The Lisa Kudrow Award for Being a Stupid Bitch
This is a special award that goes to the game character that has annoyed me the most during the year. Normally, there would be a Stupid Bastard award to go alongside it, but I can't think of any male characters that were of particular annoyance at the time of writing this article.
Winner: Jen (Primal)
You know those women on TV shows that think they're smarter, stronger and just generally better than everyone else? And what about those annoying girls that are always saying "Whatever!" after they're proven wrong for the 10th time in five minutes? Jen fills both of these categories, and adds a stupid valley girl type of tone. 10 points to anyone who didn't want to kill her in the first 30 seconds of the intro.
Runner Up: Anna Steel (Ghosthunter)
Cambridge Studio obviously has a knack for creating female characters that give me the ****s. Anna is just as worse as Jen, but gets the runner up prize because she's not the main character of her game (thankfully).
The Worst Use of a Celebrity Award
This is award goes to the celebrity that is brought on to do a game, but does a really poor job. It's especially worse when their appearance is hyped up.
Winner: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator 3)
Atari made a big deal about getting Arnie for their T3 game, even going as far as to claim it was the first time he had lent his likeness to a game (it wasn't). It's a pity that his player model is of low quality, and his dialog and voice acting are completely wooden, even by Arnie standards.
Runner Up: The Cast of True Crime: Streets of LA
Sure, a wide array of Hollywood talent can make for great voice acting, but they usually have to provide their voices on location, rather than phoning them in. The horrible dialog didn't help either. Mace Griffin deserves an (dis)honorable mention - I can't believe they wasted Henry Rollins.
The Carrot Top Award for the Character with the Most Failed Jokes in a Game
This category is named after American prop comic Carrot Top, who is often remembered for his rather lame attempts at comedy, and the fact that most of his jokes fall flat.
Winner: Nick Kang (True Crime)
I don't know what the hell the writer in True Crime was thinking to be honest. Nick Kang has the worst set of attempted jokes of any game character ever. He also used some of the lamest puns in existence. Activision need to find a new writer for the sequel - and fast.
Runner Up: Daxter (Jak II)
Daxter is one of those characters where you can either find his humour funny (if you're 12), or it will seriously grate on you. The reason Daxter is the runner up in the category is because he had at least one joke that made me laugh with him, rather than making me shake my head in shame, like Nick Kang.
The WTF!?! Award
The WTF Award is given to a happening in the past year that had us scratching our heads in an attempt to figure out what the fuck happened.
Winner: Devil May Cry 2 turning out shit
Nobody saw this coming. Devil May Cry was one of the best action games of 2001, but the sequel showed what can happen when you hand a great game over to another development team. Boring, short and pure crap.
Runner Up: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance not turning out shit
After Mortal Kombat II the series sunk like the Titanic. With efforts such as Mortal Kombat Special Forces, Mortal Kombat Mythologies, and Mortal Kombat Gold, who would blame us for expecting Deadly Alliance to be less than stellar? Thankfully, Midway put a lot of effort into the game, and it turned out pretty well.
The Triple Triad Award for the Stupidest Mini Game
This category is named after the crappy card game in Final Fantasy VIII, and is awarded to the game with the stupidest or worst mini game.
Winner: Dead to Rights (The Stripper Bit)
At the beginning of Dead To Rights, Jack's friend Hildy is a stripper and must distract the bouncers so Jack can break into the club's backroom. This involves you hitting a button when its icon appears in the "Hot Zone". It's annoying, broke up the rhythm of a good game, and it goes on too long.
Runner Up: Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Volleyball)
The volleyball in DOAX isn't the major component of the game; it's a poorly executed mini-game. When Acclaim can make a better volleyball game, you know you're in trouble.
The George Broussard Award for Unfortunate Delays
This award is named after the famous 3D Realms producer, whose game Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for just over 7 years. It'll come out when it's done. The award goes to the game we wanted the most this year which was delayed into next year. This was a hotly contested category this year, seeing as just about every good Christmas game was pushed into 2004.
Winner: Halo 2
We want it badly, and it would have done wonders for Microsoft's Christmas (which has been a big dud, sales wise). Sadly, it looks like it may have been pushed even further back into 2004.
Runner Up: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
The original Metal Gear Solid is regarded the better of the two games, and the remake looks to make it better than ever. Unfortunately, it needed another 6 months worth of polish, and my Christmas was ruined. Luckily, the game looks to have benefited greatly from this, but we'll see for sure in March.
The Gray Fox Award for the Best NPC
Gray Fox was arguably the coolest NPC ever, so this award is named in his honour. The award goes to an NPC that we thought was either funny or cool.
