Super Adventures: Game Awards 20X3

This week on Super Adventures, it's the start of 2024, so it seems like the right time for me to look back at 2023 and hand out some awards to the games that stood out and impressed me the most. Unfortunately I've barely played anything released last year and I can't just give all my awards to Octopath Traveler II and a bunch of boomer shooter demos. Well I suppose I could, but I'm not going to.

My second idea was to do the Super Adventure Game Awards 1993, because you can't go wrong with the 90s, but then I thought about all the poor 2003 and 2013 games that I'd be missing out and decided to give those years awards as well. Not 1983 though, because no one loves it. So I'll be giving out 8 awards each year, but they'll be repeated 3 times, for a total of 24 awards. I hope that helps you form a mental image of how long this is going to be.

I won't be limiting myself to games I've played for Super Adventures, as to be honest I forgotten most of the games I've written about. Power Piggs of the Dark Age and Fausseté Amour might be worthy of all kinds of awards, but I haven't got the faintest idea. I will be using the earliest release date in any region, so Seiken Densetsu 3 would be from 1995 not 2019, for example.

Also, I only know about games that I know about, and I only like the games I like, so if you're wondering why an incredibly deserving game didn't even make my shortlist, its because I'm leaving that one for you to mention in the comments.

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Best Action Game

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1993

The word 'action' is defined as meaning "the fact, or process of doing something", so really I could give this one award and then call the article done. It's a genre so broad it could include everything, and that's very helpful to me when I'm judging games from three separate decades for the same award. Not a lot of Soulslikes or tower defence games in 1993, but there was no shortage of action games. In fact I'll throw 'action-adventure' into this category as well, which includes GTA sandbox games, stealth games, survival horrors, and Zelda 'em ups. Metroidvanias too. I'll be giving shooters their own award later though, because shooting never went out of fashion. So here are my nominations for Best Non-Shootery Action Game from 1993: Battletoads and Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team Castlevania: Rondo of Blood Cool Spot Disney's Aladdin (Genesis/Mega Drive version) Soccer Kid Streets of Rage 2 Super Mario All-Stars Superfrog Yo! Joe! Zool 2 Click to reveal the winning game. The first award goes to a compilation of a four games from the 80s with redrawn graphics! Is that fair? I don't even know, but I also don't care. Super Mario All-Stars is timeless and amazing, and it's getting an award. Even though I like the original NES art and music more.

2003

My 2003 list is a bit shorter, because I could only think of five action games I really liked. Well, action-adventures really. Beyond Good & Evil Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Academy True Crime: Streets of LA I'm sorry for not including Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but this is a list of 2003 games that I actually enjoyed playing... and it originally came out in 2002. GTA took the year off as well. Click to see the winning game. And the winner is Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy! I could've easily picked Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow instead though, I love them both almost equally. Jedi Academy is easily my favourite of the four Jedi Knight games, and not just because it's easy. It took Jedi Knight II's gameplay and made it more fun, then took its levels and threw them all in the trash so that it could have much better levels instead. Well, less frustrating ones anyway.

2013

You'd think that the rise of indie developers in the 2010s would help me balance my 2013 list more toward pure action, but it didn't work out that way. That's probably my own fault though for not playing enough games. Batman: Arkham Origins Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Guacamelee!  Rogue Legacy  Saints Row IV  Super House of Dead Ninjas Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist Tomb Raider (2013) I was at least able to come up with 8 titles this time. I could've padded it out to 10 by adding The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag or Grand Theft Auto V, but to be honest I've barely played the games. On the plus side, this means I'll be able to do something that other gaming sites could never do, and give the award to something other than The Last of Us. Click to see the winning game. The winner is Saints Row IV, a game I have actually played. I've lost track of how many times I've beaten this game, but I'm pretty sure it's a number between 1 and 2, and I loved it every time. Except for all the bits where you're forced to do some arbitrary challenge just because... which actually happens a lot now that I think about it. The game needed better missions. My runner-ups are Tomb Raider (2013), which I love so much that I can even kind of put up with the QTEs if I'm in a good mood, and the fantastic Batman: Arkham Origins.

