Board 8 > Thirty years of video games -- a transience retrospective.

(+) Yeah! (+)

64 - 5,55....32,93 (N64s Sold)16% of N64 owners bought Smash 64
Melee - 7,07....21,74 (GCNs Sold)32% of GCN owners bought Melee
Brawl - 12,77.....101,56(Wiis Sold)12% of Wii owners bought Brawl
3DS - 7,04....53,07 (3DSs Sold)13% of 3DS owners bought Sm4sh
Wii U - 3,83....10,01 (Wii Us Sold)38% of Wii U owners bought Sm4sh
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BotW on Switch right now has to be like in the 80% range but that's not really fair

I would say it was higher but then I remembered hoarding scalpers
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I really like FFX when it came out but couldn't finish it because I got stuck, then spent the next 10 years thinking it sucked for some reason. Then I beat it in like 2011 and it became my favorite game.

SSBM and SA2 are also among my favorites of all time. What a great year
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2001: Final Fantasy X > Shadow Hearts > Super Smash Bros. Melee > Metal Gear Solid 2 > Paper Mario > Halo > Sonic Adventure 2 > Luigi's Mansion
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I really fell behind in this topic

1999 had Roller Coaster Tycoon (Which no one mentioned!!)
That year is automatically near the top

Also, Counter Strike technically existed in 1999. IDK which year it should belong

199 also had Crazy Taxi in the arcades. That game was a dope arcade game.
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Crazy Taxi was really ahead of its time, being first released in 199.
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Ah yes ICO

MGS2 & Silent Hill 2 as well. 2001 already better than 2000.

Final Fantasy X can go to hell.
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2001 easily 2nd best year for gaming.

HaRRicH posted...

Crazy Taxi was really ahead of its time, being first released in 199.

very ahead of its time damn.
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I'm still trying to figure out how Crazy Taxi included songs from the Offspring that weren't written for another 18 centuries.

Silent Hill 2 deserves a mention. That game is pretty much the template for a great survival horror game and almost every successful game in the genre these days uses it.
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transience posted...

probably. I think FF7 is in a little bit of a different league though. FF7 sold everyone on the Playstation as the Nintendo 64 killer whereas Melee sold Nintendo fans on Nintendo.

I bought a Gamecube for RE4 and Wind Waker, FWIW.
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azuarc posted...

I'm still trying to figure out how Crazy Taxi included songs from the Offspring that weren't written for another 18 centuries.

Noodles has a time machine and let the boys use it obviously
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2002
https://i.imgur.com/uUbdXKy.jpg

Notable Games:

Animal Crossing
Battlefield 1942
Eternal Darkness
Grandia 2
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Kingdom Hearts
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Prime
Morrowind
Neverwinter nights
Ratchet and Clank
REmake
Rez
Splinter Cell
Suikoden 3
Super Mario Sunshine
Warcraft 3
Wild Arms 3
Shenmue 2
Unreal Tournament 2003

transience's take:

1 - Metroid Fusion
2 - Rez
3 - Metroid Prime
4 - Suikoden 3
5 - Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis

Overall: 28th

Gamerankings top 5:

1 - Metroid Prime
2 - GTA: Vice City
3 - Warcraft 3
4 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
5 - Splinter Cell

GameFAQs:

1 - Metroid Prime
2 - GTA: Vice City
3 - Kingdom Hearts

Every generation has one year like this, where there's just a weird lack of great releases for a full year. The SNES generation was 1993. The PS1 gen was 1999. And the PS2 gen was 2002. No Final Fantasy, no Metal Gear, no Zelda and an uncharacteristically bad Mario. No new hardware and very few breakthrough games. It was even a down RPG year. Squaresoft, the company who murdered 2000, put out only one game in 2002. It was a big one, but still.

2002 is unquestionably the year of Metroid. It had been eight long years since the hugely influential and popular Super Metroid. Metroid was ostensibly a 2d series and the move to the third dimension didn't make a whole lot of sense. Do you make a 3d platformer that's nonlinear? How would that play on the Nintendo 64? Do you make another portable game like Metroid 2? The result was shocking - a first person shooter made by an American company. I was extremely skeptical. Nintendo went 'kiddie' during the Gamecube era - Mario's cleaning up graffiti with a water pack and Zelda went from the dark Majora's Mask to the bright and colorful 'celda' - and Metroid Prime seemed the polar opposite of that. What was this game? Wouldn't turning Metroid into a FPS strip all of the life out of it?

