2004: The Best Year in Gaming?

[Solister]

Remember that music?

Notes and Introduction:

Hi, and welcome to another topic. First, I want to took some notes: In 2004, I was just 1 year old, and I'm certainly remember nothing from this year, may everything I say here is the purely true, but by the same way, can everything be just a lie. I've tried to make my best research about the theme, and bring the most credible resources and information, forgive me if I said something wrong .

Also, note that I'm saying 2004 in general, some games could be released in 2003 but in some parts of the world, was released in 2004, by the same way, a game could be released in 2004 in some part of the world and 2005 in the whole rest.

So, how could I convince you that 2004 was an excellent year for gaming? Should I just post a list of every game released in this year and than you took your own conclusions? Well, I could, but I will not.

Can I take you in a time capsule, please?

 

Forget everything around you. Now, PS2 (2000), GameCube (2001) and Xbox (2001) are battling trough the best console of the generation, I could say that PS2 was owning in a few ways of popularity. You're almost ready for an avalanche of good games coming almost for every of the 3 principal consoles of the generation. Talking about music, I say that Electronic Music and Trance it's getting very popular, with some types of Hard Rock and Industrial, many of these genres can be saw in the Games OSTs. Looking a bit backwards, 2003 received some excellent games titles, but nothing that could be compared to 2004.

I'm almost 100% sure that you ever played at least one of these games: Need for Speed Underground 2, The Sims 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Sonic Heroes. Now can I tell you a secret? All of those games was released on 2004!

Just look at this Wikipedia's list and you'll understand what I'm saying. It was just an excellent year for pick your favorite console sit back in a couch and keep playing games during the whole weekend.

And How About Consoles?

Well, 2004 didn't needed new consoles, looking at that the majority consoles of the generation was released almost 4 to 3 years ago. But there's an important note for the portables. Both Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable was released in 2004. In some parts of the world, Gameboy Advance also started to be sold, but in the same year in other parts of the world, the same GBA was discontinued.

What about Sonic?

Many games of the Sonic series was released in 2004, but some great part of them were released in 2003 for other consoles, and in 2004 for some regions and other consoles. Some of them were: Sonic Heroes (Originally released in 2003), Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (Released in 2004 for PCs), Sonic Mega Collection Plus, Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance.

2007: Other "Best Year in Gaming"?

Burnout Dominator, released in 2007

Well, I always thought that 2004 was a great year in gaming, so it wasn't so surprising found other people saying the same around the web. But I found some people discussing about 2007, and I want to bring this other part of view to the discussion. Many games was released in 2007 were sequels from others released in 2004, in the same way that Burnout 3: Takedown was released in 2004 and Burnout Dominator (Above), in 2007. It wasn't a directly sequel, but it's from the same series, if I'm not wrong it was released 2 or 3 games between 3: Takedown and Dominator.

Conclusion:

For me, 2004 was certainly the best year for gaming, even I'm just 1 year old in that year, but even now, 13 years before, I really appreciate many games of this year. It's a bit funny to say that, but if you have read some of my older posts, I really would appreciate if I lived with 14 years old (My actual age). The popular music are my favorites, many of my favorites games were released in 2004, and many other reasons. But I want to know your opinion. Do you agree that 2004 was a great year in gaming? Or you disagree? There's other year that needs attention? Please tell me! Also, notify me if I wrote something wrong or if you have some additional info of this year/period (Not gaming specific).

[InfiniteBlueSphereMan]

Sonic Adventure DX was actually pretty good for its HD release, things were more cleaned up and graphics wise was different entirely. You do a comparison between DX and Dreamcast, and you can actually see which is the superior model. 

[blueblur98]

best game in the series

[Tracker_TD]

Any year in gaming that includes Sonic Heroes in any way, shape, or form, is a year I can guarantee was terrible for gaming on that basis alone. 

Also this thread makes me feel old. Oh god. 

Anywho, I did pick up Mega Collection Plus, and that gave me some fun times. Same for Battle and Advance, despite some pretty glaring flaws.

[shdowhunt60]

24 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Any year in gaming that includes Sonic Heroes in any way, shape, or form, is a year I can guarantee was terrible for gaming on that basis alone.

Then you have pretty limited perspective.

You had a lot of fantastic games that came out 2004-2005. For example: Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Resident Evil 4... The list goes on.

04 and 05 were two of the most fantastic years in gaming, yet it goes pretty unsung. It was the sunset of the 6th generation of Consoles, which I maintain were the absolute best.

