What are your picks so far for game of the year?
 

Just interested to know what games you would choose, any outstanding titles? Games that left you breathless, etc, etc?

I guess my pick of the year yet so far would have to be Star Wars: KOTOR (XBOX). It had the right mix of fun gameplay, good story, lots of customization, great music, and my wife can play it without tossing the controller at the screen in frustration.

So what are your picks??

Ian

Masters of Orion II: Battle at Antares

Wario Ware

I can play it on the can so it gets bonus points.

The year's not over yet so we've still got to wait.

Zelda Windwaker

Zelda: Wind Waker.. while it had a couple of minor flaws (too few dungeons, sailing sometimes get boring, diffuculty on the light side), the game is otherwise perfect. Easily the best graphics I've ever seen in a video game, an interesting story to an old franchise, rock-solid gameplay, excellent mix of puzzles and action, plenty of extra stuff to do. I've already played through it 3 times and I'm itching to play it again soon. One of my girlfriends has beaten it SEVEN freakin' times already. It's also got probably the coolest final battle ever (at least, IMO).

Definitly KOTOR... I have never seen such a game that has caused so many people buy the system the game is on. I did it,I only got an xbox cause of KOTOR and I have read SOOO many people have done the same. Definitly one of the best game I have ever played.

To this point its between Zelda: The Wind Waker and Knights of the Old Republic. Either of those is deserving of a Game of the Year award. Personally I think KOTOR will get it in most of the major magazines.

It was KOTOR, but then I hit the infamous "Carth Bug" over the weekend...so now I'm not so sure.

I have a feeling my favorite game of the year is yet to come out.

KOTOR

Advance Wars 2.

Runner up: NBA Street 2. Could multiplayer be any more fun?

I've heard about that. Considering the Xbox has a HD, they should create a patch to fix that bug. Sad to see a console game released with that major a problem.

As I understand it, the game is only set up for extra content which means that a patch is probably impossible. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game...but that bug just about killed it for me.

Zelda: Wind Waker

What bug is this? I just bought the game off Ebay and I should have it any day now.

That bug never showed up for me. If i recall, It all depends on who you pick for the 'special mission' in one of the last levels.

KOTOR for sure, i've never had the urge to play a game so much in so short a time.

The bug involves a character going into Stealth mode, and then leaving your party. They then stay in stealth mode until you put them back into your party. What happens is that if there is a dialogue involving this character, the game will hang indefinately until the main character can see the person who under stealth.

Anyway, there is a certain point late in the game where this seems to happen the most often...because Carth is the one speaking at the time, it's gotten the moniker "Carth Bug." I could get more specific, but it would involve huge spoilers. My advice is to not worry about it for now...however, make a note to yourself to read up on the bug again when the time comes when you think you might want to put a character into stealth mode. It's very easy to avoid if you know what to do in advance.

Cool. Thanks. I must say though, for all the hoop-la over the Xbox hard drive it really hasn't been all it should be. This could have so easily been fixed by a patch but apprently there won't be one. How could a game of this complexity not have been made patch-able?

Xbox apparantly wont let developers create patches. They dont want people to start releasing buggy games--the traditional difference between console games and PC games.

Bug-- I believe you can also avoid it if you turn off your STEALTH before that mission is over.

ON TOPIC-- I think KOTOR should be game of the year also.

For further elaboration, see this link .
It sounds like the best precaution to avoid this is to save often and in different files. I haven't made it very far in the game yet and will have to heed that advice often. So far I think it's a pretty amazing game.
It's a shame when a stupid bug ruins an otherwise great game. I remember when Jak & Daxter came out, I was unable to fully complete the game because there was a part where you have to beat a track lap record to get a fuel cell and a bug caused the lap record to be 1 second. Okay, that's a little hard to beat. I hope they fixed that one when it became a GH.

I was doing just that. The problem with most common occurance of this particular bug is that there's about an hour of gameplay between when the person who is in stealth mode leaves your party, and when the bug finally surfaces. In between is a combat-heavy area with a ton of plot development.

In fact, right before the bug hit I overrode the "point of no return" in terms of going back and fixing the problem. At one point after reading the "official" fix, I was certain that I had no choice but to restart the game from the very beginning! Luckily, there is an unofficial fix...another bug that somebody found by mashing buttons that allows you to get through the original bug if you don't have a save. But it's a PITA to do.

KOTOR is it IMO. Nothing else even comes close for now, though I have high hopes for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

For me it's Soul Caliber 2. I don't have much time for gaming (young daughter, both my wife and I work), so I need something that I can pick up, play for ten minutes and turn off. Also, I'm a huge fighting game fan in general and an SB/SC fan for years. The fact that SC2 is not a huge improvment over SC is not that important to me as the game was almost perfect to begin with. Playing this game on a 50" widescreen HDTV in 5.1 sound is insanely fun.

moto gp2 for the xbox

Currently KOTOR, but I have a feeling Half-Life 2 will take the title if it comes out this year.

I haven't played KOTOR, but it seems like the best candidate right now - I also think that HL2 will take GOTY when it comes out.