My Favorite Game From Every Year I've Been Alive Part 4: 2005 to 2008

This one isn't as heinous.

The Late 2000s

2005

The year was 2005, and the world was once again embroiled in conflict. Over seven-hundred people were injured in London on July 7 in the largest terrorist attack to hit the UK. Multiple suicide bombers attacked four different underground trains in London. I remember hearing about it when it happened, but I don’t see much mention of it after the fact. I’ve heard more people reference the sarin gas attacks that happened in Japan a decade before, but not these. This happened a few years after 9/11, and as a kid, I was convinced I was going to be on the receiving end of a terrorist attack. It didn’t help that the school I was in received bomb threats at around the same time (it was some disgruntled seniors, nothing to do with Al-Qaeda), but the mood was that we could get blown up at any time.

On the other side of the pond, we got hurricane Katrina. It devastated the city of New Orleans and most of the southeast. This lead to hundreds of losses, billions in damages, and that one time Kanye said George Bush doesn’t care about black people, which went viral.

Speaking of viral videos, 2005 was when YouTube was first launched. Before this, you had to make your own site to upload videos, but now anyone could upload embarrassing clips of themselves in 240p for all to see. No more pesky individuality and control over your own uploads, now you could hand them off to YouTube to get compressed and regulated. One step closer to a centralized, sanitized Internet.

One of those videos that became a meme before YouTube was Leeroy Jenkins. A staged comedy skit where a World of Warcraft raid party is discussing a plan, only to have the plan thrown out the window by a guy running in shouting his name, Leeroy Jenkins. It was kind of funny at the time, but in my opinion, overstayed its welcome and introduced the world to the concept of memes which would be beat to the grave and back.

With these articles I always have this nagging thought that it’s a bit tasteless to juxtapose tragedies with videogame things, but it’s a way to establish the overall time frame. It’s still kind of jarring. “hundreds died, millions of homes lost, and the Xbox 360 released.”

The Xbox 360 released. It was the next big thing, the sequel to Microsoft’s black and green Halo machine. It promised high-definition gaming, and it did deliver, with some great games… years after the console’s release. Its original launch was marred by the infamous Red Ring of Death, an error that displayed three red lights on the console’s front that meant “your xbox’s screwed, mate. No Halo for you”. The failure rate on these machines was astronomical, with thousands being sent back in their little coffins to get repaired. I got a 360 for Christmas in 2006. I plugged it in, set up my profile, popped in a game, played for 30 minutes, then got the red ring. Luckily, it came with a warranty and I was able to replace it. Then that second console red ringed within a week.

The console launched with several games, none of which I really care about. A few notable titles include Kameo: Elements of Power, a game developed by Rare after Microsoft acquired it. I have never heard anyone mention this game. Perfect Dark Zero was another Rare developed title. It sucked. Last but not least we had Riiiiiiiidge Racer 6. Remember that one?

The PSP also released this year.

On the previous generation of consoles, things were still in high gear, with the release of multiple high-profile titles.

For the Gamecube we had two huge Capcom titles: Killer 7 and Resident Evil 4. Along with Viewtiful Joe, and the forgotten PNO3, these were a collaboration between Nintendo and Capcom to make exclusives for the Gamecube. This deal worked great, giving us some truly unique, visionary titles that would then get ported to every single console, leaving the Gamecube behind. I still think the original Gamecube versions of these games are the best.

Killer 7 was a psychedelic puzzle game/first person shooter with a slick, cel-shaded art style and a confusing mess of a story. You’d go around levels in third person, moving along a rail like a train on a track, exploring environments and solving simple puzzles. Every now and then you’d come across monsters, where you’d switch to first person mode and shoot them, unleashing torrents of blood. It was a sharp departure from anything else on the Gamecube, which was seen as a console for kids.

Resident Evil 4 followed along a similar path, being a more gritty, M-rated game. The game was more action-oriented than the previous Resident Evil titles, with an emphasis on arcade-style shooting. It’s one of the most critically acclaimed games ever, considered by many to be one of the best games ever.

This is the part of the article where I say something like “and I didn’t play it” or worse, “I played it and didn’t like it”, but in this case, we’re going with a crazy third option. Most of the people, specifically critics, who praised the game, didn’t really like it. Why? Because of the remake. The remake “fixed” the game’s “bad tank controls”. It “modernized” RE4, which was “dated” in its design.

In their review for the game, IGN, the beacons of knowledge blazing out across a black sea of ignorance, said this vomit-inducing gem.

