GameSpy's - PC Action Game of the Year - Half-Life 2: Episode One

[Man|-|unter]

GameSpy's Game of the Year (http://goty.gamespy.com/2006/pc/index24.html)

PC Game of the Year

Company of Heroes

PC Top 10 Games of the Year

1. Company of Heroes
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
3. Half-Life 2: Episode One
4. Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators
5. Neverwinter Nights 2
6. Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
7. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Dark Crusade
8. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
9. GTR 2
10. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

PC Action
Half-Life 2: Episode One

PC Adventure
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

PC RPG
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

PC MMORPG
Guild Wars Nightfall

PC RTS
Company of Heroes

PC Turn-Based Strategy
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

PC Sports/Racing
GTR 2

PC Expansion
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Dark Crusade

PC Mod
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

PC Multiplayer
Company of Heroes

Best Graphics
Half-Life 2: Episode One :smoking:

Special Achievement in Art Direction
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

Best Sound
Company of Heroes

Best Music
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Developer of the Year
Relic

Level of the Year
Hotel Escape (from Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth)

Best Story
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Best Character
Khelgar Ironfist from Neverwinter Nights 2

Best Use of License
LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

The Game That Wouldn't Die
World of Warcraft

Most Improved Game
EverQuest II

Trends We Like
Great Strategy Expansions

Trends We Hate
Day One Patches

The 5th Annual "When It's Done™" Award
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Biggest Disappointment
Gothic III

Coaster of the Year
Bad Day LA

[nutcrackr]

It won best graphics, stick that in your pipe and smoke it you real time lighting tards.

[$kelet0r]

damn
what a poor year it was for pc games - not a looker in the bunch

[Lucid]

Episode 1? Best PC Action Game of the Year?
They need to play more games.

Personally, I think that CoH's graphics are better than Episode 1's.

[Samon]

Nice list, and go Episode 1. I can't remember playing a better PC game this year (or any other PC game, actually :p), so I'm pretty sure it deserves top spot. That said, it says something about 2006 when you have a 5 hour episode as best action. Sure, the game was top quality fps action, but still.

Dark Crusade should have been further up the list.

[jimbo118]

damn
what a poor year it was for pc games - not a looker in the bunch

qft...

[Warbie]

qft...

Agreed. This would mean something if there were any decent games for EP.1 to compete against.

[Asuka]

Man. Just makes me want MORE MORE MORE half-life!~

[Samon]

Episode 2 isn't that far off.

[Jintor]

Good list, considering the resources avaliable... although I don't think Gothic III was that bad...

[Bad^Hat]

Pretty good list. Kind of a slow year for PC games though...

CoH definitely deserved that top spot. Should have taken out graphics over Ep 1 too, IMO, but they're both good.

[Gunner]

Man I never heard of space rangers, looks like an oldschool shoot'em up where you upgrade your ship and stuff.

[hungryduck]

yay!

[Icarusintel]

This reminds me, this year in PC Gaming was kinda shitty. COH and Oblivion were great, but there were too many plain sequels and not enough originiality. Also, so much missed potential. SCDA and R6:V could have been so much better if UBI had taken more time with them instead of making simple ports. Prey was alright, but it didn't hold my attention well.

Hell, it got so bad I dropped back to playing Arcanum, which is a great game. Now I'm about to start on some Lucas Arts classics like Full Throttle and The Dig.

[Tamer17]

Better than '05.

The list is pretty good and accurate , though I would remove Dreamfall from any awards which isn't "dubious" one. I think Dreamfall is a bad game and I can't think of , right now , of any other series that the 1st game was a masterpiece , the very best the genre and the platform has to offer and the 2nd game was a complete disaster.

[Asuka]

Episode 2 isn't that far off.


:frown:

[Ennui]

COH should have gotten every single one of those awards, even the RPG and FPS ones lol

[DeusExMachina]

When a 5 hour expansion pak wins Best PC Action Game....wow...

The hell's with Oblivion winning Best RPG? NWN2 should've won wtf.

[nutcrackr]

omg wtf you guys have differing opinions that's total bs.

[DeusExMachina]

Yeah wtf, I'm stating my opinion on a game forum, what the **** am I doing.

[Slacker]

I still need to finish the tail-end of Episode 1 :X. But yeah, to be honest I really wasn't that impressed with at least what I played.

I agree with Ennui though, as much as I loved Oblivion, CoH should get everyone of those awards

[Gunner]

When a 5 hour expansion pak wins Best PC Action Game....wow...

The hell's with Oblivion winning Best RPG? NWN2 should've won wtf.

NWN2 sucked ass, the camera view made the game unplayable and the needlessly complex character creation and management system is just too much. Oblivion won because it was simple yet rich.

[Solver]

They could've given Ep One Best Expansion, but not Best Action.

I think Ep One was absolutely top-notch quality, but it hardly qualifies as a full game because of its length. Then again, this shows again how very quality and refined the Valve games are.

