The Video Game Critic

This is from an ign Wii editor:

[QUOTE]Matt responds: Thanks for the comments, Pierce. I agree completely and hope I made my position clear in the video and written roundtables. It is an unfortunate possibility that the Game of the Year may not always be the best game, but rather the best game played by the majority of editors. I was expecting Zelda to lose for exactly that reason and I was quite confident that Gears of War would win. The Okami win surprised me and, the more I thought about it, pissed me off. Clearly the editors chose a game that felt new, but the truth of the matter is that Okami's stylized presentation is its only pioneering attribute. It does not deliver a new gameplay experience. Twilight Princess, by comparison, is deeper, more intuitive, better balanced, and ultimately much more entertaining by just about any measure. [/QUOTE]

That's pretty harsh against the other editors I'd say, and it says exactly what we all thought.

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Okami and Odama were my votes for biggest disappointments of the year. Okami looked great but it was style over substance.

How could this game beat Gears of War, Twilight Princess, or Resistance????

Gee wiz

Vinnie

Okami and Odama were my votes for biggest disappointments of the year. Okami looked great but it was style over substance.

How could this game beat Gears of War, Twilight Princess, or Resistance????

Gee wiz

Vinnie

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That was just the start of the response. You should go to ign and read the whole thing. He says exactly what I was thinking. Here's a link: http://wii.ign.com/mail/

It's the one under Zelda Conspiracy.

Maybe b/c it's another Zelda game with new controls. I played it for an hour at a friends house. Good game but it felt a lot like Windwaker. I think Gears and Okami were much more original and better then Zelda. Zelda is a great game but I think the formula is wearing thin.

Maybe b/c it's another Zelda game with new controls. I played it for an hour at a friends house. Good game but it felt a lot like Windwaker. I think Gears and Okami were much more original and better then Zelda. Zelda is a great game but I think the formula is wearing thin.

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It definitely isn't wearing thin. Play the new game before you judge. An hour will give you absolutely no feel for it. Anway, I would have been much happier if Gears of War, or even Resistance, won instead of Okami. Okami is a poor man's Zelda and there is no reason for it to be picked instead of Twilight Princess. Picking Gears of War over Zelda would have been a matter of taste, but picking Okami over Zelda, like the guy from ign said, makes no sense. They are very similar in style, and one is clearly better than the other. Okami doesn't do anything original except its art style. That's neat, but gameplay counts for more.

That being said. I don't think Gears is incredibly original or innovative either. It's another first person shooter is all. It executes everything very well, and it plays differently from a game such as Halo, but it doesn't do anything new from what I've seen and played (not played much I will grant you).

Us classic gamers shouldn't care about this.

Well then I don't know what to say.  This Zelda game in particular felt nothing like Wind Waker to me.  It was in particular missing something that both Wind Waker and Okami had a lot of -- tedium.

I really have to laugh at Shawn. Plays a game for ONE HOUR and can make definitive judgements on it.

I post a number of reviews, and of course since I'm not a pro I don't hold myself to the standard of having to finish the game. But I can tell you that I put at least 8-10 hours into something before I declare anything substantial about it.

In any event, I'll second those that thought that, if not Zelda, the award should have gone to Gears of War. Shoot, Oblivion would have been more understandable. Okami is the most ridiculous game of the year I've ever seen.

-Rob

I really have to laugh at Shawn. Plays a game for ONE HOUR and can make definitive judgements on it.

I post a number of reviews, and of course since I'm not a pro I don't hold myself to the standard of having to finish the game. But I can tell you that I put at least 8-10 hours into something before I declare anything substantial about it.

In any event, I'll second those that thought that, if not Zelda, the award should have gone to Gears of War. Shoot, Oblivion would have been more understandable. Okami is the most ridiculous game of the year I've ever seen.

-Rob

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That's a good point but I have been playing games long enough to know if I like something or not after one hour.....Like I said, it's not terrible but I don't think it blows people away with originality. I think it is more like...FINALLY! Zelda! It MUST be game of the year!

That's a good point but I have been playing games long enough to know if I like something or not after one hour.....Like I said, it's not terrible but I don't think it blows people away with originality. I think it is more like...FINALLY! Zelda! It MUST be game of the year!

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Shawn, I haven't played Gears of War long enough to know whether or not it competes, but all I'm saying is Okami is not better than Zelda. I played that long enough to know it is nowhere near as good. You really can't play Zelda for an hour and decide upon whether you like it or not, because you can't accomplish a damn thing in that game if you play it for an hour without ever having played it before.

Twilight Princess, I will grant you, very similar in style to old Zeldas, but there are many new things that you clearly didn't have enough time to see, so you can't hold that against it. I generally don't think you have to play a game for too long to decide whether you like it or not, but you need to play through the first temple of the new Zelda before you really start loving it.

I will add this: if Twilight Princess came out last year I still would have given the game of the year crown to Resident Evil 4. I love Zelda, but I don't think it is the best game around. Of the games I played this year it is the best, but it is not the best game ever. I'm not so completely biased towards it that I don't see its flaws, but you seem very biased against it and I don't think you're allowing yourself to see its many strengths. If you didn't like the type of game it is I would understand you not liking it, but if you liked Okami you would have to like Twilight Princess more. You're not giving it a fair chance.

That's a good point but I have been playing games long enough to know if I like something or not after one hour.....Like I said, it's not terrible but I don't think it blows people away with originality. I think it is more like...FINALLY! Zelda! It MUST be game of the year!

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Shawn, I haven't played Gears of War long enough to know whether or not it competes, but all I'm saying is Okami is not better than Zelda. I played that long enough to know it is nowhere near as good. You really can't play Zelda for an hour and decide upon whether you like it or not, because you can't accomplish a damn thing in that game if you play it for an hour without ever having played it before.

Twilight Princess, I will grant you, very similar in style to old Zeldas, but there are many new things that you clearly didn't have enough time to see, so you can't hold that against it. I generally don't think you have to play a game for too long to decide whether you like it or not, but you need to play through the first temple of the new Zelda before you really start loving it.

I will add this: if Twilight Princess came out last year I still would have given the game of the year crown to Resident Evil 4. I love Zelda, but I don't think it is the best game around. Of the games I played this year it is the best, but it is not the best game ever. I'm not so completely biased towards it that I don't see its flaws, but you seem very biased against it and I don't think you're allowing yourself to see its many strengths. If you didn't like the type of game it is I would understand you not liking it, but if you liked Okami you would have to like Twilight Princess more. You're not giving it a fair chance.

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I think it comes down to what type of games you like. TP didn't blow me away, it didn't make me a Zelda nut. Personally, I would pick about a dozen games BEFORE TP to be game of the year; I don't think it is anything special. But that is just my opinion. I would go with either Okami, Gears or Oblivion. Heck, Syphon Filter for the PSP is a better game then TP. My point is that all of this is subjective so I can see why certain magazines would pick certain games.