Slashdot's Games of the Year 364
Not everyone who works on Slashdot plays games. Enough of us do, though, that I thought it would be interesting to tap my co-workers to see what folks would call their 'game of the year'. Below are comments on the best gaming of 2006 from Chris Nandor, CmdrTaco, Chris Brown, Scuttlemonkey, and myself. Then, once you've read that, we need your help in the comments. What was the game you couldn't put down? Perhaps it was over quickly, but you know you'll be thinking about it in the future? Was it a next-gen title, or something for the good old PlayStation 2? In your opinion, what was the best game of the year?
I've been a fan of the Tomb Raider franchise since the PlayStation days, but sitting down to Legend was like taking a step in a fresh and new direction. I found every aspect of this game wonderful. The graphics and sound engines are stunning, the the plot is well-written and executed, and the controls have been completely redesigned, eliminating the clunkiness found in past installments. My experience was sheer, unadulterated fun. My only gripe is the game's length. I blew through it in a weekend, and the ending cliffhanger left me hungry for more.- Chris "Entweichen" Brown
Full Tilt Poker is my best game of the year. Basically, all online poker programs are kinda lame in one way or another, but Full Tilt has done a good job of fixing problems, adding features, and generally keeping the site and program running smoothly. And they have a wide variety of games to play, and usually plenty of people to play against. The biggest problem, other than being Java and eating up most of my CPU, is that it pretends to need a password to install, and doesn't even tell you why. That's very lame. And no, I don't play in the "real money" games. Because that is a felony according to both state and federal law, and I would never do such a thing, even though it's perfectly legal for me to go a few miles down the street, never leave my own residential neighborhood, and play poker for real money in an Indian casino.
- Chris "Pudge" Nandor
This year there were quite a few games to snag my interest, however, the one that was the most surprising to me was the MMOG, Eve Online. The game has been around since 2003, but I had always resisted since it looked like another time sink a la World of Warcraft, but a friend finally talked me into playing. While at first the game seemed like nothing more than a passing novelty I promised to give it 6 months, even if all I did was skill train and log out (unlike most MMOs skills can be trained while offline). However, once I had a better handle on all the nuances of the interface and a few skills under my belt the game started to unfold into this vast universe of possibilities unlike any game I had ever played before. The game starts off slow, very slow in fact, but if you have the patience to make it through the tutorials (dear god do NOT skip the tutorials unless you have your own personal guide) then there is plenty to keep you busy for months at a time. Of all the things that make Eve great, the skill system is certainly the most unique. Only being able to train one skill at a time and having a fixed time until it is done, you know exactly when it will finish (whether you are online or not). This allows people with real lives to at least keep up with the power curve in terms of skills, but ensures that the "veterans" will always have the edge. Many people complain about this fact, but I think it adds to the realism that pilots who have been doing it for years get to be the ace while you, the new pilot, get to play the rookie for a while. It doesn't take long (in terms of most MMOs) to at least be a contributing member of a large corporation (Eve's guild equivalent) and really get in on the fun. With all of the different possibilities in Eve it is no wonder that it is the only MMO still growing (and has been steadily since 2003 from what I hear). Whether you are a fan of casual solo play and just want to be the captain of a mining ship or are a meticulous power gamer who craves vast space battles and PvP, Eve has something for everyone, just give it a few months to grow on you.
- Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry
What can I say? I'm a Final Fantasy junkie- I even liked X-2, so take me with a grain of salt. Final Fantasy XII's new gambit system takes the tedium out of the game but still lets me control what I want. The ability to see mobs and avoid random encounters is fantastic. The graphics, the story, the gameplay. You don't often see a game worth of any sort of perfect rating but this one is it. My only complaint is that the traditional FF victory theme music plays only over the larger fights... but the other occupant of my living room would tell you that this fact makes this game an upgrade (as she humms the tune over and over again, each time with more fury). I'm not the sort of person who needs to go collect every last esper, so I guess my only complaint is that it's over, and it'll be awhile before I get to see a Final Fantasy on the PS3, which is probably what it will take for me to buy the damn thing.
- Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
From the moment the soaring orchestral theme to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion began playing, I was hooked. Bethesda landed me like a gaffed fish, and while I've played a lot of games this year, Oblivion is always going to be my 2006 game of the year. As I said lo these many months ago in March, the story is great, the graphics are amazing ... but what made Oblivion special then and has kept it special all the way through to December is the trust the developers have put into the player. They don't put you in a little car, lower the safety bar, and make you ride through their experience the way they intended. You're at the controls, and they've made the effort to make every nook and cranny worthwhile to explore. Part of what has made Oblivion so compelling is that my preferred character from Morrowind has finally gotten his full due. Playing a stealthy character in Elder Scrolls III was fun, but in battle it was often quite a challenge. Oblivion's critical system has allowed my Khajit Assassin the punch he needed to make battles turn his way. A character now an embarrassing 75 hours old, I've run him through the main quest, the Thieves guild, the Dark Brotherhood, the Arena, 'The Collector' chain, and dozens of smaller quests. I've been across the length and breadth of Cyrodil, and in all of those 75 hours I have never, not once, found myself bored. It's hard to find the words to give a game higher praise than that.
