Seeing that we nearing end of the year, I thought it would be fun to start putting up some nominations for the above, and some assorted categories as well for the iDevice gaming for 2009. Best Graphics Technical 1. Modern Combat 2. Real Racing 3. Backbreaker Choice: Modern Combat for giving a fantastically smooth 3D FPS environment with great detail, textures and even lighting even on older iDevices Best Graphics Design 1. Rolando 2 2. Toki Tori 3. Castle of Magic Choice: Rolando 2 for very unique character and level designs and giving a 2.5D sheen to it this year as well Best Sound 1. Modern Combat 2. Eliminate 3. Minigore Choice: MC for giving a truly cinematic and Band of Bros like quality, and providing almost all voice work combined with great sound effects and a rousing score to augment. Best Music 1. Castle of Magic 2. Minigore 3. Adrenaline Golf Choice: CoM for proving a wonderfully atmospheric and orchestral soundtrack Best Puzzler 1. Orbital 2. Ancient Frog 3. Azkend Choice: Orbital for a simple yet very addictive gaming experience in 5 min bursts Best Sports 1. Backbreaker 2. Real Football 2010 3. Tiger Woods PGA Tour Choice: Backbreaker for despite not a full football game, gives a very realistic and more fun football experience than any other game on iDevice this year. RF 2010 and TW however were really very solid sports games with full features that is comparable to handheld consoles anytime. Best Strategy 1. Star Defense 2. Tower Madness 3. Castle Warriors Choice: Star Defense for having the most polished of all TW games. Note I have not played C&C yet. Best Shooter 2D 1. Meteor Blitz 2. Isotope 3. Space Invader Infinity Choice: Meteor Blitz for coming out of nowhere and being highly polished and addictive and smooth all at once. Best Shooter FPS/Third Person 1. Modern Combat 2. Eliminate 3. COD Zombies Choice: Eliminate and this being a very close call among 3 very fantastic shooters for iDevice, something not imaginable just 12 months ago. Note id failure to show up for me as they were a huge letdown in this area for just rehashing all classics at ridiculously high prices. Best Casual 1. Smashed 2. Luxor 3. Castle Frenzy Choice: Tie between Castle Frenzy and Smashed, 2 very recent games that have occupied my coffee breaks and waiting for the missus periods. Best Adventure 1. Secret of Monkey Island 2. Mysterious Island Choice: SoM gets my vote for bringing a successful and very excellent classic adventure to the iPhone and updating it in the process. id pls note. Best RPG 1. Dungeon Hunter 2. Ravensword 3. Zenonia Choice: DH for bringing another console/PC experience to the iDevice successfully. Best Racing Game 1. Real Racing 2. Asphalt 5 3. Rally Master Pro Choice: Asphalt by just a whisker over RR as A5 gave me more fun over the long run. Close call also. Best Original IDevice Game 1. Spider 2. Smashed 3. Ancient Frog Choice: Ancient Frog for being so fresh and beautiful and zen like. Zen Bound didnt qualify for me as it was originally conceived for PC or some other platform. Best Multiplayer Game 1. Eliminate 2. Homerun Battle 3D 3. FAST Choice: Eliminate for just taking the online iDevice community by storm, though HB 3D did occupy that spot for some time. And COD, I just feel is not yet complete in this area, though its fun still. Biggest disappointment so far Namco/Capcom/Sega - for 3 very legendary gaming companies, they have not only stuttered on this new platform, but been charging way too high. EA is guilty of some titles as well, but fortunately, is balanced out by some very good quality ones. Sega Sega Sega, for someone who had the biggest selling game of 2008, where are you apart from bad ports of Sonic and Golden Axe? Capcom is trying very hard, but seriously they can do so much better for this arcade giant. And Namco, where are the international releases??? Biggest surprise so far No premium app stores for the giants, which is very good news to me. I personally feel the success of Apple app store depends on good quality games at the lowest price with the best distribution channel possible - digitally. Best gaming company This is a tie between ngmoco and Gameloft. ngmoco for being innovative, and setting up plus network so elegantly and comprehensively and insisting on only original IP for their games. Eliminate, Touchpet Dogs, Star Defense, Rolando 2 are all testament to their innovation and boldness and is paying off now, especially for in app purchases, and being the first company to do it successfully. Gameloft despite being heavily criticized for ripping console and PC games as their own, deserves high praise for bringing high quality, groundbreaking 3D graphics and production values to this very new platform and consistency in bringing out not just loads of games but equally, each one a very solid one at worst. Here's hoping gameloft will devote more time now with the success they have had to develop some new original content in 2010. Game of the Year 1. Eliminate 2. Modern Combat 3. Gangstar 4. Backbreaker 5. Meteor Blitz Choice: Gangstar for being the 1st iDevice game to bring a full console like experience to the platform with a smooth 3D engine and a full sandbox environment. MC and Eliminate has shown how FPS can be achieved successfully both for single player campaign and multiplayer deathmatch/online. Backbreaker and Meteor Blitz shows that iDevices need not need console playing time, but brilliant short 5 min bursts of goodness on the go, something which the device is best suited for.
So... Its a tie between ngmoco and gameloft, but ngmoco has only 4 "good" games, while gameloft has more than 20. Yeah....
Backbreaker as fourth best game of the year? Are you kidding me? 90% of your choices are new. New games are always going to be ranked higher than they should be.
Congrats, you'd made The Most Terrible List of the YEAR. I like how you keep sneaking ngmofo crap in there. You gotta stop it, we can see through the ploy. ngmofo tie with mighty gameloft?? WTF. Are you crazy? How can your local diner compare to MacDonalds. ngmofo isn't even comparable to Chillingo, who has more games and more top 100 games to boot. Your list sucks balls. Best strategy Star Defense?!?! WTF. I'll let the TD groupies skin you alive on that one. Luxor??!? WTF. Are you kidding me!?!? First up, it is much weaker than the cheaper competition, or well, they "forced" the competition out of the market so they are the best now?? WTF. Your list is lame. Elimilame game of the year? WTF. _ANY_ of the top gameloft games will leave that crap in the dust. Don't try to group ngmofo with the big boys. EA and gameloft are in their own private club. Certain company may sound big, but how many games did it ship this year??? Not even close my friend.
Soosiz wins Best Graphics Artistic, Music, and Original Game for me. It is definitely one of the best games on the App Store.
There are a lot of great games that came out earlier in the year that you're completely missing. Didn't Zen Bound come out in like January?(I'm pretty sure it was early '09). That game incredible music and sound, much better than any other game I've seen in the app store.
hmm well I think a couple games were on that list constantly. It was biased too. And the game selection was to big titles. Other than that its good.
considerations for games of the year should include those that were released at the beginning of the year and not just the new popular ones...also I hate the list as well :[ and don't see how orbital is a puzzler or how Acient Frog is a good one
Eliminate isn't even game of the week. It's game of the weak. Hopefully I don't need to buy an "energy pack" to make this post.
