Top Ten Games of 2003
2003. Let me just get this out there right now – other than Valve releasing Steam, Nintendo releasing a redesigned Game Boy Advance (GBA SP) and the families of the victims of William and Josh Buckner suing Rockstar Games and Wal-Mart… 2003 was pretty quiet. Let’s see… hmm… Fatal Frame was opted for a movie by Steven Spielberg, although that didn’t happen… Infogrames renamed itself Atari, although they still sucked… Black Isle Studio closed…
…oh, we did see the N-Gage. I don’t know about you guys, but I liked the N-Gage. Sure, you looked funny as hell when talking on it, but it was a functional cell phone that really did pave the way for all those fancy cell phone games you see nowadays.
That, uh… that was really it for 2003. Oh! Yeah, almost forgot — 2003 was the year in which we saw the most concentrated amount of crap games since 1983. If this trend continues, 2023 should be frightening. Let’s get to the list.
Oh, and if you’re new — look through the archives. Don’t argue, just do it. We’re trying to pull a GameDaily and artifically inflate our pageview counters because we’re giant douchebags. Not really, but you have to agree that what GameDaily does with their Top Ten lists is some serious bullshit.
Top Ten Games of 2001
Top Ten Games of 2000
Top Ten Games of 1999
Top Ten Games of 1998
Top Ten Games of 1997
Top Ten Games of 1996
Top Ten Games of 1995
Top Ten Games of 1994
Top Ten Games of 1993
Top Ten Games of 1992
Top Ten Games of 1991
Top Ten Games of 1990
Do you need tons of Kudos? Here’s how!
If you owned the original Xbox and were one of six people who didn’t own Halo, then you probably owned Project Gotham Racing. It was an excellent racer that put the previously little-known Bizarre Creations on the map. When it was time for Project Gotham Racing 2, Xbox owners were psyched to get their hands on what they considered to be the ultimate racing sim.
They were not disappointed.
With PGR2, Bizarre Creations did a miraculous thing that so many studios fail to do: They took the winning formula that made the original Project Gotham Racing a success, and did not toy around with it. Instead, they merely tweaked the formula that made the original a success by refining the Kudos system, adding more tracks and cars, tightening up the graphics on level three and introducing an online mode complete with ranking system.
Sure, the ranking system was broken since you could never go down on the list, but it was nice to have, right? Alright, maybe not, but the online play was lag free and one of the earliest examples of what Xbox LIVE was truly capable of.
Of course you can’t talk about Project Gotham Racing 2 without mentioning the little minigame that became a run away success when it was released as a stand-alone Xbox LIVE title, Geometry Wars.
Homeworld 2 Intro
When our 1999 list was published, I heard complaints by a lot of you guys that I didn’t include the original Homeworld. Of course, by “a lot” I mean “one”. What they (he) didn’t realize is that I had already decided long ago to include Homeworld 2 on the 2003 list because 2003 was an otherwise weak year, and because Homeworld 2 was a better game.
You see, the first big difference between the Homeworld games is that in the first game, the two playable races (Kushan, Taiidan) played quite similar to each other. So any tactic that you used against one side you could turn right back around and use against the other. However, the playable races in Homeworld 2 played quite differently from each other, allowing for a more dynamic game.
Homeworld 2 did share some of the key elements that made the original such a fan favorite. The 3D mapping returned with the Z-Axis bound to the Shift key to make precise navigation damned easy to just about anyone who sat down in front of their PC. The experience was further curbed towards a wider audience by including dynamic difficulty. Sure, this is a standard feature in most games nowadays, but at the time this was a fairly new feature.
Even as Homeworld 2 was being shipped to store shelves, fans were clambering for a Homeworld 3. Those dreams seemed to be shattered when Relic Entertainment was purchased by THQ. However, in November of 2007 THQ purchased the rights to the Homeworld franchise from Sierra Entertainment, and more recently rumors of a third Homeworld game have begun to swirl. We can only hope, right?