In preparation for this review I returned to the original game for the first time in years and was shocked at how badly this remake was needed. The movement of main star Leon Kennedy felt ridiculously restricted; he struggles to get around as though he’s wearing an old pair of skinny jeans that haven’t fit him since his police academy days, and is immobilised anytime he gets his gun out as though he’s incapable of independent control over his hands and feet at the same time. By modern standards it’s absurd, and would absolutely put off a lot of newcomers before they could begin to understand why this game is so highly regarded.

Source: Resident Evil 4 review, IGN.

Thank goodness the game was fixed! I couldn’t possibly imagine digging through the ancient pharaoh’s sarcophagus to unearth the original game. What an outdated piece of junk!

Good design doesn’t “age”. The original RE4 is still a fantastic game. Its controls were made that way with a purpose. If you think it needed an update, did you really like it? If it was a 10/10 back in 2005, it should still be a ten out of ten now. The remake made it more accessible? You’re telling me that one of the best selling games of all time, ported to every console, wasn’t accessible? The game that sold millions of copies wasn’t “accessible”?

Game critics are hacks and frauds. Feel free to count me in there, too, but at least I can still play the original RE4 and enjoy it. It doesn’t need to be updated.

Guitar Hero came out! Now instead of playing air-guitar along with your favorite songs, you could jam to them with an expensive plastic guitar! Enjoy all your favorite classic rock songs, now with the added percussion of a cheap plastic strum bar clacking along.

Dungeon Fighter Online came out this year. You probably hadn’t heard of it before the Arc System Works game Dungeon Fighter Duel, but this is a Korean MMO beat-em-up. It’s one of the highest grossing games ever, consistently beating out World of Warcraft, even during its heyday. I played it back in 2010 using AOL as a makeshift VPN back before it came to the west. It was fun.

Time for everyone’s favorite section: Games I played that no one cares about or remembers. Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects was an absolutely jank arena fighter where you could play as different Marvel heroes/villains and throw cars at each other. It sucks but it kept me entertained as a kid. NeoGeo Battle Coliseum brought together classic SNK characters for a crossover fighting game that was significantly better than Capcom’s attempt with Fighting Evolution. You could play as the Mars People from Metal Slug. One Piece: Grand Battle was another jank arena fighter I played a lot as a kid. As the name suggests, it was based off One Piece. You’d pick from the straw hat crew or any villain before the Alabasta arc and duke it out. It was surprisingly decent and it had a lot of personality. It used the 4kids dub, and hearing Sanji yell “YOU JOIK!” in his weird, nasally New York accent has stuck with me for ages. Here’s the entire cinematic attack, and I remember every cringey phrase from it. I highly recommend you watch it. I need to spread the virus to more people.

Submachine was another game I played. Submachine was a series of flash games where you’d solve puzzles in eerie, empty locations. I used to play a ton of flash games at this time, as did many others, and this series was one of my favorites. They were re-released on Steam! Check them out.

Rogue Galaxy was a JRPG I played for some reason. I was never into JRPGs as a kid, but I ended up playing this one. It was fun, even if I don’t remember anything about it. Neither does anyone else, since I’ve never seen anyone mention this game. It reminds me a lot of Skies of Arcadia, which is a good thing.

Ratchet: Deadlocked was another videogame. A darker, edgier take on Ratchet and Clank with more emphasis on shooting and less platforming. It was fun, but I still think Up Your Arsenal was better.

On the subject of big games that I didn’t play: Psychonauts and Shadow of the Colossus. Psychonauts just never looked like something I’d enjoy. I’ll probably give it a shot at some point, but its status as that one game everyone loves but no one plays and my general distaste for Tim Schafer keep me away from it. Shadow of the Colossus is certainly a game. Everyone praises it for its story, atmosphere, music and production. Notice the gameplay isn’t listed there. The first Yakuza game came out this year. I’ve only ever played Yakuza 0 and Like a Dragon. They were great, but the games look like they’re the same thing over and over. If I played one I’ve played them all.

Urban Reign also came out in 2005. I reviewed it. I didn’t like it. I’ve been seeing a lot of Urban Reign apologists rise up recently, and I don’t like that one bit. I might have to revisit this one and write an article detailing why they’re all wrong.

Out of all these, which non-Resident Evil 4 game did I pick as my favorite?

