzles mixed with Metroid style world exploration had me hooked. While the base plot of the game surrounding the characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine is generic as can be, the hidden documents revealed a deeper and more interesting story hidden within.

To this day the Resident Evil Remake is one of my favorite titles to go back to and just play. Sure, the control scheme is archaic, but it’s still fun. The story is self-contained, the puzzles are complex enough to be some sort of challenge, and the atmosphere was perfect. The voice actor for Wesker is also my preferred for the character. Unfortunately, the series would later drop the focus of puzzles and the plot would become insanely convoluted and ridiculous.

That doesn’t stop REmake from being a blast, though.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Many of you regular readers know I carry a big spike covered stick when it comes to Bethesda. I’ve grown to feel that a lot of their game mechanics and designs are archaic and need to evolve.

Be that as it may, Morrowind was not only a fun game, it was pretty significant, too. Grand Theft Auto III introduced players to an urban sandbox, but Morrowind dropped players into an entire country and said “do what you want, we don’t really care”. You could spend hours exploring no more than five percent of the world map because there was so much to do and see. So many caverns to explore, books to read, mushrooms to harvest, the list goes on. Some cities took just as long to complete the quests within as it took to beat an entire game of another genre.

Sure, the game had its flaws, but it was still a fun title. The flaws were also forgivable at the time for such a massive project. What’s more, it was one of the first major Xbox titles to show that traditionally PC titles could sell well on consoles. All it took was proper marketing and design.

Metroid Prime

Yet no matter how large a game like Morrowind was, it just couldn’t beat Metroid Prime. Everyone was nervous about the franchise going first person, that it would lose its roots of exploration and instead focus on mindless combat.

When the demo disc finally arrived at our store I had to torture for hours until my shift had ended. I picked up the controller to play, and reading about how one Space Pirate’s spine had been severed while another had been punctured through the lungs let me know Retro Studios was serious. While the demo didn’t provide much in terms of gameplay, the very look and atmosphere of the game felt right. When release day finally came I stayed up past midnight playing, enraptured by this new world to explore.

Retro Studios perfectly managed to capture the spirit of Metroid like no other. Weapons such as the wave beam and spider ball were redesigned for a 3-D environment without taking anything away, the sense of isolation remained and exploring a world in three dimensions brought all new levels of immersion to fans all over. It was the sequel we had all been waiting for without even realizing it.

It is largely debated whether the first Metroid Prime is the best or not, but I personally feel it is. Once again, the plot was well-contained within itself. The Space Pirates were revisited in a fashion that added more depth and personality, the Chozo were similarly explored and throughout it all Samus was alone. The further the franchise went the more it seemed to tack on unnecessary additions. Plus, the Space Pirates went from proper insectoid aliens to bird-like ones to some sort of strange parasitic thing in Corruption.

Without a doubt Metroid Prime was the best possible sequel that Nintendo could have released, and Team Ninja has a difficult task in measuring up with Metroid: Other M.

MechAssault

Just as with Legend of Mana, MechAssault is a game I enjoyed for what it was. I had played MechWarrior 2 when I was younger, and yes I enjoyed it, but to bash MechAssault for being a different sort of game was irrational to me.

Before that point, any MechWarrior game on consoles was complete trash. The control scheme and design just didn’t fit right. So instead FASA studios chose a different approach for Microsoft’s console variation. Especially if they were going to try and use it to market Xbox Live.

In the end players were delivered a fast-paced yet more simple Mech game. Was it horrible or worse? Hell no. In fact, it was fun as Hell. Even though you could jump online and get trounced by any loser in a Mad Cat (which has always been my Mech of choice, by the way), the game was still tremendous loads of fun. Anyone that played it online was introduced not only to how great online play could be, but how awesome it was to use headsets!

Now those very things have helped ruin online gaming, but nonetheless. MechAssault was a tremendously fun game to just drop online in and kill some time with. Even if you were terrible at it you had a good time. It’s too bad the sequel was nothing but a commercial for the multiplayer, and it looks as if a new iteration will never be coming.

Oh well. As long as the next MechWarrior somehow manages to play well I’ll be happy.

Kingdom Hearts

I’ve never touched a Kingdom Hearts title in my life, but anyone that can say this series hasn’t been a big hit is obviously lying or deluded. I had originally found its very existence appalling. It was the very epitome of the term “sell out”, where Squaresoft was fusing their characters with those of Disney in the most ridiculous mash-up ever. I mean, really, Donald and Goofy as your adventuring companions? Could you pick characters with worse voices?

Yet it became a massive success. In fact, it was favored by hordes of Hot Topic kids that would endlessly rant about how this band or that show was a “complete sell out”. I was baffled.

No matter what quality there is to the game, the simple truth is Square managed to prove once again that the market had shifted. The old values of gamers had changed, and they were selling to a new market now. One that loves having their characters (post Playstation, by the way, none from the SNES or earlier eras) mish-mashed with Disney cartoons.

Man, what the Hell?

Steel Battalion

If there is one thing to remember about 2002 that is completely balls-to-the-wall insane it is Capcom’s Steel Battalion. Why? Because it came with a custom “controller” that basically looked like a Mech cockpit. There was even a red button with a plastic flip cover for self-destruction and ejection. In fact, if you did not eject from your Mech before it exploded, your whole save file would basically go.

That’s right, you died.

This $200 game proved to be for the most hardcore Mech-pilot simulationists. I’ve played it, and man is it awkward and difficult. The gameplay looks boring, but once you sit down in the seat and try to aim and walk straight at the same time you’ll suddenly wonder how you ever had a tough time learning to drive. The slow movement is not only realistic, it’s a necessity.

How this game has not been mentioned on any other website lists for the decade is beyond me, as it should go down in history with the Powerglove and R.O.B. Only, you know, not a bad idea, just one that would never sell.

Maximo

Capcom also released a little title called Maximo that year, a remake of the Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts line of games. The desire was to recreate an old school sense of difficulty with modern game design, and by golly it was fun. The series also carried some personality to it thanks to a great art style. Not to mention the Grim Reaper. He’s awesome.

Just like an old game, I could never tell when I was getting better at Maximo. It felt consistently hard until I randomly chose to restart one day, and discovered that the first world was a Hell of a lot easier.

Never got to play the sequel, but honestly, if they announced a third entry in the series, I’d be all over it. It was technically nothing noteworthy aside from its difficulty and art style, but damn was it fun anyway. One of the few titles that I carry good memories of from the Playstation 2.

Other noteworthy titles of 2002:

Battlefield: 1942, Jet Set Radio Future, Dungeon Siege, Final Fantasy XI, House of the Dead 3, Neverwinter Nights, Medieval: Total War, Super Mario Sunshine, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, Animal Crossing, Sly Cooper, Tekken 4, No One Lives Forever 2, TimeSplitters 2, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Ratchet & Clank, Resident Evil 0, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Metroid: Fusion

2002 in video gaming on Wikipedia

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Onward to 2003

What do you remember from 2002?