Tuesday, 7 January 2025

Super Adventures: Game Awards 20X4

This week on Super Adventures, I'd like to take a moment to look back at 2024 and give some well-earned kudos to the AAA megahits and the indie instant classics that brought me the most joy over the last year.

But I can't! I think the only 2024 game I got around to was probably Core Keeper and that's been playable in Early Access for ages. So instead, I'm looking back at three other years ending in '4' to see if I can come up with some games that have been worthy of awards in the past. Here's how this is going to work:
  • I'll be giving out 6 awards for each year, so that's 18 awards in total.
  • I'll be using each game's earliest release date anywhere in the world.
  • I won't be limiting myself to games I've written about for Super Adventures.
  • If any worthy games are missing, that's because I'm leaving them for you to mention in the comments.
In fact, I'll even throw in a bonus award: Best Game I've Played From 2024. And the winner is... Core Keeper! Nice job Pugstorm, thanks for giving me hours of co-op fun in a cave.



Best Action Game
1994
The trouble with game genres is that they come and go, so if I'm handing out the same awards for three different decades my chosen genres are going to have to be pretty broad.

That's why I'm throwing platformers, stealth games, survival horrors, Zelda 'em ups, Soulslikes etc. into one big genre called 'action'. If you press the jump button, dodge attacks, collect gold coins, the game probably belongs here. No shooters though, they get their own awards. Also I'm only including games that I've played myself and still kind of remember, as that's pretty much required if I'm going to decide which is my favourite the objectively superior title.

So here are my nominees for 'Best Action Game 1994', only slightly padded to get the list up to a nice round 10:

  • Beyond Oasis / The Story of Thor 
  • Castlevania: The New Generation / Bloodlines
  • Donkey Kong Country
  • Kid Chaos
  • Psycho Pinball
  • Pu-Li-Ru-La
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 3
  • Sparkster
  • Super Bomberman 2
  • Super Metroid

Click to reveal the winning game.


2004
My 2004 list shows why I didn't make this a 'Best Platformers' award. My choices have gotten a bit less jumpy and a lot more sneaky. In fact, you could argue that it's not very fair putting Metroid: Zero Mission in the same genre as Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater... but it'd be even less fair if I left it out altogether.

  • Fable
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
  • Katamari Damacy
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
  • Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
  • Metroid: Zero Mission
  • Ninja Gaiden
  • Silent Hill 4: The Room
  • The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay 
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines


Click to see the winning game.


2014
I've come up with a weird list of games up to win Best Action Game of 2014, mostly because I tend to lean more toward choosing games that I've played rather than games that you care about. I'll spoil this for you now: Ground Zeroes isn't going to win this. Not because it's a bad game, it's just more of a good demo.

  • Alien: Isolation
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition 
  • Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends
  • Goat Simulator
  • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
  • NES Remix 2
  • Shovel Knight
  • Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy - Curtain Call
  • Watch_Dogs


Click to see the winning game.



Best Shooter
1994
For the purposes of this award, I'm defining a 'Shooter' as "a game in which you shoot stuff". There's a bit of overlap there with the action-adventure genre, but if bullets and lasers and magic fireballs are flying around more often than not, this is where the game ends up.

You might be looking at the games in this list, thinking that you know what my choice is going to be (and I'm sure you know what your choice would be), but I might surprise you:

  • Banshee
  • Doom II: Hell on Earth
  • Earthworm Jim
  • Heretic
  • Rise of the Triad: Dark War
  • Ruff 'n' Tumble
  • Star Wars: TIE Fighter
  • System Shock
  • Tin Star
  • Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger

Click to see the winning game.


2004
2004 was a bit of a big year for the shooters, with my nominations here doubling as a list of some of the most influential games in the genre's history. I'm kind of surprised there isn't a legendary Call of Duty game here too, but this is the only year the franchise ever skipped:

  • Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War
  • Doom³
  • Far Cry
  • Half-Life 2
  • Halo 2
  • Killzone
  • Painkiller
  • Red Dead Revolver
  • Star Wars: Battlefront
  • Unreal Tournament 2004

Click to see the winning game.


2014
Ten years later, and still no Half-Life 2: Episode 3, but I'm sure it's coming any time now. Here are the actually finished and released games I'll be choosing from for 'Best Shooter':

  • Far Cry 4
  • Wolfenstein: The New Order

Uh, I was kind of counting on this list being longer. Were shooters going out of fashion or I am just 10 years behind in my video game backlog? I need to check Wikipedia and do some research.

