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Best Original Games of 2003?

Posted by michael on from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-copying dept.

PapaZit writes "It seems like most of the games that I purchase these days are sequels: GTA3 and Vice City , Zelda: Wind Waker, even Knights of the Old Republic and Galaxies built on the Star Wars franchise. What are the best original (not a sequel or franchise) games that you've played this year?"

9 of 654 comments (clear)

  1. Quick Rundown by R-66Y · · Score: 5, Informative

    Viewtiful Joe and Beyond Good and Evil are both excellent.

    Later,
    Patrick

  2. Best game this year? by N0decam · · Score: 5, Informative

    Eye Toy: Play - it got my parents, my inlaws, and even my wife's aunt and uncle up out of their seats to "Wash some windows"

    Awesome fun for the whole family.

  3. Best one I've *bought* this year by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    is Neverwinter Nights. Not sure if it was *made* this year though. I think you could make an argument for it being a sequel to Baldur's Gate, but in my eyes it's a totally new game :-) Oh yeah, and fantastic to boot :-))))

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:Best one I've *bought* this year by Dasaan · · Score: 5, Informative

      In the same vein I'd have to say pikmin rocked for me. Obviously not *made* this year, but it's the most original game I've *played* all year.

      --
      XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
  4. Viewtiful Joe by x+mani+x · · Score: 4, Informative

    By far the most original game I've played this year was Viewtiful Joe. 2d gameplay, best 3d cell shaded graphics since JSRF, slow down/speed up/zoom in effects, amazing puzzles, amazing bosses battles. Overall great mix of old school gameplay and cutting edge gameplay/graphical innovations. Totally original, totally great. My personal favorite game of the year.

  5. Orbz 2 by gregfortune · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seems like a pretty silly game, but I ran my demo time out and am seriously considering buying the full version. Orbz 2 demo and screenshots can be found here. Seriously, don't knock until you try it out.

  6. best original: Animal Crossing by thdexter · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's just like The Sims, except with adorable animals, and interior decorating is rewarded! The thing that sucks is I finally bought my own copy recently and now my mom keeps me up until 3:00 am playing it with her character in my town...

    --
    I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
  7. Yea, why no 2D games? Oh, WAIT by Inoshiro · · Score: 4, Informative

    There was that Viewtiful Joe game.

    And that Megaman Network Transmission game.

    And that Guilty Gear XX game.

    And that Half-Life 2D game.

    And Galactic Civilizations.

    And Mobile Light Force 1 and 2 (aka Gunbird 1 and Shikigama no Shiro 2, finally ported to North America!).

    And Ikaruga.

    And Risk.

    And Dance Dance Revolution.

    Or Disgaea, that game was isometric top-down.

    Or even Contra: Shattered Soldier!

    Well, gee, it sure seems like the 3D consoles and PC still get a lot of 2D games! This is ignoring the huge amount of 2D games that come out on the GBA, naturally.

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
  8. Re:Galactic Civilizations by Yaztromo · · Score: 5, Informative

    One problem -- GalCiv isn't particularily new or unique. It's been around for a decade now. In fact, the most recent Galactic Civilizations that you're playing is actually the fourth release in the series.

    The original release was made in 1993 by StarDock Systems, and was published by Advanced Idea Machines. It was released for OS/2 2.1, and took off in a big way. Many people switched to OS/2 just for this game. It had the dubious honour, however, of having the ugliest box art ever! . It came in 4 diskettes, with a "Shipyards" expansion released later.

    Then in 1995, StarDock produced "Galactic Civilizations 2", again for OS/2. They dumped AIM and became their own publishers -- resulting in vastly better box art :).

    1998 saw the last GalCiv release for IBM's OS/2 platform -- Galactic Civilizations Gold. Bigger galaxy sizes, an even better AI, and new game elements made it a big hit, but by the time of its release IBM's OS/2 was eclipsed by the vastly inferiour Windows 95 and Windows 98, and the market just wasn't there for it.

    I've been playing Galactic Civilizations for more than 10 years -- I was a registered beta tester for the original v1.0 release way back in 1993. It is a fantastic game, and it's designer, Brad Wardell, knows a thing or two about video game AI (when GalCiv 1 was released in 1993, nobody had seen anything like it in the AI department).

    The only sad thing is that it's taken 10 years for Windows gamers to realize how amazing this series is. Early on in GalCiv's lifetime, it's developer, Mr. Wardell, was quoted as saying that the game couldn't be ported to the then-current DOS and Windows platforms, because neither had suitable multithreading to support the games design. It's kinda sad that it's taken more than 10 years for Windows to finally catch up to what OS/2 could do in 1993.

    Yaz.