The year in games

The games

"Halo 2": I don't even know why you'd need a second video game.

-- Seanbaby

Seanbaby is an outrageous funnyman. He writes a regular column in Electronic Gaming Monthly called "The Rest of the Crap" and also contributes to XBN, GMR and Computer Gaming World.

"Katamari Damacy": Like everybody else, I've had it about up to here with Japanese whimsy. But I gotta admit, this one worked for me. You roll all these dogs and people and chickens and cows into a ball and then shoot the writhing clump into space where they cling to each other and scream silently into the void for all eternity.

It's some serious Clive Barker shit, but it's colorful and the music's real catchy so it's easy to miss all the horror. The expanding ball of junk is the best game metaphor for escalating power since the stat bar. In fact, it's the only game metaphor for escalating power since the stat bar. Think harder, game developers!

-- Erik Wolpaw

Erik Wolpaw says, "I write about video games for money." He is also the co-founder of the late, lamented Old Man Murray.

"City of Heroes": The MMORPG [massively multiplayer online role-playing game] market seems to be recapitulating the history of the tabletop RPG market. One classic fantasy title ("D&D," "EverQuest") spawns a host of fantasy imitators, followed by licensed products, followed by attempts to take the paradigm to other fiction genres. (The next stage, it may be devoutly hoped, will, as in tabletop RPGs, be attempts to innovate with the basic paradigms of the genre, as well as to build new, original worlds better suited to gameplay.) "CoH" does it for superheroes and does it remarkably well.

-- Greg Costikyan

"Half Life 2": Utterly beautiful and immersive -- because of the facial animations, I actually care about NPC [non-player character] sob stories, which helps sell the feeling of oppression and desolation. While some argue it's too easy, I think the designers have done a good job of creating a cinematic experience but one in which I trust them to make it challenging without being frustrating and where I don't have to quick-save every few steps or backtrack for health.

-- Brian Yeung

Brian Yeung is a designer with an eclectic pedigree, currently surviving crunch time on "The Matrix Online" at Monolith Productions. He rarely updates www.crankyuser.com.

"City of Heroes": Oh my god ... someone actually made a massively multiplayer online game that I actually liked! "City of Heroes" gets so much right -- intensely fun character creation and great ongoing character customization opportunities during play, instanced dungeons so there's no waiting around for monsters to respawn, great visual effects, streamlined inventory management, easy to get into, easy to play, easy transportation and communication so teaming up with people is a piece of cake ... just an all-around nice effort. Thanks to "City of Heroes" I can't say "I hate massively multiplayer games" anymore -- it's not the game type that's lacking; it's most of the games. Might not have had the staying power of some other MMORPGs but, man, the first three months were thrilling to me.

-- Warren Spector

"Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga": It took me over six months to play this game -- on the train, in airports, waiting in line at the post office and grocery store. The Game Boy makes this game portable, but the game design makes it easy to leave and come back to. The familiar Mario-style gameplay has a slight role-playing gamer (RPG) twist -- so you can experiment a bit with items and equipment. And when people in line (children, curious adults) express interest, it's easy to hand over for a bit. What could be more fun than ... sharing your fun?

-- Robin Hunicke

"Star Wars: Jump to Light Speed": "Star Wars Galaxies" was clearly lacking an essential game element until this add-on came out. It actually motivated me to start playing SWG again, after I gave up playing out of disgust for the ongoing nerfs that seemed to pop up every other hour [in online games, a "nerf" is software patch that degrades a preexisting feature]. It is very cool to be able to really crew a spaceship, running around to make repairs, shooting from its turrets, and yelling at each other to work as a team. Between flights, I'm waiting to see if my character finishes grinding the Village and makes it to Padawan before the developers figure out yet another nerf to piss me off. Even if they do, I will still have fun flying the ships ... until they figure out a way to nerf the fun out of that.

-- Maj. Jason Amerine

Amerine is a Special Forces officer who works as a technical advisor for the "America's Army" computer game.

