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The best (and worst) PC games of 2002
November 27th 2002, 12:08 CET by Creole Ned Recent reports indicate that the year will be record-setting for consoles and there's little to suggest that PC gaming won't be the same. There have been a wide variety of quality releases in 2002, so with the last few weeks of the year winding down, chime in with your thoughts on the best PC games of the year. Conversely, feel free to comment on those titles you felt disappointed or downright stunk. Here's a quick look at some of the major titles released, categorized roughly by genre: RPG fans had an unusually rich selection of games to choose from, ranging from the sprawling, single-player epic (of walking!) Morrowind, to the action-oriented Dungeon Siege, which sought to out-Diablo Diablo. Straddling a middle ground was the long-awaited Neverwinter Nights, the first RPG to fully incorporate the 3rd Edition D&D rules. All three games included editors and toolsets or had them available as downloads, further seeking to extend the longevity of each. Other RPG's of note were Divine Divinity, Gothic (technically a 2001 release) and Arx Fatalis. Strategy fans had an assortment of sequels to choose from. New World Computing released Heroes of Might & Magic IV. Qualifying as a sleeper hit was the hard-to-find Moonbase Commander. On the real-time front, Blizzard finally released Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Ensemble followed up Age of Kings with the fully 3D Age of Mythology. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 saw the venerable series updated (if modestly). Will the soon-to-be released Master of Orion 3 also be a worthy candidate? And has Irrational Games' comic book-themed Freedom Force been overshadowed by the big boys? On the persistent world, pay-to-play front we saw the release of Asheron's Call 2 and Neocron. Can either game stand out in an increasingly crowded market, one that will see even more titles come out in 2003? Fans of first person shooters faced an unusually high number of releases. Primary among them is Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, a perennial bestseller and winner of many rave reviews. It's also proven to be the most consistently popular shooter online after the 800 pound gorilla known as Counter-Strike. Competing with itself, EA also published Battlefield 1942, a sprawling multiplayer game with a focus on vehicles -- air, ground and sea. Rounding out the World War II theme was 2001's late entry, the occult-laced Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Raven dealt out a double dose of sequels with Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix. Monolith successfully returned with No One Lives Forever 2. Epic took the reins from DE to finish up and release Unreal Tournament 2003. Not to be outdone, 4D Rulers also released one of the other few old school shooters of 2002, Gore. Ahem. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter offered a better dose of "beauty without brains". Westwood proved that the Command & Conquer series may not work in an FPS format with the tepidly-received Renegade -- but is it an overlooked winner? Eschewing the first person perspective, Hitman 2 generated good sales along with controversy over its subject matter. Defying genres were Derek "Smartpants" Smart's latest opus, Battlecruiser Millenium, Rockstar's PC port of Grand Theft Auto 3 and, of course, what may be the true winner of 2002, Sponge Bob Square Pants: Operation Krabby Patty! Naturally, many titles are missing from the above list, including entire generes (sports, for example). What are your picks for the best PC games of 2002? |
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Topic: The best (and worst) PC games of 2002
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Heh. It's the same with Metroid... There are plenty of places in the game that I can see on my map, but that I can't get to (or, like with the magmoor caverns pre-varia-suit, that were too powerful). What I'm saying is that I've yet to encounter a time in Metroid where I was just going "okay, I have no place to go" for more than about five minutes... and I'm always wrong when I'm saying that, and the thing I'm overlooking is almost always frightfully obvious. It was the same deal with Fallout. -chris |
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Okay None, to make you feel better, they were both annoying and/or gimmicky. Happy? |
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2001 was an ass year for PC games. 2002 had very good games throughout. Nothing that grabbed me like DX or GTA3 (PS2 version) did, but a lot of good games. This year I picked up MOH, FF, UT2k3, H2, NOLF2, DS, NWN, JK2, and Mafia (maybe forgot some). I don't know what my GOTY is though. I've not re-played any yet and games I really think of GOTY's I replay (got through DX 4 times). If I had to pick one it would be JK2, once you got the lightsaber. |
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Getting the lightsaber in JK2 didn't change the fact that the level design was some of the worst in the history of FPS games. It just made that slightly more tolerable. -chris |
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That's the mark of a good game. Nothing pisses me off more than wandering around looking for something to do to advance the story... talking to the same people over and over to see if they've changed what they say, trying new keys on the same locked doors... if it lasts longer than a few minutes it usually leads to me looking at a walkthrough or uninstalling. |
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Chris, you didn't like JK2? Okay, that's n in the "for" column and 1 in the "against". Imagine the world in a bottle. We take that bottle, smash it, and open your throat with it. I warn you, we are murderous - COIL
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Looking back, I realize just what a disappointment NWN was. Not that it was a bad game by any means, but I spent all that time waiting for the Holy Grail just to discover that it was filled with stale Coors Lite. I will second the votes for BF1942, AoMyth, and of course GTA/VC. On a personal level, I have realized that this year I probably spent more time playing games that I warezed (Morrowwind, Dungeon Siege, WC3) then the ones that I paid for (NWN, UT2k3, 1942, Madden2k3). Is it one of those cases of "The more you know, the more you realize how little you know"? Or is it possible that I'm just not as smart as I thought I was? Naw... I owe me nothing.