Viewtiful Joe Opening Cinematic
Viewtiful Joe may be responsible for one of the most incomprehensible catch phrases of recent memory with “Heshin-a-go-go, baby!”, and this was only made worse by internet fanboys who felt they were being “cool” by putting it in their forum signature. Thankfully for them the game itself was actually pretty awesome so we can forgive this nonsensical phrase.
You play as Joe. While on a date with your girlfriend at the movies, the antagonist from the film kidnaps her and pulls her into the world inside the movie. After a robot called Six Majin helps you get into the world, you are tasked with saving your girlfriend. You know, a typical Saturday for many of you I’m sure.
Viewtiful Joe plays much like the old school brawlers of the 8-bit era, specifically River City Ransom and Bad Dudes. In addition to your typical punches and kicks you’re given a few special attacks that help Joe on his quest to save his girl. While in Slow, Joe’s attacks are more powerful and he can dodge more enemy attacks. Mach Speed, as you can probably assume, lets Joe move much faster, to the point where his attacks create a sort of heat shield that both make him immune to fire attacks and can set Joe’s enemies on fire with a single touch. Finally, Joe can Zoom In, which freezes all enemies and gives Joe a new set of attacks in which to go to town with.
The art style of Viewtiful Joe is heavily influenced by Japanese superhero programs, specifically tokusatsu. Two of these shows that are apparent within Viewtiful Joe are Kaiketsu Zubat and Kamen Rider. If you live in the United States and grew up watching Fox Kids, you may know Kamen Rider as Masked Rider. If I am the only person who remembers this show, so be it. But it rocked when you were ten.
Viewtiful Joe is widely considered to be one of the best GameCube games out there, currently holding a Metacritic score of 93. The game was eventually ported to the PlayStation 2 when Capcom and Nintendo struck a deal that made a future million-seller a GameCube exclusive.
Escaping the Game Grid in Tron 2.0
Tron 2.0 is one of those games that gamers either love or hate. While we left Shenmue off our 1999 list because of that very same issue (even though I, JW, personally love both games), I don’t think there would be any justification for leaving the unofficial sequel to Tron off.
And yes, Tron 2.0 is the unofficial sequel. When the game was released, it was touted as being the unquestioned sequel to the 1982 nerd classic, but now that we know of the existence of Tr2n, the “canonical” value of Tron 2.0 is now up in the air. But regardless of that it is still one hell of a shooter.
You play as Jet, the son of Alan Bradley aka “Tron”. As Jet, you are sucked into… well, it’s Tron. You already know the basic premise of the franchise. You get sucked into a computer, must fight the evil MCP (or in this case, a virus), escape the computer. Tron 2.0 is no different, except there is a distinct lacking of either Jeff Bridges and David Warner. If you saw the movie or played the game you know why they aren’t in Tron 2.0, but still – I like David Warner. Either way you meet new characters like Ma3a and Mercury, the later of the two being voiced by Rebecca Romijn. Bruce Boxleitner also returns to reprise his role as Alan Bradley. After all, a game about fan service wouldn’t be complete without a cast member or two.
For a FPS title, Tron 2.0 is somewhat linear. There are very few points in the game where your choices affect the overall outcome. However, the level design was impeccable, the enemy AI was downright brilliant, the weapon selection was fun to play around with (everything from the timeless disc to a sniper rifle called “LOL”).
…and then there were the lightcycles, which handled with precision and could become more fun to play than the actual game, which would explain why the developer put the lightcycles in as its own mode in addition to playing them through the story.
Tron 2.0 was developed by Monolith Productions. If they sound familiar to you, it’s because they are the company responsible for No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R., F.E.A.R. 2, Condemned, Condemned 2 and The Matrix Online… hey, they can’t all be winners.
Pearl Harbor… in Video Game form.
If you have always wanted to get into the Civilization series but haven’t because, say, Sid Meier owns you money or whatever, then Rise of Nations was the game for you. Developed by Big Huge Games, Rise of Nations builds on what the Civilization franchise brought to the table with refined territorial expansion and attrition warfare.
You know, in case you go all Vietnam on your enemies.