Best Shooter

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1993

'Shooter' is another huge category that covers all kinds of games. There are scrolling shoot 'em ups, run and guns, first person shooters... and I'll even throw space combat in as well. That means that I'm nominating games such as: Cannon Fodder Doom In the Hunt Jungle Strike Starwing (Star Fox) Star Wars: X-Wing Stardust Syndicate The Chaos Engine (Soldiers of Fortune) Walker Click to see the winning game. The winner is the eternal Doom! I'm sure people still load up games like Star Fox and Syndicate every now and then, but Doom never stopped getting new content and new fans. It was maybe a bit unfair to put it in with all those straightforward 2D games, because it's so different. But it would've gotten very lonely if I'd created a separate category for great 1993 first-person shooters.

2003

I can't quite think of 10 choices for 2003 but here are 9 of the shooters that I liked: Call of Duty Chrome Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Metal Slug 5 Postal 2 Star Trek: Elite Force II Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield Unreal II: The Awakening XIII Okay, maybe I'm stretching the word 'liked' for a couple of them, but the winner absolutely deserves to be there. Click to see the winning game. It's the first Call of Duty! I nearly went with Remedy's stylish and depressing Max Payne 2, but it just seems wrong not giving the award to the OG COD. I pretty much parted ways with the Call of Duty series early on as I didn't appreciate the direction that COD 4: Modern Warfare sent it travelling down, but I really did like this one.

2013

Oh no, 2013 was the year BioShock Infinite came out. No one will ever take me seriously again if I choose that as the best shooter of the year. Fortunately I've got some other options here. Aliens: Colonial Marines BioShock Infinite Call of Juarez: Gunslinger Crysis 3 Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Rise of the Triad (2013) Shadow Warrior (2013) Sorry for the absence of Killzone: Shadow Fall and Metro: Last Light, as I haven't played them. I have played that game based on the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie starring Chris Pine, but I don't think there's any need for me to be nominating that. It's bad enough that Aliens: Colonial Marines is there. Click to see the winning game. The winner is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger! I was really tempted to give it to BioShock Infinite, but then I remembered some of the terrible levels at the end, like the one with the ghost and the airship power core defence level. Also, the ending kind of sucks. You may have heard this already, but BioShock Infinite has problems. Anyway, I should be using this opportunity to praise Gunslinger, which put its middling budget where it counts: fun cowboy shooting on decent cowboy levels. It's also got the unreliable narrator adding a bit of a comedic twist to gameplay, and it continually lets you know how awesome you're being with the text that pops up on screen after a kill. I haven't played all of the Call of Juarez games.. but this is the definitely the best of them.

Best Music

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1993

This is a properly subjective award, with 1993 providing some horrifically worthy candidates. Horrifying, because now I have to decide which one to pick as the best. Aladdin (Genesis/Mega Drive) Doom Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle Mega Turrican (Turrican 3) - Chris Huelsbeck! Plok! - Tim Follin! Starwing (Star Fox) Stardust Streets of Rage 2 Super Mario All-Stars Superfrog The Chaos Engine (Soldiers of Fortune) Yo! Joe! Sorry, I'll stop listing them now. To be honest, most of the other games I can think of only have one or two really catchy tunes and then the rest aren't anything I need to hear again. Like I only listen to Out to Lunch's Amiga soundtrack for the two Switzerland themes (YouTube link). Click to see the winning game. The winner is the Doom soundtrack by Bobby Prince! Because I still play this game with the music on and I'm still not sick of it yet. It's not my favourite id software shooter soundtrack, that'd be Quake II, but Doom's OST is less relentless and exhausting during gameplay. It cleverly varies between catchy metal riffs and moody atmosphere so you're not worn out by it.

2003

2003 is going to be more of challenge for me. As video game music got more cinematic over time it also got less catchy. I've heard so many fantastic soundtracks from this era but I just can't remember them! They blended into the gameplay too well. Beyond Good and Evil Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Disgaea: Hour of Darkness Need for Speed: Underground Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic  Tales of Symphonia I've come up with these and that's all I've got so far. I was tempted to put Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean there, but then it occurred to me that the only Baten Kaitos song I really know is Valedictory Elegy (YouTube link) and that's not even from the right game! Still a banger though. Click to see the winning game. The winner for Best Music is Disgaea: Hour of Darkness' soundtrack by Tenpei Sato! On paper this game's soundtrack should annoy me, as it's like half classical, half circus. Somewhere between Danse Macabre and Entrance of the Gladiators. But like with Doom's OST, I've heard it for a ridiculous number of hours and I'm just not sick of it yet. It's distinctive, playful, dramatic, sometimes even emotional, and occasionally you'll get a surprise Tsunami Bomb track, but it always fits the game perfectly. And any soundtrack that fits Disgaea is good enough for me.