I also want to give Half-Life 2: Episode One a quick nod of the head. For a little slip of a game that only lasted a few hours of my life, the time players spent with Alyx Vance this year will (I think) weigh heavily on gaming as a whole for the near future. Her wit, charm, and intensely personable nature are a high water mark that every other NPC now has to live up to. The promise of Episode Two has made PC gamers more than a bit cranky at Valve for the constant delays. It's not just the humor of Team Fortress 2 or the brain-bending of Portal that has us looking forward to Valve's next release; Half-Life players are very much looking forward to the next time we can have real backup in an FPS.
- Michael "Zonk" Zenke
TW (Score:2, Insightful)
Frozen Bubble 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My picks (Score:4, Insightful)
#2 is obviously the motion detection. This one is harder to know how good it is, but I know at least Monkey Ball seems to have plenty of responsiveness in the controls to know that the remote is capable of a lot. Wii Sports seems to be at best a tech demo that gets people (very) interested in the console. I am personally looking forward to a tennis game that actually cares how you hold the remote, since the technology is there.
Re:My picks (Score:5, Insightful)
Mario Bros. (NES): Not, I feel, the best title to bundle with the NES. Once the novelty of the side scrolling wears off, you realize pretty quickly that this game is essentially just an exercise in pressing buttons and timing. I've not played an electronic game yet that's really convinced me of this new form of entertainment's merits.
Re:Two take #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Most games are about precision, which involves precise positioning, and timing. Only a few fit your description, like say rugby :)
Even (american) football is more about strategy than it is about the actions of any individual, although on occasion individuals do amazing things.
Re:My picks (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel your pain.
My first time through Wii Sports disappointed me as well, as I was expecting more than the controller could give. I had expected perfect tracking of the orientation of the Wiimote when it was not pointed at the screen (to make lightsaber games possible), faster response time to movement (a relatively low upper limit to how fast you can punch in Wii Boxing), as well as finer sensitivity to minute motions when it was required (short putts in Wii Golf show my frustration off perfectly). Rayman's Ravening Rabbids did a good job of using the controller in many ways, including a limited "on-rails" FPS that got me hooked. After I saw it's potential in RRR, I went back to Wii Sports and enjoyed the game a lot more.
In short, don't give up just yet. I've already gotten my $250 out of it. Now I'm just waiting for improved online support.
Top 5 Picks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please - be kind.... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's hard NOT to turn this into a platform bashing issue, because to me that's exactly what killed Oblivion. Because the game was made to be 360 compatible, there were a lot of features that I hated about the game (PC user here, obviously). Here they are, in no particular order...
1. Consolified interface. It was huge, clunky, and wasteful to say the least. Even the basic UI mods that came out improved it drastically. Still, I shouldn't have to mod my game to get a half decent interface on a 2006 game of the year candidate.
2. Removal of many rpg elements. Oblivion ended up being a 'fantasy FPS' instead of a real RPG. What happened to levitate? What about the exotic weapon types? Don't want to run? That's ok, we'll let you fast travel to within 5 feet of any place on the map. Don't want to explore? It's ok, quest and location markers show you every hidden cave and every NPC on the map. Morrowind felt like a virtual world. Oblivion felt like an arcade game.
3. Leveled enemies. There was no reason to level up, because you could never outlevel your enemies. You could walk out at level 2 and kill vampires, win the arena, become a guild grandmaster... or you could level to 30 and get attacked by bandits in full daedric armor. On either end of the scale, that's just messed up IMO. A good suit of armor should be a challenge to obtain... every loser bandit on the planet shouldn't have it just because you reached the big ranks. News flash: full daedric isn't too special when every Joe bandit has some. I guess I would expect the character to adapt to the world, not the world to adapt to the character.
4. Voiceovers all sounded the same. I realize that games are expected to have voiceovers now, but there seemed to be all of 3 people doing them. Everybody sounded the same, with only slightly different voice inflections. It was creepy, really.
5. Oblivion's game world = blah. It felt like Oblivion's world was made by someone with ADD. I couldn't run 10 feet without stumbling over a bandit cave, a big ruin, a shrine, or something else. Morrowind's landmass felt more like a "real" virtual world. Oblivion's devs apparently felt the need to cram it full of everything. I don't see the need to stumble over an aethid ruin every 2 seconds. And with all the ruins, where is the non-leveled armor? In Morrowind I found a remote cave during my exploration, and just when I thought I had found everything in it, I looked up and saw a shield hanging on the wall (it turned out to be one of the best shields in the game). I did the same thing later in the game when I found one of the best daggers in the game in a vampire lair. But in Oblivion, there were just leveled treasure chests and leveled loot lists. I didn't see any special, hand placed uber loot for some lucky adventurer to find.
Honestly, Oblivion was one of the biggest letdowns I've ever purchased. After the greatness that was Morrowind, I expected much better. I don't even consider it to be the best RPG of 2006, much less game of the year.
