2000 Video Game Awards

Overall Game of the Year
1. Chrono Cross
2. Final Fantasy 9
3. Perfect Dark
4. Madden NFL 2001 (PlayStation 2 version)
5. Lunar 2
   The hardest decision that I had to make throughout this entire awards
feature was the choice between Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 9 for Game of 
the Year.  Both games possess the Square trademark of screaming "high 
quality" during every second of gameplay.  Both games have gripping story 
lines that will keep you on the edge of your seat for dozens of hours.  The 
only area in which one game is significantly better than the other is 
combat.  Final Fantasy 9's combat is stuck squarely in the past with 
outdated play mechanics, while Chrono Cross is an exciting glimpse into the 
future of combat in RPGs.

PlayStation 2 Game of the Year
1. Madden NFL 2001
2. SSX Snowboarding
3. Kessen
   SSX initially seemed to be the best PS2 launch game, but in the long run,
Madden passed the test of time with a slightly higher score.  There's no 
shame in losing to a game as good as Madden, though.  All games eventually 
reach a point where you feel like you've done everything there is to do, 
and I still haven't gotten to that point after playing Madden PS2 constantly 
for more than four months.  If EA combines the improvements in the 
PlayStation 1 version's Franchise Mode with those in the PS2 version, it 
scares me to think how much I might play Madden 2002.

Dreamcast Game of the Year
1. Resident Evil: Code Veronica
2. Virtua Tennis
3. Dead or Alive 2
   It's hard for a game to live up to expectations when they're almost 
unfairly high, but Resident Evil: Code Veronica managed to do just that.  
Code Veronica is heaven for any hardcore Resident Evil fanatic thanks to the
decision made by Capcom and Sega that they wouldn't sacrifice gameplay 
quality just to make the game more "mass-market."  Code Veronica is longer 
and more difficult than any previous Resident Evil game, and that's exactly 
what the franchise needed.

Nintendo 64 Game of the Year
1. Perfect Dark
2. WWF No Mercy
3. Zelda: Majora's Mask
   This was definitely the easiest category to decide.  Perfect Dark was the
best N64 game of the year by far, and it would have been the runaway best 
game of the year for any system if it weren't for Chrono Cross and FF9.  
Even now, almost a full year after the game's release, I still play it with 
my friends very often and I'm still discovering new things.

PC Game of the Year
1. Baldur's Gate 2
2. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
3. Escape From Monkey Island
   BioWare had a clear mantra during the development of Baldur's Gate 2: 
Think big.  Most of the time a game is this ambitious and just plain huge in
concept, the development cycle becomes a never-ending mess and the original 
vision of the creators never materializes.  On the other hand, Baldur's Gate 
2 is even better than its impressive predecessor because it drastically cuts
down on the amount of dull exploration.

PlayStation Game of the Year
1. Chrono Cross
2. Final Fantasy 9
3. Lunar 2
   My opinion in the Chrono Cross vs. FF9 debate could certainly change in 
the months and years that lie ahead (as I play both games more and more), 
but based on playing each game from start to finish one time, I give Chrono
Cross the slight edge.  It's far from perfect, but the same can be said of 
any game.  For everything that Square screwed up during the development of 
Chrono Cross, they hit several things right on the head in stunning fashion.

Most Shameless Re-Hash of the Year: Tomb Raider Chronicles
   Are Eidos and Core Design even trying anymore?  I won't believe a 
word I hear about Core's PlayStation 2 line-up until I see it for 
myself, and based on the restraining order that Eidos has against me, 
that probably won't happen until the games are actually released...

Racing Game of the Year: SSX Snowboarding
   Like I said in my review of the game, if you would have told me a year 
ago that SSX would be as good as it ended up being, I might have mistaken 
you for an escaped mental patient and sprayed you with enough pepper spray 
to immobilize a fully-grown buffalo.  I have hated "extreme" games in 
general and snowboarding games in particular for years, but SSX is just too 
well-designed to be denied.  It has set standards for course design in a 
racing game for years to come.

