Not one to pass up the chance of naming his own full-blown awards thing, Andrew actually listed his top game picks for last year in his recent Beatdown column. If you've yet to read it and are wondering what his top game pick for 2000 was, it happens to be Thief 2: The Metal Age. Don't let that stop you reading the rest of it, though!
1st Place – Giants: Citizen Kabuto
This game was so pretty that it might as well have been in a Victoria's Secret catalogue. Granted, I'm not sure how you'd find a way to merge funny as hell British humor into a Victoria's Secret catalogue though. One of the highlights thus far (I'm still muddling through it) was the last Meccaryn level where Planet Moon merged a 1st/3rd person shooter with a Real-Time Strategy, and in my mind did so successfully. Granted, that level kicked my arse.
2nd Place – Heavy Metal: FAKK2
Did you know that they used a B-movie film star to model for Julie? Ritual did a nice job molding the Quake engine into an action/adventure game. Beautiful scenery, diverse weapons, ever-changing Julie outfits, Julie's voice in the menu (yeah baby, yeah!)… one of my only complaints is that it seemed a bit short. Beyond that, check it out.
3rd Place – Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed
0-60 in less than 5 seconds, the car purrs, you lay rubber in third gear... yeah that does it for me. I enjoyed the improved visuals in this edition, and multi-player on a LAN is quite fun. One of the best features of this one is the very cinematic replays (so I can watch my 944 do a forward 1 1/2 somersault with a twist over Alex's - judges?)