HF Retro Game of the Year - 2002 - Vice City Wins

[No Fun Shogun]

Vice City for me, but that being said I preferred both GTA3 and San Andreas to Vice City. The former might just be a nostalgic appreciation for how much of a whoa factor that GTA3 was for me, though.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Kingdom Hearts for me and its not really close. As much as I love GTA, it KH was such a spectacular game.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Easy WC3 vote for me.

It's also the only one on the list that I played, but even if it wasn't, I'd probably vote for it. One of the all time greats IMO.


EDIT: I lied. I did play Kingdom Hearts, although not all the way through because I didn't own it. Very fun.

 

[samabam]

Warcraft III, the game itself was a great RTS but what distinguishes it from most other games is the really great Level Editor...You could do so much with it, remember the first DOTA was made with the WC III Editor. Over the years I've had so much fun with custom made maps

 

[Ceremony]

Sly Cooper

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Mafia

 

[SniperHF]

Another 02 game I liked a bit, Starfox Adventures. Good Zelda clone. The last boss (and dungeon) were both terrible and hilarious though.

 

[Oscar Acosta]

Vice City for sure

 

[Desdichado93]

Many good games on that list. My vote eventually landed on MOH: Allied Assault. I also like BF1942, AoM, GTA VC and Mafia which are really good games.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Damn this was a good year. I played the hell out of a lot of these games.

Favorite games on this list would be Metroid Prime and Mafia. Battlefield 1942 most likely had the highest influence out of every game here. First Battlefield was also one of my most played shooters ever.

Vice City and Morrowind are overrated. I liked Kingdom Hearts but honestly I found the first one to be a bit of a chore. Second one flowed better to me.

Going Prime. Think it actually held up the best out of almost every game on here.

 

[samabam]

Battlefield 1942 most likely had the highest influence out of every game here.

I'd argue that...sure you could say Aeon of strife for starcraft was earlier, but the DotA map for Warcraft III was the base for the entire MOBA genre, so for games like League of Legends and Dota 2...pretty damn influential if you ask me

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

I'm surprised "Hitman 2: Silent Assassin" didn't make the list.

That game was great.

 

[SniperHF]

Battlefield 1942 most likely had the highest influence out of every game here.

I dunno, are there all that many Battlefield clones?

There's C&C Renegade which has some Battlefield-ish qualities, but it actually came out first. (Great game btw, well the MP anyway)

The Battlefront games.

Red Orchestra.

I think that's about it, or is there more?

 

[Painful Quandary]

Morrowind, I spent years playing it and there are so many amazing mods for it. My number two pick would be Eternal Darkness, I enjoy Lovecraftian horror.

What a great year for games overall though.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Battlefield 1942 was so revolutionary, can't believe that game is 16 years old now. It definitely gets my vote.

Same here.
Battlefield 1942 is easily the most revolutionary game out of the bunch.
GTA: Vice City is probably my favourite in terms of overall "fun factor." But Battlefield 1942 laid the path for pretty much every modern FPS based on its sheer scope in the maps, the vehicles, and the class-based gameplay. I still remember being on that aircraft carrier and seeing it sink when it got bombed.

 

[Osprey]

I liked Vice City, but it was mostly just a more polished spin-off of GTA III. I feel that a game should be, to use an over-used term, "revolutionary" to be Game of the Year. I mean, you wouldn't vote Armageddon the best film of 1998 just because you had more fun watching it than the Oscar nominees that year.

I dunno, are there all that many Battlefield clones?

There's C&C Renegade which has some Battlefield-ish qualities, but it actually came out first. (Great game btw, well the MP anyway)

The Battlefront games.

Red Orchestra.

I think that's about it, or is there more?

There haven't been many Battlefield clones, but the multiplayer components of shooters, in general, have been largely influenced by Battlefield. Recall that, prior to 2002, deathmatch was the most common form of shooter multiplayer. You could add CTF and other modes to some games, but with mods. Starting in 2002, the focus of online multiplayer started to shift to team-based, class-based and map objective-based play. Battlefield 1942 wasn't the only one--Medal of Honor: Allied Assault came out much earlier in the year--but it was the most successful one and had more elements that were eventually borrowed.

Today, deathmatch is dead and most online shooters have gameplay that isn't that different than Battlefield 1942 had over 15 years ago. You pick a class, get assigned to a team, fight and work together to take over a control point on an open map, respawn at a control point if you die and so on. That pretty much summarizes most online FPSes, even ones that, at first glance, seem pretty different from Battlefield, like Overwatch and Titanfall. It's a formula that Battlefield 1942 didn't necessarily invent, especially not by itself, but it really proved that it worked and that proven formula is still being followed today.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Honestly I would go out on a limb and say Battlefield 1942 and Team Fortress 2 were the two most influential shooters when it comes to how modern multiplayer shooting games work.