Rise of Nations gave the player the chance to play as one of eighteen different nations. Of course you had obvious nations like the British and Germans to more obscure nations like the Nubians and Bantu. Each country had its own special ability (French: Leadership, Mongols: Horde), which required players to think differently with each playthrough.
When it was time to hand out the awards each year, GameSpot and GameSpy both gave the game high marks, going so far as to name the PC Game of the Year. It’s current Metacritic score of 89. It probably helps that Brian Reynolds, the lead designer on Civilization II, Alpha Centauri and Colonization, was one of the founders of Big Huge Games.
If you want to try something from Big Huge Games on your console, download Catan. It’s a hell of a deal.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with a gloriously bad song.
By the time The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was announced, fans of the franchise had started to give up hope that the magic of the original would ever be recreated. After Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released, fans were still waiting for that perfect recreation. However they now had one of the best 3D action-platformers on the PlayStation 2…. Xbox… GameCube, PC… Mac… GBA… the early 2000s were a time where companies were whoring their wares out to just about everybody.
The inspiration for the story in Sands of Time was taken from the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings. It’s most prevalent in the character of the King of Persia, Shahraman. See? One letter. Of course by now you probably know that in the game you play as The Prince of Persia (duh!), trying to undo the damage caused by the release of the Sands of Time from an ancient hourglass… or some other hogwash. The specifics of the plot aren’t important.
What’s important is that the game plays beautifully. The level design was amazing, the combat was fast and fluid, the visuals were jaw-dropping and the overall art style was beautiful. Of course, the implementation of the Dagger of Time into both the combat and platforming was, for the time, revolutionary. Now it’s abused entirely too much in games, but at the time seeing that was amazing.
The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was developed internally at Ubisoft Montreal by the same team that put together the critically and commercially successful Splinter Cell. They were chosen to work on the game since Ubisoft felt that the franchise needed “new life”. But as a treat for the fans, the original Prince of Persia is included. So the people who were sad about the series going 3D had something to work for.
Beyond Good & Evil at Video Games Live
Beyond Good & Evil is one of those games that everybody knows, but few have played. Taking place on the planet of Hillys, you played as Jade. In an attempt to try and continue to care for the children of those who were lost to alien race, the DomZ, Jade takes up photography for the IRIS Network. Throughout the game you find out that things are not what they seem and that it’s up to you to set the world right.
The main character of Jade was praised by women for portraying a strong, independent female protagonist who didn’t rely solely on sex appeal to make a connection with the player. Another key selling point that was met with praise, at least by those who noticed it, were the subtle nods to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It brought a subtle sense of intelligence to gaming that was rarely seen prior.
Beyond Good & Evil took the action/adventure genre and infused a healthy bit of stealth and just a pinch of Pokemon Snap. Yeah, it sounds weird, but it works. When engaging in combat Jade was given a Dai-jo, which I assume is Japanese for “ass beatin’ stick”. While platforming, combat, stealth and photography may sound like a giant clusterfuck in the waiting, Beyond Good & Evil was able to pull it off beautifully with a control scheme that worked ingeniously.
Beyond Good & Evil was crushed under its own weight, in a way. Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier (France, not Vermont) and published by Ubisoft, the game came out between Splinter Cell and the game directly above this one, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It wasn’t hyped the way that many felt it deserved to be, and in the end was just buried.
At least they’ve seen the error of their ways, and are now working on Beyond Good & Evil 2.
Any excuse to use that picture.
When it was announced that members of the Medal of Honor team would be starting up their own game studio, people were a bit skeptical. You see, this was in a time before the average gamer knew that it was the person who made the game, not the studio. However, when Call of Duty was released to the public, the phrase “Medal of Honor killer” started to be thrown around by the media press.
While Medal of Honor received praise for being an exceptional FPS that was placed in a new setting (WWII), Call of Duty was praised for an engrossing gameplay experience with some of the most realistic recreations of WWII settings and weaponry that had been seen to that point.
