CCIV: Game of the Year 2001 - Round Ten

[Neon Ignition]

With the previous round adding a couple more contenders for the 2001 crown, can this tenth round do the same?


Which of the above games are amongst the best of 2001 and why?

[Atticus]

Super Monkey Ball and Twisted Metal: Black. Car combat isn't the biggest genre around but TM:B is the best one I've played by a mile. The PS3 sequel somehow failed to recapture the magic.

[Tobal]

SMB and Smash kept my Gamecube turned on (till Winning Eleven 6 FE), top games.

And Tribes 2, an unbelievable game, huge player counts, maps, vehicles, the jet pack Skiing, hitting disc shots in mid air or just drive bye disc shots, by the time the shot lands and kills you're a mile off skiing down the next hill to fly off at the bottom. It's criminal what happened to franchise, SHAZBOT.

[Asura]

Some real gems here.

Startopia is a really underrated title. Essentially a Bullfrog-style builder, so Theme Hospital, but instead of a hospital or theme park, you're building a space station (think like Deep Space Nine). You had to build facilities, hire staff, and do all the stuff you would have to do in a sort-of humorous sci-fi setting. Frankly it was wonderful fun.

Super Monkey Ball is the original and best (the only slightly better one being Super Monkey Ball Deluxe on Xbox, and that's purely because it's the content of 1&2 with no other changes). Classic Sega, this one, in that they kinda nailed it right out of the gate and have been trying to follow it up ever since, and while there have absolutely been some fun games in the franchise, the original remains the best and, sadly, the recent Switch version was poor

Tekken 4 remains perhaps my favourite of the franchise, which is probably unusual, because it's the only most people hate. I personally loved the "repositional throw" mechanic, and I really liked the new version of Jin Kazama that changed up his fighting style from Tekken 3. I've never really looked up why 5 kinda went backwards to be more like 3 in some ways (I've never professed to be very good at Tekken) but I've always felt the franchise stagnated a bit after. Though I am looking forward to 8.

Tribes 2. Here we go.

Tribes 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. Unfortunately, the series isn't well-known today because many of its innovations were copied and some of its more unique features didn't catch on. After its developer went bust, it was passed around numerous others, almost bankrupting Hi-Res studios (who were only saved due to their MOBA, SMITE) despite it their sequel, Tribes Ascend, being an amazing game which was both a free-to-play FPS and got 10-out-of-10 on Eurogamer.

Tribes is the original large-scale, class-based multiplayer shooter. Before Battlefield or any of those pretenders. Originally a spinoff of the Earthsiege franchise, it was predominantly about capture-the-flag in huge, open environments, where players would choose from a range of light, medium and heavy armours, with an assortment of weapons filtered by each, and had to use their divergent abilities to try and win. Additionally, players had vehicles, base defenses, all the stuff you might expect.

But one of the game's innovations was that players could fly with a jetpack, and could "ski" (basically move without friction), which when mastered allowed you to move literally at hundreds of kilometres per hour, leading to player-vs-player battles which would range from canyons to the skies, and frankly it was amazing.

I think, ultimately, the reason it vanished as a franchise is because Battlefield would later take the game, remove many of its esoteric, unusual things, but keep some of the less objectionable things, and that made it possible to go mainstream. But many who were big fans of PC gaming as far back as 2000 saw Battlefield for this; a Tribes imitator, but sadly one which would go on to much bigger success while Tribes died out.

But when I first got broadband in my house, it was a game I'd only recently bought, and I would dread to think the sheer number of hours I spent playing it. As a result, I'll always remember it fondly for those first home multiplayer experiences.

[wakka]

Super Monkey Ball!

Much like Crazy Taxi, a structurally simple but brilliant game that Sega nailed on the first try and was never able to improve upon.

I think the GameCube version is best cos it's best played with a GC pad. The octagonal gate on the analogue stick is really helpful.

I've been playing this again recently on Dolphin (with a Wavebird for authenticity) and it's just as delightful as ever. A timeless game.

[Neon Ignition]

If I put myself back in a 2001 mindset then I can't argue with the time I sank into Melee and TM Black

[fuse]

Tribes 2, Super Monkey Ball, and even Tekken 4 (weakest Tekken?) were all considerations of games for games I've not really played enough, but I went with Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3, which is the pinnacle of the series, for me. By this point you've got manuals and reverts, and honestly most everything that came after was superfluous.