2013

Now I'm really struggling. Saints Row IV is definitely on my list of best soundtracks for 2013, that much I'm sure of, and GTA V has to have an amazing soundtrack... probably, but after that I'm lost. I thought I could remember the Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon theme for a moment, but then I realised I was thinking of the Thor: Ragnarok theme. Am I going to have to listen to the OSTs of every game I've played from 2013 to do this properly? How long would that even take? 40 hours? Aliens: Colonial Marines Call of Juarez: Gunslinger Crysis 3 Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Rise of the Triad (2013)  Saints Row IV Okay, I'm going with this as my list, because this article was supposed to be finished in 2023 and if I keep listening to soundtracks it'll take until 2025. Click to see the winning game. The winner is Rise of the Triad (2013)! Not the result I would've expected, but while the other games I've listed have music that support the mood, going from dramatic orchestra to sad piano, ROTT's soundtrack is a metal album I can put on and just listen to. Maybe I'm cheating by picking a remake of a soundtrack from 1994, all I know is that I'm finished with this now and I can move on to the next award.

Best Cerebral Game

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1993

This category is for the point-and-click graphical adventures, the puzzle games, the strategy games, and other games that engage your brain more than your trigger finger. I had to come up with a category that could cover three decades of genres that go in and out of fashion over time, and the more genres I pack in there, the more chance that I can actually list 10 games for each year. Frontier: Elite II Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father  Lemmings 2: The Tribes Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle Sam & Max: Hit the Road  SimCity 2000 Simon the Sorcerer Star Trek: Judgment Rites The Lost Vikings Damn, I almost made it to 10, but not quite. I could've made it if I'd added Myst, but I never actually played the game. Click to see the winning game. The winner is... Day of the Tentacle! This really comes down to personal taste, as I can't put any kind of argument forward for Day of the Tentacle being better than something like SimCity 2000 or Lemmings 2. All they really have in common is that you click on things with the mouse and you have to use your brain. But few developers could match LucasArts at their peak, and they released two all-time classic adventure games in 1993. Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max: Hit the Road both demonstrate the art, music and writing that made LucasArts such a respected developer, but I think Day of the Tentacle has the edge when it comes to design. Which is another way of saying that I had any chance of figuring out what I was supposed to be doing next.

2003

Command & Conquer: Generals Disgaea: Hour of Darkness Damn, is that really all I can think of for 2003, one RTS and a tactical RPG? Okay, from now on this category also includes proper RPGs too. Pretend you saw Breath of Fire, Illusion of Gaia and Secret of Mana in the 1993 list; don't worry it won't make any difference to the winner. Anyway, now I can add: Deus Ex: Invisible War Freelancer Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Tales of Symphonia Click to see the winning game. The winner is Disgaea: Hour of Darkness! It's my favourite game of 2003, it's going to win in any category it shows up in. Except for maybe best graphics, because, well, you can see what it looks like. Then again, those are some fantastic looking sprites...

2013

Did I even play any RPGs from 2013? I suppose there was Evoland, but I didn't really get on with the game. I did play some puzzle games though, and whatever the hell The Stanley Parable is. A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story I guess. Antichamber Gunpoint Redshirt Scribblenauts: Unmasked  The Stanley Parable I haven't played Gone Home, or The Wolf Among Us, or Kentucky Route Zero either, sorry. I could go try them now, but like I said, I want to get this published in 2024. Click to see the winning game. The winner is the bizarre and creative The Stanley Parable! Sure you just wander down hallways and stuff happens, but perhaps the same could be said about most games. Plus it's always different stuff! You don't just repeat the same gameplay loop over and over again... because it doesn't have gameplay. It does have humour though, thanks to the omnipresent narrator, and it's arguably the good kind of humour. The kind you enjoy rather than endure.

