Finally, a tumultuous 2006 is coming to an end. After all the conflict occurring with the jump to the next generation consoles, we now come to the climax of a year that brought pleasures and disappointments in the gaming community, but in my case, it can be seen more as disappointments. As always my annual awards will showcase the true disappointments of the year, as well as some of the rare treasures.
To start off, I'm going to get right to the point and mention what the best game of the year was. Usually I save this for last but I want to save the criticisms until then. Since I saw the early preview of it during last year's E3, I have been fascinated with GEARS OF WAR. Whether it was the drop dead gorgeous visuals, the intense tactical combat, or the amazing voice acting, GOW wowed me in a way that no game in recent years was able to do. As far as I'm concerned, let the PS3 have their Unreal Tournament 2007, as long as 360 owners can be stuck with the spoils of Emergence Day.
Not only am I giving GOW my personal Game of the Year honors, I always love to give my award for what I consider to be the Badass of the Year. However in this case, it's not just one person. I'm giving it to GOW's Delta Squad. My original plan was for it to only go to Marcus Fenix, but after seeing and hearing the rest of the squad in action, even that whiner Baird, they were well deserving of the honor. Go figure though, the only character even coming in close to the title was Domasi Towadi (aka Tommy) from Prey.
Gears of War also made me come up with another category: weapon of the year. Sure there are assault rifles, and there are chainsaws, but whoever decided to equip an assault rifle with a chainsaw bayonet should be committed, then worshipped! I mean, come on, who else out there had a chill run down their spine the first time they chainsawed their first Locust and covered their screen with splattering blood? It's truly a religious experience, and unlike Halo 2's Energy Sword, it's not a cheap weapon. Get shot once and you'll need to re-rev the saw again; not an easy task to do.
Rockstar Games should also get a special award called "Way to Stand Up to the Critics" for what they did with Bully. Since the game was announced, all I heard was how it was going to become another Columbine simulator. What a joke. The final product was not that violent at all, unless you count slingshots and stink bombs as weapons of mass destruction. It even went as far as becoming one of the funniest games I played in a long time. And what was the final burn against all the censors and whack job lawyers? It got a Teen rating!
Nintendo also gets praise from me this year, with an award I call "Stupid name but a great system to beat Sony." The award, of course, goes to the Wii. When the name was announced back in May, it was the subject of ridicule. Critics, including myself, made stupid urination jokes and made demands to return the name back to the Revolution (which was actually a good name.) But after seeing the Wii in action, there was no doubt that Nintendo's new console was for real, and received a lot of praise for its originality, even going as far as beating the mighty Sony and their PS3, but I will eventually get to that!
And with that, I get to have some fun with my negative awards. Earlier I gave the Badass of the Year award, and now it's time to introduce the first ever Dumbass of the Year award, and two people in particular deserve the honor: Ken Kutaragi and Kaz Hirai from Sony win after all they pulled over our heads this year regarding the PlayStation 3. Whether it was pushing the launch back from Spring to November, announcing an insane $600 price tag, even claiming that it's still not expensive enough, or even going as far as delaying the European launch until next year, they always had something stupid to say to the press. And when the system was finally released here on November 17th, there were not enough to go around, as expected, but the shipments were far smaller than that of the Xbox 360 last year! The reason? That will be the next award.
And that award is "The Second Coming of Betamax" which I'm giving to Blu-Ray technology. By making the PlayStation 3 a Blu-Ray drive, demand for the laser diode is extremely high, and of course the supply is meager, hence the delays. Not only that, non-PS3 Blu-Ray players are exorbitantly expensive, ranging between $800-1000. And of course, to truly experience 1080p video via Blu-Ray, you have to watch it with an HDMI cable.
Once again you have to buy more than what you need, just like with Betamax 25 years ago. It's too much just to watch higher quality movies, but Sony always loved their proprietary standards (memory stick, Betamax, ATRAC, Mini-Disc, UMD movies, etc.)
Lastly, Sony gets one more dubious honor for Bust of the Year. What was it for? You guessed it, the PlayStation 3. Need I say more than I already have these last few weeks?
But before I finish, there is one final award I would love to give out to former ESA head Doug Lowenstein. But after what happened this year it's not going to be wine and roses. By deciding to forever ruin the E3 Expo and make it a smaller event that only the elite can take part in, I have no choice but to give you the "Good Bye and Good Riddance" award. I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but I always looked forward to E3, and when I heard the news last summer about how it would be seriously downgraded, it ripped a huge part of my life away, not to mention a huge economic chunk for the city of Los Angeles.
At least IDG Publications (creators of Gamepro magazine) are planning their own event for the fall of 2007, hopefully becoming the true successor to E3.
In all events, a very disappointing year, especially with what Sony pulled, but hopefully that will all change next year, as we will finally see a true three way race for next generation console superiority. I'll be keeping an eye out.
CURRENTLY PLAYING: GEARS OF WAR (XBOX 360)
WAITING FOR: ARMY OF TWO (XBOX 360)