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chris Add in the fact that it has the least annoying controls of any first-person console game ever, Ugh. No. If I can't look up and down while moving, it's shitty control. Having to stand still, hold down R, and then flailing about with the movement stick, I'm sorry, that's awful design. What's wrong with that little yellow stick? Can't it make me look around? What, was Samus too good for that? Did you ever play Turok for the N64? Brilliant control scheme: four buttons control forward, backward, and strafing, control stick affects view, Z button fires the weapon and something else cycled the weapons. Very basic, very user-friendly. Why don't console games today use that sort of interface? They all blow, by and large. Mouse and keyboard makes any console control look like a spastic circle-jerk. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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Agreed. I have NEVER been able to become fully accustomed to FPS controls on a console, which is why I usually play them only on PCs. Console control of an FPS is herky-jerky at best. |
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I'd love to say BF1942 is one of the top games, but considering that my machine--which runs about every other game that has come out perfectly--stutters like a retarded chimp attempting English, I can't say I like it. I shouldn't have to spend so much fucking time attempting to tweak a goddamn game. I might check it out when they put out the patch. Any faith I had in humanity has taken a train to Monte Carlo and spent the last of my savings on roulette.
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I liked metroid prime's control a lot. Could have used some tweaking, but I wish more games would use that scheme for first person. |
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I loathe your input. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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The last FPS I played on a console was TimeSplitters 2 on the PS2. I really want to rent it again, because I thought the controls weren't too bad, and I never did beat it. Any faith I had in humanity has taken a train to Monte Carlo and spent the last of my savings on roulette.
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Speaking of console FPSs, when I was browsing EB I saw that there's a Gameboy version of Doom. I'm tempted to buy it just to see how badly it sucks first hand. |
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Delightful. Personalization technology gone awry: "Mr. Iwanyk, 32 years old, first suspected that his TiVo thought he was gay, since it inexplicably kept recording programs with gay themes. A film studio executive in Los Angeles and the self-described "straightest guy on earth," he tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other "guy stuff."... "The problem was, I overcompensated. It started giving me documentaries on Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann. It stopped thinking I was gay and decided I was a crazy guy reminiscing about the Third Reich." Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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Shadarr Speaking of console FPSs, when I was browsing EB I saw that there's a Gameboy version of Doom. I'm tempted to buy it just to see how badly it sucks first hand. I picked that up before E3 last year in hopes of passing time on the trip there. Unless you want to explore new levels of pain and irritation, don't bother. It's not just that the controls suck, but the screen is so damn small you can't tell what's happening most of the time. "Quit whining you haven't done anything wrong because, frankly, you haven't done much of anything."
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The BF1942 patch was released today. |
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Warren, Okay, I was kinda lying when I said I was tempted (kinda as in totally). Mostly I was just looking for a chance to mock the idea of a FPS with four buttons and no 3D rendering (and to be fair to ID, Duke Nukem was ported to the Gameboy Color). I bought the GBA to play Mario games and 2D RPGs. It should be quite a while before I extend beyond that. |
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Golden Sun blows. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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Bailey: Did you ever play Turok for the N64? Brilliant control scheme: four buttons control forward, backward, and strafing, control stick affects view, Z button fires the weapon and something else cycled the weapons. Very basic, very user-friendly. Turok was the reason I started using mouselook over PageUp and PageDown in games like Quake and Unreal. It was the first time I was forced to use that kind of control, and I haven't looked back. Luckily, most new FPS games take advantage of the fact new consoles include dual analog sticks. Why Metroid didn't employ such a scheme I'm not sure. My guess would be that it would make it more difficult to enable all the features without going to some sort of secondary screen. But Super Metroid had a secondary screen, so who knows... |
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Golden Sun blows. Care to elaborate? |