Best Licensed Game

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1993

Here's a category you likely didn't see coming. This award is for the best game to be based on a movie or feature a fast food mascot. Did good licensed games even exist before Arkham Asylum and Spider-Man? I suppose I'll find out. Alien Vs Predator (SNES) Cool Spot Disney's Aladdin (Genesis/Mega Drive) Disney's Aladdin (SNES) McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure Star Trek: Judgment Rites Star Wars: Rebel Assault Star Wars: X-Wing Super Back to the Future II  The Punisher Click to see the winning game. The winner is Star Wars: X-Wing! It may feel like an early access version of TIE Fighter that's missing important features like time acceleration and a targeting box, and it might be really frustrating, but the core dogfighting gameplay is solid. On the downside, the X-Wing series pretty much ruined Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars: Squadrons for me as I didn't feel like I was really flying a starfighter in them.

2003

Lots more Star Wars games in 2003, but which of them will I inevitably pick? Justice League: Chronicles Star Trek: Elite Force II Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Academy Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Tron 2.0 XIII Click to see the winning game. The winner is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic! I was going to give this to Jedi Academy as it's fun and doesn't trap you on Taris for hours when you want to go out and have adventures, but in the end it had to be KOTOR. This is a genuine classic RPG, doing a much better job of bringing Baldur's Gate style gameplay to the third dimension than Neverwinter Nights did. Plus its characters are generally a lot more loveable than in either game.

2013

I would've guessed that 2013 would feature far fewer licenced titles than in previous decades, but Warner Bros. has really filled my list up with DC games. Aliens: Colonial Marines Batman: Arkham Origins Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. Deadpool Injustice: Gods Among Us  Scribblenauts: Unmasked Click to see the winning game. The winner is Batman: Arkham Origins! I would've loved to have given an award to the imaginative Scribblenauts: Unmasked, but Arkham Origins is like Arkham City except colder so it wins. It just does. I can understand why other people are less enthusiastic about it, especially if they played it after City, but I played it before City, so I got to appreciate it for what it is instead of feeling like it's a retread. And what it is, is a damn fine action-adventure with amazing graphics and a solid story.

Best Competitive Game

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1993

The 'Competitive' award is for games that are basically about competing against someone, either a multiplayer opponent, or the AI, or even just your own scores. It's a nice big category I can throw all the sports, fighting games, racing, pinball etc. into. Games like: Micro Machines Mortal Kombat II Ridge Racer Skidmarks Virtua Fighter I'm just throwing Virtua Fighter on there to get to the list to 5, I don't really like it much. Click to see the winning game. It's Mortal Kombat II! I've never been very good at the game, but I used to play it for ages with friends, trying to show off by memorising the fatalities. Or at least memorising which magazine and page number they were printed on.

2003

My list for 2003 used to be longer, but whenever I double-checked a game's date I discovered it was from a different year. So now my options are pretty much limited to this: DreamMix TV: World Fighters Need for Speed: Underground Maybe this category was a mistake! Click to see the winning game. Congrats to Need for Speed: Underground! It may have been almost the only candidate, but it's also a great game. At first I wasn't sure I liked how the developers had given the Need for Speed series a Fast & Furious makeover and trapped players in a dark city instead of letting them roam the world, but it turned out to be one of my favourite games in the whole series.

2013

Man, I made a category including all games with a hint of competition, that's all sports, all racing games, everything, and this is the best I can come up with for 2013. I guess I'm not a very competitive person. Grid 2 Injustice: Gods Among Us Need for Speed: Rivals Poker Night 2 Click to see the winning game. The winner is Injustice: Gods Among Us! I'm terrible at fighting games and I've never gotten anywhere in the single player mode, but even I can appreciate just how good this is at making you feel like you're playing as super-powered heroes smashing up iconic DC locations. The story's surprisingly good as well (I watched it on YouTube).

Best Visuals (2D)

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1993

This is it, the final award, well... kind of. I was originally going to just have one 'Best Visuals' award, on the assumption that 1993 would have next to no 3D games and 2003 would have no 2D worth speaking of, but I'm going to go wild and split them up into two awards anyway. Also, this is an award for graphics, so I'm going to skip the list of nominations and show off the very best looking games of 1993. That I know about and can remember. RUNNER-UPS Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Arcade) Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine) Cool Spot (SNES) Disney's Aladdin (Genesis/Mega Drive) Disposable Hero (Amiga) Gabriel Knight (PC) Gunstar Heroes (Mega Drive/Genesis) In the Hunt (Arcade) I had to throw an IREM game on the list. Lionheart (Amiga) Some Henk Nieborg pixels for you. Mortal Kombat II (Arcade) Did digitized sprites right. NBA Jam (Arcade) Perihelion (Amiga) Has a very distinctive grey and amber palette. Raiden II (Arcade) Rocky Rodent (SNES) Samurai Showdown (Arcade) Saturday Night Slam Masters (Arcade) (I love the dude's face on the right health bar). Secret of Mana (SNES) Simon the Sorcerer (PC) Super Back to the Future II (SNES) Superior Soldiers (Arcade) The Chaos Engine (Amiga) The 7th Guest (PC) The Punisher (Arcade) I could just keep listing arcade brawlers but I need to stop and give something an award already. Click to see the winning game. The winner is Sam & Man: Hit the Road! It starts off with this beautiful animated intro and then just carries on being beautiful and animated the whole way through.

