Warshaw Awards Celebrate 2003's Gaming Missteps

Thanks to Shacknews for their feature revealing The Warshaw Awards for 2003, celebrating "some of the worst missteps of the year" in videogaming. The awards are named after Howard Scott Warshaw, creator of the famously poor E.T. for the Atari 2600, and victors include Namco for R: Racing Evolution, which "eschews virtually everything that Ridge Racer fans had come to expect", David Duchovny for "quite possibly the worst [voice acting] I've ever heard from a mainstream actor" in Ubisoft's XIII, and the IGN gaming website for their "obscene McDonald's advertising campaign."

Comments

Phantom Console?

[Alphanos]

I don't know whether enough people knew about if for it to get an award, but a company has been claiming to be producing a new console called the "Phantom". Apparently their production facilities were investigated and found to be a very large, empty office with a single desk in it. Let the vapourware jokes begin:).

The McDonalds ad campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

Penny Arcade comic here.

Poor Warshaw

[thelenm]

I feel bad for Howard Scott Warshaw every time I hear his name mentioned in connection with the E.T. Atari game. It wasn't really his fault it was so terrible... they told him they had to have it on the shelves in time for the Christmas shopping season, and gave him about a month and a half to work on it. At least, that's what he said in this interview. A way overhyped game for one of the most successful movies of all time, and they give one programmer six weeks to do it? Even in 1982 that was suicide, no matter how brilliant the one programmer might have been.