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MCorleone - Don't get me wrong, the lightsaber and force powers are LOTS of fun. But the level design... oh, woe is me, the level design. Worst EVAR! It had everything I could possibly hate... puzzles with no indication of how to solve them (and no indication when they were solved), absurdly repetetive texture useage, switches that didn't look like switches, "stealth" missions (which we all know the Q3A engine can't handle), opponents sniping your from a hundred thousand miles away, massive areas that all looked the same combined with confusing layouts that made it difficult to tell where you had and hadn't been... hell, I even found several parts in the game where you could get to areas in the level that were strictly decorative, and couldn't be escaped from (usually by surviving falls you weren't supposed to be able to survive). oy vey! I seriously cannot think of an FPS title whose level design I was less impressed with. And I'm including gems like Blood 2 in that statement. I don't blame Raven. I blame LucasArts for giving them 12 months on the game. I'm amazed it was playable at all, given that timeframe. Bailey - Yeh, I've played Turok, and I've played Goldeneye, and Deus Ex on the PS2, and Halo, and blah blah blah. What I like about Metroid's controls is that I don't have to worry about moving and looking at the same time, because you almost never need to. FPS games do not belong on consoles, so I like the fact that Metroid isn't an FPS. It's a first-person adventure. I'd love the game even more if it were third-person, but as far as first-person control-schemes on game-pads go, Metroid is the one I hate the least. -chris |
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Shadarr Care to elaborate? The on-switch should technically be referred to as the blow-switch when the Golden Sun cartridge is in the GBA. chris Yeh, I've played Turok, and I've played Goldeneye, and Deus Ex on the PS2, and Halo, and blah blah blah. What I like about Metroid's controls is that I don't have to worry about moving and looking at the same time, because you almost never need to. What, did you play on some sort of god mode feature I didn't notice? Hell, the parasite queen: but for one part of the battle zone, you have to stop, look up, and L-click to target her weak point. The first Tallon IV boss: stop, look up, and L-click. It's ricockulous and gets you whalloped half the time. Alright, fine, it's fairly hard to impossible to die in the early half or so of the game, but regardless, it's sloppy and annoying. Why should I take damage for the programmers' lack of utilizing the GC controller to its full potential? As for JKII, while the SP was everything and more of what you described, you can't tell me some of the MP maps weren't complete gems. Particularly that corusant-esque level of CTF. Delightful. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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And it's a first-person adventure that involves non-stop shooting. Interesting definition of style. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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The on-switch should technically be referred to as the blow-switch when the Golden Sun cartridge is in the GBA. I'll take that as a "no". Anyone else have constructive advice on the relative merits of buying Golden Sun? |
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Blockbuster rents GBA titles these days. Quite a useful service to the handheld community. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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I haven't found it to require all that much shooting, really. You enter a room, tap the targetting button a few times while hitting the fire key. Room's clear. Explore all you want. Hell, you can skip killing a good 50% of the creatures in any given room. Regarding the bosses you mentioned - I didn't find the lack of simultaneous moving and looking to be an issue. I had slight problems with the plant with the sunlight reflectors, but only until I figured out what I was supposed to do. Then you just back up, hit the targetting button, and circle around. I never played MP JKII, so I really can't comment on that aspect of it. As we all should know by now, I don't really like multiplayer games, so that aspect rarely factors into my evaluation of a title unless it has to. It does seem, though, that Raven's multiplayer tends to outshine its single-player in just about every game they've made in the past three years. -chris |
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Thanks Bailey! I haven't owned a console in so long, I forgot all about rentals. |
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I totally agree with you chris, I can't stand typical first person controls on console games, but I like metroids. It is the best 1st person control scheme I've ever experienced on a console. I occasionaly found looking to get a lock on a bit troublesome, but all in all it's been far better than always have to look around everywhere. Bailey, you're favourite everything blows, you obviously didn't play metroid for more than a few minutes. She has a 286, Windows Millenium Edition, 2 gig. I think that is all I really need to go on, right?
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BF1942 patch came out today? I wonder if it'll actually make the damn game play fine and fit that shitty hit scanning.. Any faith I had in humanity has taken a train to Monte Carlo and spent the last of my savings on roulette.
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You mean the aiming algorithm, also known as rand()? "Quit whining you haven't done anything wrong because, frankly, you haven't done much of anything."
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Golden sun does NOT blow. I believe I can fly......urk.
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You're only saying that because Golden Sun is blowing you as you're saying that. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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TrunkDr Bailey, you're favourite everything blows, you obviously didn't play metroid for more than a few minutes. If you can get from the beginning of the game to the Magmoor Caverns in "a few minutes" on your first time playing the game, you're a far better Samus than I, and I bow to you on this. On the other hand, you're a moron who can't comprehend simple statements, so it's sort of a mixed bag of praise and scorn. Sometimes the porn gets in my face and says "Don't delete me, I'm jerkable." At which point I ask "Yes, but will you be jerkable in three weeks?" And the porn is silent.