Hmm, it says that Betrayer has guns in it and I'm pretty sure I played that, so add that to the list. Consortium had a bit of shooting in the VR bit, so that counts too. Oh I also played The Evil Within and Sunset Overdrive for 20 minutes, and I'll throw Watch_Dogs in as well. Seven games, that's fine.

Click to see the winning game.



Best Music
1994
I have the funky theme song to Cannon Fodder 2 playing in my head right now, but it'll not be getting any special treatment from me. 1994 was the end of the 16-bit era, where composers knew how to get the best out of their sound chips, so the competition is going to be fierce for this one.

  • Castlevania: Bloodlines / The New Generation - Michiru Yamane
  • The Lion King - Allister Brimble
  • Donkey Kong Country - David Wise, Eveline Fischer and Robin Beanland
  • Earthworm Jim - Mark Miller
  • Final Fantasy VI - Nobuo Uematsu
  • Quik the Thunder Rabbit - Philippe Verriere
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Lots of people
  • Star Wars: TIE Fighter - Clint Bajakian
  • Transport Tycoon - John Broomhall
  • UFO: Enemy Unknown - John Broomhall
  • Warcraft: Orcs & Humans - Gregory Alper

Click to see the winning game.


2004
It gets harder for me to pick my favourite soundtracks as I move forward in time, as game music got more cinematic and less catchy. Though as tricky as it was to come up with ten games, it's going to be even harder to narrow the list down to one.
  • Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War - Lots of people
  • Fable - Russell Shaw
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - Licenced songs
  • Headhunter: Redemption - Richard Jacques
  • Katamari Damacy - Lots of people
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Harry Gregson-Williams and Norihiko Hibino
  • Need for Speed: Underground 2 - Licenced songs
  • Phantom Brave - Tenpei Sato
  • The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - Gustaf Grefberg
  • The Sims 2 - Mark Mothersbaugh


Click to see the winning game.


2014
Okay, now 2014's given me the opposite problem, as everything's way too catchy. Theatrhythm's got music from across the whole Final Fantasy series, so you'd think that'd be unbeatable, but NES Remix 2 has tunes from classic Nintendo titles and Super Smash Bros. has music from bloody everything! Literally hundreds of tracks from some of the most iconic video games ever made. I'm just going to stop listing composers for these games, because I'd hit my word count limit. Oh and Dynasty Warriors has shown up to brawl, plus there's another Sims game here too.
  • Divinity: Original Sin
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition
  • Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends
  • NES Remix 2
  • Shovel Knight
  • South Park: The Stick of Truth
  • Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U
  • The Sims 4
  • Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy - Curtain Call
  • Wolfenstein: The New Order


Click to see the winning game.



Best Cerebral Game
1994
This award is for the opposite of action games. The games where you have to use your brain to solve puzzles or come up with strategies or run a theme park. I've put turn-based RPGs like Final Fantasy here as well.

  • Beneath a Steel Sky
  • DreamWeb
  • EarthBound
  • Final Fantasy VI
  • Live a Live
  • The Incredible Machine 2
  • Theme Park
  • Transport Tycoon
  • UFO: Enemy Unknown / X-COM: UFO Defense
  • Warcraft: Orcs and Humans

Click to see the winning game.


2004
    Last time around I just gave this to Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and moved on, but there's no Disgaea in the list this time so the choice will be a bit trickier. In fact, I couldn't even come up with 10 games for the list, and one of the ones I picked is just an open source clone of a game from a decade earlier!

    • Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
    • OpenTDD
    • Phantom Brave
    • Pokémon Emerald
    • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords
    • The Sims 2
    • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
    • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

    Click to see the winning game.


    2014
    Okay, I've managed to come up with ten games I've played this time, but I didn't necessarily play them for very long. Original Sin, Transistor and Vanishing of Ethan Carter in particular have no business being here. Mini Metro doesn't either, but that's just because I didn't like it very much.

    • Divinity: Original Sin
    • Dragon Age: Inquisition
    • Elder Scrolls Online
    • Hyperdimension Neptunia: Re;Birth1
    • Mini Metro
    • South Park: The Stick of Truth
    • The Sims 4
    • The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
    • Transistor
    • Wasteland 2

    Click to see the winning game.



    Best Visuals (2D)
    1994
    Alright enough words, now I'm doing pictures. I'll start by giving awards for 'Best 2D Graphics' (even though that's going to cause me problems in the mid 2000s) and then I'll switch to 3D (which is going to be awkward in the mid '90s). Here's where all the fighting games have been hiding if you've been missing them.