As it turns out, nope. Metroid Prime was amazing. It was somehow more atmospheric than Super Metroid. The exploration and music was incredible. It didn't really feel like a shooter at all. We coined the term 'first person adventure' for this game because first person games just didn't look and feel like this. (I think there was an element of pretentiousness to this, too - we wanted to look down on lowly FPS's and show how the glorious Metroid was anything but one of those.) Metroid Prime had rave reviews across the board and is probably still in the Gamerankings top 10. Just as important, it gave Nintendo a franchise that could appeal to more mature players. It wasn't blood and guts or anything but it also wasn't a game for children.

Samus wasn't content to just own the Gamecube though. Metroid Fusion was also the GBA GOTY. Fusion was a much more familiar entry for those who just couldn't handle the first person transition. Big Metroid fans (hello) disliked the linearity and the removal of series traditions like bomb and wall jumping - but it was also a really fun 2d Metroid game on a handheld. They hadn't really made those before. Metroid 2 was okay for what it was but the hardware was extremely limiting.

There were three or four other major games this year. Rockstar turned around a new GTA game in less than a year with Vice City. Vice City was even bigger than GTA3: more violent, more controversial and more popular. It felt like you couldn't get away from Grand Theft Auto in 2002. There was stories about murder in the news following GTA3's release. Jack Thompson rose to prominence right around this time too. GTA3 put the whole genre on the map but it felt like Vice City put it over the top. It was the best selling game of 2002.
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The third big console game was Kingdom Hearts. Nobody really knew what to think here. Square was courting the devil by teaming up with Disney to make a crossover RPG. Old fans like myself felt betrayed by the move. Why would Cloud and Mickey Mouse be in the same game? WHERE IS MY MATURE ROLE PLAYING GAME WITH FANTASY CREATURES AND ANGSTY TEENS. I can't stand Kingdom Hearts but there's no doubt that it was a hugely successful idea. KH would go on to sell almost as many copies as FFX, to my dismay. For the first time, Final Fantasy was not necessarily the biggest franchise with the most resources.

There were two big games on PC. Warcraft 3 was the big followup from the hottest company in the world. They were 3 for 3 in the eyes of most. Warcraft 3 didn't seem to have the same lasting appeal that Starcraft and Diablo 2 garnered but it was really big when it came out. There was a lot more story than in previous entries and the multiplayer was a lot more mature than what existed in 1995. I remember some friends playing Warcraft 2 multiplayer over a modem, but now there was the whole internet thing and yeah. It also led to the DOTA mod that started the whole MOBA craze. That hit in 2003.

The other big PC game was Morrowind. Morrowind is the first Elder Scrolls game to really come into my periphery as a purely console gamer. I wish I could speak clearly on Morrowind and what made it tick. It seems like it is the first truly realized Bethesda open world game. It looked good and the world was huge by modern standards. You could go anywhere, etc. Some people still swear by it today.

Other than that it's slim pickings in 2002. Splinter Cell was a big Xbox exclusive and was kinda sorta not really a rival to Metal Gear Solid. It had that hype for a couple of years but died off by 2006 or so. They put out a lot of Splinter Cell games over the years but I feel like none really resonated after the original Xbox era. A lot of the hype seemed to be from big Xbox console warriors too, but that could just be my read on internet forums which is always dicey. I thought Rez was a pretty fascinating and influential game. It was the first game in my memory that had an 'indie' vibe on console. Katamari seems like the logical through-line there even though it's made by a major publisher.

The Dreamcast was dead by 2002 but Shenmue 2 came out on Xbox here. I guess Shenmue 2 never came out on Dreamcast in NA, only EU? I never knew that until just now. Anyway, Shenmue 2 seems to be the greatest cliffhanger in video game history. It's either that or Half-Life 2 episode 2. People have been screaming for a sequel to Shenmue 2 for as long as I can remember.