Best graphics for Ep1? Hmm, maybe. What I like about its graphics is that it has no ugly parts. Oblivion is beautiful. Absolutely. I think the good parts look better than Ep1, great environments, nature detail, etc. However, Oblivion's graphics have some ugly spots that need mods to be rectified - very blurry low-res textures for distant landscapes and notably low-res textures on faces. The graphics in Ep1 are consistently good - from the HDR effects to wrinkles on headcrabs to gun textures. Oblivion's face generation system is highly impressive, but the actual facial animation is a joke compared to Ep1 - in fact, I haven't seen any game which does faces anywhere near the quality of HL2/Ep1. Sure, they're capable of being happy or angry in many games now, but still a long shot worse than HL2.

[DeusExMachina]

NWN2 sucked ass, the camera view made the game unplayable and the needlessly complex character creation and management system is just too much. Oblivion won because it was simple yet rich.

Story, characters, and gameplay made the game for me. Oblivion is too emotionless.

[Jintor]

Story, characters, and gameplay made the game for me. Oblivion is too emotionless.

"Greetings!"
"Greetings!"
"I saw some MUD CRABS down by the WATER RECENTLY. NASTY little creatures."
"Goodbye!"
"Goodbye!"

[Tamer17]

Ep1 couldn't won the expansion award because it isn't.

Ep1 won best PC Action game simply because it is the best PC Action game in 2006. What the length here have to do with anything? How this choice make this year of pc games look weak? It doesn't.

This just proves how good Valve is and nothing more , though I agree there were no real competition , still Prey , Dark Messiah and COJ were very expected by gamers.

It's the quality you judge , am i wrong? Plus , having one the best FPS and RTS game ever made come out in 06 , having an enourmous world to explore like in Oblivion - you can't say this year was "weak" and like I said , it sure beats 05.

[Man|-|unter]

Good list, considering the resources avaliable... although I don't think Gothic III was that bad...

Good game with lots of bad bugs.

[Sparta]

I think consoles had it better this year, with the release of all 3 major consoles, its a pretty big year, and really, how could consoles NOT win this year anyway?

But with that said, i think HL2:EP 1 easily deserves it, not that it had much competition as the FPS genre this year was pretty shit. The only comparable game would be Gears of War and thats a console game, and thats also more of a third person shooter. They both are incomprehensibly short, but at least they both kicked ass.

Although i think the single-player in HL2 is way better, and the multi-player kicks the shit out of every other multiplayer game this year. Not that there was much to compete against either.

All in all, its a dull year for the fps genre. And Pc Gaming (with the exception of games like HL2:Ep 1 and Company of Heroes. I thought Oblivion was tripe. Albeit very long and beautiful tripe)

[Dalamari]

damn
what a poor year it was for pc games - not a looker in the bunch

Indeed

[Asuka]

Episode 2 isn't that far off.

Well. Im expecting a March release. 3 months. Im going to die thinking about that so i just need to stop.

[bigburpco]

Oh okay, that's nice.

GIMME A WII SOMEBODY! :(

[Solver]

Well. Im expecting a March release. 3 months. Im going to die thinking about that so i just need to stop.

How can you expect that when they've officially said several times it's summer 2007? Which puts the release at least 6 months from now, more like 7 realistically.

[bigburpco]

Edit your post now or he's going to have a fit.

[Solver]

I'm evil that way :D.

[bigburpco]

/me sits in ambulance and waits.

[$kelet0r]

january 2008 ftw

[DeusExMachina]

"Greetings!"
"Greetings!"
"I saw some MUD CRABS down by the WATER RECENTLY. NASTY little creatures."
"Goodbye!"
"Goodbye!"

Exactly.

[Samon]

I think consoles had it better this year, with the release of all 3 major consoles, its a pretty big year, and really, how could consoles NOT win this year anyway?

But with that said, i think HL2:EP 1 easily deserves it, not that it had much competition as the FPS genre this year was pretty shit. The only comparable game would be Gears of War and thats a console game, and thats also more of a third person shooter. They both are incomprehensibly short, but at least they both kicked ass.

Although i think the single-player in HL2 is way better, and the multi-player kicks the shit out of every other multiplayer game this year. Not that there was much to compete against either.

All in all, its a dull year for the fps genre. And Pc Gaming (with the exception of games like HL2:Ep 1 and Company of Heroes. I thought Oblivion was tripe. Albeit very long and beautiful tripe)

Pretty much agree.

[Leviticus]

I've never grasped everyone's love affair with Oblivion. It seemed like a step backwards from Morrowind to me in every way except graphics.

The year seems a bit weak in retrospect. A lot of really big name releases came out and just kind of made a thud rather than really impressing anyone. Neverwinter Nights 2 and Battlefield 2042 come to mind. Great year for Relic, though. Company of Heroes deserves every bit of praise it can get.

[Warbie]

I actually enjoyed Oblivion - the assassin and thief guilds were fun, I liked wondering around and seeing the sights, popping into dungeons, being a vampire. I probably got around 20-30 hours play out of it before getting bored, which is plenty.

[Raziaar]

Hell yes! I'm glad Galactic Civilizations 2 won.

[Iced_Eagle]

Half-Life ftw! :)

[Sparta]

I meant the multiplayer in Gears of War kicks the shit out everything else this year, forgot to put in "gears of war" when i typed that earlier message.