Top 20 Gaming Lows of 2004

An anonymous reader writes "Gamepro has posted a story about the gaming lows in 2004 -- a fair roundup of all the junk that's happened this past year. Those poor smugglers..."

Comments

Re:They forgot to list...

[tomstdenis]

Um, you don't notice this trend? My 5200FX [which runs doom3/ut2k4/etc decently, sure not 300FPS but it's still good enough] doesn't even have a fan

For the curious it's the MSI brand of 5200 with 128MB of ram and 8x AGP interface. It has a massive [but short so it doesn't hit neighbouring cards] heatsink and that's it. The thing gets a bit warm during play but that's about it.

I'm sure the same calibre GPU two years ago would have required a fan + more power. I'm sure 2 years from now the 6800FX will be a "moderate" card by the newer standards.

So if you don't need excessive GPU power right now get a 5200FX series card. They're good bang for buck. I mean for 100$ [cdn] I got

1. nvidia GPU [e.g. works in linux with good 3d in x86_64 mode]
2. 128MB of DDR 400 memory
3. AGP 8x interface [sounds impressive]
4. Capable DX and GL support
5. Card that can play modern games, specially UT2k4
6. Drives a 1280x1024 LCD monitor at 75Hz ;-)

Tom

Re:Not all of them are lows

[MilenCent]

It was rated M because it contains two Mortal Kombat arcade titles, along with NARC. These were the games that kicked off this whole violence in games uproar -- wasn't it a Genesis copy of Mortal Kombat that Leiberman shook in the middle of Congress back in the 90's?

Half-Life 2 Collectors Edition Inspired

[FauxReal]

Half-Life 2 Cookie Edition.

Re:What about the Sam and Max fiasco?

[Black Art]

You think its a bad thing management realized how bad and unimaginative the game was going to be and they cancelled it?

That is not the reason that Lucas Arts gave.

Here is what Steve Purcell, the creator of Sam and Max had to say about the cancelation.

LucasArts' sudden decision to stop production on Sam & Max is mystifying. Sam & Max was on schedule and coming together beautifully.

I couldn't have been more pleased with the quality of the writing, gameplay, hilarious animation and the gorgeous 3D world that Mike Stemmle's team has created. The rug has been pulled out from under this brilliant team who've so expertly retooled Sam & Max for the 21st century.

I'm extremely frustrated and disappointed especially for the team who have devoted so much effort and creativity to Sam & Max. It's a shame to think that their accomplishments, as well as the goodwill that has been growing in the gaming press toward this project, will all go to waste due to this shortsighted decision.

Thanks everyone, for continuing to make your feelings known.

--Steve Purcell

The Lucas Arts press release (which you obviously never read) gave the reason of the cancelation as "it was not the right time to release a graphic adventure". In other words, they could not figure out how to sell anything that was not a Star Wars game.

Quality (or lack thereof) had nothing to do with it.