[Maxtiis]

16 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Also this thread makes me feel old. Oh god.

You think you feel old? In 2000 and 4 I watched my grandkids play Sonic which made me a fan of cartoon woodland creatures. At the time I was 62. Now I'm 106. I'm so old time looped back around on itself and Sonic is now back in the 90s again, and Hollywood is releasing films I remember seeing 30 years ago as if they were new.

And Takashi Iizuka didn't ruin my childhood. Fucking polio did.

[TheOcelot]

Tut tut tut. How could you not mention the best game of 2004 (and slated by many as the best MGS game of all time):

 

It's so hard to pick a best year for gaming, but for me hands-down Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was best game of 2004.

Someone once described it as "MGS2 without the boring bits". Goddamn right!

The story and characters were brilliant. Volgin, Eva, Major, Sokolov, a young (and cocky) Ocelot aka "Adamska". It also included one of the most iconic characters ever introduced in the series "The Boss".

The combat, introduction of CQC was genius. The game was long (about five hour campaign not Including cutscenes). Had some amazing boss fights; the duel with Ocelot, The Pain, The Fear, The Fury and The End (that epic fight against the 100 year-old sniper). The fights with Volgin and The Boss. Russian roulette with Ocelot at the end of the game! The touching ending where Snake salutes the grave which left me in tears.

The replay value was out of this world. So many collectibles. Boss survival mode, the Snake vs The Monkey missions (the hilarious tribute to Ape Escape).

I played and mastered this game to death.

I haven't played it in years. I really should.

 

Enjoy one of the best cutscenes in the history of MGS; when Ocelot first meets Big Boss (known as Naked Snake at the time).

 

[Osmium]

How do you bring up 2004 and not Paper Mario TTYD? 

[Mr Loopone]

While 2004 isn't my favourite year in gaming what with my preferences being 1992 (Super Mario Land 2, Sonic 2, Desert Strike, Streets of Rage 2), 1998 (Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit), 2006 (OutRun 2006, After Burner Climax, The Godfather) and 2012 (Sleeping Dogs, Need for Speed: Most Wanted), I do know that it is one really really good year in gaming and perhaps one of the best. For some people though they might prefer 1985 (Hang-On, Space Harrier, Super Mario Bros., Monty on the Run), 1994 (Daytona USA, Earthworm Jim, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Donkey Kong Country) or even 2017 (Sonic Mania, Super Mario Odyssey, Persona 5). Potentially every year since 1978 in gaming could be someones favorite so it is subjective.

Rather like the OP, most of the games that were from that year I didn't really play in 2004 however it was for a different reason. That reason was because of lack of time, lack of money and was hard to find Gamecube games in stores so it sadly started some bitterness in gaming. Only really played back then Sonic Heroes (ugh), Sly 2: Band of Thieves (pretty good), Mario vs Donkey Kong (pretty good except the graphic style, US import too), Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Donkey Kong Country 2 (it's all right) and Paper Mario 2 (sorry I couldn't get into it but do acknowledge that people really like this one). Around that time was more interested in playing more older games from the late 1980s and the early 90s. I did play Everything or Nothing, Burnout 3, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Call of Duty: Finest Hour, Chronicles of Riddick, Shrek 2, Halo 2, Starsky & Hutch, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, the home version of OutRun 2, GTA 3/Vice City and Silent Scope Complete at a later date after acquiring an original Xbox... in 2013. Ratchet & Clank 3 and Killzone were played via their HD remakes. Most of the games I had some enjoyment out of them with Burnout 3 considered to be one of my favourite games of all time due to the takedowns, crash mode and pick up and play gameplay however it is shared with its PSP cousin Burnout Legends that is a mixture of 1, 2 and 3 with the soundtrack from Revenge. POP: Sands of Time is another of my favourites mainly because of the parkour mechanic. Only Rogue Agent, Call of Duty and Shrek 2 found to be just average. I have a lot more games from this year including many that I will mention but just haven't had chance to play on them.