A couple more notes: Animal Crossing hit in 2002 and was a hugely weird thing. I don't feel like many people knew what to do with Animal Crossing for a year or two. Is this a video game? Is it just a weird sandbox? What do you do? Other AC games came out over the years but I don't feel like any of them captured the imagination quite like the original. Eternal Darkness also hit in 2002 and was notable for being a psychological horror game that was on a Nintendo platform. I haven't played ED but I get the feeling it hasn't held up over the years. I could be wrong. The biggest traditional RPG in 2002 was probably Suikoden 3. It changed up the formula significantly - there's a castle and 108 guys but it's not the singular focus anymore. The real focus is on the three main characters that you switch between and experience the whole story. It was interesting but I much preferred the traditional structure of 1 and 2. Sgt. Joe was a boss though.

2002 - not the best year, but it had some value. Video games were flying out the door so it was more of a relative down year as opposed to a disaster.
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Another game that came out in 2002 to little fanfare, but has since gained a huge following: Shantae, on the Game Boy Color of all places
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would you really call it huge? I feel like most people like the new games (those that played it, anyway) and the GBC games are a nice to have.
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FF11 isn't 2002 here, just Japan
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2002: Kingdom Hearts > Ratchet & Clank > Metroid Prime > Super Mario Sunshine > Animal Crossing
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Black and White, FFX, and GTAIII. Lots of GTAIII.

and lots of Diablo 2, LOD. dear god.
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transience posted...

There were two big games on PC. Warcraft 3 was...
The other big PC game was Morrowind. Morrowind is the first Elder Scrolls game to ...
Other than that it's slim pickings in 2002

That and Metroid Prime and Kingdom Hearts. Yeah, that's all. =)

I think it's interesting you included Rez on the list.

2002 was a good year for having other hobbies for sure
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ssbm was by far my GotY in 2002

maybe pokemon silver too
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2002 Top SHINE 5


REmake - Hey to date still my favorite Resident Evil game. I'm pretty sure at the time I thought "no game will ever look as good as this". This is the blue print on how a remake should be done. I've played through this game so many times that it's probably the only game I can say definitively I can speed run flawlessly which I proved when the HD version come out and I streamed my platinum run. Also I recall this being the first game I ever bought with money from a real job. I did have a few one off jobs before this though so the game with that actual honor was Kirby 64

Super Mario Sunshine - One day some guy not named SHINE played a game called Super Mario SunSHINE. In preparation for the game coming out he wanted to be able to help people having trouble with the game because he knew he was the true Ace of Games so he made an account called SHINE GET 64. He never ended up helping anyone though because shortly after making the account he saw Mario and Servbot have a match and the concept was so absurd to him he had to check out the message board where people were talking about it. Then the rest was history.

Metroid Prime - Somehow they made Metroid work in first person. Retro were gods after this point in time.

Eternal Darkness - Picked up a Wavebird with this game. I remember enjoying the wavebird more than the actual game but sanity effects were so cool

Kingdom Hearts - I remember seeing a lot of pre-release footage of this but not paying a ton of attention to it thinking it would just be a weird one off. Boy was I wrong about that one. I remember playing it at my the house of my best friend's girlfriend and I was immediately hooked watching her play it. Didn't get to play it myself until a few years later though
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Morrowind is a top 10 game of all time, but ya 2002 is weak.
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This topic has made me realize that I never played games when they came out as a kid. Up until '04/'05, I seemingly was on a 1-2 year delay on games, based on their release dates.

I was 8 in 2002, and I was still playing late '90s PS1 games. Vice City and Kingdom Hearts are two of my favourite games of all-time, but there was no way I could have been playing them at that time.

If I really think about it, the first game I can remember being excited for beforehand and getting on release was Kingdom Hearts 2, which was 2005. That likely puts the date I got a PS2 somewhere between '03/'04. I'm sure there are games before then that I got at release, but up until that point, it was more of my parents picking out games for me.