My pick for 2005: Devil May Cry 3

If you were reading this whole section wondering “why didn’t he mention DMC3 in the Capcom section?” it’s because it’s down here. This game has some high highs, and really low lows, but it all evens out to a great time. The combat is a ton of fun, with dozens ways of interacting with enemies, letting you set up great combos. The atmosphere is fantastic, the visuals still hold up, the music is incredible. It set the ground work for the modern action game, and then modern action games completely disregarded it and did some other bullshit.

Controversial note: Style switching does not belong in DMC3. The intended way to play it is with the locked styles and fixed weapon loadouts like in the original. Style switch mods are reddit.

Runners up: Burnout Revenge for the PS2. The perfect game to play while hanging out, smoking weed and filling your belly with DIET soda.

Serious Sam 2. Finally, Sam is out of ancient Egypt. This game’s a fun time, even if the levels are the longest things ever (like this article).

2006

You heard about Pluto? It’s messed up, right? They demoted it to dwarf planet status this year. Eight planets bullied number nine until he left.

On the Internet front we were being subjected to the nuclear radiation of Caramelldansen, an infectiously catchy audio virus in the form of a Swedish techno song. Everyone thought it was Japanese, myself included, thanks to its ties to weeb culture at the time. It wasn’t the only song and dance making the rounds at the time, as this year also gave us The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, whose ending Hare hare Yukai dance choreography made anime fans move their bodies for the first time in years. One YouTube comment said “the girls who did this dance in middle school during the craze are now in their mid 30s”. Man.

Videogames were also happening, with the release of the Wii and PlayStation 3. The Wii launched with a bunch of shovelware, marking the console’s status as the box where movie tie-ins would go to die. The PlayStation launched with a bunch of games I never played, including Resistance: Fall of Man and Riiiidge Racer. Remember that one?

This is when I finally get to explain the whole Riiiidge Racer thing. It was during this year’s E3 where Sony gave an awkward press conference that gave us some timeless sound bites. We got “Giant Enemy Crab”, “Attack its weakpoint for massive damage”, “$599”, referring to the PS3’s steep price, and of course, RIIIIIDGE Racer. I do remember that one.

Mario came back with New Super Mario Bros. The game that started Nintendo’s new era, where they put out the same game with the same uninspired art style and sort of vegetated for a while.

Gears of War came out, forcing every other game to become a brown cover-based shooter. Truly the darkest timeline. I never liked these games.

Rockstar gave us two new games: Bully and Table Tennis. This was back when Rockstar put out more than one game a decade, and they weren’t all Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto, even if Bully is Grand Theft Auto but in school. You played as Jimmy Hopkins, a troubled kid who dealt with the bullies and incompetent adults at Bullworth boarding school. It was a fun game that took a lot of cues from 50s americana steeped in 70s grime. It had the trademark Rockstar humor, great writing and a lot of fun stuff to do, even if the core gameplay was a bit shallow. Table Tennis is just what it sounds like. Ping Pong. It was a serious, realistic sports game that took everyone by surprise. Nowadays it’s remembered as “the one time the GTA guys made a ping pong game”.

We didn’t get a GTA this year, but we did get a GTA clone with Saints Row. The series would quickly lose its gangster roots and go off into quirky millennial cringe, but the first games were a good alternative to GTA.

Dwarf Fortress came out this year, too. An incredibly complex sandbox simulation where you manage dwarves. It’s still going to this day.

Capcom brought us a few notable games this year. Okami was a beautifully stylized adventure game with an innovative brush mechanic. I haven’t played it, but I should. I did play Megaman: Powered Up, a remake of the first Mega Man game for the PSP. It had a faithful remaster of the original game, a remixed version with new stages and bosses, and my favorite part: the level editor. It had a detailed level creator where you could make anything you could imagine using props and mechanics from different Mega Man games. Kind of like Mega-Maker, but more comprehensive (at least it was the last time I tried Mega-Maker a few years back). You could also share levels with others online. It was a ton of fun. This year also saw the release of Lost Planet, the first game in the now forgotten trilogy. You explored a frozen planet and fought giant aliens. It was kind of like Monster Hunter with guns. Fun time.

Last but not least on the Capcom gravy train: Dead Rising. A neat zombie survival game set inside a mall. Race against the persistent clock to complete a series of tasks, find weapons and do missions to uncover a dark conspiracy. The game sounds horrible on paper. It’s full of escort missions, respawning enemies, it has a timer, weapons that break, but when you put it all together the game really works. It’s a ton of fun, and it encourages repeat playthroughs to optimize your runs and find all the secrets.

