CCIV: Game of the Year 2004 - Round 04

[Neon Ignition]

Deep diving onward, here are the next games vying for the prize title of the best that this year had to offer.


Which of the above games are among the best of 2004 and why?

[Tobal]

Some bangers on there for me, not goty material like Halo2, HL2 and Fight Night 04(360) but liked them alot,

*Ultimate Muscle/Kinnikuman man on the gamecube, got the US copy and it's one of AKI's best, much better than DefJam
*GITS:SAC on the ps2, decent little 3rd person shooter.

[Neon Ignition]

San Andreas is a hard lock, I preferred it to Vice City with its bigger map that restored some of the wonder from GTA3 and better vehicle handling.

Despite that I have a soft spot for the second Getaway

GT4 is probably the last real peak of the series for me whilst Half Life 2 is an obvious one. I know people with warm XBL memories will vote for Halo 2 but as an SP only gamer at the time - no.

[teddymeow]

Halo 2 was ****.

There, I said it.

[Asura]

Only Halo 2 for me, even though it was one of the weaker ones.

I've always believed Half-Life 2 is overrated.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Wow. GT4, Gradius V, GTA:SA, Half Life 2 & Halo 2 all came out in the same year?

[dataDave]

I rinsed Gradius V in 2004, played a lot of Halo 2 online during the first half of 2005, and then fell in love with Half Life 2 (with all the expansions) at the back of 2009.

[dataDave]

Wow. GT4, Gradius V, GTA:SA, Half Life 2 & Halo 2 all came out in the same year?

So did Metroid Prime 2.

[Cepp]

Half Life 2. San Andreas was great as well but Half Life 2 wins out for me. I had to play it using a 5200FX after my 6600GT died, so performance was not good but I didn't care.

[MartyG]

Easily Half-Life 2 - and you can now play it with a full VR conversion, which takes it to a whole other dimension

[Atticus]

Some belters on that list but I only chose one: San Andreas ... the experience was way above anything else for me. Amazing.

[Lebowski]

I remember spending silly money on a PC to play Half Life 2, and once the campaign was done we ran about in the multiplayer playing gravity gun only modes killing each other with toilets. F.E.A.R, Doom 3, Portal and Steam being terrible and everyone hating it felt like a golden age for PC gaming.

I played a fair bit of Joint operations typhoon rising with a group who had a Team Speak server it had the most amazing dirt bike physics where you could hit hills and do crazy jumps, and it was just as fun messing about on the dirtbike as it was getting into gun fights. We later moved to battlefield 2 for multiplayer hi-jinks but i still miss those crazy bikes.

[Asura]

Joint Operations is my pick from this lot.

Basically "the final form" of the Delta Force series (AFAIK it started life as Delta Force: Joint Ops but they were forced to change its name). Easily my favourite of the "Battlefield"-type games. Fantastic game, partially due to its realistic weapon ballistics. Actually tons of reasons. 128-player.

[fuse]

I remember getting Half-Life 2 free with a graphics card I bought at the time, and giving the code to a fellow student buddy who was desperate to play it as I had that little interest in it. I've played maybe 30 minutes of Halo 2 in my life but still have fairly fond memories of it, given it was for the game's release weekend that an NTSC-UK meetup happened at Boog's student digs. I got a lift from Brum, met loads of good sorts and played some other great games (Resi 4 demo! Psyvariar 2! Third Strike!).

All that said: Gradius V. I've not given it as much time as I should have, but from the very moment it begins, it just screams quality.