I remember when Call of Duty came out - all the folks I knew who were into that type of games were interested in it, and liked it, but at the time I don't remember any of us really thinking it is any better than Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Of course, when we find out the backstory behind it all, that the folks who made MOH:AA jumped ship and made CoD, it was pretty obvious why in retrospect MoH started to go downhill, and CoD uphill.
Anyhow, 2003. Lot of games that I really like, Beyond Good and Evil, Max Payne 2, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Star Wars Jedi Academy, True Crime: Streets of LA, Freelancer, XIII
But two really stand out for me as candidates for GoY:
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, which was really different from PoP 2D games, but was such an enjoyable and beautiful game with great flow in both exploration and in combat - Patrice Désilets really hit the gold with that one and then later with Assassin's Creed
- Star Wars: KOTOR - after Newerwinter Nights that, while a great game, was a little bit of a letdown, given what people were expecting from Bioware (something like BG2, but in 3D), KOTOR came as a proper vision of the next Bioware's big thing. Based around WotC's Star Wars TTRPG (which is based on their DnD 3e), it was a great example of turned-based with pause party based RPG. And being made with SW licence gave players a lot of familiarity with the lore and setting, making it even more appealing (even more than Baldur's Gate with Forgotten Realms). Now, I really don't like linear narrative driven RPGs, and KOTOR is very linear (though you have a Jedi/Sith choices) and that's a major minus in my book, but overall it was a fantastic package.
I'll go with Prince of Persia for my vote, with Vietcong, a tactical FPS, being my favourite from that year (both due to excellent single player campaign and a lot of LAN multiplayer time spent with it).
