2004 was a surprisingly memorable year in video games. While the beginning of the year saw Wired magazine hand out a “Lifetime Achievement Award” and retire Duke Nukem Forever from it’s annual Vaporware awards, the end of the year saw Nintendo release what could be considered the first entry in the current generation of video game systems: the Nintendo DS.

2004 also saw the death of Acclaim Entertainment, and became the year in which Electronic Arts sealed it’s fate as the evil empire. In the span of a single week in December. First EA acquired the exclusive rights to the NFL, which infuriated fans of Take-Two’s NFK2K franchise (although Take-Two would respond by shutting EA out of the MLB license). Then, just seven days later it was reported that Electronic Arts purchased a 20% stake in Ubisoft – a move which Ubisoft considered to be hostile and caused a huge stink across the industry.

Finally, in November the world was finally given Halo 2, a game curiously absent from this list. Why? Because of the last ten minutes of the single-player campaign. There is no ending in Halo 2. It just stops, and you’re left holding the Xbox controller and thinking to yourself “…what the fuck? Where’s the rest of it?!”

You new to this whole thing? Well, check out our previous lists as we count our way down to our top games of 2008 (aka “The Lagers”)… which will actually be revealed in 2009 because my math sucks.

Top Ten Games of 2003
Top Ten Games of 2002
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

10.) Katamari Damacy

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be on copious amounts of drugs? Well wonder no more, as we have Katamari Damacy to perfectly demonstrate the answer to that age old question.

By now I’m sure we all know how the game is played: You have a ball and you have to roll up everything in your path to try and make the ball as large as possible. Sounds good and the first time out it’s a fun, addictive little time kill. But to my surprise, few people know the plot line to Katamari Damacy… which may be for the best, actually.

The plot to Katamari Damacy is this: After your father, the King of All Cosmos (I think that’s on my business card) goes out on a night of binge drinking, he wipes out every celestial body in existence. Not wanting to take responsibility for his colossal (no pun intended) fuck-up, the King entrusts his 10-centimeter son to collect resources to be used in the creation of new celestial bodies.

Katamari Damacy was widely praised by reviewers, winning several awards for game design and innovation, and currently holds a Metacritic score of 86.

9.) Star Wars Battlefront

By the time Star Wars Battlefront was released, players have had the chance to play as just about everybody in the Star Wars universe. Players have played as Jedi, Sith, Generals and Smugglers. But never before had players had the chance to play through the game as the lowly grunt. But with Star Wars Battlefront gamers finally got the chance to see how some of the biggest battles in the Star Wars universe unfolded from the view of the unnamed, unappreciated foot soldier.

Star Wars Battlefront, in essence, was just a modded version of Battlefiend 1942. Picking either the Rebellion or the Imperials (since nobody wanted to play as the Clones or Trade Federation), you were able to recreate some of the biggest land battles from Star Wars lore, as well as other battles that you wanted for merely shits and giggles. Planets included Bespin, Geonisis, Tatooine, Naboo, Rhen Var, and Yavin (I’m sure I missed a few). Some planets had more than one arena, but a couple of planets had only a single, mission-based map. Endor, for instance, had you either storming or defending the fabled shield generator. The same on Hoth, though the sides were reversed.

Star Wars Battlefront is one of the great games of 2004 in spite of review scores. Many reviews found it shallow and lacking of any true depth. Gamers found a simple, fun experience that they could go back to time and time again. Which is exactly what they did since, as of December, 2008, Star Wars Battlefront is the single best-selling Star Wars game ever.

8.) The Suffering

The Suffering is a very rare phenomenon in video games. While Resident Evil may spook you, and Silent Hill may creep you out, The Suffering took horror in video games one step further and absolutely frightened you.

You played as “Torque”, a death row inmate who has just arrived at Abbott State Penitentiary, Maryland. You’re on death row for supposedly killing your wife and children, though you have no memory of it. Regardless, after Torque’s arrival at the prison, things go horribly wrong and the prison is attacked by demons. As you fight your way out of the prison, your memory starts to clear and you remember what happened to your family. What you discover, however, is dependent on how you play the game. (SPOILERS) If you play as an evil SOB, you discover that you killed your wife and children in cold blood. If you play as a goody two-shoes, you learn that you came home to them already dead.

The character design is something that should still be applauded today for it’s originality. Each of the main creatures that you face in The Suffering are based off of a form of execution. “Slayers” have blades for arms and legs that represent beheadings, to the blindfolded “Marksman”, which have rifles grafted on their backs and represent a firing squad. My personal favorite is the “Burrower”, which represents being buried alive.

The Suffering is another of those games that just doesn’t seem to ever get the credit it deserves. The subject matter is creepy enough in and of itself, but the way it is presented is simply ingenious.

7.) The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

I think we can all agree that The Chronicles of Riddick was a terrible ass movie. However, while the movie was indeed a pile of trash it did give gamers the single best movie game ever with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.

Acting as a prequel to both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, Butcher Bay has you playing as series protagonist Richard B. Riddick. Arriving at the triple max security prison Butcher Bay, you are tasked with only one goal: Help Riddick escape. Sounds simple, right? No. You see, just as you get close to escaping the prison something will happen that will force you back in, essentially forcing you to break out of prison three separate times.