    Though I'm going to skip the list of nominees this time, because I'd rather just show off 7 runner-ups. In fact I'd rather show 10, but I did the maths and 10 pictures x 3 years x 2 awards = everyone reading this getting bored and giving up halfway through.

    RUNNER-UPS


    Beneath a Steel Sky (PC)

    Darkstalkers (Arcade)

    Killer Instinct (Arcade)

    Ruff 'n' Tumble (Amiga)

    The King of Fighters ‘94 (Arcade)

    Top Hunter (Arcade)

    Universe (PC)


    Click to see the winning game.


    2004
    Okay, same deal as before, only this time I'm judging the prettiest 2D games of 2004... a year that didn't have any 2D games. Everyone had jumped onto the 3D bandwagon instead by this point.

    Oh hang on, I forgot about the Game Boy Advance! I need to go search for what people consider to be its most aesthetically appealing titles. Then I can find some YouTube videos of them in action and pick a favourite!


    RUNNER-UPS


    Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA)

    Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)

    Samurai Shodown V Special (Arcade)

    The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)

    The Rumble Fish
    (Arcade)


    Click to see the winning game.


    2014

    South Park The Stick of Truth kupa keep screenshot
    I'm just going to give 2013's Best 2D Art award to South Park: The Stick of Truth and then move on, because I can't think of anything else I've played that belongs here.


    Best Visuals (3D)
    1994
    Fortunately coming up with ideas for the 'Best 3D Graphics in 1994' award has been a bit easier. 3D games had been around long before the mid '90s and there had even been a few big hits like Elite, Star Fox and Doom, but by 1994 their invasion was fully underway, and 2D would soon be forced to retreat to handhelds.

    Though the PlayStation and Saturn didn't release until the end of the year, so the games here are going to look a bit... primitive.


    RUNNER-UPS


    Doom 2 entrance hall
    Doom II: Hell on Earth (MS-DOS)

    Magic Carpet (MS-DOS)

    Need for Speed (3DO)

    System Shock (PC)

    Tekken (Arcade)

    Virtua Fighter 2 (Arcade)

    Click to see the winning game.


    2004
    2004 was an interesting year for game graphics, as the PlayStation 2's generation of consoles had been around for long enough for developers to have learned a few tricks, while cutting-edge PC games gave us a preview of what the next generation would look like.

    Coming up with a list of great looking games was not hard (even if they might not be the ones that others would pick), but choosing a winner out of this batch will be more of a challenge.


    RUNNER-UPS

    Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC)

    Doom³ (PC)

    Gran Turismo 4 (PS2)

    Half-Life 2
    (PC)

    Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)

    Painkiller (PC)

    Click to see the winning game.


    2014
    So far every decade has looked significantly different to the last, but 2014 games kind of look like the ones we have now. At least, they do when they're shrunk down to fit in article on a website. If you stick Assassin's Creed: Unity and Assassin's Creed: Mirage full screen on two different monitors, you're going to see right away what 10 years of tech improvements will get you, and putting Far Cry 4 next to... oh no.

    Damn, I just realised that I'm going to have to install Far Cry 4 after all if I'm going to show off its graphics!


    RUNNER-UPS

    Assassin's Creed: Unity (PC)

    Far Cry 4 (PC)

    Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PC)

    Metro: Last Light - Redux (PC)

    The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC)

    The Crew (PC)

    Wolfenstein: The New Order (PC)

    It's just occurred to me that a lot of those games involved sneaking. I guess 2014 was a sneaky time. Also yay, no brown.

    Click to see the winning game.


    CONCLUSION


    Well, that's what I picked, though maybe you can do better. Here's a summary of the winners, to make it easier for you to disagree with me:

    1994

    Best Action Game 1994 - Donkey Kong Country
    Best Shooter 1994 - Star Wars: TIE Fighter
    Best Music 1994 - Donkey Kong Country
    Best Cerebral Game 1994 - Final Fantasy VI
    Best Visuals (2D) 1994 - Earthworm Jim
    Best Visuals (3D) 1994 - Daytona USA


    2004

    Best Action Game 2004 - Katamari Damacy
    Best Shooter 2004 - Half-Life 2
    Best Music 2004 - The Sims 2
    Best Cerebral Game 2004 - OpenTTD
    Best Visuals (2D) 2004 - The King of Fighters: Neowave
    Best Visuals (3D) 2004 - Far Cry


    2014

    Best Action Game 2014 - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
    Best Shooter 2014 - Far Cry 4
    Best Music 2014 - Shovel Knight
    Best Cerebral Game 2014 - South Park: The Stick of Truth
    Best Visuals (2D) 2014 - South Park: The Stick of Truth
    Best Visuals (3D) 2014 - Alien: Isolation


    I gotta be honest, I've given this multi-decade game awards concept two trial runs now and I'm thinking that it actually wasn't such a smart idea to group a bunch of games from different genres together and then try to pick my favourites. I like the part where I get to show off pretty graphics, I should try doing more of that, but the rest of this article didn't really spark joy for me.