There were three campaigns: An American campaign which had you playing as an American paratrooper who is tasked with securing a town before regrouping with allied forces, A British sergeant who has to captire the Pegasus Bridge alongside Jason Statham (not the man, just the character he voiced), and the Soviet campaign had you playing as Junior Sergeant Alexi Ivanovich during the Battle of Stalingrad and later as the 2nd line left winger for the Chicago Blackhawks.
Another aspect of the game that was held in high regard was the online multiplayer. Six different multiplayer modes, including a version of bomb defusal from Counter-Strike. While the multiplayer itself was simple, mindless fun the big feature that people were talking about (and has since become standard in most FPS games) was the “Killcam”, where players a could see the last five or six seconds of their lives and see where their killer was.
Call of Duty went on to be one of the most acclaimed PC games of 2003, and as for the game’s developer… well, I think Infinity Ward is doing alright for itself.
Tenacious D – Wonderboy
The first few screenshots and the first official trailer for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker featured ultra-realistic visuals that gave fanboys reason to be giddy as can be. “Finally”, they thought. “I’ll be able to envision what Link, Zelda and Ganon would look like in my world!” …and then they saw the finished product.
And the internet exploded.
Some fans raged, saying that the cel-shaded art style only emphasized the belief among many fans that the GameCube was aimed at children more than at the “hardcore” Nintendo crowd, who by now were in their late 20s, early 30s. These criticisms were not echoed by the press, with Game Informer, Famitsu, GamePro, Edge, Play and (obviously) Nintendo Power giving Wind Waker perfect scores. Almost all reviews, regardless of score, praised the art style for being a colorful, whimsical departure for the franchise and noted that every animation was smooth and that every environmental detail added to the worlds feel.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is one of the few games in the Zelda franchise to see a direct sequel. Called The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the game was released on the Nintendo DS in 2007 and, much like it’s console older brother, was met with critical acclaim.
However, while Wind Waker was eventually welcomed by the fans (and now some consider it to be the best in the series), it wasn’t able to fulfill that lifelong fantasy that so many Star Wars nerds would soon experience…
Beware! Spoiler Warnings lie ahead! (cool video, though)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic may very well be the most influential and important work of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Originally meant to take place during the time of the Clone Wars, BioWare decided to set the game 4,000 years prior to the original trilogy in order to have more creative freedom in their cinematic storytelling.
The game as you see it today is very much how the developer envisioned it, with only a few minor exceptions. For instance, the character who is known now as Bastila Shan was originally supposed to be Vima Sunrider from the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi comic book. However, do to legal issues with the name “Sunrider”, the character was renamed. With that said, we were introduced to a new character who has become important in her own right.
The game mechanics are based on the Star Wars Roleplaying Game from Wizards of the Coast, a d20 role-playing system based on the Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. One of the biggest introductions into Star Wars gaming was the inclusion of a character alignment that was affected by the actions of the player. For instance, if you gave a starving woman 500 credits to start a new life on a different planet, you earned some serious light side points. However, if you use Force Persuade to con her out of her last valuable to sell in order to pay for a wise-cracking assassin droid, you earn dark side points. The more one-sided you are, the easier it is to cast force powers specific to your alignment.
As you can find if you picked up the Platinum Edition of the game on Xbox or the PC release, you probably know that it has already won over 40 Game of the Year awards and garnered dozens of perfect scores. A few of the outlets that procialmed KotOR to be Game of the Year include IGN, GameSpot, PC Gamer, GMR Magazine (yawn), G4, the IAA and the GDC. In addition to winning Game of the Year from the Game Developers Conference, it also won the Game Developers Choice Award for “Original Game Character of the Year” for the sarcastic, sadistic-yet-lovable HK-47 assassin droid.
Also, as Game Informer and ScrewAttack have both pointed out, the game has one of the best “WTF?!” moments in recent memory.
Worst Game of 2003:
You want to know what the worst game of 2003 is? Then check out our recap of just how terrible 2003 was by reading through “2003: The Worst Year in Gaming”. That’s right – there were so many stinkers that we had to make our own damn list.
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KOTOR is the best game of all time, and kotor 2 was good but not great. Im still pissed with the new “kotor mmo” thing.
No Max Payne 2? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!!!