E184 Scores - inc GotY Awards

[EvilBoris]

I think it was probably a whiff of import snobbery to be honest. I'm not even sure how the DS can fall into the nominations to be honest, it was released over 18 months ago here

[Jebus]

I'd agree with innovation for Halo 3 personally, not sure I'd agree with it being "Best online" though, because I'd assume in that "award" it includes the actual experience as a sum of its parts and I've never got so angry or felt so frustrated in an online game as I have (and still do) with Halo 3.

Ouenben I notice you say you've not experienced much lag with it, but personally I find that although it seems there isn't much, they've just been very clever with the way it's "hidden". I've never played a game that feels so unfair online, let alone the fact most of the weapons are completely pointless and very rarely do any opponents use anything except the weapon they start with. Oh and the melee button.

But apart from the actual experience (which is obviously a major part) it's great in every way.

Aside from that, there's some other puzzling mentions. Best developer, in that top 3 there is bungie, who've released how many games this year? Likewise, how many titles have Valve put out this year? Not saying quantity over quality of course, but still seems a bit wierd to say they are the best this year.

In best online experience..."wii channels"...eh, wha? They are saying that "wii channels" is in the top 3, better than any other online experience bar Halo 3 and Forza 2? Okaaaaaay. Cos the hours we've all ploughed into them eh...

Hardware..."DS"...erm...?

[Malavon]

If it's not innovative then surely it just means that every console developer from the last 15 years is unimaginative for not including something so obvious.

Or they just didn't feel that it was worth spending time on. I certainly don't, and one could in fact say that the only reason Bungie had so much time to spend on it because of a short, half assed single player campaign that did absolutely nothing new or exciting. It was a rehash of Halo 2 in the same way that Halo 2 was a rehash of Halo.

And to any PC gamer out there, the online gameplay offers absolutely nothing new.

Not sure if I've asked this before or not, but does Edge cover PC games or are the only ones mentioned multiformat titles?

[crocky-chocky]

Can anybody think of any better innovative titles this year though?
Everyone is disagreeing but is yet to offer up an alternative

Skate?

It's control alone seems more innovative to me than everything Halo 3 has to offer. I just struggle to associate an FPS with innovation because there's been so very many of them this year. Super Paper Mario, Galaxy, Skate and Sega Raly all offer more gameplay innovation than Halo 3...if you ask me.

[EvilBoris]

It's a bit difficult to judge what they are saying from just the title of the award, particularly without reading the article. Who says it is game play innovation and not feature innovation. I can't imagine Sega Rally Bringing anything new to the genre.

[dvdmike]

Please let them have all the info EGM have on SF4 I don't care about the awards I just want the full lowdown on SF

[Nisa]

Strange, that sounds like one of the more reasonable ones. It's never been done before after all.

The strum bar on the guitars are notoriously dodgy & EA have had loads sent back as a result. Mine's stopped working after a week or two like many others and although I opened it up to sort the problem out it's still pretty flaky, they are pretty shoddily built it has to be said.

As far as the idea of having a music game with multiple instruments goes, Konami did it years ago with Guitar Freaks, Drummania & Keyboardmania in the arcades as well as having Guitar Freaks & Drummnia playable together on the PS2 versions so it's far from an original idea.

[elkatas]

In best online experience..."wii channels"...eh, wha? They are saying that "wii channels" is in the top 3, better than any other online experience bar Halo 3 and Forza 2?

Wii Channels also include whole Virtual Console.

[Bleeders]

Can anybody think of any better innovative titles this year though?
Everyone is disagreeing but is yet to offer up an alternative

That's the NTSC-UK way isn't it?

Every part of Rock Band hardware has been done before, and with better results. For example, anyone who has played Drummania knows that Rock Band drums are joke if compared to Drummania drums.

Are you serious? The DM drums are ****ing awful! That spongy kick-drum pad is a joke, I fail to see how the RB ones are worse?

[elkatas]

Are you serious? The DM drums are ****ing awful! That spongy kick-drum pad is a joke, I fail to see how the RB ones are worse?

Drummania drums are, for all purposes and intents, real Yamaha electric drums, although really cheap ones. RB drums, in the other hand, have drumheads that function exactly like buttons in digital controller would.

[Soi]

Ha. I'm not surprised the innovation award has got some people's backs up. People are snobish about console FPSs and Halo in particular. As Boris has said, plenty of people have disagreed. Few, if anyone has attempted to justify why they don't agree.

Personally, while the award for 'most innovative' took me by surprise, I think h3 is extremely innovative. While the core game is still Halo at heart (spiced up with equipment, but still halo), it is the rest of the package where the innovation lies:

•Forge- a collaborative, real time level editor. A mate and I built a race game type together, moving check points at the same time etc. This was an experience I've not seen or heard of before.
•A theatre mode in which 4 people can watch a replay, all with independent camera control. Makes showing off a cool clip a social experience.
•A file share that automatically uploade to bungie.net
•The fact that you can browse people's maps, edited game types etc at bungie.net and the queue it for download. The next time you load h3, your queued downloads just happen in the background.
•While h2 had limited stats tracking, h3's takes it to a new level. You can see how every kill or death happened, and have a 'heatmap' that shows where kills/deaths occur in each level (which can be broken down by weapon of course)
•Again, while the basic concept of editing game parameters is not new, the amount you can change and the fredom to do so is huge. The fact that I've played user created race variants more fun than mny full racing games is amazing. The innvation here is the ease of use and that sharing is so easy and requires no external software etc.