Bomberman: Act Zero also came out, and it was a game. It took the cute and loveable Bomberman and turned him into a robot man in a dark, gritty world. The game was terrible, and it didn’t have any save points, meaning you had to play through all 99 levels in one sitting. It was a form of torture.

Speaking of horrible things, child-predator heaven, AKA Roblox, also released this year, unleashing an ancient curse upon the land.

Out of all this dreck, which heavy hitter did I pick as my favorite for this year?

My pick for 2006: Sonic 06

Naaah I’m just kidding. I couldn’t resist the fake-out. Here’s something infuriating: I actually did play Sonic 06 back when it launched. I was a fan of Sonic as a kid, played it, and hated it. It plays like garbage, it looks like garbage and it runs like garbage. It made me realize that, hey, maybe Sonic games really do suck, and they kept sucking for years after. There are people trying to fix this game, and I think that’s a massive waste of time. This game needs divine intervention to be good. Flush this turd, let it go down the drain and move on.

My actual pick for 2006: God Hand

According to IGN, Sonic 06 is one point better than God Hand. This beat-em-up masterpiece didn’t release in the best state, with some obviously rushed aspects, but it’s still one of the best 3D beat-em-ups. The large variety of moves, the different enemies, the unforgiving difficulty that only gets worse the better you do. It’s a great time all around. I don’t have much to say about it here because I wrote an entire review praising God Hand. Go read it! It’s good.

Runners up: King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2. It sucks, but I played it for hours and hours. It lives rent free in my head.

Virtua Fighter 5. Objectively, it’s thousands of times better than Maximum Impact 2. One of the best fighting games of all time. Constant back-and-forth interaction between players, with very little in the way of flashy mechanics, just a really solid base system where every choice has multiple counters, which then branch off into even more situations. Easy to get into, impossible to master.

Viva Piñata. Filled with fun! A unique gardening/creature catching game from Rare. You tended to a little garden that you set up to attract different piñatas. Each one had their own requirements, and once you met those requirements, they’d move in. Then you had to deal with their rivalries, keep them happy, and get them to breed and evolve. This game doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

Marble Blast Ultra. A cool platforming game where you play as a marble and roll around abstract levels. A lot like Monkey Ball. It has a spiritual successor named Marble it Up! Ultra, which you can play on modern consoles and PC.

2007

I’m sure some news-worthy stuff happened this year, but I’ll leave that for later, we have Internet stuff to discuss.

2007 was the start of the modern Internet. For better or worse. Mostly worse. With the release of the iPhone, everyone had a computer in their pocket and could access the Internet at any point. Twitter was created the year prior, YouTube was already established and Google had bought it, Facebook was on the rise and Reddit had been taken over by Conde Nast. The Internet started its corporate path to complete centralization. Independent sites were starting to dry up, customization was getting replaced by default settings. It was the start of Eternal September.

Everyone was singing Chocolate Rain, screaming “THIS IS SPARTAAA” and getting Rick rolled.

On the side of videogames, this is considered the greatest year in gaming.

We got Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Much like 2007 was the start of the dumbing down of the Internet, Call of Duty 4 was the dumbing down of the shooter genre. I know the genre isn’t considered brainy, but this was the game that introduced the setpiece-heavy, two weapon limit, corridor levels, hitscan enemies that kill you in two hits, brown and bloom. The worst.

Bioshock also gave us mediocre shooting action. I don’t like it, and I explain why in excruciating detail in my review for Bioshock.

Crysis came along to fry everyone’s PC. It’s remembered as that one game with the graphics that no one could run. Nowadays, you can run it, and it’s okay. Not worth a $1,500 rig in 2007.

Halo 3 exploded onto the scene. It was another casual shooter, but this one was at least fun with friends. It offered a ton of different game modes, extensive tools to create your own content, all wrapped up in some solid gameplay. I played very little of the campaign in this game. 99% of my time was spent in the multiplayer. It’s still the peak Halo experience. Infinite doesn’t even begin to compare.

Keeping with the theme of sci-fi shooters, we have Mass Effect. A game I loved back when it came out, but don’t really gel with now. It’s the perfect RPG for people who don’t play RPGs. When I first played it, I had never really played a game like that, and was blown away by the story and choices. Nowadays, I’ve seen games with more in-depth stories, better choices and overall better gameplay. The janky cover-based shooting isn’t much fun, and it only gets fun once you reach the end of the game and have all your powers and crew members.

Mario also went to space with Super Mario Galaxy. An incredibly creative platformer that showed Nintendo had some life left in them, before they went into a cocoon and released the same New Super Mario Bros game for the next few years. I still think it’s the best 3D Mario game to date, along with Galaxy 2.