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Shadarr: I'll take that as a "no". Anyone else have constructive advice on the relative merits of buying Golden Sun? I LOVE Golden Sun, and I'm generally not a cutesy RPG type. It's a LONG game with a cute story, nice RPG elements. I'm pretty immersed in it. "Went to eat my breakfast the next morning, the blues started to walkin' all over my bread..." -- Sonny Boy Williamson, 23 Hours Too Long
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What's wrong with that little yellow stick? Can't it make me look around? What, was Samus too good for that? This is the single biggest hallmark of stupidty in Prime that I've seen so far. I can buy the contrived explanation that the powersuit is so bulky, that's why holding down R and swiveling goes so sloooow, but why can't I use the yellow c-stick to spin the camera to my heart's content while I'm in Ball mode? Why? Why? I'd love to hear from one of the devs on this title, the answer to this precise question. Was it a carefully considered design decision? Or was it just that no one there ever thought that looking around the map was a good idea? I'm betting on the latter. Too bad I can't just, you know, patch in the ability. Yay consoles! So much better than PC gaming! HULAAGLAUGAHGLUAGUGHHL. Don't laugh -- you're next.
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"stealth" missions (which we all know the Q3A engine can't handle), Huh? |
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That statement confused me as well. What about the Q3 engine prevents stealth? I would think it's simply up to the licensees to add it if they want it ... "Quit whining you haven't done anything wrong because, frankly, you haven't done much of anything."
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please remember chris is of the "q3 has a massive engine flaw that can not be fixed causing all enemies to know where you are" camp. |
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Warren/YF - The stealth missions in JK2, SOF2, Medal of Honor, and RTCW are all worthless. For the record: I'm not saying it can't be fixed. I'm saying no one has fixed it yet. Since the stealth issues show up in a diverse set of games, from a diverse group of developers (2015, Greymatter, Raven), I'm assuming it's a problem with the engine... an assumption backed up by the fact that Q3A's bots aren't exactly the most realistic AI examples in the world. -chris |
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please remember chris is of the "q3 has a massive engine flaw that can not be fixed causing all enemies to know where you are" camp. Oh. I see. I was under the impression that Quake3 engine games could build a rotational matrix out of simple vectors to determine which direction an AI character was looking and that the BSP data the levels are constructed from could be very easily used to cook up a visibility occlusion system to ensure those characters couldn't "see through walls" and such, if that's what you wanted. But I guess I'm mistaken and Quake3 doesn't run on 3D math and data, but instead runs on some voodoo hocus pocus that forces AI characters to always know where you are! |
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Chris. Lemme stop you before you do something nasty to yourself. It's not the engine. My only problem with Bezzy is, truly and honestly, about one third of his longer, passionate posts make no sense to me. I don't necessarily agree or disagree, I just literally can't parse them. - Hugin
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The stealth missions in virtually every game that has stealth missions (with the exception of a couple of well known counter-examples) suck. The base Quake3 engine doesn't give you a lot to work with in terms of AI, but there's no inherent limitation of the engine that makes it difficult for licenesees to add such a thing. |
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What makes you think that any code specific to stealth-type missions was even in Q3A to begin with? Q3A wasn't a stealth-focused game. I'm sure the AI had a routine that determined if it could see you and one that could tell how close you were and that's probably it. "Is the internet making people less intelligent?"
"You mean like how video cameras cause thrown objects to hit men in the crotch?" |
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Okay, it's not the engine. Cool. Apparently the four companies just have mediocre AI coders. I really don't care what the reasons are. Doesn't change the fact: there are no Q3A engine games that have decent stealth in them. -chris |
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Jesus christ, you people are SAYING WHAT I'M SAYING. I'm not saying that the Q3A engine couldn't be used for a decent stealth game. I'm saying that it has not been used for one yet. I'm not saying the engine actively prevents it... I'm saying there's no code built in for stealth. ie: exactly what MattG just said. If you wanted to make a stealth game in the Q3A engine, you would need to write code for it... because the engine is not built to do it natively. We all clear now? -chris |
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There are also no Q3A engine games that have feature x. That doesn't mean Q3A will insert virii into feature x code to make it not work. "Is the internet making people less intelligent?"
"You mean like how video cameras cause thrown objects to hit men in the crotch?" |
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where did I say that it would? -chris |
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If you wanted to make a stealth game in the Q3A engine, you would need to write code for it... because the engine is not built to do it natively. Yeah but such is the case for virtually every other engine that wasn't custom-made for a stealth game to begin with, so why pick on Q3As engine? |
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I'm not saying that the Q3A engine couldn't be used for a decent stealth game. I'm saying that it has not been used for one yet. So if it's completely unrelated, why do you specify that they're Q3A engine games? For fun? "Is the internet making people less intelligent?"
"You mean like how video cameras cause thrown objects to hit men in the crotch?" |
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