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.
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 So here are my nominees for 'Best Action Game 1994', only slightly padded to get the list up to a nice round 10:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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':
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.
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.
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.
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.
Click to see the winning game. |
2004 |
|
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.
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 |
|
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 II: Hell on Earth (MS-DOS) Magic Carpet (MS-DOS) Need for Speed (3DO) 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:
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.
The next game is some form of Double Dragon.
ReplyDeleteNope it's Scoop: Beetle Racing for the PC Engine.
DeleteHang on, sorry, no, you're right. The next game will be Double Dragon.
Action
ReplyDelete1994 - 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.