Best titles of 2005... Your thoughts?

[Nusumenai]

All right. I thought this would be another fun thread idea.

 

What are your top three titles of 2005? Don't just list them, but give a brief discription as to why you think they merit the title, "Best of 05!"

 

3) Battlefield 2 (PC) - Yes, I know. The bugs, the glitches, the horrible tech support. The endless patches that seem to create as many errors as they fix. Worse of all, the horrible, horrible community. Despite all that, I found this game quiet interesting. Once you find a good server, with good people all those things don't matter anymore. It's pretty damn to play a FPS were you don't have to be a good shooter to be a good player.

 

2) Resident Evil 4 (PS2) - I felt bad not having this game. Simply because I own every RE (in the numbered series) that's been released, including two version of part two. I was initially a bit worried about how much they changed the gameplay. I didn't want something more action involved. I wanted my good old classic puzzle solving, zombie shooting RE damn it! But I was shocked. Despite all the changes it worked, quiet well to.

 

1) SMT: Digital Devil Saga 2 (PS2) - Man, I had mixed feelings about the first. Once I finished, I realized DDS1 had maybe 2 hours worth of story. Those other 20 hours were spent dungeon crawling and fighting. I hate RPGs like that. Truly I do. Yet, I felt compelled to buy the second in the series because the echo of the first story was still in my head. Though it did not have a lot, it made me want to learn more. When I started playing the second, I got myself ready for another dungeon crawler, random encounter fest. Though the game kept the dungeon layouts much the same, and the encounter rate was as high as ever. The extra tid-bits of story they added into each dungeon, the short dialogues, really made the experience feel rewarding. The story was very well done. Joyful at some moments and incredibly sad at others. Some of the scenes were down right heartbreaking since the characters had developed such a personally, I actually felt that I knew them. Everything comes together perfectly. It's the only RPG i've felt that was truly finished this year.

Edited December 31, 2005 by Nusumenai

[wacko_jacko]

3) Serious Sam 2 (PC) - Not as polished as the original, but still hell fun to play.

2) Tekken 5 (PS2) - I'm a big tekken fan, and this is the best yet.

1) F.E.A.R. (PC) - Good atmosphere, good graphics, good everything -> apart from that bloody securom problem anyway.

[Agozer]

I don't want to put these games in any kind of order, because I think it's wrong for me to judge my favorite games like that.

 

Resident Evil 4 (PS2) - Roughly for the same reasons Nusumenai gave. I love Resident Evil on the PSX, but started to lose interest when the PS2 games seemed to be the same thing with fairly little innovations aside from the slight graphical updates... I had heard nothing but excellent reviews about the GC version and how ground-breaking it was interms of graphics and gameplay, so when it finally hit the PS2, I was extatic... Only the game cost an arm and a leg, until yesterday when I got it cheap. The game is quite hard, but I've never been too good in RE games to begin with, although I love them all. It was kind of sad for me to find out that Umbrella really isn't in the picture anymore, although I guess it was finally a good move from Capcom to take a new turn in terms of storyline and put a new spin on an otherwise stale storyline. The gameplay changes are so so different from the older, more conventional games, that it sometimes feels a bit strange to play RE "the new way", but all in all, the changes are so good that the game's simply fun to play. Nothing like it to deliver some spinkick justice to some poor eastern european villager or busting through the 3rd floor window without taking damage and doing it with style.

 

And finally, RE4 squeezes the last bits of power from the PS2 and it's clearly one of the best-lookinbg games on the console, besides MGS2 and MGS3. The way some people say that the PS2 version is drastically inferior in terms of graphics comepared to the GC version is just ranboy ranting and total BS. Sure, the textures are less detailed, but not that noticeable and the GC version has better lighting effects, but who cares when you have so much fun playing it? Oh yeah, Leon Kennedy is the man, my favorite character in the whole series, followed by none other than the Nemesis.

 

[/end rant]

 

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (PS2) - I just love hack and slash games and DMC has always been top tier for me. The original DMC was pure gold, with smooth-as-silk gameplay, a wonderful soundtrack and one of the first games to showcase what the PS2 can do in terms of graphics. DMC2 wwas mediocre at best. It's looked better than its predecessor, but when Capcom tried to make it more newbie-friendly by toning down the difficulty with a heavy hand and basically removing a lot of the things that made DMC so good, fans lost faith in the series. DMC3 brough the life back, along with the insane difficulty that DMC was known for. Yes, DMC3 is ungodly hard in some parts, and may turn off more casual players with it's unforgiving bosses and even regular enemies in numbers. This game is no cakewalk. The grueling difficulty aside, I simply enjoy playing it. With an engine built from ground up, a kickass soundtrack, and a revised style-based gameplay system, the game is a blast.

