A Few We Missed

On the last episode of the podcast we talked about our game awards for the year. Personally I wasn't extremely prepared for this show, and although I feel I mentioned most of the games I felt were worthy of discussion, here are a few I may have missed.

Best Game Value: The Orange Box
No contest really. AAA all around the board. Five games and pretty much all are worth the price of admission alone. If I made my top 5 gaming moments of the year, 3 or 4 would probably fall somewhere in this package. An inspired multi-player game, a classic retouched and revisited, a fantastic new entry into the Half Life 2 series, and one of the best games I've played in years. Each part may have been mentioned, but since all this can be had for 60 dollars, it deserves special mention.

Best Downloadable: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Xbox 360)
A game so good Microsoft changed their rules for the Marketplace. This is truly one of the best ever and now it has Achievements. Pretty awesome.

Biggest Dissapointment: Lunar Knights (NDS)
This Kojima Studio's game is the spiritual successor to the cult hit GBA series Boktai. Although there is no light sensor in the game this time around, Lunar Knights is often considered a blend between 2d Zelda and Castlevania. Kojima, Zelda, and Castlevania all appear in some form on my top 10 games of all time yet I really do dislike Lunar Knights. The combat and controls were way clunky and imprecise. To say I was disappointed is kind of an understatement.

Best Game No One Played: Worms: Open Warfare 2 (NDS and PSP)
It's pretty obvious why no one bought this game. Open Warfare 2 was very very bad. Terrible actually. A different developer worked on this version and it's a shame they didn't give the game a new subtitle. Many consider this the best Worms game on a console since the PS1 titles. It's classic Worms gameplay with all the strategy and humor remains intact. The online play is also great. If you are even remotely a fan of the series you must pick up this game. The PSP version looks nice, but the DS version has some really cool touch screen games modes that surprisingly don't suck.

-Brad