Valve showed everyone they could in fact count to three, with the release of The Orange Box, which featured three great games in one package. It came with Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2 and Portal. They casually dropped the most anticipated sequel ever, a fantastic genre-defining multiplayer shooter and an experimental puzzle game at the same time like it was nothing. These three titles alone are enough to cement them as some of the greatest developers of all times.

On this year’s edition of notable games I haven’t played: I Wanna Be The Guy, an ultra-hard game that rage-baited players back when it was still called trolling. The Uncharted franchise started, bringing us the adventures of John Uncharted, who was like Lara Croft, but man. Then Lara would become like Uncharted, but woman, completing the snake eating its own tail that is modern pop culture. No More Heroes introduced us to Travis Touchdown and the bizarre, colorful world of ranked assassinations. Looks fun, but I’ve never played it. I heard the PC ports of this series were bad. Assassin’s Creed closes out this gap in my gaming knowledge. I’ve never been interested in this series. Not much else to say, but it keeps going to this day, even though it’s nothing like the first few games.

The Witcher series started, too. 90% of people who know the series have only played the third game. The first one is a very janky but interesting and immersive game with some cool details and great world-building. Notice the gameplay isn’t listed here.

Out of all these incredible, industry-defining games, what contrarian gobbledygook did I pick?

My pick for 2007: Command and Conquer 3

I was never an RTS guy, but Command and Conquer 3 caught my attention with a demo. I had never tried anything like it, and ended up enjoying it immensely. Sure, this was on the 360. A console is not the right place for an RTS, but even with that, I played a ton of it. Then I got it on PC and saw what the game was really like. It was like a fish who had been walking on land all his life finally swimming. The game is great, each faction is unique with their own little quirks, there are a lot of fun, degenerate strategies to pull off and it’s a good time overall. I used to pick Nod and rush Shadow Teams. It got me called a loooooot of slurs on Xbox live.

Runner Up: John Woo Presents: Stranglehold. Yes that’s the game’s real title. It’s a neat third person shooter where you play as a guy in a trench coat who shoots guns. I wrote a review for it, which you should read.

2008

Ninja Gaiden 2

Sure, we got the start of the Blazblue franchise, GTA4 came out, we got Burnout Paradise, which isn’t as good as the others in the series, Dead Space premiered, which I haven’t played. Devil May Cry 4 was cool, but it’s half a game. Fallout 3 was overrated to hell and back, that game was the most boring game in existence before The Outer Worlds took its crown, Left 4 Dead is good, yeah mmhmm, Saints Row 2 rocks, Braid was a leap for indie games, Mount and Blade ate up a solid week of my life, We had Mario Kart Wii which was way worse than the previous games, Smash Bros Brawl, which was also worse, I know you like the subspace mode, but the game is kinda stinky. Mortal Kombat vs DC was VERY stinky, and Street Fighter IV came to end the fighting game dark ages and started the modern FGC, for better or worse…

but none of those games are Ninja Gaiden 2. This isn’t a review of the game. I don’t know if I’ll review within the next year, because if I’m going to review it, I have to make damn sure to get it right, but this game is on a whole different level. No other game matches the sheer excess of Ninja Gaiden 2. The enemies are excessively aggressive, there’s an excessive number of them on screen at once, the levels are excessively long, there is an excessive amount of incendiary shuriken flying around, there’s an excessive amount of terrible bosses. The game has some low lows, mainly the subway fish, and the green worm. Anytime you find yourself in a tunnel in NG2, you’re gonna have a bad time, but the highs are so high. The combat is polished to a mirror shine even if nothing else is. The game is excessively cruel and unfair, but it gives you the tools to match these challenges. It’s simultaneously the dumbest and most intelligent game ever made. There hasn’t been, and there will never be a game like it.

Ninja Gaiden 4 sucks, by the way. It’s trash.

Conclusion

That was the tail-end of the 2000s. A time with some a lot of cool, memorable games and the start of an era. Looking back, there were a ton of good games. Looking forward, there aren’t many. Join us next time as I go through the early 2010s, a time where there some real stinkers. From here I can see… oh God! It’s Borderlands in 2009! How horrifying. Scott Pilgrim vs The World in 2010? Sheesh.

Tune in next time to see what beloved games I haven’t played, or what beloved game I don’t like. I see Dark Souls came out during that time. I bet you can’t wait to see what I think of it.