Re:Ooops (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My picks (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Please - be kind.... (Score:3, Insightful)
1.) Shitty voice acting.
2.) Dumbed-down conversation system.
3.) Ridiculously mindless AI.
4.) Magic compass marker that somehow knows where everyone is at, turning quests into a point-and-run affair.
5.) Leveling system that removes the whole point of leveling up.
6.) Boring, boring, boring game world that all looks the same.
7.) Bland, generic, McMedieval graphics. Everyone was talking about how great the graphics were, as if they had never seen normal-mapping or bloom lighting before.
8.) Boring, generic dungeons. Did you ever play Morrowind? It had multiple kinds.
9.) The turning of a once-great RPG franchise into a hackneyed action-slasher with RPG-lite stats.
10.) The fact nothing had any consequences, even the main storyline. Demons are supposedly taking over, but you never feel like the world is in any tense danger. You can join any guild at all without any consequences (in Morrowind, you would become an enemy to opposing guilds), and you can easily become any character class, which removes the point of specialization in a character as well and removes replayability. It's a flat environment that's just designed for hack-slashing rats in dungeons.
You're asking how this could not be the game of the year. I ask you, what makes it the game of the year? Absolutely nothing in it advanced RPGs forward at all. All that talk of it being a "next-gen RPG," and it was actually a dumbed-down Morrowind with a ton of features removed. Turns out the next-gen part just referred to the bland graphics. You actually get a richer world in Morrowind from 2001, and you get a ton more to do in it. Nothing in Oblivion makes it the game of the year.
I've lost all faith in Elder Scrolls after Oblivion. They're not interested in making RPGs like Daggerfall anymore. They want to make top 10 Happy Meal RPG-lite games where you just run around slashing at giant rats all day. The ONLY reason this game got so much hype is because of XBox 360 fanboys who thought it had the greatest graphics ever. That's it. And those visuals turned out to be ugly and bland. I saw more beautiful outdoor environments in Far Cry several years ago.
Re:Guitar Hero 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on how you play it. Though I prefer GH1's soundtrack, GHII has VASTLY improved multiplayer.
Hopefully the X-Box 360 version of GHII will have the original GH tracks as Live downloads. Even if they are pay for downloads, I would sell my PS2 version, and Rebuy it to have that soundtrack with the better multiplayer modes.
Re:My selection (Score:5, Insightful)
So Zelda is overrated because it isn't as innovative as some other franchises - yet the games which are in your top five list are pretty much more of the same, too?
Yes, Zelda isn't innovative. It's even a step back in innovation from The Wind Waker (apart from the really cool controls in the Wii version). But it's a damn good game. In fact, it's probably the best single-player game of the year. Frankly, I couldn't give a rat's ass about its innovation. It's an utterly awesome game, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Yes, there is. There's an awesome new story to experience, great new art direction to enjoy, fantastic new music to listen to, complicated new dungeons to solve, and so on. It's 60 new hours of Zelda goodness. That's all I want out of a Zelda game, and Twilight Princess delivers in truckloads.
Re:The Problem With Elder Scrolls Oblivion (Score:4, Insightful)
I never played the game, but what you describe actually seems complimentary of the game's flexibility. You essentially became a ghost, or more specifically a poltergeist since you could manipulate objects and cast spells while invisible, apparently.
Re:My picks (Score:3, Insightful)
Talldega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby (PS3): Not, I feel, the best title to bundle with the PS3. Once the novelty of Will Ferrell wears off, you realize pretty quickly that this game is essentially just a movie in High Definition.I've not played an electronic game yet that's really convinced me of this new form of entertainment's merits.
Sorry
But seriously though
Now, for those people who wanted deeper simulation from Wii Sports, I suspect EA or another company will be excited to port the PS2/XBox/Gamecube versions of Tennis, Boxing, Bowling, Golf and Baseball (with the necessary graphical enhancements) and (probably) extend the basic controls of Wii Sports; at the same time, I'm certain Mario Golf, Mario Baseball, Mario Strikers or Mario Tennis will be released in 2007/2008 for more of a party game (with an outside chance of Nintendo producing Mario Boxing or Mario Bowling).
TA:Spring (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on Total Annihilation, but is way ahead of its originator in many ways (some say it has better features than the upcoming Supreme Commander, eg, deformable terrain).
Open source. Cross platform (doesn't run on Mac yet, though).
Amazing what happens when fanatical open source developers get on top of a cross platform 3d kit.
Re:Elder Scrolls Oblivion - BLEH! (Score:2, Insightful)
The only difference I can see between Diablo 2 and Oblivion is that Oblivion has a few more towns and quests. And Diablo 2 has a better combat engine, better story, goody collecting system, and far better voice acting.
This page not working with Internet Explorer (Score:3, Insightful)
"This page not working with Internet Explorer. Use Firefox!"
Wonderful. Piss off the 80%-90% of gamers who are running IE. Gamers who have actually been known to crack open their wallets to pay twenty dollars for a halfway decent shareware game.
Ideology over common sense. The perfect model for the cash-starved FOSS developer.