My childhood is filled with nostalgia for all of these games, but my memory has clearly been wrong as to when I was initially playing them.
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obligatory "Play Ratchet & Clank" now that they're going to be appearing on these lists from time to time from here on out
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2002 had Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon, I am not sure how this year can be considered a down year.
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REmake & Suikoden 3 are really the only games I loved in 2002.... Rez was kinda neat. I never got into the Metroid Prime games and kingdom Hearts games can go to hell.

Actually Eternal Darkness was quite fun and while these days GTA games no longer appeal to me I had a lot of fun with Vice City I have to admit.
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This topic has made me realize that I never played games when they came out as a kid. Up until '04/'05, I seemingly was on a 1-2 year delay on games, based on their release dates.

I'm still like that. I almost never get anything gaming related even close to when it comes out.
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I didn't play much of Eternal Darkness, but I watched my brother play it a bunch. I don't know if there's a survival horror game that has tried to really replicate the types of psychological scares and horrors it brought even today, so I would imagine it holds up fine.

Its system for attacking body parts was maybe a little clunky, but clunky controls are kind of a thing in that genre anyway.
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Grandia II's first U.S. release was actually in 2000 on the Dreamcast. The PS2 version apparently has major performance issues.
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muddersmilk posted...

This topic has made me realize that I never played games when they came out as a kid. Up until '04/'05, I seemingly was on a 1-2 year delay on games, based on their release dates.

I'm still like that. I almost never get anything gaming related even close to when it comes out.

Apart from a few games a year, I do this as well. My wishlist is full of 2015 and 2016 games that I'm expecting a price drop for.

As a kid, though, I didn't even realize I was doing that until around those dates. I just assumed I was playing games when they came out, and not years after. It has essentially skewed my perception of late '90s and early '00s gaming.
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Metroid Prime was great. I kind of want to replay it, but there are too many games and not enough time.
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I never finished Metroid Prime. I literally got all the way up to the Ridley fight and quit.
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Cool thing - Square-Enix made a quick video of their latest FF14 raid, re-imagined in the style of Tactics Ogre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZJxYLoun7g&feature=youtu.be
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I saw that. tactics ogre fans rightly consider it the worst kind of trolling.
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It's not so much trolling as it is the director being a massive Tactics Ogre fanboy who is shoving Let Us Cling Together into FF14 as much as humanly possible. Even hired Matsuno to write some plot in the next expansion!
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2003
https://i.imgur.com/bkVU1z2.jpg

Notable Games:

.hack
Amplitude
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
Beyond Good and Evil
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Call of Duty
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
Dark Cloud 2
Devil May Cry 2
Disgaea
Eve Online
F-Zero GX
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XI
Fire Emblem (7)
Ikaruga
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga
Mario Kart: Double Dash
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Silent Hill 3
Soul Calibur 2
Viewtiful Joe
Warioware, Inc.: Mega Microgames!
Xenosaga 1
Zelda: Wind Waker

transience's take:

1 - F-Zero GX
2 - Ikaruga
3 - Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
4 - Warioware
5 - Mario and Luigi

Overall: 9th

Gamerankings:

1 - Wind Waker
2 - KOTOR
3 - NCAA Football 2004
4 - Project Gotham Racing 2
5 - Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Game of the Year Media Picks:

1 - KOTOR
2 - Wind Waker
3 - Call of Duty

GameFAQs:

1 - Wind Waker
2 - FFX-2
3 - KOTOR

2003 had a LOT of good games. I don't think it ranks super high on the importance/influential scale but there was something for everyone in 2003. KOTOR redefined the Bioware RPG, taking a traditionally isometric, high fantasy, D&D kind of structure to a more cinematic, third person, action-y kind of game. In other words, it was moving from a PC RPG to a console RPG. Wind Waker was openly mocked from the second it was revealed for its cartoony cel shaded visuals but ended up being a high-tier Zelda thanks to its gorgeous art and open exploration. The Prince of Persia series returned in 3d complete with a rewind mechanic and was really well received. The Call of Duty franchise made its debut in 2003, and while it wasn't what we think of today, it was a well-liked WW2 PC FPS. Soul Calibur 2 was a huge console fighting game hit, especially on the Gamecube where Link was playable. Spawn and Heihachi couldn't compete on the other platforms.

