Special Awards

In a year dominated by cool FPS titles, Painkiller has the coolest weapons by far: shuriken-shooting lightning guns, shotguns that freeze the undead, stake-firing firearms…. But the best of them: the Painkiller. It’s a whirling Ginsu of doom that gives off a satisfyingly creepy grinding sound as you mow down the undead. The alt-fire launches out and yanks bodies closer to you, thanks to Havok physics. Actually, now that we think about it, the whole thing sounds a lot like Robert’s office.

Best Weapon Runner-Up

The Vacuum, The Sims 2

PUBLISHER: EA GAMES DEVELOPER: MAXIS

We’ve all got annoying next-door neighbors. They overstay their welcome, say stupid things, and generally ruin your night. In the real world, you don’t have many options. In The Sims 2, you can buy a vacuum. A vacuum? Yep. With it you can suck unwanted houseguests up like a bunch of dust bunnies. We’re trying to see if they have a Darren-sized nozzle attachment.Half-Life 2

PUBLISHER: VU GAMES DEVELOPER: VALVE

This was actually an incredibly close year for judging the best music in games. EverQuest II has a great orchestral score. World of WarCraft includes some majestic tracks, most notably the one that plays the first time you enter Stormwind. But by far, the best use of music has to go to Half-Life 2. It helps set the mood throughout the game and ratchets up the tension to new highs. As Combine forces chase you through burned-out buildings, the music pushes you to frantically kick open doors in order to find an escape route.

Best Sound

Doom 3

PUBLISHER: ACTIVISION DEVELOPER: ID SOFTWARE

The best advertisement for 5.1 gaming is Doom 3; in fact, if you don’t have a 5.1 system, you might miss a lot of the game’s subtle sounds. The grinding industrial noises and creepy echoes that resound through the Mars base really set the mood in the game, and the carefully layered shrieks and the sudden sound of pipes hissing had us literally jumping out of our chairs.

Best Use of a License

LOTR: The Battle for Middle-earth

PUBLISHER: EA GAMES DEVELOPER: EA LA

More than a simple RTS, LOTR: The Battle for Middle-earth puts you right inside the trilogy’s world. The battles, the presentation, and the detailed units sell the illusion and blur the line between games and film. But this award hardly comes as a surprise. After all, EA’s focus is now on the Hollywood flash factor in games. This is the same company that is funding a special gaming-development part of USC’s film school.

Best Use of a Game Engine

Silent Storm

PUBLISHER: ENCORE DEVELOPER: NIVAL INTERACTIVE

In a year of impressive engines for first-person shooters, Silent Storm quietly sneaked in and impressed the hell out of us. By all rights, a hardcore turn-based strategy game shouldn’t look this good. Its engine calculates every detail—every broken window and bullet casing—and lets you see it all onscreen.

Best Trend

Good Strategy Games

Last year offered relatively slim pickings when it came to strategy games. We’re not slagging Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, but c’mon! Just take a gander at all the amazing stuff that showed up on store shelves this year. January saw the release of Silent Storm, the heir apparent to Jagged Alliance. Once we played it, the initial thought on everyone’s mind was “Strategy Game of the Year contender.” Silent Storm, however, was far from alone. This year saw a rebirth of the genre with not one, not two, but three really good RTS titles showing up in time for the holidays. Rome: Total War, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth are all great titles, and each is worth its weight in CD-ROMs. Now if only someone would pay this much attention to the floundering role-playing category that is dying a slow, painful death.

NPC of the Year

Dog, Half-Life 2

PUBLISHER: VU GAMES DEVELOPER: VALVE

For the second year in a row, the NPC of the Year award goes to a robot. So whip out a can of Rustoleum, folks, for man’s new best friend. For all the awesome facial animation in Half-Life 2 and good voice acting (sorry, Barney), a Frankenstein robot that doesn’t say a word but thinks it’s a loyal puppy is by far our favorite character. We need an expansion featuring him!

Worst Trend

Bait and Switch

You’ve seen this tactic used for years in shady electronics stores. Advertise one thing, then, when the suckers get to the store, stick them with something worse than what they were planning to buy. Now we’re seeing the same tactic being used to sell games.

Probably the most offensive example came this summer with the release of Activision’s Spider-Man 2. The console version of the game is a GTA-like experience that has you sailing through a virtual New York City as you bust criminals. All the ads, all the screenshots on the box indicate that you’d be getting the same exact experience on the PC. The only thing that’s busted with the PC version is the actual gameplay. It’s nothing like the console version, but rather a gimpy kiddie game excreted by developer Fizz Factor (the guys behind The Hobbit adventure game from last year). Of course, it’s our obligation to bash this game in print. We thought we were done, but THQ employed a similar tactic with The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie game