The 2007 Peoww Awards
Rich
How was 2007 for you? A vintage year? Or one of those ‘treading water between innovations’ years? We had a lot of big releases that’s for sure and the strangest summer drought ever (at least one game released every week) but in terms of quality and the pushing of boundaries it didn’t quite deliver.
2007 saw the 360 continue to trounce the PS3 in the battle of the real consoles whilst the Wii continued to outsell everything whilst not receiving any decent games until late in the year. So no change there really.
For the readers of Peoww it was a year of some upheaval and lots of coming together (not in a George Michael soggy biscuit way). So for the Peoww awards we left it to the kings of skills who frequent the forums. Roll out the red carpet and let’s get this thing started.
Out of the big three consoles this was by far the busiest and most varied category with votes for big hits like Halo 3 (although not very many at all) as well as surprises like EDF and Forza 2.
3rd Place – COD4. The game that killed Halo 3 received a lot of first place votes making it something of a love/hate title.
“The Citizen Kane Of first-person shooter clichés” – PedanticJase
2nd Place – Mass Effect. Scraped second place by virtue of a lot of second and third place votes.
“no other game has entertained me more than this one. Great story, great characters, great shooting. Although, next time, they could do without the elevators” – Kenbo Slim
XBOX 360 GOTY – The Orange Box. Valve’s ‘5-in-1’ was the clear winner of this category with it’s superlative online component and all the single-player action you can shake a ragdoll at.
“arguably the best FPS of all time plus more goodies” – Mafro
After being irredeemably shit for well over a year, the Wii finally got its shit together in the second half of the year and finally became a console worth owning and not just a toy played by deviants and grandmothers.
3rd Place – Resident Evil 4. The greatest game of the last generation grabbed third place over its stablemate ‘Umbrella Chronicles’.
2nd Place – Metroid Prime 3. Samus’ latest FPS/platformer was the popular second choice amongst most people who voted.
“Samus back on form” – Cale
Wii GOTY – Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo’s main man returned to absolutely piss this category. His best adventure since the N64 meant that Mario Sunshine was all but forgotten.
“genius” – Sidekick
Highlighting the plight of the console itself, this category barely got any votes at all with TWO votes being enough to secure the award. Oh well, let’s get it over with.
3rd Place – Skate. Yes okay.
“LOL” – Peoww
2nd Place – Oblivion. Er… is that even this year?
“LOL” – Peoww
PS3 GOTY – Drake’s Fortune. Yes, two votes.
“The first genuinely outstanding exclusive came late in the day but better late than never” – Shindig
This category attracted just as much interest as the 360 one highlighting that online gaming has finally gone mainstream. The bad old days of someone typing ‘LOL YOU SUXXORZ NOOB’ are long gone. Now they’ll just call you a ‘fucking homo’ instead. Eeesh. Amusingly, Halo 3 was fourth.
“None for me. If I wanted to play with overly competitive, whiny American ten year olds, I wouldn’t have let my Live subscription expire” – Manuel Calavera
3rd Place – GRAW2. GRAW returned with more of the same but a vastly improved achievements system with no need to play ranked matches, which in Tom Clancy games is a fucking blessing.
“yes, I know I’m editting this article but clearly this should have won” – Bluce_Ree
2nd Place – Team Fortress 2. Class-based combat with the emphasis on tactics rather than reflexes.
“TF2- at first I didn’t rate it but it grew on me over time. You have to get to grips with each character class but, once you do, you find out its the best multiplayer game of the year” – Kenbo Slim
BEST ONLINE – COD4. Infinity Ward’s Call Of Duty 4 erased all of the horrible COD3 aftertaste and utterly outclassed Halo3 at the same time.
“Sob!” – Mafro
Fans of the Xbox’s Live Arcade service had a mixed year as Microsoft alternated stone cold classics (SWOS! Space Giraffe!) with substandard ‘freeware’-quality scat (Yaris! Asteroids! Street Trace!). Overall though it was a good year for retro heads and fans of alternative gaming as long as you didn’t waste time and money on tables for Texas Hold ‘Em or Bomberman costumes. Peeeowww!
3rd Place – Bomberman. Dynablaster returns with enough options to cater for purists and heretics alike.
2nd Place – Castlevania. A great conversion of the PS1 original but without the need to see a rape counsellor after buying it on eBay.
“Massively addictive” – dw2k6
XBLA GOTY – Carcassonne. This unlikely contender grabbed the lion’s share of the votes. The best things in life are free after all it seems.
“deftly handled boardgame conversion with superb multiplayer” – dogmeat
LOLZ! You bought a lemon. Etc. If you want to avoid buying a lemon follow this sound advice;
“I just buy whatever Tiq doesn’t” – Gecks.
3rd Place – Kane & Lynch. This co-op crime-caper arrived with no online co-op after all and just a load of shitty broken gameplay. Hmph!
“If they really do have Freedom Fighters II on their to-do-list and if there is even the slightest chance it will be anything like this then they can just leave the franchise dead rather than make another lemon-like piece of shit.” – Cale
2nd Place – Halo 3. With its repetitive ‘fetch item X’ gameplay and low-res graphics Halo 3 soon dropped off of everyones’ recently played lists once COD4 showed up.
“youse do realise that by the time i get my halo discs back and t’ x360 youse will be fed up with all this pish” – Odiedodie
LEMON! – Assassin’s Creed. Ten minute’s gameplay repeated over several days worth of tedious ‘investigating’ all made more hateful thanks to Ubisoft’s liberal use of hype.
“Apollo Creed, more like. It’s fucking dead.” – Shindig
“you’re playing a lemon!!!” – Tiq
“yes but it’s your lemon” – Peoww!!!
Some crossover with the Lemon thread here (presumably because only three of us were stupid enough to buy Wartech Senko No Ronde) with one notable exception.
3rd Place – Kane & Lynch. Alas, the spiritual successor to Freedom Fighters pretty much fucked up any of the huge potential it had.
2nd Place – Bioshock.
The latest title from the people who made the System Shock games combined some great atmospherics with a bunch of bland quests and dumbed-down RPG-lite gameplay.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT – AssCreed. Screenshots = wow. Trailer = hmm. Game = argh.
“hyped up to be so much more” – Mafro
Another 360-dominated category (although Super Mario Galaxy got a few votes) with everything from the achingly beautiful AssCreed to Space Giraffe receiving votes.
3rd Place – Team Fortress 2. Cell-shaded cartoon visuals in an FPS? It works though.
2nd Place – COD4. More cinematic goodness from the COD series.
“to use a horrible expression, war never looked so real! sorry…” – Kenbo Slim
BEST GRAPHICS – Bioshock. It may have done better in Lemon OTY than GOTY but Bioshock certainly was purty. If you like corridors.
“stunning level detail” – Mafro
Er… best sound…
3rd Place – Portal & Mass Effect.
2nd Place – Halo 3..
“Marty O’Donnell’s score deserves this hands down” – P Wee
BEST SOUND – Bioshock. Lovely 50s music combined with the sounds of an underwater city dying. A truly deserved winner.
“audio plays as big a part with sweeping classical scores for the opening introductions to Django Rinehart gypsy swing versions of Beyond the Sea adding to the ambience” – Cale
With so many ‘big’ titles failing to hit the mark this year could have been something of a washout. However, thanks to a liberal smattering of hidden gems and sleeper hits everything turned out fine. Unless you own a PS3 at which point you’re fucked.
“Surprise of the year, would probably be finding out that your whole life, including your family, your job, love life, and everything else was all a big lie and none of them ever liked you” – Manuel Calavera’s in need of some Viva Pinata therapy!
3rd Place – EDF/Crackdown. Sharing the vote are the budget-priced ant massacring b-movie antics of EDF and the GTA-meets-Matrix sandbox action game Crackdown. Both are essential if you own a 360.
“Crackdown: Awesomeness!” Orochi Kid
2nd Place – Portal. The Orange Box’s brain-melting puzzler ended up making more headlines than Half-life 2.
“Surprise of the year: Portal’s brilliance” – Mafro
SURPRISE! – Skate. After years of total dominance from the once-brilliant Tony Hawk series, EA came along and utterly redefined the genre.
“very satisfying” – Lurk thinks it is very satisfying.
“came out of nowhere and became a prime contender for GOTY” – P Wee
Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw. This vote was utterly dominated by one man with everything else being far too scattered to award second or third places (although UK:R would get a decisive vote from me).
So well done to Ben for not only saving internet-based reviews from the doldrums but for also setting the bar to Ukrainian polevaulter levels.
Honest, informative and constantly funny. We want to be Ben Croshaw when we grow up.
Check out his site here.
With loads of choice available this category could have been rather watered down but in the end the same names kept coming up. Also, thanks for all the votes! We’re ineligible but it’s well appreciated.
3rd Place – XBLArcade. A decent site that tends to be first with all the XBLA rumours.
2nd Place – Gamestrailers. Er… trailers for games and things.
“yeah it’s a bit corporate, but I still really trust GT on their reviews and features. Unlike some other websites coughGamespotcough” – Kenbo Slim.
Best Gaming Website – UK:Resistance. The Sega-loving, Sony-hating heroes of gaming. Keep fighting the good fight, chaps.
“for the PS3 launch war” – Sidekick (who bought a PS3 at launch!).
From tantrums to press stunts, there is always someone trying their best to look like a cock and this year was no different. Especially from a certain console manufacturer…
3rd Place – Jade Raymond. Quite why the producer of Assassin’s Creed was putting her fairly reasonable mug in front of any camera within three continents was something of a mystery until we played that fucking lemon. “she managed to convince everyone that Assassin’s Creed would be amazing” – P Wee points out that the LOL is probably on us.
“Jade Raymond = Weekend Pussy” – Ambient
2nd Place – Mafro. Another year of the Maf-meter saw him about as likely to get online with the boys as Chris Langham.
“Mafro for not having Xbox Live” – Mafro.
“Mafro for his constant failure at getting himself some Xbox Live. Even I can afford it as a poor student, though I haven’t, don’t, and wouldn’t get much use out of it (and I can’t afford half of the games to play on it in the first place). Actually, for that I guess I have to LOL @ myself as well” – Manuel Calavera
LOL @ – Sony. Quite how Sony managed to piss away the strongest brandname in gaming is a mystery but also a constant source of LOLz.
“the ex-market leaders who seemed to forget everything they once knew about the business in favour of a fantasy land where everyone willingly buys expensive shit”. – P Wee