HF Retro Game of the Year - 2003 - KOTOR Wins

Game of the year back in 2003?


  • Total voters
    56
  • Poll closed .

Big McLargehuge

Fragile Traveler
May 9, 2002
72,188
7,741
S. Pasadena, CA
2003 was not a huge gaming year for me as very little on this list appealed to me aside from SC4 & Rise of Nations, with SC4 getting my vote.

Give me a time machine and I'm all over Fire Emblem, but I've never played that one so :dunno:
 

Bjorn Le

Hobocop
May 17, 2010
19,592
609
Martinaise, Revachol
I liked Fire Emblem but it wasn't game of the year. For me, this is either KOTOR or SimCity, and I voted KOTOR.

Call of Duty started it all and was a very good game (that I bought and played on release) but also not GOT for me. It had a great campaign but the multiplayer was just OK in retrospect. Better than Battlefield and much better than Medal of Honour, but I never like the original Battlefields and MOH was really meh.
 

S E P H

Cloud IX
Mar 5, 2010
30,725
16,245
Toruń, PL
I've already lost a chunk of faith in you guys as gamers, so to make sure it doesn't get lower if Knights of the Old Republic somehow doesn't win this I just don't know what to say...

Halo 2 was revolutionary, but KOTOR will go down as one of the greatest games ever (it's personally my favourite of all-time). The story elements is what Uncharted duplicated for their series and people say that Uncharted is breathtaking.
 

Big McLargehuge

Fragile Traveler
May 9, 2002
72,188
7,741
S. Pasadena, CA
The problem with any licensed game is that it's an uphill battle to win over people who don't like the IP.

Yeah, I'm the freak that doesn't like Star Wars.
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,356
I voted for Call of Duty. No shooter up to that point was so visceral and felt so much like war. Playing it for the first time was the computer equivalent of watching Saving Private Ryan for the first time. It also helped popularize strong campaigns in shooters, whereas, before, shooters were more about the graphics engines, map design, multiplayer and so on. It had so much influence on games to come, including its own franchise, that we're sick to death of the IP and just about everything that made the original special, but it was all quite fresh and exhilarating in 2003.

I've never been able to get into Knights of the Old Republic. I thought that I would like it, since I was a fan of Bioware from the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games. I don't mean to sound elitist, but, compared to those previous RPGs of theirs, KotOR felt "consolish" and like a watered down RPG. It also didn't help that I wasn't digging the move to the over-the-shoulder 3D engine and odd UI and controls, which all seemed experimental and unpolished at the time. Perhaps I would've gotten past all of that, though, if the game had been set around the original Star Wars trilogy, which is what I grew up with. I've just never had any liking for eras prior to the original trilogy, and KotOR looked way too much like those awful prequel films, which was a major roadblock for me. KotOR is liable to win handily, and that's OK, but that's why it's never appealed to me and why I can't vote for it.
 
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Aladyyn

they praying for the death of a rockstar
Apr 6, 2015
18,092
7,213
Czech Republic
I've already lost a chunk of faith in you guys as gamers, so to make sure it doesn't get lower if Knights of the Old Republic somehow doesn't win this I just don't know what to say...

Halo 2 was revolutionary, but KOTOR will go down as one of the greatest games ever (it's personally my favourite of all-time). The story elements is what Uncharted duplicated for their series and people say that Uncharted is breathtaking.
2 is better
 

SniperHF

Rejecting Reports
Mar 9, 2007
42,632
21,042
Phoenix
I've never been able to get into Knights of the Old Republic. I thought that I would like it, since I was a fan of Bioware from the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games. I don't mean to sound elitist, but, compared to those previous RPGs of theirs, KotOR felt "consolish" and like a watered down RPG.

That's because it is consolish and watered down ;)
It's still pretty good though even with that.

FWIW it doesn't have anything to do with the prequels. It's the "long long time ago" of Star Wars' "long long time ago".

IWD is pretty shallow in its own way too. It's a pretty brainless game outside of the combat and AD&D system. A good combat romp with nice painted backgrounds but it's substantially inferior to BG and a less complete experience than KOTOR.
 

aleshemsky83

Registered User
Apr 8, 2008
17,797
424
Prince of Persia for sure. It completely changed 3d platforming (some would argue for the worse but not me). Almost every game after copied it's platforming puzzles
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,356
FWIW it doesn't have anything to do with the prequels. It's the "long long time ago" of Star Wars' "long long time ago".

Yeah, I just realized that and edited my post. I didn't really mean that it was technically the same era as the prequel trilogy, but, rather, that it similarly took place before the original trilogy and was heavily inspired by the prequel trilogy, which was going on and at the height of its popularity at the time.
 

McRpro

Cont. without supporting.
Aug 18, 2006
9,970
6,957
Clown World
Well I'm sure I'll be the only one who picks it but FFXI gets my vote. I had a heroin-like addiction to it for a long time. KOTOR should win though.
 

WarriorOfGandhi

Was saying Boo-urns
Jul 31, 2007
20,568
10,598
Denver, CO
I want to give Prince of Persia a pity vote because I love that series, with each game coming so close to perfection but coming up short: the 1st lacked combat variety, 2nd was too Linkin Park, and 3rd made it Pejorative Sluredly difficult to kill anything.

but this is KOTOR. It too had flaws, most notably the Saturday morning cartoon villain and Carth being whiny, but it was what Star Wars should be.
 

Blitzkrug

Registered User
Sep 17, 2013
25,785
7,632
Winnipeg
Prince of Persia was great. Combat sucked but you can definitely see where Ubisoft got the idea for Assassin's Creed.

I voted Wind Waker. Best Zelda game ever imo.
 

Trap Jesus

Registered User
Feb 13, 2012
28,686
13,456
Absolutely love Wind Waker. Holds up better than any Zelda game and any game from the early 2000s IMO.
 

Ceremony

blahem
Jun 8, 2012
113,013
15,084
Simpsons Hit & Run

Actually no it wasn't, it was Jak II
 
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The Nuge

Some say…
Jan 26, 2011
27,335
7,242
British Columbia
Went with COD because nothing I liked (Tony Hawk’s Underground, ESPN Hockey, Madden, Tiger Woods, Dark Cloud 2, Need for Speed Underground, True Crime) made the list
 

Pilky01

Registered User
Jan 30, 2012
9,867
2,319
GTA
I never played KOTOR. Star Wars has never been my thing, and the deeper into the lore you go the less I like it so KOTOR never appealed to me at all.

Voted Wind Walker as it’s the only one on the list I played and finished the story.
 

RandV

It's a wolf v2.0
Jul 29, 2003
26,831
4,924
Vancouver
Visit site
Freelancer, wow! You can actually get Freelancer for free and it's still playable.

I played it again about a month or two ago, and it's essentially the inspiration for Star Citizen (also Chris Roberts).

The character models/textures are a little dated but the space combat and visuals are still very good, the story and factions are interesting and it's probably still the benchmark for creating a space opera universe that appears lifelike and "lived in". Ships go about their trading routes, docking, pirates attack, police conduct sweeps. As a spacing universe it is fun to explore and has interesting economic and political dimensions.

There are actually some user-created multiplayer universes out there that are heavily modded and still entertaining.

Moving this to the right thread first.

Anyway problem I had with Freelancer was the space combat. Unless there's a mod out there to change it, they dropped the traditional flight/space sim controls and from what I recall just had you control the ship directly with the mouse. After playing Freespace 2 dog fighting like that just didn't seem very fun to me so I never got too far into the game.
 

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