The Games of 2006 Awarded

It's almost the end of the year, and various organizations are handing out awards for what has been a very busy year in gaming. The Associated Press handed the top honor to Oblivion, while Gamasutra's Quantum Leap awards gave Wii Sports the nod for bringing the whole family together. Gamespy and Gamespot are still in the midst of handing out the prizes, but you can already check out genre winners at Gamespy, and Gamespot's list of dubious honors for games that only deserve the faintest of praise.

Comments

Oblivion

[MarcoAtWork]

I still can't understand why this game gets so many top honors, yes, graphically it's quite nice (especially with fan-made add-ons) but that's about it: the unrealistic and immersion-breaking item/level scaling decisions made when creating the game should definitely put it in the 'the game would've been great if...' category. And the plot/writing don't come even close to Planescape:Torment, also hindered by the 'every line has voice acting' decision made by Bethesda, which severely limits the quantity of content available in the game.

I know that with things like OOO or Francesco's the level scaling and loot issues can be fixed, but the reviewers ought to review the game as it was published, not after the community spends countless hours fixing broken issues (also look at the unofficial oblivion patch for a ton of bugfixes).

Re:Oblivion

[MaXiMiUS]

People get sucked in by the graphical hype, then spend 6 months trying to fix everything that's wrong with the game via the construction set. They're basically selling a broken game and the tools to try and fix it.

Morrowind was a much better game, and thanks to Oblivion, I can't go back to playing it. Morrowind lacks physics, which is horrible after you get used to Oblivion.

Disclaimer: I spent over a year modding Morrowind, and about 3 months modding Oblivion.

Re:Oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah. the best fix to the level scaling is the lightest and simplest, IMO: It's called "No Obsolete Loot And Enemies." All it does is remove the lower bound on what can spawn.

Bandits come not in full daedric at level 20, but in fur/iron with maybe a piece of glass or daedric once in a while. Lower level enemies never vanish, so you can get a bit of munchkinish glee from one-shotting that stunted scamp that scared you way back at level 2.
  And anyway, why should game reviewers not take into account the huge number of amazing fan-made improvements to Oblivion when deciding if it's the best game of the year? Where does this idea that they must rate it based on it's original out-of-the-box state? Are you going to disallow them to consider patches next? What if the game failed to run in the first 1000 copies that shipped, but the 1.1 patch turned it perfect?
  Rules are for Parcheesi, game awards should take everything into account.

Interesting List...

[7Prime]

I'm confused... they have a "Best First Person Shooter" award, but nothing for Sports, Action/Adventure, RPG, Platformer, or any other type of game, why do FPSs stand out on their own? It's not like they're particularly innovative in any way, and outside of the US, they're pretty much dead.

Some of these awards, although probably justified, seemed completely made up in order to put one game or system in the spotlight. For one thing, would they have given out a "worst console launch" at all if Sony hadn't bungled theirs? Or was this an "honor" made specifically to them. Let's just call it the "Blundering Behemoth Special Recognition" and be done with it. "best game on an old console", what old console? the PS2 and GameCube was the only game in town (besides 360) until last month, so obviously most of the games chosen would be for them anyway.

That said, it was a chance to plug Okami, which leaves me happy. Twilight Princess, Okami, and Final Fantasy 12 are my games of the year (in that order), but Zelda and FF12 have gotten their rightful dues (although I'll still stand by TP being the best game of all time, just ABOVE Ocarina of Time), Okami has been sadly overlooked due to low sales. Hell, I'd give it the award for "best use of PS2 hardware", as I believe it was one of the few games that was exactly what it was intended to be, without any noticable glitches or graphical compromises... it still would have been more at home on the GameCube though.

I am still sad to see Oblivion win, though, as it shows such a bias toward PC "style" gaming (even if was released similtaneously for consoles). And if we're going to go there, what about Battlefield 2142? From everything I've heard, that game is PERFECT, much less complaining from fans than Oblivion gets. And still, Zelda should at LEAST get a mention. When it gets an 11th place EVER from GameRankings (compiled scores of all major game publications), far above Oblivion and FF12, it just looks ignorent not to say anything.