Quarterlies 2004
TomChick - Features - Comments - 01/04/05
Most Surprising Game of 2004
This was a crowded category this year. There were plenty of really good games that I didn't expect to be very good. Before I tried them, I would have guessed that Jak III, Armies of Exigo, Riddick, Ghost Recon II, BloodRayne 2, X-Men: Legends, and Leisure Suit Larry were going to be stinkers. Not so. I ended up really liking all of them.
Then there were some really good games that came out of left field (i.e. Japan): Katamara Damacy, Otogi 2, and Nightmare of Druaga were unique little trifles that were a absolute delight. And there were a couple of games that I thought would be good, but turned out much better than I expected: Political Machine, Joint Operations, Thief 3, and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 were very pleasant surprises.
But the game that took me most by surprise -- and that continues to surprise me because I keep playing it despite it flaws -- is Star Wars: Battlefront. It's no belle of the ball, dramatically teched down as it is to work on a Playstation 2. The interface is nearly as klunky as the bad multiplayer support. The shooting and the running and the jumping all feel a little, well, off. And some of the maps are nothing if not unbalanced.
But I don't mind any of this. Just as some reviewers seem to have a blind spot for Burnout 3's problems, I freely admit a similar lack of critical regard for Battlefront. It's partly because it uses the license so well. This is as Star Wars as you can get without dragging Larry Holland's ass back into game development. But it's not just the license, because I even like the maps that use those droids and clones -- those are clones in those Stormtrooper suits? -- from George Lucas' wretched prequels. So I'm not entirely sure what's going on to make me like Battlefront so much. I have a theory that it's two things: the AI and the map design.
When the AI isn't doing typical dumb AI stuff, it actually plays the game. It works the maps, it uses vehicles, it takes advantage of the different class capabilities, it follows you if you tell it to, it heals you when you're hurt. Other than Unreal Tournament 2004's Onslaught mode, this is the only game of this sort that actually works as a single player game. There's even a gratifying campaign game that gives it the bare minimum of a Star Control/Unholy War style strategic shell.
And since we're in the realm of sci fi, the map designs take off in directions that aren't possible for games based on the real world. At their best, they evoke familiar landscapes like Hoth, Endor, Bespin, and Tattoine. But even without the tickle of familiarity, there are memorable settings like the Normandy beach map on the Wookiee home planet, the spires in Geonosis with the beetle and spider walkers stomping around on the plains, the rolling hills of wherever those stupid Gungans come from. There's a lot of variety here, and even when it doesn't have that old school Star Wars vibe, it's a faithful recreation of an imaginative universe that isn't quite so odious when it's used as a place for a first person shooter rather than a backdrop for Lucas pissing all over the mythology of my childhood.
Okay, now that I've completely destroyed my credibility among all the folks who loved Burnout 3 and hated Star Wars: Battlefront, on to my ten favorite games from 2004.
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