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Leipzig 08's "Best" Games
Organizers for this week's Leipzig GC in Germany announced the winners of the "Best of GC" awards, and all seem like pretty safe bets.
The list includes sure-fires like Spore and LittleBigPlanet, but one notable omission was Bethesda's Fallout 3, which topped the Game Critic's group "Best of E3" list, and is widely recognized as one of the most anticipated games of the year.
And it's not as if the German market has an aversion to Bethesda's RPGs. When the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion launched in 2006, it topped the charts in the country.
On Friday, Bethesda PR VP Pete Hines told Edge he was unaware of the awards results, adding he doesn't have "the foggiest idea" why Fallout 3 wouldn't be recognized.
A rep for Leipzig GC simply stated, "Fallout 3 was nominated in the categories: PC and Xbox 360. However, the jury decided to award in both cases another game."
Nevertheless, nine worthy winners did make Leipzig GC's list, amongst stiff competition:
Best PC Game:
Spore - EA
Best Xbox 360 Game:
Mirror's Edge - EA
Best PSP Game:
Resistance: Retribution - Sony
Best PS3 Game:
LittleBigPlanet - Sony
Best Wii Game:
Skate It - EA
Best DS Game:
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood - Sega
Best Mobile game:
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 - Konami
Best Online Game:
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - EA
Best Hardware:
PlayTV - Sony
Best PS2 Game:
Too few entrants; no award.
Update: Added comment from Leipzig GC.
EA must be very happy. Their announced focus on "quality rather than ship date" seems to bring fruits. 4 of these games are theirs, Sonic Dark Brotherhood is developed by one of their studios (BioWare) and they seem to be the only company able to top first-party offerings on any console.
Best PS2 Game:
Too few entrants; no award.
That makes me a sad panda. Still not ready for the PS2 to retire.
You're not ready for the 2 1/2 generation old PS2 to retire? I retired mine after I got the first xbox and I realized it was at least a half generation ahead of the PS2 (HDD built in, network card built in, way faster GPU and CPU). Shoot, even the gamecube was significantly more powerful than the overrated (hardware-wise) PS2 even though there weren't too many games that showcased it. Move on already bro (unless you mean not ready for it to retire from a sentimental point of view?).
Not everything has to be bleeding edge to be enjoyed. I have a 360, PS3, and a Wii but a lot of my favorite games were on PS2 and the fact that new software hits that platform priced @ $39.99 or less is also nice. And it still has the largest library of all the consoles. I'm not so willing to shell out $60 for a new game. I know an Accord isn't a Ferrari but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.
Fair enough.
PS2's hardware overrated? the system's best looking games were exclusives that soundly competed with Gamecube's best, and even some of XBox's. i too think it's time to retire the system, but i'll in no way degrade it's legacy by calling any facet of it overrated.
in any event, about the only thing that surprises me on this particular "Best of" list is the absence of Fallout 3. not necessarily that it's my personal most awaited game, just that it's gotten so much hype from various media sources. would've been cool to see the list broken down by genres and catagories (best graphics, music, technology etc); but still, i never really placed much stock in this stuff anyway. with the exception of LittleBigPlanet and Mirror's Edge, my absolute most awaited games (Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Rock Band 2, inFamous, WKC and Dead Space) don't even appear on this list.
The PS2 did have some decent looking games, but THE best looking games on xbox trounced the best of what PS2 had to offer (I hope you're not referring to Final Fantasies CG cut scenes). Riddick (which the developer stated when they tried to port it to the PS2 they couldn't get it to run, so they canned it), Halo 2, Doom III (again, no PS2 port due to hardware limitations), and the Splinter Cell games took a huge hit on the PS2 (no real-time lighting/shadow effect, they had light and shadow, but there were fixed (faked), no self-shadowing, no anti-aliasing). Even Resident Evil 4 (which was thought couldn't even run on the PS2) looked better on the gamecube. I'm not saying the PS2 didn't have good looking games, but to say any PS2 game looked better than the xbox's best is just silly. What happened was is because the PS2 was the default system, 3rd parties would program for it, then port to the xbox so it didn't fully utilize the xbox (similar to what happened to the PS3 earlier in its life cycle, just the other way around). I know you said exclusives, so you must be referring to metal gear, god of war, ummm..grand turismo, Tekken?, um...Ratchet and clank?, ICO, shadow of colossus?, and you can't be referring to the frame-rate death of Killzone? Well, the PS2 was a monster, but either way, Sony did overhype (they claimed the PS2's processor named "emotion engine" would produce Toy Story quality graphics...hmm, unmet promises aside, the PS2 wasn't TERRIBLE (hardware-wise).
Ok, after re-reading your post, you did say "soundly competed" not "looked better". So I could agree there, some developers were able to pull off some nice looking games late in its life-cycle. But a fraction of a percentage of the games that did look good isn't a representation of the norm on the system.