The above isn't meant to be an exhaustative list, and some people may question some items. I am pleased for bungie that there good work has been recognized. Like or hate h3, the effort that bungie put into the whole package puts everyone else to shame.

On a slightly different note, and this is not aimed at anyone in particular, I feel that most people who criticize (or review for sites like this) haven't really played the game. Edge, on the other hand, actually gave the impression in their review that they had spent some time with the game.

[Malavon]

The problem is that everything in your list, including detailed stat tracking, has been done before on PC games, so for PC users, it offers absolutely nothing new or innovative. Besides, even if you haven't played any PC games (or ones that have these feature), the fact they exist surely means that Halo 3 can't be counted as innovative?

Anyway, will go into more detail later to provide examples, but I'm just about to leave for the football so don't have time now. Will update later tonight/tommorow.

[Team Andromeda]

Its a shame EDGE had to put in some Obvious wind ups , because otherwise it’s a pretty spot on list .

Winners like Valve , Mario Galaxy, Bisohock I have no problem with.
But to name HALO 3 and Crysis as best innovations is pushing it a bit, as is having Wii channels as the 3rd best online experience , That’s about as much fun and usfull as checking the weather in Vista Gadgets .

Never mind its only a pisstake on EDGE part and this months issue was a good one anyway and they got the game of the year right , Though I would have gone for Lost Planet myself

[B1gBeard]

The reason Halo 3 got it was politics. Crysis is there for a bit of a laugh as well surely.

I would have put Portal above H3 but the argument there is that there's just not enough of it. Some Wii and DS games were more innovative gameplay wise (Mercury Meltdown, even some of the stuff SMG is doing is more innovative gameplay wise). In fact you could argue that any Wii game in the last year making good use of the controller should be placed above it.

A lot of the reviews and scores were people just over-rating it because of what it is and there aren't too many with the balls to go against the status quo. Same here.

Its a great package but there isn't much there that hasn't been done before and what people are proclaiming as innovative doesn't have much to do with the core gameplay itself.

[Matt]

Ha. I'm not surprised the innovation award has got some people's backs up. People are snobish about console FPSs and Halo in particular. As Boris has said, plenty of people have disagreed. Few, if anyone has attempted to justify why they don't agree.

Thought I'd done a pretty good job of explaining why I didn't feel it justified. To summarise - there's nothing really new to H3; it may be a complete package but doesn't really add anything PC gamers haven't seen for years, EXCEPT a nicer interface. And I believe Innovation should go to Innovative Gameplay.

Personally, while the award for 'most innovative' took me by surprise, I think h3 is extremely innovative. While the core game is still Halo at heart (spiced up with equipment, but still halo), it is the rest of the package where the innovation lies:

?Forge- a collaborative, real time level editor. A mate and I built a race game type together, moving check points at the same time etc. This was an experience I've not seen or heard of before.
?A theatre mode in which 4 people can watch a replay, all with independent camera control. Makes showing off a cool clip a social experience.
?A file share that automatically uploade to bungie.net
?The fact that you can browse people's maps, edited game types etc at bungie.net and the queue it for download. The next time you load h3, your queued downloads just happen in the background.
?While h2 had limited stats tracking, h3's takes it to a new level. You can see how every kill or death happened, and have a 'heatmap' that shows where kills/deaths occur in each level (which can be broken down by weapon of course)
?Again, while the basic concept of editing game parameters is not new, the amount you can change and the fredom to do so is huge. The fact that I've played user created race variants more fun than mny full racing games is amazing. The innvation here is the ease of use and that sharing is so easy and requires no external software etc.

The above isn't meant to be an exhaustative list, and some people may question some items. I am pleased for bungie that there good work has been recognized. Like or hate h3, the effort that bungie put into the whole package puts everyone else to shame.

But those features are really innovative to me, except the 4 player Theatre mode. File sharing and the like is all nice, just streamlining what PC modders have been doing for over a decade. And Forge is just a complete waste of time in my opinion, so so limiting and there's not even a proper game mode in there.

Stat tracking, well we used to run a mutator on UT2004 that blews H3 stats away. OLStats I believe. Totally free, and really exhaustive. H3 does add map hotspots for each game which is a nice extra to the serious clans.

On a slightly different note, and this is not aimed at anyone in particular, I feel that most people who criticize (or review for sites like this) haven't really played the game. Edge, on the other hand, actually gave the impression in their review that they had spent some time with the game.

I actually spent a lot of time on H3 when it came out. Games quickly degenerated in to AR to melee, which makes the Best Online Experience award just as misplaced as Innovation.

Personally I'm getting a lot more out of CoD4 online, but different strokes for different folks

Can't help feel Edge, like everyone else in the world, got caught up in the H3 hype.