Techtite Feature Article!

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Some added awards worth listing:

Best Expansion Pack: Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction  

Most Disappointing Expansion Pack: Voyager Elite Force Expansion Set

The Multiple Ending "Huzzah" Award : Alien Vs. Predator, with separate single-player stories for the Marine, Alien, and predator.

The Open Ending Crack Pipe Award : Druuna. At least, I think it was open ended; it's hard to tell. Maybe Druuna blew up. Maybe she became empress of the universe. Maybe she turned into a pickle and was put on a salad. Who cares; it was confusing and that's all that matters, right?

plus...

Best Use of Character Voice Audio: Anachronox.

Most Disappointing Use of Character Voice Audio: Max Payne.

Best reason to buy a 3D accelerator: Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Game's "Man of the Year" : Sam Stone, Serious Sam.

Game Woman of the Year : Stiletto Anyway, Anachronox.

New Face of the Year, regardless of his "constipated" expression : Max Payne

Best Game, Overall: Anachronox. Everyone has their favorite game types; this game was an amalgam, of all my favorites: RPG, adventure, and action. It also had a riotous sense of humor. Sure, the finale is slightly ajar (in other words, just two degrees from being open ended, yet ended just the same). I loved the characters, I loved the story, and I felt the villain's master plan (when revealed) was the most brilliantly sinister concept I've heard in sci-fi since the Death Star.

Honorable Mention, overall: Aliens Vs. Predator 2. Other game mags named it #1, though I felt Anachronox had that little something extra. There's also the little matter of how the shoot-everything-moving blowhards allow the Predator to shoot everything under the sun, including unarmed passers-by; a total inconsistency with his movie persona (who didn't kill unarmed humans, because there was no "sport" in it). Regardless, it's a real gas to play multiplayer with a bunch of marines, aliens, and predators, plus a good use of the Lithtech game engine, which is no easy feat (just look at Disney's Atlantis).

Best Action Game: Clive Barker's Undying. This award was a tough call, between (IMO) Undying and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (with AvP out of the running, since it already won the better award, of second-best OVERALL game). However, I felt more challenged by the Clive Barker tale, and when being attacked by creatures conceived by Clive Barker...well, let's just say a Nazi witch coven wasn't quite as ominous as a skinless zombie with chain hooks for arms. In other words, I was more on the edge of my seat, which is exactly what an action game is intended for, right?

Best Adventure Game (or at least, best story of the year): Project Eden. I refuse to award "best adventure" to a Dreamcatcher game just by default; I'm sick of adventure games having their reputation tarnished by retreads of the same "if you know the puzzles, the game is over in a day" rule. So, allow me to give the award to the best action-adventure, with the best story: Project Eden. It may be a Resident Evil clone, though it has uniqueness in a superior game engine, plus the ability to use 4 characters at once (plus, IMO, more ominous mutants). Likewise for the level maps: its missions brought you deeper and deeper into a long-forgotten underbelly of a distant-future's metropolis that has built up and above from its troubled, antiquated past. The androgynous females could've been better designed (let's just say, Lara Croft has nothing to worry about), though in terms of adventure game puzzles and story elements, this was a cool game.

Best Last Year Release that makes me wish I could give it another award: The Longest Journey If you love adventure game stories, and haven't played it yet, you NEED this game! From the enjoyable main character to the amazingly imaginative locales she explores, this is a great story to be told, in a gaming age where there are so very few of them.

Most Disappointing Game: CIA Operative: Solo Missions. Short missions that don't even seem to be related to one another made for a game so bad, most major retailers don't even acknowledge it was ever released! We finally have an order link up for it, though, if you're truly daring and want to play "all" games each year. However, we still don't have an order link for...

Dishonorable Mention: Druuna. While I may be ribbed for not giving it an outright "burnout" rating to this farce, I truly think they should take the CGI Druuna model and put it to good use in an R-rated animated story a la Heavy Metal. At the bare minimum (no pun intended), the cutscenes are worthwhile for fans of the graphic novels she stars in). However, they should delete the game itself...