2005, Game of the Year

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Jaicee said:

First, let me qualify that the following is a reflection of the reality that I still have not played the legendary Resident Evil 4. I hear nothing but good things about it and have meant to play it for nearly two decades now. Well, there you go.

2005 I remember in large part as a year of excellent rhythm games. Namely, this was the year Guitar Hero came out, hell yeah!! And it was also, here in the U.S. anyway, the year that Donkey Kong Jungle Beat came out, which I thought that was pretty awesome too. I actually really enjoy games that infuse rhythm-based game play into other genres that way, as we'll see again in future threads with my undying love for Rayman Legends and even more so Crypt of the NecroDancer (which remains in my all-time top ten favorite games). Games need more of that!

That said, I have two very definite favorites from this year and they are, in no particular order, Psychonauts and Shadow of the Colossus. While the controls don't hold up as anything to write home about today, I really, really love the quirky characters and introspective premise of Psychonauts like much more than most games of the era, which I think really shone bright in the Milkman Conspiracy especially. That was something special! Directed by Tim Schafer, who's previous project was Grim Fandango, so no surprise that I wound up loving it. Shadow of the Colossus, on the other hand, I felt more fully engrossed in as an overall experience. I was consistently in awe of its world and massive bosses throughout. It was something else. And defeating those bosses through puzzle-solving was a highly refreshing change of pace that's proven iconic.

Between Shadow of the Colossus and the original God of War, this was kind of an exceptional year for first-party Sony releases in just general quality terms, yet to me the divergence of their commercial fates was really symptomatic of the era. God of War's edgier style better represented the real trend you were seeing in gaming and frankly the media culture more largely, but I was far more drawn in by far less impressively selling Shadow of the Colossus. That was the difference between where the culture was at versus where I was at.

I also have to give a brief shout-out here to Kingdom Hearts II, you know I do. All in all, it was a PlayStation 2 kinda year for me, representing a bit of a shift away from my prior preference for the GameCube. Like how the Super NES cemented itself as my preferred platform over the Genesis late in its lifespan, the PS2 did the same for me in this console generation.

On a concluding note, I feel like also briefly mentioning that what was, in my opinion, the absolute worst video game ever made also happened to come out in 2005: Another symptom of the era called Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (and yes, the exclamation point is in the game's title), which is exactly what it sounds like. Ugh. Worst concept for a video game ever.

Never heard of this game, but sounds like a game in poor taste.

Also, I've never played Resident Evil 4 either.  In fact it doesn't even register on my backlog at all, lol.  It's probably a good game, but there are so many other old games that I want to play first.