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Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords Shorter, uglier, buggier, easier, more obvious, and less engaging than KOTOR1, with uninteresting characters, some absolutely ridiculous evil overlords, and fully half of your entourage being made up of blind women or robots. This still makes it better than most games released lately. Star Wars Battlefront The amount of fun I gleaned from the levels in this game is directly proportional to how fondly I remember the corresponding scenes from the movies. Flying around Hoth shooting at AT-ATs is great, but a game would have to work really, really hard to screw that up. When the scene shifts to a planet with no basis in the movies, the game is a boring, uninspired Battlefield 1942 clone. I can understand why Lucasarts decided to make nothing but Star Wars games: throw in some stormtroopers and lightsabers and you can get away with a lot. This game is the perfect example. Doom 3 id Software was angry that Half-Life copied Doom's plot, so Doom 3 copied Half-Life's everything. Then id remembered they had a reputation to uphold so they added lots of moody shadows and dismembered corpses. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow A game about an aging government spy who heroically carries out his mission despite the onset of Parkinson's. It ruins the point of pretending to be a badass ninja operative when even I can throw a rock further than his girly ass. Sure, Sam Fisher can hang from ceilings and scale sheer walls, but you only do it about five times in the entire game. The rest of the time is spent jogging from shadow to shadow and watching your pistol aim shake like jello. Beyond Good and Evil From the creator of Rayman and Rayman 2, which is to say that no one has ever heard of him. When this came out every game reviewer made a Nietzsche joke in an attempt to impress all their game reviewer friends. As if people who read about video games have any fucking clue who Nietzsche is, but apparently the game has nothing to do with some book I've never heard of. The fact that the game was made by the French didn't surprise me, because it seemed very classy, but stopped abruptly as soon as the immediate threat to the hero's home planet was defeated. Never mind that the bad guys are probably dominating dozens of other planets, as soon as you're in no immediate danger it's time to sit on your hands, right guys? Gish There are certain independent games which become some sort of cause celebre as every game blogger rushes to heap praise upon them. I was stupid enough to buy Pontifex back when that was the "hip" indie game. A month later I saw the charge on my credit card bill and realized I had already forgotten about it. Gish is made by the same people and it's actually pretty good, but I still want my money back for Virtua Stick Breaking. Thief: Deadly Shadows Better than Deus Ex 2, although that's not saying much. Worse than Thief and Thief 2, though that's not saying much. Far Cry An annoying and boring hero ventures to save an annoying and boring woman on an island filled with annoying and boring mutants. The graphics are lush and the huge levels are a welcome change but I got real fed up the ninth time I was hit square on the nose by a rocket launched by a guy hidden behind a bush 400 yards away. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Probably the best game of the year despite the dark side / light side system, which clubs you over the head with such non-thought-provoking dialog choices as "Don't worry ma'am, I'll find your lost dog for you right away" versus "Maybe I'll eat your dog after I murder you and rape your corpse." Deus Ex: Invisible War Retarded plot twists No one will ever hate you "D stands for Denton!!!" Call of Duty A very exciting movie!! Clive Barker's Undying I tried to think of a clever pun on the title but nothing really worked. "Clive Barker's Unfun?" "Clive Barker's Unscary?" "Clive Barker's Unnecessary?" Whatever, this game sucks. |