Yeah, VtM: Bloodlines was and still is in one of my favourite RPGs. Troika was quite unique, real pity they didn't find at least modest commercial success to keep them afloat - I guess they were too early for that, Kickstarter and Early Access came much later, as opposed to Larian that had luck (or just enough business acumen) to not go under on so many occasions and managed to swim eventually to that shore.

I'm going to have to give my vote for Halo. To say that it is a revolution in FPS design is an understatement. What Doom did for the genre in the 90s, Halo did in the 00s. The game's mind share was massive, so much that "Halo Killer" replaced "Doom Clone" for upstart titles that vied to be the next big thing. So many things we take for granted in the genre were either pioneered or popularized by Halo, from the "left stick moves, right stick looks" controls to the two-weapon limit to having melees and grenades put on their own dedicated buttons (the "Golden Tripod" as Bungie called it) to the well-integrated vehicle combat.

Commercially, it did very well and had incredible legs, and had a massive attach rate, with half of everyone who bought an Xbox in the system's first two months having also bought a copy of Halo CE. It's tied with Perfect Dark for highest-reviewed FPS of all time, and it won multiple Game of the Year Awards. It also single-handedly put Xbox on the map.

Personally, I think it deserved its success. It was incredibly fun, and it still holds up. I still routinely play Campaign missions, and it's still my favorite Campaign in the series. And I had a blast playing the multiplayer on LAN back in the day.

Here is some Halloween-themed inspiration for you.

Sadly I can't vote in this runoff, because I have not played any of these games.

This is still extremely close and there are plenty of people who can still potentially vote.  There's about 4.5 hours left.

Most interesting year so far, imo. Seriously great games, without any being overshadowed by one overwhelming favourite made 2001 so awesome.

Halo CE: put XBox on the map

Voting for 2001 is now actually over.  It was a very close race during both the initial voting and the runoff.  In the end however, the Game of the Year for 2001 is Halo: Combat Evolved and the runner up is Grand Theft Auto III.

Even though there were four games that got close to the same number of votes, the discussion in the thread seemed to center around Halo and GTA 3 more.  My personal favorite from the year was Final Fantasy X, but I can't deny the historical impact that the other 2 games had.

Halo

Well deserved even if none of them was my vote. Both games sent ripples down the gaming industry.