2003

Graphics were evolving rapidly during the 1990s and during the PlayStation era there was a real push to drop 2D graphics entirely. Pixel art was a relic of a more primitive age. There was still the GBA, heroically keeping 2D alive into the 2000s on its tiny dim screen, but this is going to be a short list: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow  Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Metal Slug 5 Sword of Mana Click to see the winning game. The winner is Metal Slug 5! I really wanted to give the award to something else, to find some hidden gem I'd never heard of, especially since this is basically just Metal Slug 1, Part 5. But I just don't know of any game from 2003 that has better 2D art than this. If you do, let me know in the comments!

2013

Indie games are where you should look if you want fantastic 2D visuals in 2013. Unfortunately I haven't played all that many that really stood out to me. Goodbye Deponia Guacamelee! Rayman Legends Rogue Legacy Click to see the winning game. The winner is Rayman Legends! Okay, I admit, I've barely played the game. But I've finished Rayman Origins and that's one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, so Legends would have had to have been a real let down to avoid picking up this award.

Best Visuals (3D)

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1993

3D games had been around since the '80s and the PC Engine already had a CD drive add-on for like five years, but 1993 twas the night before the dawn of the multimedia era. This is when arcade games first started getting texture mapping and consoles like the 3DO came out, so I've found a few legit 3D titles for this list. I've also also included some of those 'fly into pre-rendered video footage' games and sprite-based 3D titles like Privateer. Alone in the Dark 2  Doom Microcosm Ridge Racer Starwing (Star Fox) Star Wars: Rebel Assault Star Wars: Trilogy Star Wars: X-Wing Virtua Fighter Wing Commander: Privateer RUNNER-UPS Star Fox uses a SuperFX chip inside its cartridge to bring polygons to the SNES. It doesn't bring a lot of polygons mind you, and they don't move very quickly, but the game's art design along with its rail shooter linearity allows it to do a lot with what it has. Here's another rail shooter, built around very different technology. Star Wars: Rebel Assault makes use of pre-rendered video instead of real-time polygons, but you're still moving through the world in 3D and you can clip your wings on the canyon walls, so it counts I think. More so than Myst and The 7th Guest. Virtua Fighter was an absolutely groundbreaking fighting game due to its use of real-time 3D combatants made of far more polygons than Edward Carnby had back in 1992's Alone in the Dark. But it was running on the Sega Model 1 arcade board, which apparently wasn't all that keen on Gouraud shading or texture mapping, so it's not the prettiest game on the list. Click to see the winning game. The winner is arcade racing game Ridge Racer! It's far from the first 3D racer, but no other racing game ran this fast while looking this good. Well, nothing I can think of anyway. The game itself is very basic, featuring variations on the one track, and it looked archaic just a few years later, but in 1993 this was like a glimpse of the future.

2003

2003 wasn't really a hugely significant year in the advancement of video game graphics, that I'm aware of. Sixth-generation consoles like the PS2 and GameCube were firmly established and we were still waiting for the next leap in graphics brought in with games like Doom 3, Half-Life 2 and Far Cry. That doesn't mean the games looked bad though. Beyond Good & Evil Call of Duty Chrome Final Fantasy X-2  Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Need for Speed: Underground Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time  Silent Hill 3 Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Unreal II: The Awakening RUNNER-UPS Beyond Good & Evil definitely looks like it's 10 years more advanced than Ridge Racer. Those may not be ray traced reflections but they're still awesome. Chrome felt like a proto Far Cry at times with its grassy woodland environments. It's nowhere near on Far Cry's level really, but games were getting there. I haven't played much of Final Fantasy X-2, but it makes a good first impression with areas like this. I wasn't sure at first if it was real-time or pre-rendered. If you want pretty graphics, racing games are where you want to look, and Need for Speed: Underground is one of the most impressive of its time. I'm not just saying that because of the shiny road. Hey it's another Ubisoft game. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time manages to impress with some nice art design and cloth physics. Click to see the winning game. The winner is Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne! I'm really starting to second guess myself now, as beautifully rendered warehouses and apartment blocks are still warehouses and apartment blocks, but Remedy is typically a pretty safe bet when it comes to video game graphics. Perhaps I should quickly replay the whole game before making my final choice... oh right, yeah, I have to get this published in 2024. Never mind then.