I can understand why 2004 for some is the best year in gaming. I mean you had Burnout in its prime, Metal Gear in its prime, The Sims in its prime, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is considered by many people to be their favorite game of all time and one of the few games from 2004 that still sells today, ESPN NFL 2K5 is considered by many to be the best American football game of all time and still play it to this day, you had some good licensed games, people fell in love with Tales of Symphonia (and what kickstarted the series outside of Japan), Far Cry wowed people on PC and if you are an American you got to experience Katamari Demacy. People also really liked the Viewtiful Joe games on the Gamecube and got a small fanbase. If you was a Xbox owner, you was in for a treat for a couple of collections with Silent Scope Complete where you have the full arcade series on one disc and the GTA twin pack where you had superior versions of GTA 3 and Vice City with better graphics and performance. Dead or Alive Ultimate has a perfect Saturn port (emulation?) of the first game as well as a remake of Dead or Alive 2. Oh and a great port of OutRun 2. There were also for PS2 owners as well Street Fighter Anniversary Collection where you had Hyper Street Fighter 2 and fan favorite Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike, Atari Anthology and Midway Arcade Treasures 2 where it featured some that Midway/Atari offered including a few Mortal Kombat games, Rampage: World Tour and Hard Drivin'.

Oh and a few noteworthy games that I should mention that haven't yet. The big one is Halo 2. The one game that basically the reason why online gaming on consoles really took off and even had people who played that from launch all the way to the Xbox Live switch off date. It even had some DLC that later came out on disc just for some extra multiplayer maps, not often did a console game had that and got away of selling it too. Plus a solid single player mode that had a poor cliffhanger ending. You had to wait 3 years until you could finish the fight. People were impressed with the graphics, the story line telling from two points of view both from Master Chief and the Abriter, the music from Marty O'Donnell and the set pieces.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a licensed game that people loved and was surprising good due to the lack of hype. It was a first person adventure game with plenty of stealth sections but did have some gunplay in a few parts. It was also lovely to look at with its lighting engine even though it did get a bit blocky on the Xbox on some parts of the game. It is also considered to be a game that was better than the movie that it was based off and not that many games got that title.

Richard Burns Rally is perhaps not as well known however for simulation racing fans, it was considered their favourite rally game for years due to the attention to detail with the sound, graphics and the realistic handling. It is considered one of the toughest rally games ever made and took until DiRT Rally before it had a competitor. It would be a bit cliched calling it the Dark Souls of racing games but it more or less is. Another really popular rally game but a lot more accessible was RalliSport Challenge 2 to the point where a fanbase wanted a re-release of what was DICE's last racing game. It showed what the original Xbox could do graphically, had plenty of variation and was like the Project Gotham Racing series where it balanced between arcade and simulation, also one of the few rally games that was successful in the US with only Sega Rally being the other.

Spider-Man 2 is another licensed game that people really love. Some people consider this the best Spider-Man game of all time, mainly due to its open world and the web slinging mechanic that made people feel like they were Spider-Man.

However not every game in 2004 was great. Driv3r is considered a massive disappointment and lost nearly all the good faith of what was at one point more successful than GTA, plus it was just too buggy. The series never recovered from that to the point where Atari sold the series to Ubisoft and only Driver: San Francisco came close (C.O.P: The Recruit and Watch Dogs were also considered Driver games at one point, Wheelman that Ubisoft published was a concidence that it was a Driver like game but it did influence Driver: San Francisco). GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within were both disappointing compared to the previous and the next entries of their series. Bad Boys II and Fight Club shows that not all licensed games from the year were good. Codemasters did the awful Club Football soccer games that were only successful because they managed to do something like 20 variations of the same game just with a different featured club. Capcom Fighting Jam/Evolution disappointed fighting game fans because Capcom did a bait and switch, they were working on a 3D fighter but had problems so they did a quicky game with very little work put into it. Nearly everything in the game except Ingrid and the music were recycled and even Marvel vs Capcom 2 had more new stuff in. Then there's Super Mario Ball that people just didn't like.

[blueblur98]

Quote

Sly 2: Band of Thieves (pretty good)

oh, right! i almost forgot about the second-best sly cooper game! thanks for reminding me, bud.

also, i wouldn't be here had i not played sonic mega collection plus, so i guess i have 2004 (2008 for me) to thank for that.

[Conando]

I mean if we're talking Snake Eater, sure. I wouldn't say Sonic Heroes of all things makes it one of the best years in gaming, it's a poor example. As for what I think is truly the best year, I'm too old and everything has blended together so I don't really go by year anymore. Off of pure nostalgia, probably '98 with the release of the likes of Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kaoozie, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate,  and the original Metal Gear Solid.

[blueblur98]

guys?

aren't we forgetting something?