First-Person Shooter of the Year: Perfect Dark
   Along with Madden PS2, I have played Perfect Dark more than any other 
game released in the year 2000.  This is quite an accomplishment considering
the fact that I am otherwise completely sick and tired of the first-person 
shooter genre as a whole.  I still get a headache-inducing rush every time 
I'm playing multi-player and I rush into a room screaming at the top of my 
lungs, "Now you must die!"  Perfect Dark is the ultimate proof that if you 
haven't shot Jimmy Payne while he's playing as Andy Reiner in a dress, you 
haven't really shot Jimmy Payne.

Strategy Game of the Year: Kessen
   Kessen might have been one of the top five games of the year for any 
system if it was just a little bit more difficult.  Maybe I'm just insanely 
good at strategy games (yeah right), but the much more likely scenario is 
that Koei dumbed-down the difficulty level ever-so-slightly to make Kessen 
more "mass market."  If you ever hear a PC game loyalist complain that it's 
not possible to make an extremely in-depth, engaging strategy game for a 
console, all you have to do is point to Kessen, then kick them between the 
legs and run as fast you can.

Fighting Game of the Year: Dead or Alive 2
   What's this?  A fighting game that's actually original?  In a year full of
re-hashes (with Tekken Tag Tournament being the most prominent example), Dead
or Alive 2 stood out as a unique fighting game that dared to be different.  
In a telling example of why the fighting game genre is in the shape that it's 
in, Tekken Tag Tournament sold far more copies than Dead or Alive 2...

Sports Game of the Year: Madden NFL 2001 (PlayStation 2 version)
   Just when I thought that the John Madden Football series was finally 
getting stale, EA released a doozy of a game in Madden 2001.  Not only is the
gameplay better than what NFL 2K1 and the rest of the competition has to 
offer, but the Franchise Mode is just as addictive today as it was when it 
first took over my life on that fateful day in August of 1998.

Adventure Game of the Year: Resident Evil- Code Veronica
   Some of the same things that are true for Madden 2001 are also true for 
Code Veronica.  The Resident Evil franchised finally seemed to be getting 
stale after several years of dominance, and then everything changed with the 
release of an innovative new game.  Code Veronica made its mark with pulse-
pounding action and almost as many plot twists as the average episode of Oz 
on HBO.

Best Game In Which Ivan Trembow Has Beaten Jimmy Payne 56 Consecutive Times: 
Virtua Tennis
   Virtua Tennis didn't have much competition for this award, which will 
hopefully make a return appearance in Master Gamer's 2001 awards after Virtua 
Tennis 2 is released.  Even though Jimmy has lost to me in Virtua Tennis 56 
consecutive times (since we started counting), it's obvious when he's playing 
the game that he's still having fun.  If that's not the mark of a classic 
game, what is?

Role-Playing Game of the Year: Chrono Cross
    The ambition of having over 40 playable characters was never even close 
to fully realized, but it didn't have to be for Chrono Cross to be the 
phenomenal game that it is.  This game was the highlight of an absolutely 
remarkable year for Square.

Best Graphics of the Year: Shenmue
   The gameplay is about as revolutionary as Walt Disney World Quest: Magical 
Racing Tour, but there can be no doubt that the graphics are sensational.  
Unfortunately for Sega, Shenmue stands as proof that if a game has top-notch 
graphics and practically nothing else to offer, it's still an empty shell of 
a game.

Best Music of the Year: Chrono Cross
    Not only does Chrono Cross have the best overall musical score of any 
game released in 2000, but its music also has the widest range.  In much the 
same way as the original Lunar, the music in Chrono Cross masterfully goes 
from happy to dramatic to somber.

Most Addictive Game of the Year: Madden NFL 2001
   This category should probably be retired from Master Gamer's annual awards 
feature because it seems that a Madden game of some kind wins every single 
year.  There's a reason for this: The ever-evolving Franchise Mode is full of 
subliminal messages that plant themselves in users' minds and forces them to 
forego sleep, food, and the season premeire of Jackass in order to keep 
playing.  Either that, or it's just really well-designed...

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