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VE: PC Games of the Year 2004
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Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
VE3D.com has their best picks of 2004 in the PC gaming arena. These are poll results. Individual awards were handed per category as well.
1) Half-Life 2 - Developed by Valve, Published by VU Games.
2) World of Warcraft - Developed by Blizzard, Published by VU Games
3) Far Cry - Developed by Crytek, Published by Ubisoft
4) Doom 3 - Developed by id, Published by Activision
5) Unreal Tournament 2004 - Developed by Epic Games, Published by Atari
6) The Chronicles of Riddick - Developed by Starbreeze, Published by VU Games
7) Rome: Total War - Developed by Creative Assembly, Published by Activision
8) Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodines - Developed by Troika, Published by Activision
9) EverQuest II - Developed by SOE, Published by SOE
10) Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Developed by Relic, Published by THQ
11) Thief: Deadly Shadows - Developed by ION Storm, Published by Eidos
12) Sid Meier's Pirates! - Developed by Firaxis, Published by Atari
13) City of Heroes - Developed by Cryptic, Published by Ncsoft
14) Battlefield Vietnam - Developed by D.I.C.E., Published by EA
15) Call of Duty: United Offensive - Developed by Gray Matter, Published by Activision
16) Tribes: Vengeance - Developed by Irrational, Published by VU Games
17) Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth - Developed by EA, Published by EA
18) The Sims 2 - Developed by Maxis, Published by EA
19) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow - Developed by Ubisoft, Published by Ubisoft
20) Painkiller & Battle Out of Hell - Developed by People Can Fly, Published by Dreamcatcher
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
I think i'm going to pick up Farcry and Riddick later on in January. That is if I ever get sick of fragging people with toilets and barrels in HL2.
Posted by: Brucey
Anyone played WoW and Everquest?
I have played Eq for years, but my Brother is trying to get me to change, Is there any siginificant difference...I can't see it from the websites.
Posted by: SKYHN
Farcry #3??? That game is a piece of crap! It shouldnt even be in the top 100.
Posted by: NoMaD
The Chronicles of Riddick Escape From Butcher Bay is a good game. I got the Developer's cut on PC. It's a very fun game, plus it comes with all kinds of neat extras you can unlock like concept art and stuff from the movie. And it even has a neat commentary mode :P
Posted by: Boggy B
I was expecting to see Halo 2 in there. Although i'm glad it's not, it was just well marketed, not actually a particuarly fantastic game. Not to mention it was too bloody short.
Sims 2 is the only entry that i'm really dissapointed with, but it was almost certainly going to be there somewhere.
EDIT: Actually, Painkiller would make an easy second. It was just plain poor, i reckon.
Far Cry wasn't such a good game, but the engine and graphics were great, that's got to count for something. Still, #3 seems a bit much, yes.
Posted by: SKYHN
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Originally Posted by Boggy B
I was expecting to see Halo 2 in there. Although i'm glad it's not, it was just well marketed, not actually a particuarly fantastic game. Not to mention it was too bloody short.
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Im glad Halo 2 wasnt on there either, seeing as how it was for Xbox and not PC 
Posted by: Gunslinger
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Originally Posted by SKYHN
Farcry #3??? That game is a piece of crap! It shouldnt even be in the top 100.
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Uh, Farcry rocked.
Posted by: Superfly3176
ut2k4>farcry>doom 3
Posted by: TheHairyOne
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Originally Posted by Brucey
Anyone played WoW and Everquest?
I have played Eq for years, but my Brother is trying to get me to change, Is there any siginificant difference...I can't see it from the websites.
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I had played EQ since 1999, but I left EQ in early 2004. I got into the City of Heroes Beta in early April. I played it non-stop til WoW released. Since WoW released, I am now torn between two excellent MMORPGs.