"Burnout 3": This game was able to turn a lot of people who weren't racing fans on to the genre, though not for racing's sake. There's something hugely satisfying about trying to rack up combos and create the most wanton destruction possible.

-- Brian Yeung

"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas": Made me nostalgic for Dr. Dre and the early '90s ... Driving a tractor through downtown L.A. was a real treat.

-- Kurt Squire

Kurt Squire is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a participant in the upcoming GAPPS initiative (games and professional practice simulations research group).

"Katamari Damacy": This is kind of confrontationally weird -- you roll a sticky ball around and pick stuff up to re-create the cosmos. You sort of forget how weird it is as you play, of course, but every now and then something like a pigeon riding a shoe with a can on its head will charge you or you'll be knocked into a sumo wrestler by a rocket-mounted grizzly bear and it will hit you again -- this is madness.

-- Seanbaby

"Ninja Gaiden": This game had a terrifically well-designed fighting system and wonderfully engineered play: Tecmo hit upon the perfect balance between being hard and being way too hard for its own good. The game continually threatens to be just too bloody difficult to be any fun but never actually crosses that threshold. That is the essence of excellent play design.

-- Clive Thompson

"Crusader Kings": The latest game from Swedish developer Paradox Plaza. Something of a prequel to its super "Europa Universalis II," "Crusader Kings" places you in the role of a medieval monarch -- anything from King of France to Count of Athenai -- over the course of 400 years of history. Interestingly, most of the things you expect to do in this kind of grand strategic game, you can't do: You can't build up your armies, because each province can field only so many men when levied; you can't work to improve your technology, which simply spreads from places where people know it; you can improve your economy only in modest ways. Instead, you spend most of your time dealing with the concerns of the time: marrying your children in wise ways, waging wars to extend your demesne and quite often in service to your liege.

-- Greg Costikyan

"Test Drive: Eve of Destruction": One of the dumbest things I read this year was an essay on game journalism where the following was stated for what I guess the author assumed to be the permanent record: "The goal for game journalism should be to point readers toward the truths that matter in life." "Eve of Destruction" is a terrific demolition derby racing game that, like the best game journalism, points players toward one of life's truths: Man, it's cool when cars smash into each other. For some reason, it got lukewarm reviews and didn't sell well. Just more evidence that I'm either dumber or smarter than everyone else.

-- Erik Wolpaw

"JFK Reloaded": It's a rather creepy game, deeply offensive to many people, and the $100,000 prize for being the most accurate killer of JFK was incredibly exploitative. But for provoking interesting conversations about what games and simulations mean, "JFK Reloaded" was incredibly useful.

-- Clive Thompson

"Oasis": Winner in the Independent Game Festival's best downloadable game category, this title, developed by veterans Marc LeBlanc and Andrew Leker, is aimed squarely at the burgeoning market for games available as downloads and not generally at retail. That market consists largely of puzzle games such as "Bejeweled," but "Oasis" is something different, with gameplay reminiscent of the German adult board game market. It's possibly our best hope for expanding the downloadable market into more thoughtful and innovative titles. At present, it is not available for sale -- the final version is under development -- but PopCap has picked up the rights, and it should be available soon.

-- Greg Costikyan

"Katamari Damacy": Beyond the unique gameplay concept and charmingly odd story -- Katamari has wonderful pacing and stunning music. At the end of each level, when your ball of junk becomes a star, you're rewarded with a deep bass choral theme. Watching your heap of earthly crap ascend into the sky, with that theme playing in the background -- it just makes you feel so ... happy! When was the last time a video game gave you such pleasure -- and a moment to really savor it? And on top of all this -- it's only $19.99!

-- Robin Hunicke

Everything in my neck of the woods was dwarfed this year by the release of "Half-Life 2" on the PC, which raised the bar for interactive storytelling in an action game for all that follow. To my tastes, this is the best computer game of all time.

-- Stephen "Blue" Heaslip

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