CCIV: Game of the Year 2002 - Round 01

[Neon Ignition]

Cracking the lid off another year, we finally set out on our journey through the next stage of the Noughties.

As always, 60 titles from the year face off for your judgement.

Which of the above games are amongst the best of 2002 and why?

[Hirst]

Most likely the only online-based game I'll select, but Battlefield 1942 was fantastic. The very concept of jumping into a tank, driving it into an enemy airfield, stealing one of their planes, flying off in it and parachuting into some kind of suicide mission. It was a surreal existence reminiscent of those Commando comic books they still sell with the far-fetched war stories.

One of the best points is that unlike the sequels it felt weirdly light-hearted and bonkers - people used to turn up in Jeeps moving the mouse up and down to look like they were headbanging, someone in chat would say "wonder what would happen if we all tried to climb onto the wings of a plane and see if we can take off like that" and war would stop so we could try it out. Inevitably it gradually got spoiled by severe balance issues (most maps with fighter planes were just a chore if you didn't have one, you'd just stand around waiting to get picked off) and people taking it far too seriously. I played it for dozens of hours and had great fun until then though.

I'd like to mention that I love the look of Auto Modellista, but I've tried about 5 times to properly get into it and I just can't get past the handling (in either the Japanese or tweaked Western versions). It's such a cool-looking game but just doesn't gel with me, even though I love all the tuning options and visual details.

[Asura]

A few here for me.

Alien Hominid was fun, but it was also an "important" title, because it started life as a flash game, at one point being very big on NewGrounds; it then became so successful it found its way onto home consoles. This was a big deal as I don't think anything else had done that before this point. That makes it a part of the return of indies to the console industry, fitting into a story that also contains the likes of Braid and Ragdoll Kung Fu.

Armored Core 3 because I love the franchise, and I actually played this more than 2, just because of how things were going when it came out.

Auto Modellista is, to this day, one of the best-looking games ever. I share [MENTION=7652]Hirst[/MENTION]'s point, that it was weird to pair it up with a more realistic handling model, meaning most people's first experience of it is negative as you expect to chuck the cars around like Ridge Racer, and maybe it should've been. But it still looks absolutely fantastic.

Finally Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever. Crap name for a crap movie, which the studio tried desperately to bury for financial reasons, leading to a whole load of legal bull**** which weirdly meant the licensed game came out ages before the film! But this game for the GBA was a bit of a gem; an objective-based FPS (weirdly not the GBA's only one) but still a very impressive technical feat on the handheld.

[fuse]

Don't wanna be that guy, but IIDX 7th and 8th are listed here but their home versions didn't release until 2004. I've voted for all three IIDX games though to be on the safe side

[Solar]

Oh man BF1942. the memories!

[Tobal]

Oh man BF1942. the memories!

the quality of Battlefield is linked to the quality of the theme tune

Bom Bom BomBomBom, Bom Bom BomBomBom