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Namevah

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Favorite Games of 2004

2004, otherwise known as the best year for gaming ever. I can’t argue that ’04 saw a lot of great content, including two Metroid and two Metal Gear Solid titles. Of course, those stood in the background as attention focused on Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Although it won’t be on this list (wait until 2007, when the Orange Box hit), we saw Half-Life 2 and Valve’s controversial Steam platform.

*A vow: I will make no mention of Halo 2's infamous cliffhanger ending.

List items

  • My only experience with the original Metroid is playing through the first few areas before getting lost and losing interest. I still argue that had there been a map marking what locations I have visited, which the series did add in future installments, the original Metroid and the sequel would be more playable. As it stands, jumping into these games requires either creating a map (or downloading one off the internet) or memorization.

    Zero Mission is an incredible game that completely remakes the NES classic, alleviating any need to play that older game. That wonderful map was added, while audio and visuals have been significantly improved. And that’s long before jumping into the new segment that takes place after the “final” boss, which sees Samus stripped of her power suit and forced to sneak Metal Gear-style through an alien ship. This is a wonderful change from feeling like a near-invisible badass in the power suit.

    Basically, Zero Mission is another incredible Metroid game. Why we haven’t seen a similar remake of Metroid II, I cannot fathom.

  • Metal Gear Solid 3 is an excellent follow-up to Metal Gear Solid 2, which delivered a story so ambitious that it became convoluted with rogue AIs, talk of world order, and incestuous relationships. Comparatively, MGS3 wisely grounds the narrative, which ultimately focuses on the relationship between The Boss and her protégé, Naked Snake. Granted, those two aren't within the same scene often, but they made a large enough impact that when it came to hitting that final button, it wasn’t easy.

    Beyond that, camouflage and survival within the wilderness of the Soviet Union are major features, replacing… well, hanging in a nearby hallway and peaking around corners. Yes, keeping Snake fed and healthy can be tiresome, but it felt right with the setting. This is a place where wild animals can appear seemingly from nowhere and fuck you up, so I like that I have to take care of broken bones.

    Of course, MGS3 was re-released sometime later with the subtitle Subsistance, which adds a better camera and comes with ports of the first two Metal Gear game. In other words, THAT is the definitive version.

  • While Halo 2 faced insane expectations from fans, Metroid Prime 2 faced similarly massive hopes from me. The original Prime was an incredible introduction to the Metroid series, and I hoped that the sequel would continue to blow me away.

    I can’t say it completely succeeded, but Metroid Prime 2 was an exceptionally entertaining game that ratcheted up the difficulty. Taking a cue from Zelda, the planet Aether has a corrupted, alternate-dimensional twin, forcing a degree of hopping between worlds for both travel and puzzles. I never did finish the game, having constantly been crushed by the last boss.

    Unfortunately, the multiplayer mode wasn’t particularly good, but Prime 2 deserves points for trying. It was too lacking in features.

  • San Andreas is significant for any number of reasons. It’s the last of GTA’s so-called “3D Era.” It’s the last of the zany tone that GTA IV dropped and Saints Row ran with. San Andreas is an entire state composed of three major cities and plenty of nature in between instead of just a single city. CJ marks the first African-American lead, whose muscle and fat density altered based on the player. And we can’t forget the infamous “Hot Coffee” controversy.

    This game also suffers under the same issues that plagued the series since GTA3, namely incredibly ugly visuals and bad shooting, but by this point, it was difficult to care. Never had GTA been so ambitiously huge in both setting and character. Eating too much and never exercising makes CJ overweight, while doing to opposite gives him plenty of muscle to impress the ladies of Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas.

    The scale isn't as impressive anymore, with Elder Scrolls offering massive amounts of space to play in, but for the PS2’s quaint hardware, San Andreas was incredible.

  • FireRed could never perfectly replicate my experience with Red for the same reason that none of the sequels can: the mystery has long since vanished. Most new Pokemon are revealed before release, and FireRed is composed entirely of creatures I have seen before. Even so, FireRed brought me back into the franchise after being tired out with Gold/Silver by giving me the first Pokemon game, updated to (then-) modern standards. And who would know that these would launch a trend of remaking older Pokemon games between the newer installments.

  • My fondest memories of Halo 2 didn't come from multiplayer – of which I spent a great deal of time – or the traditional single-player campaign. Rather, great memories came from jumping OUT of the single-player campaign. Halo 2 features a great deal of ways to escape the usual confines of the campaign, allowing players to jump behind the sets in a good number of stages. Bungie apparently expected this as the second level includes a large soccer ball hidden away for players to find. Even so, it’s unlikely that Bungie expected the quantity of ways to jump away from their control.

    Unfortunately, Halo 2’s visuals haven’t aged well. It’s a muddy-looking game that suffers from the infamous pop-in that would plague many future games (I’m looking at you, Mass Effect). Still, Halo 2 was plenty of fun, regardless of its glaring flaws.

  • I can understand the fond memories that people have for the original Metal Gear Solid, but for someone who jumped into the franchise with MGS2, the PS1 classic isn't the easiest thing to jump into. So while many people decry The Twin Snakes for how first-person shooting makes combat too easy and the cutscenes too over-the-top, I enjoy it for adding the mechanics I was already familiar with.

    I don’t care that the combat is too easy; it’s not why I play MGS, anyway. The cutscenes ARE over-the-top, but I still prefer those character models over bobbing, eyeless heads. The Twin Snakes doesn't not invalidate MGS, nor do I believe that was the intent. It’s another journey down the same road, except the foliage is a bit different.

  • I’d love to have witness the meetings the led to the creation of Episode III. Taking a successful online dungeon crawler and transforming it into an online card game is an odd decision, one that clearly wasn't as successful as they’d hoped based on how the series has returned to something similar to Episode I & II. And while many people didn't enjoy Episode III (it definitely wasn't as critically acclaimed as the easier games), I enjoyed it.

    The card gameplay was unique and worked surprisingly well online, and while the single-player story wasn't anything noteworthy, it gets points for being able to play as either side of the conflict. Still, I prefer the previous games as much as the next person.

  • I respect a game that never leaves first-person. Moving the camera into third-person for cutscenes and certain mechanics often helps the player, but it can also break the immersion. Despite utilizing a combat system, Breakdown never leaves the head of Derrick Cole’s skull, which is both a plus and a minus. Being launched across the room onto your back is as disorienting as one might expect, but there’s realism when you’re back onto your feet, hurriedly trying to locate your adversary only to be tossed back onto the ground, vision blurred.

    This is frustrating at times, but as I wrote, I have a respect for games that stick that stubbornly to its design. It is a shame that the shooting isn't your traditional first-person controls, but instead a lock-on that never feels right, and the first-person combat has trouble with multiple fighters overwhelming Derrick, leading to the frustrations of restarting entire areas multiple times.

    Still, it’s a fun adventure despite its deep flaws. I’d like to see a remake update the game with modern FPS controls and maybe a somewhat more fair way to deal with multiple enemies at once.

  • Love is complicated, but worth pursuing into a pack of wild bulls to save the woman. It’s also worth removing scorpions from her back. And helping a guy cough up live goldfish from his stomach. The tasks that our love-struck hero has to perform to win the affection of his lady friend are often strange, but that’s part of the fun of this minigame collection. Feel the Magic also helps fill the WarioWare-sized hole in the DS’ then-meager library; WarioWare: Touched! wouldn't be released for another year.
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