Two of my absolute favourite games hit in 2003, both on the Gamecube. I think of 2003 as the premiere Gamecube year. F-Zero GX is a thrilling, challenging, rewarding racing game that handled as well as game ever made and basically obliterated any other futuristic racing game forever. It has not been matched in the 14 years since its release. Ikaruga is only about 20-30 minutes long but every second of it is so masterfully crafted. Like GX, Ikaruga is a thrilling shmup that requires you to get good. Mastering the light/dark mechanic is rewarding as all heck and getting a good run going takes a ton of concentration. I can't say enough positive words about these two games. They make 2003 a banner year.

Hmm, what else. The GBA had a strong year in 2003 with Fire Emblem finally coming to NA and Warioware breaking everyone's brain. I loved the original Warioware for its simple d-pad + a controls and for its wacky concept. It's loud, weird, ugly and in your face. And great. The series kept going for another decade but they never matched the authenticity of the original. Mario and Luigi is basically just Mario RPG or Paper Mario - why are these not the same series? - but it had more action-y gameplay and puzzle solving and a good sense of humor. Konami had been trying to make a portable Castlevania that could hang with SOTN and didn't get it right until 2003's Aria of Sorrow. A new Pokemon came out, though it's usually considered one of the weaker games in the series.
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The biggest news item of 2003 has to be the Square/Enix merger. I could write a book about Square, but the FF movie came out in I think 2001, bombed, caused Square to post a huge loss and eventually triggered the merger. "Square Enix" still sounds stupid 14 years later and a lot of people just call them Square. My general opinion is that the merger itself is harmless and that Square was already going down a bad path, as evidenced by their 2003 output. They released a bad FFT spinoff on the GBA, a weird-ass sequel to FFX that basically took a somber classic and turned it into a jpop tour around Spira, and released an MMO on PC. Three FF games and none of them particularly popular. FFXI did end up finding a notable audience over the years but it was a huge departure from what made Square great. By 2003, their glory days were gone. Sakaguchi would resign in 2004.

PS2 RPGs kept on coming. The most notable one in 2003 had to be Xenosaga. Xenosaga was ambitious and crazy. It had Nietzschean subtitles, decided it was too high-brow to have a video game soundtrack and had some of the worst pacing in a video game. It was also setting up an insane cosmic world that was way beyond what we were used to from our RPGs. I mean, the other big RPGs this year are said jpop simulator FFX-2 and Disgaea which treats its characters and narrative as a complete joke. I really liked Xenosaga for what it was promising in 2003 but feel a lot less optimistic about it today. That game is just not fun to play.

2003 also had a new Mario Kart, Viewtiful Joe, Beyond Good and Evil, a new Warcraft expansion and the infamous Eve Online. Not a bad year, all told. 2003 is kind of the heart of the PS2 generation that is remembered so fondly by many.
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Oh god, Knights of the Old Republic. Aka that game that solidified my Star Wars fandom forever.
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Shoutout to Devil May Cry 2 for potentially being the worst major sequel in an up-and-coming series ever. It's amazing that the series survived after that - it basically took Devil May Cry 3 being the best character action game of all time (to this day!) to salvage that.

Good thing Capcom learned their lesson and never messed up that series ever again!
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2003: ...Final Fantasy X-2 > Double Dash > Superstar Saga > Viewtiful Joe > Xenosaga Episode I

man what the heck was this year
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2003 was real solid, including the Square stuff!
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Do people consider Dragon Quest to be a Square series? The merger happened 14 years ago and that statement still sounds weird to me.
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I don't even consider DQ11 to be a Square-Enix game. it's weird
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Seeing NCAA reminds me of a random point only I care about

If you ask people their favorite madden or one big memory, I would wager Michael Vick in Madden 04 would be it
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Dr_Football posted...

If you ask people their favorite madden

I've always been partial to 2003
Turning that puppy on to Party Hard gets your blood pumping

This reminds me that one of the best games from 2001 was NHL Hitz 2002. KEEP ROLLIN' BABY
One year I went over my friend's house and played NHL Hitz on his Gamecube nearly every day for at least a year.
It was the best
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