Butcher Bay was hugely praised for having some of the best visuals ever seen in a video game. In fact, even today the game holds up favorably to many of the games coming out on consoles nowadays. Many reviewers also praised the game for it’s implementation of stealth into a FPS. When Riddick is fully concealed from enemy view, his vision turns blue – the deeper the blue, the more concealed you are.

The combat was notable for both the execution of long-ranged combat with rifles, pistols, etc., along with hand-to-hand, closed-quarters combat. Along with your punches, Riddick could also disarm guards or, if you’re lucky enough to sneak up behind them, snap their necks.

Vin Diesel is the real deal. A life-long nerd, Diesel founded Tigon Studios to help develop Butcher Bay. That same studio is now working on both Wheelman and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.

6.) Doom 3

When Doom 3 was finally released in 2004, it had been ten years since the Doom franchise had seen a proper sequel. What fans of the franchise got was a game that pushed the boundaries of PC graphics and created one of the most freakish game environments seen at the time.

The feeling of impending dread was a two-headed monster. The feeling was created by having the vast majority of Doom 3 shrouded in about nine bajillion kinds of darkness. This sense of doom was only fueled by the fact that through much of the game the only direct source of light was a flashlight that illuminated about 1/20th of the screen directly in front of the player. This was made even worse when you consider that you couldn’t hold the flashlight and a firearm at the same time. So if you had your flashlight out, by the time you saw the demon and switched over to your pistol you wouldn’t be able to see the son of a bitch to shoot it. Of course, there are a few mods out there that build the flashlight right into the weapon, which is always nice.

While Doom 3 was widely praised on the PC, as it should have been, the Xbox port was praised by reviewers for being a nearly-perfect port of the PC title – a feat that wasn’t thought imaginable. The Xbox port of Doom 3 was also praised for being able to streamline a PC’s controls onto a console.

While other, arguably better games like Half-Life 2 looked to advance the art of storytelling, Doom 3 kept true to the series core gameplay mechanics: “Here’s a gun. Now shoot shit.”

5.) Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden began development in 1999 on the SEGA NAOMI arcade board with plans to be ported over to the SEGA Dreamcast. When SEGA announced that they would be discontinuing the Dreamcast in 2001, Tecmo decided that they would have the game be released as a PlayStation 2 launch title. However, lead designer and resident badass Tomonobu Itagaki had other plans.

After seeing a development kit for the Xbox, Itagaki decided that he wanted to make Ninja Gaiden an Xbox title. Tecmo agreed, and in 2002 (long after the PS2’s launch) it was confirmed that the game would be coming to the Xbox. However, after the announcement Itagaki was approached by Tecmo again and asked if he could make the “new” Ninja Gaiden more reminiscent of the original NES Ninja Gaiden. Itagaki did this by making the new Ninja Gaiden ultra violent with copious amounts of gore, and kept his game terribly difficult by forcing players to either have or acquire lightning fast reflexes.

The over-the-top violence in Ninja Gaiden brought some harsh censorship from different parts of the world. In Germany, the USK initially refused to rate the game until Tecmo censored the game so that players couldn’t behead their enemies. For some inexplicable reason the first of the re-releases, Ninja Gaiden Black, was released with beheadings included, but they were taken out again before Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

Ninja Gaiden Black wasn’t even released in Australia, as Tecmo knew they had no chance at beating their rating system. But here in the US? We got all three versions, baby!

4.) Far Cry

Music video for “Far Cry” by Rush, since I can’t find a decent game video
Before Far Cry, Crytek was just another company trying to get their foot in the door. After Far Cry, we suddenly cared about what Crytek had to say about the state of the industry and were suckered into buying overhyped processor-killers like Crysis. But not even that overhyped tech demo can take away from the fact that the first time you saw Far Cry, you were left in absolute awe.

Far Cry introduced the world to the CryEngine, born from a tech demo that was meant to show off the capabilities of nVidia GeForce 3 called X-Isle: Dinosaur Island. Seeing what they were able to do, they expanded on the tech demo, replaced the dinosaurs with South American mercenaries and sure enough we have Far Cry.

Something else that reviews salivated over was the uncanny enemy AI. While most FPS games have somewhat basic AI that would have them return fire when shot at, Far Cry’s enemies would think logically. If you shot at them from behind a bush or another concealed location, rather than firing wildly at their surroundings (or magically knowing where the hell you were), they would jump behind a wall or cower behind a vehicle. Enemies would also coordinate flanking maneuvers, do sweeps of an area, or go on patrols in Jeeps or trucks.

Far Cry, while an awesome game, will soon meet a fate worse than death. That’s right – Uwe Boll is directing an adaptation. According to Wikipedia the film has already been released, but as of now we know nothing about that. What we do know is that former friends for life and Screwattack co-founders “Stuttering Craig” and “Handsome Tom”.

3.) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

We all know why Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is infamous, right? Because of that stupid fucking mod that unlocked a previously buried bit of code that led to a fairly boring sex minigame? We’re all aware of this, so we can just move on from it and talk about all the different ways in which GTA: SA rocked several pairs of socks.