Winner: Jimmy (Wario Ware: Minigame Mania)
C'mon, what isn't cool about a disco dancing guy with an afro? He's even packing a mobile phone loaded with kick-ass mini games.
Runner Up: Snot Boy (The Wind Waker)
If you've ever been around children between the ages of 2 to 5, you'll notice they have the ability to have large lines of snot hanging out of their nose without them breaking off. This kid had a particularly large booger hanging from his sniffer, and had me in stitches the first time I saw him. Pity he doesn't do much else.
The Ganondorf Award for the Best Boss Character
Winner: Another Joe (Viewtiful Joe)
There's always something cool about fighting yourself, especially when they're a bizarre version of yourself with a messed up voice and slightly better abilities than you. This was probably the most exciting boss fight of the year, in my opinion.
Runner Up: Meta Ridley (Metroid Prime)
Ridley is pretty smart for a flying lizard, but after having his ass kicked by Samus once, he was given a new metal body, which makes him faster and stronger. The fight itself was very intense, but a little too easy.
The John Romero Award for Failed Hype
I can never resist an opportunity to take a stab at Daikatana and John Romero, so this award goes to the game that failed to live up to the hype behind it.
Winner: Brute Force
"It's the next Halo" a lot of previews claimed. And the 50 second hand copies with the 50% tags at EB will tell you that a lot of people fell for that hype (or just bought the Beast pack). It'd be the next Halo if Halo was a generic third person shooter with dull characters and an even duller plot.
Runner Up: Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
I don't know why the hell anyone was anticipating this game, so I'll just say "OMFG TEH BOOBIEZ".
The Award for the Worst Use of a Good Character
I couldn't think of a person to name this after (though Todd McFarlane was considered), but this award goes to the developer that made a game based around the character where the character either had limited abilities or was in a situation that just didn't suit them.
Winner: GenePool for X2: Wolverine's Revenge
Wolverine feels like his feet are firmly embedded in cement in this title, not to mention he just doesn't seem to be as rebellious as he is in the comics, on which this game is supposedly based. His abilities seem either limited or poorly implemented. Didn't help that the game was cack.
Runner Up: Bits Studios for Die Hard: Vendetta
British studios have a knack for doing a crap job with licenses (might be why they're dropping like flies), and Bits didn't disappoint their countrymen with a poor use of John McClane. McClane was notorious in the films for being stuck in the middle of bad situations - not actively going out to seek trouble. Once again, the supporting game was pretty cack, too.
The "Do You Expect Us to Care?" Award for Least Interesting PR Announcement
Every morning I receive a fresh batch of press releases. Some PR people go to a lot of effort to make these announcements sound upbeat, and as if you're really supposed to care about them. However, sometimes game companies do really boring things, such as acquiring licenses you and the general public have never heard of, and then making them appear as the next big thing.
Winner: Acclaim's Comic Book License games
I've never heard of the Red Star or 100 Bullets, and I doubt many other people have either. Surely given Acclaim's situation, you'd think that they'd be putting effort into titles that would be well received by the mass market.
Runner Up: Activision's Putting Your Face Into Tony Hawk Underground
I'm sure it's a nice feature, but 50% of people can't use it seeing as it's only in the Playstation 2 version, so stop making such a big deal out of it!
Coolest Special Move
I couldn't pick one person to dedicate this category to, but the award is given to the character who executes the best looking special move in a game. It might not be useful, but we don't care, so long as it looks cool.
Winner: The Prince's Wall Run
They tried this in a few other games this year, but the Prince made it look the coolest. It was also a little more useful when you consider the fact you could use the ability in the midst of fights as well as for getting around a level.
Runner up: Max Payne's Spin Reload
Part of the new Bullet Time 2.0, Max could execute a really cool looking spin move if you hit the reload button during Bullet Time. It would go faster depending on your level of Bullet Time, too.
The Award for Best PALGN Staff Member Whose Name Isn't Matt
You all realize that I produce over a quarter of the content on the site? One man out of ten - which automatically makes me the best staff member on the site. This award honours the second best staff member on the site.
Winner: Brendan
Brendan has worked pretty hard this year, consistently producing a few articles each week. These articles are always of a good quality, and attract a reasonable amount of interest. It's a pity he doesn't have enough money to get games to review more often - so send him money and games, and he will like you (YES! DO THIS! I WILL! - Brendan).
Runner Up: Leigh
Leigh is probably the most underrated of the PALGN staff. He worked really hard at the start of the year, consistently producing a handful of articles each week. Unfortunately, the readers don't always read his stuff, mostly because he got stuck with crap nobody cares about (like EA signing Superman), which has lead to a little disillusion. Send him money and games so he can write more.
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