 

[SniperHF]

here haven't been many Battlefield clones, but the multiplayer components of shooters, in general, have been largely influenced by Battlefield. Recall that, prior to 2002, deathmatch was the most common form of shooter multiplayer. You could add CTF and other modes to some games, but with mods. Starting in 2002, the focus of online multiplayer started to shift to team-based, class-based and map objective-based play. Battlefield 1942 wasn't the only one--Medal of Honor: Allied Assault came out much earlier in the year--but it was the most successful one and had more elements that were borrowed.

That's sort of the thing though, I think the mechanics trends were already in play and trending that way. Especially on the team/class/objective based stuff. That it was a culmination of those things I don't think makes it all that influential.
Team Fortress , Counterstrike (Though the non DM modes really devolved to Deathmatch anyway), UT had assault mode which wasn't a mod, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001) 's multiplayer was the spitting image of a modern class based game. C&C Renegade. The majority of the development houses involved in the titles to come were stepped in that late 90's early 00's scene and were well aware of all this stuff. BF1942 added scale and vehicles. Players enjoyed it. I don't think it influenced development all that much.

BF1942 wasn't all that huge a hit either, in PC only terms it was a pretty good sized hit but MOHAA actually sold more. It was Battlefield 2 that really put the series on the map.

I think BF1942 gets retroactively remembered as a more influential then it was. It created a sub genre mostly populated by itself and spinoffs.
Diablo was a truly influential game. It created an army of clones. GTA and TES games have virtually every genre going for open world now. That's influence.

 

[Osprey]

That's sort of the thing though, I think the mechanics trends were already in play and trending that way. Especially on the team/class/objective based stuff. That it was a culmination of those things I don't think makes it all that influential.
Team Fortress , Counterstrike (Though the non DM modes really devolved to Deathmatch anyway), UT had assault mode which wasn't a mod, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001) 's multiplayer was the spitting image of a modern class based game. C&C Renegade. The majority of the development houses involved in the titles to come were stepped in that late 90's early 00's scene and were well aware of all this stuff. BF1942 added scale and vehicles. Players enjoyed it. I don't think it influenced development all that much.

You could make a similar argument for the iPhone. All of its parts were engineered by other companies and would've made their way into cell phones eventually. By the end of the 2000s, we would've had cell phones with large capacitive screens that replaced MP3 players, GPS navigation devices and more even if Apple didn't exist. All that the iPhone did was popularize that and establish a successful model, but we still call it revolutionary because it, nevertheless, influenced what came after it. I'd say that Battlefield 1942 influenced a lot of what came after it, even if, like with cell phones, it can be argued that we were headed in that general direction, anyways.

BF1942 wasn't all that huge a hit either, in PC only terms it was a pretty good sized hit but MOHAA actually sold more. It was Battlefield 2 that really put the series on the map.

While that's true, Battlefield 2's success wasn't because it was a much better or more revolutionary game. Its success capitalized on 1942's success. It sold 3x as many copies (including more copies in its first month than 1942 sold overall) because most of those buyers had never bought 1942, but had heard good things about it (from friends, reviews and so on). Sequels often out-sell the originals, even when they're worse than them (which isn't the case here, but does apply to other series; look at Dragon Age, for example).

I think BF1942 gets retroactively remembered as a more influential then it was.

Well, that's sort of the only way to evaluate influence: retroactively . I see your point, though.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Vice City has to be up there as the most 'fun' I've ever had with a game.


Happy to see Age of Mythology get a nod and vote.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Shit it's too hard for me to pick between these 3, so I am refraining from voting:

Age of Mythology
GTA : Vice City
Kingdom Hearts.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Vice City has to be up there as the most 'fun' I've ever had with a game.


Happy to see Age of Mythology get a nod and vote.

Massively underrated game... I'm not really a big fan of RTS games, but this one is by far and away my favorite one that I've ever played.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I dunno, are there all that many Battlefield clones?

There's C&C Renegade which has some Battlefield-ish qualities, but it actually came out first. (Great game btw, well the MP anyway)

The Battlefront games.

Red Orchestra.

I think that's about it, or is there more?

You can argue that games like Halo, Titanfall, Unreal Tournament 2k4, etc. were all influenced by Battlefield.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Let me know when you get to civ 2

Greatest game of All time

 

[Warden of the North]

Spent the most time with Vice City and Warcraft 3. Voted WC3 as it still holds up well