    Though last year folks in the Super Adventures Discord took a break from winning 'guess the game / movie' quizzes to suggest an extra category. So here's an extra bonus award, with nominees nominated by you guys!

    Best Dog

    Okay, there's no specific year this time as I somehow have to pick the greatest video game dog from the entire history of games. It's a bit tricky when I don't even know what criteria I should be judging them on. Maybe I could go with the most iconic dog and choose the one that laughs at you in Duck Hunt, or maybe I should chose the cutest or the most powerful or the best animated.

    Here are the nominees:

    • The dog from the Bay Area of Final Fight fame
    • The dogs blocking the alleys in Shadow of Memories / Shadow of Destiny
    • The dog from Shadow Dancer
    • The dog from Silent Hill 2
    • The "dog" from One Man and His Droid
    • Dog from Half-Life 2
    • The dogs from the first Resident Evil
    • That dog from Resident Evil 4
    • Dogmeat from Fallout
    • The dog from Fable II
    • D Dog from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
    • The Mabari hound from Dragon Age: Origins
    • The dog from Duck Hunt
    • Isabelle from Animal Crossing
    • Blue Mary's dog from The King of Fighters

    Click to see the good dog.


    Alright, I'm done, for now anyway. But I know that if I leave it long enough this will eventually seem like a good idea again and I'll be tempted to judge the best games of 20X5. So if you've got any suggestions for an award and what games should win it, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Also, share your picks for what should've won awards this time.


    Next on Super Adventures, I'll be writing about some kind of video game and I've given you a clue to what it is on the left. There are 14,400 pixels in that little image, roughly 4,300 bytes of data, so if you can't figure it out from all that then I just don't know what more I can give you.

    Thanks for dropping by and reading my words by the way. It's always appreciated.

    3 comments:

    1. The next game is some form of Double Dragon.

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. Nope it's Scoop: Beetle Racing for the PC Engine.

        Hang on, sorry, no, you're right. The next game will be Double Dragon.

        Delete
    2. Action
      1994 - DKC for me too. That game is intimately tied up with Christmas 1994 and, oddly, East 17's "Stay Another Day" for me.
      2004 - Yes, Katamari Damacy, agreed. Great game. 10/10. Timeless.
      2014 - I haven't played any of them, but hang on... Shadow of Mordor was 2014? Alien Isolation was 2014? This doesn't seem right.

      Shooter
      1994 - I'll go for Doom II.
      2004 - I'll pick Battlefront, but only because it's the only one I've played aside from Halo 2, which I disliked immensely.
      2014 - Er... let's move on.

      Music
      1994 - Agreed. Some people say DKC2 has the better soundtrack, but I disagree, and it's also irrelevant to this exercise.
      2004 - Incorrect. Katamari Damacy has the best soundtrack of 2004.
      2014 - Apparently I didn't play anything new in 2014.

      Cerebral
      1994 - That's a tricky one. I'll go for Beneath a Steel Sky, partly because we didn't get FFVI in 1994, but mostly because I really like Beneath a Steel Sky.
      2004 - Pass. Unless I can choose Katamari Damacy again.
      2014 - ...

      Visuals (2d)
      1994 - Tricky. I sort of want to pick Ruff 'n' Tumble but I can see a case for Earthworm Jim too. Both of them win.
      2004 - None of them jump out at me, so I'll go along with your pick. Even though I've never played it.
      2014 - Um...

      Visuals (3d)
      1994 - Daytona does look lovely. I'd go for Doom II, but I feel that's in a weird crossover state because all the enemies are 2D, so let's go with Daytona.
      2004 - Far Cry is fair. Fair Cry. Ho ho.
      2014 - No, I give up.

      Best Dog
      I should pick One Man and His Droid to maintain my British retro credentials (I don't have any) but I'll D-Dog from Phantom Pain because he's a very good boy. Even if I didn't use him an awful lot in the actual game.

      ReplyDelete

    Semi-Random Game Box