The Wootties, continued
As I promised, or threatened, depending on your point of view,
here is the list the games that came close but didn’t quite
make my previous list of the five best games I played this year.
These are numbers six through ten, presented in their unordered
glory.
Warcraft 3 is simply the most polished real-time strategy game
around. Everything about the game just oozes quality.
Great graphics? Check. Well-designed interface? Check.
A blast to play? Check. Everything that makes a good game
is ready and waiting. But that’s my only problem with it so
far: it is still waiting for me. The game got a bit lost in
my shuffle to get a new computer and has yet to reside on
my newest machine. As a result, I haven’t finished it.
No matter – the time I spent on the beta was fun enough.
This is just a damn fine game.
Without the recommendation from a friend, I would never have
touched this game. It’s published by Acclaim – a company that
has a spootty record, a record that is even more questionable
when you consider that this looked like a simple clone of the
most popular extreme sports game out there,
Tony Hawk.
But it wasn’t. It took away the chains of a time limit, offered
a bunch of new and inventive tricks, and gave you
environments that you could change (e.g. in one level, you can sink
a cruise ship, opening an entirely new area). This one
gets quite hard near the end but, while it lasts, Tony
Hawk 3 can’t compete. Now Tony Hawk 4, that’s another story.
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
If I had only played the level where you storm the beach at
Normandy, this game would still have made my top ten.
Immersion is this game’s forte. Explosions rock the boat,
the gate drops, gunfire peppers the beach, your squadmates
go up in a nearby blast – it’s Saving Private Ryan in
videogame form. The rest of the game is pretty entertaining
as well, sporting some of the best sound and event scripting around.
Dungeon Siege could really be called
Diablo in 3d – beautiful, wonderful 3d.
Click and kill is the mantra here. The gameplay is simple but addictive.
The fact that the game never loads once is a special treat. It
garners special marks because the wife and I play it over my
local network. If they added a town portal spell, allowing you to easily
stop and sell your newfound junk, it would be darn near perfect.
Grand Theft Auto III/Vice City
I list both of the latest incarnations of GTA here because I played
them both this year. Both of them are great examples of open-ended
gameplay. Here’s a city. You aren’t such a nice fellow. Go have some fun –
a lot of fun. Steal cars, run from the cops, and cause havoc. The great
part of this very mature game is that it is what you make of it. You
don’t have to beat the prostitute with a stick if you don’t want.
But if you do …. Congressmen get all up in arms about its content.
I’d be surprised if
Joey Lieberman, media’s personal watchdog, hasn’t mentioned
it at least once. Just remember folks, keep the kids away from this
guilty pleasure.
That’s it. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a year with so many quality games and
so many quality choices. And if
Metroid Prime, my current game of choice,
is any indication, next year could be even better.
