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Namevah

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Favorite Games of 2001

We finally leave the wasteland of mediocrity and/or lists with fewer than ten games. 2001 brought quite a bit of change as Nintendo released GameCube and Microsoft made their debut into the whole console thing with Xbox. We gained some of the best-selling games of the generation with Halo: Combat Evolved, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Grand Theft Auto III. Game Boy was slowly winding down as the Game Boy Advance loomed on the horizon, but wouldn't leave us without giving a number of great games.

List items

  • Many consider Link’s Awakening as Zelda’s best handheld entry, but Oracle of Ages is mine. Maybe it’s the time-traveling story or the emphasis on puzzles over combat. Maybe it’s the novelty of connecting Ages to Oracle of Seasons to unlock the true final boss. Or maybe it’s because I played Oracle of Ages before Link’s Awakening, giving the former my first, and strongest, impression of a portable Zelda.

    Regardless, Oracle of Ages is a great game, one that stands as one of my favorite games ever. 3DS eShop sells it, so go grab it.

  • Pokemon Gold is both a testament to how much of a Pokemon fan I was and the game that caused my disillusion.

    Before Gold and Silver hit Stateside, I found a guide at Barnes & Noble for the Japanese version, and so Gold became the first game I ever imported. As I waited, I combed through the guide, carefully selecting the Pokemon I would collect, a trend that has continued with each subsequent Pokemon game I buy. When the Japanese Gold finally arrived, I loved the hell out of that thing. When the English version arrived, I bought that as well. Somehow I even acquired the Silver version.

    By the time that Crystal arrived, I had enough. I passed on that version along with the true sequels, Ruby and Sapphire, having grown too tired to care until we got FireRed and LeafGreen, remakes of the original games. That brought me back, but no future games have created the same excitement as when I held that guide and impatiently awaited Gold to be delivered.

  • No Smash can top the impression that Melee had on me, and plenty of other people. It was such a superb sequel, increasing the number of characters and stages while adding tons of new modes. Compared to the N64 original, Melee was massive!

    It was also the last Smash where I played with friends with similar enthusiasm. My friends and I filled a tiny bedroom, gathering around a small television, and played countless matches. Alas, when Brawl hit, I had graduated from school and was no longer in contact with most of those same people I fought against.

    Melee also introduced to the rest of the world Fire Emblem through its two representatives, Marth and Roy. That franchise has become one of my favorites, so I owe Melee gratitude for being the impetus.

  • Contrasting with Rogue Leader, we have a game that was never visually appealing. Clearly PlayStation 2 wasn't able to do the whole open-world thing without some heavy compromises, and what we got was just… ugly. The world, the characters: everything was hideous, quite the opposite of Grand Theft Auto IV.

    But nobody went into GTA3 for the graphics. We jumped into Liberty City for the freedom and wanton destruction, for the chance to test how long we can survive against overzealous cops and weave through traffic at high speeds. Of course, open-world games existed before the original GTA, but GTA3 gave us gaming’s closest approximation to a real city, even if that city was a eyesore.

  • Coasting across the seemingly-endless surface of the Death Star makes for a hell of a first impression, and Rogue Leader continued impressing with nearly every mission. It was a beauty of a game, visually faithful to the original trilogy. Everyone knows the moment when the Rebels turn away from the second Death Star to find a fleet of Star Destroyers waiting, but it still leaves quite the impression within the game. And to be the one to destroy those Destroyers before diving under the surface of the incomplete battle station...

    Rogue Leader was an amazing game. I have no idea whether it still holds up, but I have plenty of great memories of it.

  • Advance Wars makes the argument for simplicity. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, but I dare anyone to explain how Advance Wars has more depth than, say, StarCraft or Command & Conquer. You probably can’t, but that’s not a bad thing. Advance Wars is incredibly approachable and addicting since it doesn't have to deal with upgrade trees and mining multiple resources. Despite being turn-based, battles move quickly and do require plenty of strategy.

    Just ignore the kids spouting words at you. I’m all for keeping things lighthearted, but I don’t need these cartoon characters wasting my time between missions.

  • I have virtually no memories of Paper Mario, which I feel guilty about because I really enjoyed it right through to the end. Why I have no memories, I cannot say. Just know that this game is good.

  • I have been calling the original Halo overrated for years, but that doesn't mean I dislike the game. It's a very entertaining adventure, but when I compared my thoughts to the available gaming magazines, I felt like an agnostic at church. Something that I realized only later: those magazines had entire staffs that they could play multiplayer with. Me, on the other hand, had only a handful of people at most. Multiplayer for the magazine folks was simply not the same as the multiplayer I was playing.

  • Remember after Raiden is captured and the Colonel goes a little wacky, spouting all sorts of nonsense? Maybe I was simply not accustom to the fourth wall being broken in games, but his repeated remarks that I had been playing long enough, in addition to the rest of his crap, made me question if I was going crazy. Genuinely rattled by the entire thing, I turned off the PS2 and left the room.

    I eventually returned to reach the ending, but that event still sticks with me even as I forget the borderline incomprehensible story or the boring conversations between Raiden and Rose, his girlfriend.

  • Grinding in an RPG is one of my least favorite things ever, so in that respect, I should absolutely hate Dragon Warrior III for Game Boy Color. Still, creating a group of characters that you could name and choose their class was, for me, a new and compelling.

    Even so, my friends enjoyed Dragon Warrior III more. It reached the point that I was loaning the game and my Game Boy Color out for months.
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