 

F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon (PC) - I really liked FEAR, desppite it's shortcoming is the storyline. The engine looks wonderful and scales much better than, let's say Doom 3's. The game has probably the best AI I've seen in a first person shooter, or at leat up-to-par with Half-Life's special forces. The battles are intense and the mouch-touted SloMo ability gets its fair share of use. I love the references to The Ring and The Grudge, and while not too scary (although it is in some parts), the overall uneasy atmosphere drew m in pretty quickly. The second gripe would be the lack of enemy types in the game, since you'll be facing the Replica forces most of the time with some variations. However, thanks to the beautiful AI of these said troops, I never really felt bored during the games. Excellent experience.

[Wizard]

3) F.E.A.R. - Amazing start, got mindlessly boring in the middle, ending needed to be better, felt cheated.

 

2) Advance Wars: Dual Strike - Stratagy has never been funner, dispite it's cartoonish looks, it's incredibly fun and balanced. Story isn't that bad either.

 

1) Resident Evil 4 - Revitilzation. The previous issues with the series is you moved like a tank. The inclusion of some minor FPS scenes in CV were ok, but this changed all that. I love RE and this certainly put the series back into prespective. While others may miss the complex puzzling of the previous games, this is a step into the right direction and eventaully will contain it's predecessors' complexity.

[solidius23]

Oh man 3 is not fair lol but i will try

 

Resident Evil 4(ps2) This game totally blew me away. I was glad to see the more action less puzzles in this title. it gave me hope capcom has a little creative juice left in them.They did a tremendous job of porting the graphics over to ps2 from the gameboob.

 

Devil May Cry 3(ps2) this had to be a sleeper hit of 2005. the action in this game was top notch and a story that didnt put u to sleep. i also loved this game because i beat the harder jap version before i even touched the US version, when most of the reviewers on various sites and magazines were having trouble with it.

 

tie for 3rd Tekken 5 and Smackdown vs Raw 2006 (ps2) Both of theses games really surprised me because the previous entries for both of these were bad or just not up there. the designers went back to the drawing board and listened to the fans, and changed things for the better. making the games fun to play again. my only complaint is that namco needs to throw some online play into their games.

[Jaegermeister]

3. Area 51 - I like the sciene fiction atmosphere.

2. Land of the Dead - shooting Zombies... aaaahhhhhhh...

1. F.E.A.R. - Better than Doom 3, for me the best FPS since Deus Ex but the gameplay time was very short.I hope there will be a 2. part released or a add-on.

[Lucandrake]

3. Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - I just got this game 2 weeks ago so it still counts right ? Well, I play it about 2-4 hours a day now, so cool ^.^.

 

2. DMC3: This game is to amazing for words, play it, it's a good game!!

 

1. Gunz: The Duel - I know a lot of you hate it, but I'm still loving it, even after the hack attacks, I still love it, even after I lost 2 of my characters, I still love it, Maiet, you did something good releasing I-gunz.

[Agozer]

3. Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - I just got this game 2 weeks ago so it still counts right ? Well, I play it about 2-4 hours a day now, so cool ^.^.

I would have put this on my list if we were allowed to put more than three.

[Diso]

My list...comprised only of PC Games

 

3) Battlefield 2 (PC) - I enjoyed playing this war time shooter a lot. Getting into the gameplay takes up enough time doing various missions to win objectives for your team. The squad system is what I enjoyed the most. Leading your own squad into danger and succesfully capturing many objectives was probably the best part of this game. Vehicles were also fun to drive as well. (I still drove every helicopter/plane into the ocean/land).

 

2) Call of Duty 2 (PC) - Fun game. Got repetitive for a while somewhere in the middle stages and so. But they put in a lot more features that were enjoyable such as controlling artillery strikes and driving your own tank. The game was suspenseful pretty much throughout the whole thing.

 

1) Fable: Lost Chapters (PC) - This is a game I'm glad I looked into. A very fun rpg where your actions can influence your alignment as well as the attitude the villagers have towards you. Many moral issues of robbing or being good. Though in th later stages, the magic in the game got a bit too cheap for the game as well as a few bugs that you can exploit for your own gain, the story as well as the soundtrack were pretty solid

[olaf]

E.T. for the Atari 2600

[Agozer]

E.T. for the Atari 2600

I bet that the second one on your list would be Pit Fighter.