2013

This is the last one now, the final award, the best looking 3D game of 2013. I have to admit, I'm a little biased towards giving this to a game that's easy for me to take a screenshot from. And I'm absolutely biased towards showing off the games I've already played before. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Batman: Arkham Origins BioShock Infinite  Crysis 3 Grand Theft Auto V Killzone: Shadow Fall Metro: Last Light Ryse: Son of Rome The Last of Us Tomb Raider (2013) RUNNER-UPS The Arkham games are all visually awesome, with the slightly unloved Arkham Origins being no exception. It features solid graphics technology combined with great art design, even if it's a bit muted compared to Arkham City. Crysis 3 wasn't quite as stunning for its time as the original Crysis, partly because it was targeting weaker hardware, partly because time had moved on. It's still a Crysis game though, and deserves a mention. Tomb Raider 2013 made use of cutting-edge TressFX hair simulation technology, which may or may not be turned on in this screenshot, I'm not even sure. It was a graphically impressive game in general though, and you can almost see the pretty water effects down there. Click to see the winning game. The winner is BioShock Infinite! Regardless of what you think about BioShock Infinite, everyone can agree that it is a video game that came out in 2013, and it also objectively looks like this. The game was apparently a real mess behind the scenes, but what we got on screen has a strong and distinctive artistic vision with ambitions far beyond just trying to make the most gritty and realistic world possible on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Or maybe I'm wrong, and Arkham Origins is the more impressive game with its PhysX smoke effects. I could put them both on and make a proper comparison, it shouldn't delay this for more than a week...

CONCLUSION

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If there's one thing I've learned from my trip through the last few decades of video games, it's that double checking the dates of 300 games is really boring! But also necessary, as I accidentally gave an award to 2012's Fez before I caught my mistake. Why did I think this would be a low-effort article I could just rush to get done by the end of 2023? I was really dumb.

I've also learned that people who do podcasts where they rank every game ever made have a better memory than I do. I've been trying to mentally replay games in my head so I could compare them properly, but I'm lucky if I can even remember they existed.

Anyway, here's a convenient summary of the winners I picked:

1993

Best Action Game 1993 - Super Mario All-Stars
Best Shooter 1993 - Doom
Best Music 1993 - Doom
Best Cerebral Game 1993 - Day of the Tentacle
Best Licensed Game 1993 - Star Wars: X-Wing
Best Competitive Game 1993 - Mortal Kombat II
Best Visuals (2D) 1993 - Sam & Man: Hit the Road
Best Visuals (3D) 1993 - Ridge Racer


2003

Best Action Game 2003 - Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy
Best Shooter 2003 - Call of Duty
Best Music 2003 - Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
Best Cerebral Game 2003 - Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
Best Licensed Game 2003 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Best Competitive Game 2003 - Need for Speed: Underground
Best Visuals (2D) 2003 - Metal Slug 5
Best Visuals (3D) 2003 - Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne


2013

Best Action Game 2013 - Saints Row IV
Best Shooter 2013 - Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
Best Music 2013 - Rise of the Triad (2013)
Best Cerebral Game 2013 - The Stanley Parable
Best Licensed Game 2013 - Batman: Arkham Origins
Best Competitive Game 2013 - Injustice: Gods Among Us
Best Visuals (2D) 2013 - Rayman Legends
Best Visuals (3D) 2013 - BioShock: Infinite


Let me know the full extent of my wrongness in the comments below! Or better yet, suggest some other deserving games. Also, let me know if I should do this again for other years. How does Game Awards 20X4 sound to you?

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Next on Super Adventures, an actual game for a change! Well, kind of.

Fortunately if you can't guess what it is from the clue I never have to write about it. Those are the rules.