One of the most notable implementations was the use of a RPG-styled skill improvement. The more you drove, the more your driving skill increased and the easier it was to handle cars. The more you ran, the more stamina you built up to allow you to sprint further, and most noticeably the more you used firearms the easier it became to aim with any kind of precision.

But most importantly, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas finally allowed you to swim. No longer did the main protagonist in a Grand Theft Auto game act like a cat, frightened and useless when in a body of water. Now if you fell in a body of water you could swim to your heart’s content… which still wasn’t much, but it did mean that your ass didn’t clench in fear every time you drove over a bridge.

One of the things that separates San Andreas from the other GTAs is the true sense of being in a real world. Rather than spending the whole game in one city, you now had three distinct cities to explore, as well as a full countryside complete with small towns and geographical landmarks based on Hoover Dam, Mount Diablo and even Area 51 (called Area 69). The world map wound up being more than four-times larger than that of Vice City, which allowed for each of the three cities to be true cities, and not miniature versions of a Liberty City or Vice City.

The game was met with serious praise, with IGN giving it a rating of 9.9 (the highest score IGN ever awarded a PS2 game), GameSpot a 9.6, and perfect scores from no fewer than 25 publications (not including Binge Gamer, as we did not exist).

2.) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

About the time Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the gaming world got a healthy dose of Hideo Kojima’s love of messing with people. Several comical trailers were released, including one of the weirdest damn commercials I think I have ever seen. Thankfully while Kojima was going “tee hee look at those American ‘journalists’ scampering about”, he was also making a damn fine game.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater started off as a PlayStation 3 title. No joke. When Sony announced the PlayStation 3, Kojima was excited as hell to be able to develop on it., presumably so he could create an even larger forest for Snake to explore. Unfortunately for him (at the time) the PS3 was years away, so Snake Eater was bumped up to the PlayStation 2.

Kojima and his team faced many problems during development, but the most prominent issue that had to be overcome was the simple fact that unlike a building or even a city street, the forest doesn’t have flat terrain. This simple little fact of nature drove Kojima Productions to create a wholely new collision engine to deal with this fact.

The big addition to the Metal Gear Solid franchise (meaning it appeared in MGS4) was the use of camouflage. While MGS4 gave you a suit that transformed to whatever surface you happened to be lying on or leaning against, in MGS3 you were given several different forms of camouflage that helped to conceal Snake from enemy patrols.

Sure, the story is downright horrible (even if well acted) and the humor is lost on all but the most hardcore of MGS fanatics, but the final product that was delivered was nothing short of glorious and would’ve easily been the best game of 2004 if not for those cheeky bastards at Valve…

1.) Half-Life 2

Everything that could have gone wrong with Half-Life 2 did. It was delayed more than once. It (presumably) went over budget, ultimately costing $40 million. It even had its source code leaked onto the internet. And yet, somehow, it wound up being one of the best games of all time.

Half-Life 2 played a lot like the original. You played as mute scientist Gordon Freeman, fighting the Combine with the help of your realistically proportioned compatriot Alyx Vance. You’re given your usual assortment of weapons including a handgun, shotgun, SMG, and your trusty crowbar. Fairly early on in the game you’re also given the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator, also called the Gravity Gun. While the Gravity Gun would be vital towards advancing through both of the expansions (Episode One and Episode Two), in Half-Life 2 it felt as though it only served as an excuse for Valve to go “look what our engine can do!” All the same it was still a damn fine weapon to use.

When Half-Life 2 was released, it didn’t include a multiplayer component. Instead the game was boxed with Counter-Strike: Source, an updated version of Counter-Strike that uses the Source graphics engine. Even today the game is hugely popular with PC gamers, and eventually a multiplayer component for Half-Life 2 was released.

Half-Life 2 ultimately found its way to the Xbox, Xbox 360 and a pitiful PS3 port as part of The Orange Box. Don’t worry, you’ll see that again in 2007 and I’ll gladly get into more detail over how Valve and publisher Electronic Arts screwed over PS3 owners across the world. Ports aside, though, Half-Life 2 continues to be one of the finest examples of storytelling in modern gaming and should be looked up to and emulated by developers everywhere. Without a doubt this is the best game of 2004.

Worst Game of 2004:
JFK: Reloaded

As I’m sure you’re all aware of, sometimes the lone purpose for a game is to shock you. While the game that more than likely comes to mind when you think of “shock game” is Postal 2, the true winner of this category is the Lee Harvey Oswald simulator JFK: Reloaded.

You can probably figure out what you do in JFK: Reloaded, but if not I’ll spell it out for you: You play as Lee Harvey Oswald and you are tasked with assassinating John F. Kennedy. In fact, the closer you recreate the actual shooting (that is to say, the more you make your recreation resemble the Zapruder film), the higher your score. Hell, the game’s developer, Traffic Software, even held a competition where the person who was able to come the closest to recreating the shooting won a purse of over $10,000.

The game was released on November 22nd, 2004 – the 41st anniversary of the JFK assassination. It has no reason for being, and barely qualifies a game. Also, if you bought it, you might burn in hell.

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