Significant (IMHO) differences between EQ and WoW:
Spawn Contention: My number one beef with EQ was spawn contention. Boss mobs on 30 minute-6hr spawn timers with place holder mobs (ie, you don't always get the boss when the spawn pops. Raid content on a week long spawn timer. This sort of idiocy in game design caused many problems in EQ and established bad precedents. In WoW, at least through the leveling grind, there is little spawn contention. Worst I have had happen, I spent 30 minutes clearing to a difficult boss mob. On the last clear pull, a group ran by my group and took out the boss we were after. We afk'd for a few minutes, recleared the garbage spawns around the boss, then took out the boss when he popped FIVE MINUTES LATER! Further, all the dungeons are instanced, which means NO contention at all! No placeholders, no hours of waiting, no arguing with other groups about who is entitled to try to take out the boss = BIG BIG BIG difference!
Game Pace: EQ was a slow game. Combats were slow and dull. Raid encounters were glacial sometimes (30 minutes to kill one mob?!?!). WoW is much faster paced. Combat is much more like a FPS than an MMO. Standard spawn timer is 5 minutes (less with some stuff, alot more in instanced dungeons (thou these can be reset easily enough. When reset, they pop full spawn including bosses, which means you can clear a dungeon over and over with no waiting, if that is your desire) compared with a standard 20 minute timer for common mobs in EQ (30-2hrs for bosses generally, thou usually PHs are involved).
Gear Acquisition: This is hard to compare, since I don't have a max level char in WoW nor have I done any raid content. However, the basic dynamics of loot are very different in the stuff I have seen. In EQ, good gear came from boss mobs, RARE random drops, and long PITA quests. In WoW, ANYTHING can drop good gear. Boss mobs in WoW DO have loot tables, but any mob of similar level can drop gear that is JUST AS GOOD. This dynamic will probably break down when you hit end game content (ie, I doubt you get raid level gear from common mobs). However, with the lack of spawn contention and respawn timers the way they are, your ability to acquire gear is limited by your play time, not the availability of the mobs that drop it.
Quests: Irony of ironies...EverQuest has a crappy quest system. WoW's is pretty darn good. Why? In EQ you have to talk to random people to find quests, even when you find them, what you have to do isn't usually clear from the quest text. In WoW, NPCs with level appropriate quests have big gold ! marks over their heads. NPCs who will offer you quests in the next 2-3 levels have a big silver ! mark over their heads. When you have completed the steps of the quest, the relevant NPC for the turn in has a big gold ? above their head. You have a quest log that allows for 20 active quests. Open the log and you get a clear description of where you need to go, what you need to do, and your current progress in the quest. Quests give excellent XP and usually money/items as well. Some quests are progressive, ie quest giver asks you to kill 10 orc pawns and offers some cash. When you complete that quest he offers you a new one, like kill 10 orc slavers, but with a better reward. Then he offers you one for Legionaires, again with a better reward. Finally he wants the head of Emperor Crush...and he is offering you a major item for completion. Each quest can only be completed once.
Travel: EQ in its current state is MUCH better than WoW. But WoW is still superior to the original EQ at release. The differences: Lots of transport routes in WoW vs druid/wiz circles in EQ. You pay a small fee and off you go. In old EQ you had to wait for a PC to transport you. In WoW, speed increases (horses and movement buffs like SoW) don't come til level 40 vs 14 in EQ, however you generally don't have as much running to do in WoW as you did in EQ. Group TPs become available at 40 vs level 20 in EQ. Call of Hero type power is available at 20 (I think) vs 56 in EQ (and CoH wasn't available in the original release). Further, WoW CoH will allow you to pull someone from ANYWHERE to you. Bottom line: travel in EQ is currently better, but WoW is superior when you compare states at launch. I expect that WoW will quickly surpass EQ in this department as well once the game matures.
Tradeskilling: In WoW, no lost components during combines! In general, its MUCH easier to level a tradeskill in WoW than it is in EQ. Further the stuff you produce from the tradeskills is good gear. It was a LONG time before EQ tradeskills had wearable gear outside of jewelers.
I could go on... 8)
Posted by: SKYHN
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Originally Posted by Gunslinger
Uh, Farcry rocked.
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You seriously liked it? I felt like I was playing a tech demo, that really sucked.
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